The Team That Lost 134 Games | Baseball Bits

fun times in Cleveland again Cleveland come on down to Cleveland town everyone or baseball team won only 20 games in the Year 1898 the spanish-american war was fought also we had baseball I miss baseball so much I'm dying inside that season the Cleveland spiders finished fifth in the National League their best player was a pitcher named Denton although he was known by many as sy short for cyclone sy young never won a sy Young Award strange but he did manage to win 25 games in 1898 the following season the Cleveland spiders as a team won just 20 making them the worst team in MLB history by pretty much all measures how did this happen I got three words for you conflict of interest [Music] let's take it from the beginning in 1887 Frank Robeson not that guy that guy resurrected the Cleveland blues is an American Association team previously there had been a Cleveland Blues franchise that played in the National Association in 1889 they adopted the Spyders nickname and moved to something called the National League that's a dumb name for a league it's never gonna last 1892 was the year of the best spiders' team siyoung had a terrific season and they finished second in the National League with a record of 93 wins and 56 losses fast forward five years and the spiders were still a solid team sporting a record above 500 but they struggled in another department attendance right before the 1898 season Robeson who owned the spiders with his brother Stanley paid a seemingly innocuous visit to the st. Louis Browns who were perennial cellar dwellers in the National League at the time that September the st. Louis globe-democrat reported that Robeson was interested in transferring his Cleveland ballclub to st. Louis the spiders didn't play bad baseball but attendance shrunk further as the spiders played only 55 home games visiting teams didn't want to make the trip for such a slim portion of ticket revenue Robeson visited st. Louis again that February while also reiterating that the spiders would indeed play baseball in 1899 as expected he ended up taking over the hapless st. Louis Browns effectively leaving him in charge of two teams simultaneously that's the conflict of interest and such a thing is not allowed in today's game the Boston Globe even pointed out that with Frank Robeson handling Cleveland and st. Louis and many other league been holding stock and one or more clubs should there be any wonder at the awful mix-up now going on in baseball hoping to change the fortunes of the Browns the Robeson brothers gave the franchise a new name the perfecto s' and that's when their plan went into motion between the two franchises they controlled they would consolidate all the talented players in st. Louis effectively throwing the spiders under the bus among others they transferred player manager Patsy to Bo one of the best pitchers in the league and Jack Powell future Hall of Fame shortstop Bobby Wallace and another hall-of-famer in Jesse Burkett who won two batting titles in Cleveland and of course it also meant that siyoung would be headed to st. Louis even Marlins CEO Derek Jeter would look at these fire sale transactions and say yeah that seems like a bit much bit too rich for my taste of course the Spyders still had to field a team in return they received call the rejects from the Browns a team that won just 39 games in 1898 but some of the good Browns players did stay to become perfect O's like the slick hitting centerfielder Jake Stenzel I guess he was too good for Cleveland you know who was good though LAIV cross he was the Browns best player rocking a 317 batting average and playing good defense at third base he would become the player manager of the Spyders but this wasn't a promotion it was a punishment cross had filed a lawsuit against the Browns for not paying out bonuses in the 1897 season so he was shipped off to the island of misfit ballplayers aka the spiders and what I believe was an act of retaliation thankfully he wouldn't have to stay there long as any talented ballplayer was going to eventually play their way out of Cleveland whether they liked it or not under llave cross who probably took up drinking again that spring the spiders got off to a roaring 8 and 30 start that's a 2 10 winning percentage which is beyond terrible but wasn't actually the lousy as the National League had seen the 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenies for example finished their season with a winning percentage of 0.169 not nice as a player crossed and exactly set the world on fire to be fair he was juggling managerial duties with playing responsibilities but he did manage to play his way out of Cleveland and make his way back to the st. Louis perfecto so the spiders had effectively become a feeder team for the other robeson owned ball club anyone with a sliver of potential wouldn't stay in town long then there was chief Zimmer the spider who stayed Zimmer had been a productive catcher in Cleveland ever since the franchise's inception so the Robinson brothers respected his wishes to remain in Cleveland well they did respect them until he got off to a super hot start slashing 340 to 407 479 in his first 20 games they shipped him off to play for the Louisville Colonels a team which featured a young Honus Wagner hey at least Louisville is only a five-hour drive from Cleveland that's not too bad I'm sorry what is that cars looked like this in 1899 ok might take a little longer by the way that 20 game hot streak from Zimmer was enough to make him the most valuable player for the spiders buy ward that year Congrats to Chief Zimmer the best player on the worst team in big-league history what an honor newspapers in st. Louis took to calling the spiders exiles as they were comprised of those exiled from st. Louis baseball even rare winds were simply referred to as lucky after the departure of lave cross former Brown Joe Quinn was put in charge of the spiders straight out at Ipswich Queensland Quinn was the first Australian to play Major League Baseball and was the only Australian to make a playoff appearance for over a century until reliever graham lloyd reached the postseason with the yankees in 1996 nearly 15,000 kilometers away from his place of birth Quinn was given the Herculean task of winning games with a horrendous team that had gotten even worse thanks to the departures of Kraus and Zimmer on August 25th the spiders defeated the New York Giants to reach a record of 19 wins and 94 losses they then went on a streak of futility that will hopefully never be matched again let's see how quickly I can get