1899 Cleveland Spiders season

1899 Cleveland Spiders
Major League affiliations
National League (since 1889)
Location
League Park (since 1891)
Cleveland, Ohio (since 1887)
Other information
Owner(s)	Frank Robison
Manager(s)	Lave Cross, Joe Quinn
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The 1899 Cleveland Spiders season took place in American baseball. It was their 13th season in the major leagues, their 11th season in the National League and their last season in existence.

In 1899, the owners of the Spiders, the Robison brothers, Frank and Stanley, bought the St. Louis Browns baseball club from Chris von der Ahe, renaming it the Perfectos. However, they continued to retain ownership of the Cleveland club, an obvious conflict of interest that was later outlawed.

Stanley Robison publicly announced his intention to run the Spiders "as a sideshow", and fans apparently took him at his word. Through the first 16 home games, Cleveland's total attendance was 3,179, an average of 199 people per game. Due to lackluster ticket sales, other NL teams refused to travel to Cleveland's League Park, as their cut of the ticket revenue didn't cover their travel and hotel expenses. As a result, the Spiders only played 26 more home games for the rest of the season, including only eight after July 1. In so doing, they set a number of negative records, including one, 101 road losses, that is unbreakable under MLB's current schedule. Sportswriters of the day began referring to the team as the "Exiles" and "Wanderers." Their final record for the season was 20–134 for a winning percentage of .130, the worst in baseball history.

Offseason

The Robisons decided that a good team in St. Louis would draw more fans, so they transferred most of the Cleveland stars, including future Hall of Famers Cy Young, Jesse Burkett and Bobby Wallace, as well as manager Patsy Tebeau, to St. Louis. Most of the players Cleveland received were non-entities. Jack Clements (known to history as one of MLB's few left-handed throwing catchers) and Joe Quinn were at the end of successful careers, and player-manager Lave Cross was traded back to St. Louis after the Spiders got off to an 8–30 start.

According to various individual pages at Baseball-Reference.com, most of this activity took place on March 29, 1899, just 17 days before the beginning of the new season:

Pitchers

Frank Bates, Nig Cuppy, Cowboy Jones, Pete McBride, Jack Powell, Zeke Wilson, Cy Young to St. Louis

Kid Carsey, Jim Hughey, Harry Maupin, Willie Sudhoff to Cleveland

Catchers

Lou Criger, Jack O'Connor to St. Louis

Jack Clements, Joe Sugden to Cleveland

Infielders

Jimmy Burke, Cupid Childs, Ed McKean, Ossee Schreckengost, Bobby Wallace to St. Louis

Patsy Tebeau to St. Louis (to be manager)

Joe Quinn, Suter Sullivan, Tommy Tucker to Cleveland

Lave Cross to Cleveland (to be player-manager)

Outfielders

Harry Blake, Jesse Burkett, Emmet Heidrick to St. Louis

Tommy Dowd, Dick Harley to Cleveland

They also transferred numerous home games to the road—including the original Opening Day game to St. Louis. As a result, the Spiders did not play their first home game until May 1.

Regular season

With a decimated roster, it was apparent almost from the start that the Spiders would make a wretched showing. In their first game, they were beaten by the Perfectos 10–1. The next day, The Plain Dealer contained what proved to be a prescient headline--"THE FARCE HAS BEGUN."

Ultimately, the club finished 20–134 (.130) and lost 40 of their last 41 games of the season. By season's end, they trailed the pennant-winning Brooklyn Superbas by 84 games. Cleveland was 35 games behind the next-to-last (11th) place Washington Senators. For comparison, this would project to 21–141 under the current schedule, and Pythagorean expectation based on the Spiders' results and the current 162 game schedule would translate to a record of 25–137.

The 1899 Spiders were 11–101 (.098) on the road and 9–33 (.214) at home. The 101 road losses is far and away the most in major-league history, and will never be threatened, since under current scheduling practices a team can play no more than 82 road games (if there is a 1-game playoff, it is counted as a regular season game). The team's longest winning streak of the season was two games, which they accomplished once: on May 20 against the Phillies and May 21 against Louisville. Spiders opponents scored ten or more runs 49 times in 154 games. Pitchers Jim Hughey (4–30) and Charlie Knepper (4–22) tied for the team lead in wins. The pitching staff allowed a record 1,252 runs in 154 games. The Spiders batters combined to hit 12 home runs, matching former Spiders star Bobby Wallace, who hit 12 home runs for St. Louis. Just 6,088 fans paid for Spiders home games in 1899, an average attendance figure of 145 people per game. (For the sake of comparison, St. Louis drew 373,909 fans for their season, and 15,000 for one game—their home opener against the Spiders.) In the last 57 games of the season, the Spiders only won three games.

Aftermath

The dismal 1899 season was the end for the Spiders and for National League baseball in Cleveland. The Spiders were disbanded, along with franchises in Baltimore, Louisville, and Washington, as the National League contracted from 12 teams to 8. The departure of baseball from Cleveland left an opening for the upstart American League, which opened for business in 1901 as a second major league and included among its charter members a new team, the Cleveland Blues. The Blues still exist today as the Cleveland Indians. As of 2015, the 1962 New York Mets (120 losses) and 2003 Detroit Tigers (119) have the post-1900 NL and AL records for most losses in a season, respectively.

