This unfortunate beginning appeared to depress the Brooklyn team. The players recovered slightly, but had barely got into their stride again when accidents to the men began to happen. Some of them became ill, and the manager was put to his wits end to get a team on the field which should make a good showing.
Fighting against these odds Brooklyn made the best record that it could. As the season warmed into the hotter months the infield had to be rearranged. There was disappointment in the playing of some of the infielders. It was also necessary to reconstruct the outfield. Unable to get all of the men whom he would have desired the manager continued to experiment and his experiments brought forth good fruit, for unquestionably the excellent work of Moran, who played both right field and center field for Brooklyn, was a great help to the pitchers. By the time that the Base Ball playing year was almost concluded Brooklyn had so far recovered that it was able to place a better nine on the diamond than had been the case all of the year.
Boston never was expected to be a championship organization. The material was not there for a championship organization, but Boston did play better ball than in 1911 and that is to the credit of players, manager and owner. The club had changed hands, but the new owner had not been able to readjust all of the positions to suit him. He put the best nine possible in the field with what he had. Never threatening to become a championship winning team Boston played steadily with what strength it possessed and always a little better than in 1911, so that the year could not fairly be considered unsuccessful at its finish.
Going back to the beginning of the year and looking over the contest for the National League championship of 1912, it is not uninteresting, indeed it is of much interest to call attention to the remarkably odd record which was made by New York to win the pennant. In that record stands the story of the fight, with striking shifts from week to week.
The first game played by the Giants was against Brooklyn, as has been related, and it was won by New York and that, by the way, was the game in which Marquard began his admirable record as a pitcher for the season.
The Giants lost the next three games. Two of them were to Brooklyn and one to Boston, and the players of the New York team began to wonder a little as to what had happened to them.
Then New York won nine straight games from the eastern clubs, being stopped finally by Philadelphia on the Polo Grounds. But that defeat did not check them. They started on another winning spurt and played throughout the west without a defeat until they arrived in Cincinnati. This total of victories was nine. All of the games on the schedule were not played because of inclement weather.
Cincinnati won twice from New York and then the Giants turned the tables on the Reds, who had been leading the league. They threw them out of the lead, which they never regained, and won another succession of nine victories. That made three times consecutively that they had won a total of twenty-seven games in groups of nine, assuredly an unusual result.
Losing one game they again entered the winning class. This time they won six games in succession. Then they lost a game. After this single defeat they won but three games. Their charm of games in blocks of nine had deserted them. They were beaten twice after winning three, and Pittsburgh was the team.