This Week in the California League, June 11-June 17, 1900

Games scheduled on Saturday and Sunday, June 16 and 17.

On Saturday at San Francisco, Stockton beat Oakland behind the 5-hit pitching of Jimmy Whalen. He gave up two runs, all in the first inning, and he didn’t give up another hit until the seventh. George “Chief” Borchers, on the other hand, had his Waterloo over the last three innings. Up until the seventh he had led 2-1, but in the seventh he gave up 2 runs, followed by three in the eighth, and one more for good measure in the closing stanza. In all, he gave up 7 runs on 8 hits.

At Sacramento, Jay Hughes started out pitching his usual superb game, and after the sixth inning, he had piled up a 7-1 lead, primarily on two home runs by Big Bill Hanlon, and another one by Truck Eagan. In the seventh, the wheels came off Jay Hughes’ game, yielding 6 runs on 6 hits. He settled down the next inning, but Heinie Krug got what turned out to be a game-winning home run, a solo shot. Ham Iburg had gone in for Tom Fitzpatrick the inning prior, and he picked up the win by completely shutting down the home club, not even allowing a man to reach first.

On Sunday, however, Iburg had three bad innings, all spread out: two in the second, three in the fourth, and finally, four in the seventh. He was in the game the whole way, but lost 9-8 to Demon Doyle, who went the distance for the Gilt Edge club. Of note, Big Bill Hanlon hit his third home run of the weekend while going 4 for 5, including a double to add to his homer.

At Oakland on Sunday, Candy Beville beat George Babbitt of Stockton 8-2. Babbitt, who was Stocktons starting shortstop, was used when the club needed another starter the team came to the Bay Area for a three-game set, rather than the normal two-game series. Because the “country teams” could afford to pay for a third pitcher on the staff— who would be used only every three weeks or so— the mound duties fell upon one of the regulars in the lineup. Oakland and San Francisco, on the other hand, played more often at home, and would carry a third pitcher.

In the afternoon game at Rec Park, Stockton manager George Harper pitched a two-hitter in route to an 8-1 win over Mike Steffani. In going the distance, Steffani only had one bad inning, but in that inning— the sixth— he gave six runs.

Note: Up until this week, I had one more game played in the league than did The Sporting News. Starting this week (June 11-17), The Sporting News’ standings become unbalanced; i.e., one more loss than the total wins for the four clubs. The following week it remains unbalanced in the same fashion, three weeks down the line, The Sporting News comes up with one more game played than I have, and remains that way, I believe, until the finish of the season. The Sporting News gives games scores for the week right under their standing, and I have matched that to my box scores, and have not found the extra game.

In compiling averages, I am not surprised when individual team records do not match, because it seems as if every source (newspaper) has different standings at one time or another, and more often than not, after a holiday. What I generally worry about is the total number of games played in the league. One can figure out who’s right and wrong pretty easily if you know how many games were played total. I went to the library yesterday, and didn’t find an extra game between June 2 and July 8, where The Sporting News’ standings once again come into balance. (I like to follow the Sporting News standings, and games scores, because they appear to be sent by the league to the paper.)

Just before the library closed, I checked the San Francisco Chronicle, and found that they published standings in the Saturday June 7 edition (prior to games being played that day), and gave both Sacramento and Stockton one more game played than I have. The next time I go to the library I will go over all the dates between April 1(the first day of the season) and June 2. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find the discrepancy— or at least find where the SF Chron’s standings begin to diverge.

To get a better view of the Standings & Leaders, click on image.