Season standings

National League	W	L	Pct.	GB	Home	Road
Brooklyn Superbas	101	47	0.682	—	61–16	40–31
Boston Beaneaters	95	57	0.625	8	53–26	42–31
Philadelphia Phillies	94	58	0.618	9	58–25	36–33
Baltimore Orioles	86	62	0.581	15	51–24	35–38
St. Louis Perfectos	84	67	0.556	18½	50–33	34–34
Cincinnati Reds	83	67	0.553	19	57–29	26–38
Pittsburg Pirates	76	73	0.510	25½	49–34	27–39
Chicago Orphans	75	73	0.507	26	44–39	31–34
Louisville Colonels	75	77	0.493	28	33–28	42–49
New York Giants	60	90	0.400	42	35–38	25–52
Washington Senators	54	98	0.355	49	35–43	19–55
Cleveland Spiders	20	134	0.130	84	9–33	11–101

Record vs. opponents

1899 National League Records Sources: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
Team	BAL	BOS	BR	CHI	CIN	CLE	LOU	NYG	PHI	PIT	STL	WSH
Baltimore	—	7–7	6–8	9–5	4–9	12–2	6–7–2	10–4	6–7–1	9–3	8–6	9–4–1
Boston	7–7	—	6–8	5–7	10–4	11–3	9–5	12–2	5–9	10–4	8–6	12–2–1
Brooklyn	8–6	8–6	—	8–5–1	7–6	14–0	11–3	10–4	8–6	8–6	8–4–1	11–3
Chicago	5–9	7–5	5–8–1	—	8–6	13–1	7–7	7–6–1	5–9	6–7–2	8–6	4–9
Cincinnati	9–4	4–10	6–7	6–8	—	14–0	8–6	9–5–1	4–10	10–3–3	5–8–2	8–6–1
Cleveland	2–12	3–11	0–14	1–13	0–14	—	4–10	1–13	2–12	2–12	1–13	4–10
Louisville	7–6–2	5–9	3–11	7–7	6–8	10–4	—	7–7	7–6	6–8–1	5–9–1	12–2
New York	4–10	2–12	2–10	6–7–1	5–9–1	13–1	7–7	—	4–10–1	6–7	4–10	7–7
Philadelphia	7–6–1	9–5	6–8	9–5	10–4	12–2	6–7	10–4–1	—	6–8	7–7	12–2
Pittsburg	3–9	4–10	6–8	7–6–2	3–10–3	12–2	8–6–1	7–6	8–6	—	7–7	11–3
St. Louis	6–8	6–8	4–8–1	6–8	8–5–2	13–1	9–5–1	10–4	7–7	7–7	—	8–6
Washington	4–9–1	2–12–1	3–11	9–4	6–8–1	10–4	2–12	7–7	2–12	3–11	6–8	—

Notable transactions

• June 5, 1899: Some of the March 29 activity was undone. Willie Sudhoff and Lave Cross were sent by the Spiders back to the Perfectos, with Frank Bates and Ossee Schreckengost coming back to Cleveland.

Player stats

Batting

Starters by position

Note: Pos = position; G = Games played; AB = At Bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting Average; HR = Home Runs; RBI = Runs Batted In

Pos	Player	G	AB	H	Avg.	HR	RBI
C	Joe Sugden	76	250	69	.276	0	14
1B	Tommy Tucker	127	456	110	.241	0	40
2B	Joe Quinn	147	615	176	.286	0	72
3B	Suter Sullivan	127	473	116	.245	0	55
SS	Harry Lochhead	148	541	129	.238	1	43
OF	Tommy Dowd	147	605	168	.278	2	35
OF	Dick Harley	142	567	142	.250	1	50
OF	Sport McAllister	113	418	99	.237	1	31

Other batters

Player	G	AB	H	Avg.	HR	RBI
Charlie Hemphill	55	202	56	.277	2	23
Lave Cross	38	154	44	.286	1	20
Ossee Schreckengost	43	150	47	.313	0	10
Jim Duncan	31	105	24	.229	2	9
Chief Zimmer	20	73	25	.342	2	14
Otto Krueger	13	44	10	.227	0	2
Jack Stivetts	18	39	8	.205	0	2
Louis Sockalexis	7	22	6	.273	0	3
Jack Clements	4	12	3	.250	0	0
George Bristow	3	8	1	.125	0	0
Charlie Ziegler	2	8	2	.250	0	0

Pitching

Starting pitchers

Player	G	IP	W	L	ERA	SO
Jim Hughey	36	283	4	30	5.41	54
Charlie Knepper	27	219.2	4	22	5.78	43
Frank Bates	20	153	1	18	7.24	13
Crazy Schmit	20	138.1	2	17	5.86	24
Harry Colliflower	14	98	1	11	8.17	8
Bill Hill	11	72.1	3	6	6.97	26
Willie Sudhoff	11	86.1	3	8	6.98	10
Kid Carsey	10	77.2	1	8	5.68	11
Jack Harper	5	37	1	4	3.89	14
Highball Wilson	1	8	0	1	9.00	1
Eddie Kolb	1	8	0	1	10.13	1

Other pitchers

Player	G	IP	W	L	ERA
Harry Maupin	5	25	0	3	12.60

See also

• List of worst Major League Baseball season records

References

• 1899 Cleveland Spiders team page at Baseball Reference

External links

• Cleveland roster 1898
• St. Louis roster 1898
• Cleveland roster 1899
• St. Louis roster 1899