through it LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL lllll dub yes take back 1899 Washington Senators you suck Arthur or when you suck l LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL that last L of the season was pitched by a fella named Eddie Cobb he was a 19-year old cigar store clerk and amateur baseball from Cincinnati who somehow persuaded Quinn to start him on the final game of the season against the Reds maybe he bribed him with some nice cigars at that point the spiders had literally started every Tom Dick and Harry they could get their hands on so starting Eddie Cobb didn't seem like the end of the world Cobb allowed 19 runs that day although only nine of them were earned he also was credited for a complete game thanks to his eight innings of work it was the only appearance of his big league career meaning he retired with a 10.5 for ER a but he did manage to go one for fourth the plate with a single so he does have one more hit in the majors than either you or I okay that's a lie I played for the Braves in 2001 this also wasn't even the worst pitching performance of the year for the spiders as they allowed 20 runs in an August loss to the eventual NL champion Brooklyn Superbus as well as 21 runs to the Baltimore Orioles in June if you think those numbers are bad wait until we take a closer look 20 wins 134 losses you knew that already but what's unfortunate is that those wins and losses have to be assigned to pitchers Eddie Cobb started just one game but seven spiders started at least 10 of those 7 poor unfortunate souls for never played in the big leagues again Jim Huey might seem like the standout with a four and thirty record but perhaps even more noteworthy is Frank Bates who was saddled with 18 losses to just one win now obviously this wasn't a strikeout centric time at baseball and act national leaguers walked more than they struck out in 1899 but Bates's struggles can best be summarized by the fact that he walked a hundred and ten batters while striking out just 13 more than a century later Craig Kimbrel basically flipped those numbers the spiders managed to allow 1252 runs that's the most by any major league team in a season with the pitching staff that terrible they probably should have considered calling up old Hoss rad born eight years after his retirement thankfully old Hoss did the wise thing and died in 1897 to avoid pitching for the 1899 spiders moving on to the offensive side of things here's the shocker the spiders were also bad at hitting their most used hitters were all below average bio PS Plus which isn't too shocking but what is shocking is that there was only one member of the spiders who Mathis that year his name was Harry Lockett or maybe it's pronounced harry lockheed I don't care he's dead too everyone in this story is dead except Craig Kimbrel while Lochhead certainly had his struggles at the plate and in the field we're talking about negative one point five wins Above Replacement here he did pitch 3 and 2/3 innings without allowing an earned run maybe he should have pitched more as far as putting together a defense I don't envy Gio Quinn his team was basically held together by chewing gum and staples he had a glue stick early on but it was sent to play for the perfecto s' one player he leaned on heavily was sport McAllister yes a man named sport who played every position badly negative-20 fielding runs on the year tough luck sport a particularly revealing stat would be fielding independent pitching an ER a estimating metric based on the three true outcomes strikeouts walks and home runs of course 1899 didn't feature many of these but Phipps still functioned as a good ER a estimator across a very large sample the 1899 National League had both a fit and ER a of 3.85 but the spiders had a significant discrepancy between these two leading me to believe that their defense was also historically dreadful altogether they certainly put together a convincing case for the worst team ever fielded I also can't help but be impressed let me talk about what I mean yeah you get it at this point the spiders were horrendous but there are reasons to celebrate them Frank Robeson completely abandoned this squad anyone with talent was sent to st. Louis or shipped off elsewhere and they played their last 37 games on the road because teams wouldn't make the trip for such a small share of ticket revenue all things considered it's quite the accomplishment they even won 20 games in the National League of course they finished last but so did the Browns in 1898 with a similar roster and what about the st. Louis perfecto they were mostly comprised of a former spider squad that finished fifth in the National League in 1898 how did they fare in 1899 yep same end result the Cleveland spiders even managed to steal a win from the st. Louis perfecto 's a beautiful act of revenge against the brothers Robeson the owners who had forsaken the franchise in the first place neither stanley or frank would live to see their st. louis ball club reached base balling success in 1901 they were renamed the st. Louis Cardinals but wouldn't become a force to be reckoned with until the arrival of the Rajah himself Rogers Hornsby who was a one-man wrecking crew in the 1920s there were even more memorable wins than beating the perfecto s' on July 1st the spiders entered the bottom of the ninth trailing the Beaneaters of Boston's seven to nothing Boston was a powerhouse squad that won 95 games that season but Cleveland somehow rallied to tie the game up in spiders third baseman suitor Sullivan walked it off dramatically in the eleventh inning newspaper accounts described a hectic yet wonderful scene the Cleveland players were like a lot of wild men when Joe Quinn came in with the winning run and the crowd was as wild as the players Sullivan whose single scored the last two runs was surrounded cheered and hugged after this it made no difference with Boston did in the second game Cleveland had glory enough for one day in some ways losing so much only makes winning that much sweeter but what brings me the most comfort is that 1899 was the final year of the Cleveland spiders existence they exited the National League never to return and Cleveland baseball fans never again would have to deal with a team that disappointed them whew what a relief hey thanks for watching this video was brought to you by these fine new patrons of the foolish baseball patreon to unlock baseball bits bonus content behind the scenes and even see your name here consider supporting my work monetarily through patreon.com slash foolish baseball take care [Music] [Music]

Channel: Foolish Baseball

Views: 318,231

Keywords: 1899 cleveland spiders, cleveland spiders, worst team in MLB history, mlb worst team, frank robison, cy young, bobby wallace, jesse burkett, st. louis browns, st. louis perfectos, st. louis cardinals, lave cross, chief zimmer, eddie kolb baseball, harry lochhead, jim hughey, frank bates, 19th century baseball, mlb, baseball, baseball bits, foolish baseball, national league, cleveland baseball, st. louis baseball

Id: fu6IOHZ3cfg

Length: 14min 45sec (885 seconds)

Published: Sat May 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

man, props to foolishbaseball for reminding me that "hastily made cleveland tourism video" exists

[u/polyworfism]

I love dropping 1899 Cleveland Spiders references. I wish more people knew about them

[u/AllOfTheDerp]

Bring back the goddamn Spiders look how cool that logo is.

[u/TyRoland06]

So a team that would probably lose to a lot of Minor League teams today actually won some games against good Major League teams? Never would have guessed.

[u/Thromnomnomok]

On the FIP/ERA comparison at 11 minutes in- major league average FIP is always equal to league average ERA, by the definition of FIP. In 1899, the NL was the only major league, so it must have had the same FIP as ERA (if there's both the AL and the NL, or other leagues, the two leagues can separately have slight differences between ERA and FIP but combined they'd be equal)

[u/BeefCurtain96]

Thank u god I needed a foolish baseball video today

[u/Noy_Telinu]

So devil magic is actually a baseball team sacrifice that drained one city and boosted another?