The White Sox introduced three youngsters who made good and promise to keep on doing so. Two of them, George Weaver and Morris Rath, started the season with Chicago and the third, Baker Borton, joined the team late in the summer. Still later Kay Schalk started in to make what looks like a name for himself as a catcher.
No better illustration of the slight difference between a pennant winning machine and a losing team in the American League has occurred recently than the Boston Red Sox furnished last year. It did not differ materially from the team of 1910 which compelled the use of the nickname "Speed Boys." Jake Stahl was a member of that team, and except for the absence of Stahl in 1911, the champions of 1912 were composed of practically the same men who finished in the second division only the year before. But for the showing of 1910 the whole credit for last season's transformation might be attributed to Manager Stahl. Much of it unquestionably is his by right, and there is no intent here to deprive him of any of the high honors he achieved.
To Stahl's arrangement of his infield probably is due much of the improvement in the team. The outfield trio of wonderful performers did not perform any more wonders last year than in the previous season, but what had been holes on the infield were plugged tightly. Many looked askance when Larry Gardner, supposedly a second baseman, was assigned to third, but the results more than justified the move, and it made room at second for Yerkes, a player who had proved only mediocre on the other side of the diamond. This switch and the return of Stahl, who is a grand mark to throw at on first base, gave the infield the same dash and confidence as the outfield possessed, and the addition of some pitching strength in Bedient and O'Brien did the rest. It is the ability to discover just the right combination that differentiates the real manager from the semi-failure.
The Red Sox were in the race from the start, but they were eclipsed for a time by the White Sox. In spite of that the Bostonians never faltered but kept up a mighty consistent gait all the way and wore down all competitors before the finish. Stahl's men never were lower than second place in the race with the exception of three days early in May. when Washington poked its nose in front of the Red Sox and started after the White Sox, only to be driven back into third place by the men of Callahan themselves. For more than a week in April Boston was in the lead. Then Chicago went out and established a lead so long that it lasted until near the middle of June. Boston attended strictly to its knitting, however. Without stopping in their steady stride, the Red Sox hung on, waiting for the Callahans to slump. When their chance came in June the Bostonians jumped into the lead—June 10 was the exact date—and never thereafter did they take any team's dust.
By the Fourth of July Boston had a lead of seven games over the Athletics. The Red Sox kept right along at their even gait and a month later were leading by the same margin over Washington, which had displaced the former champions. On September 1 Boston's lead was thirteen games, but it was not until September 18 that the American League pennant was actually cinched beyond the possibility of losing it.
All season Stahl's men were known as a lucky ball team. Delving into the files for the dope, revealed the fact that the newspaper reports of about every third game they played on the average contained some reference to "Boston's luck." This does not detract anything from their glory. No team ever won a major league pennant unless it was lucky. No team ever had as steady a run of luck as Boston enjoyed in 1912, unless that team made a lot of its own luck by persistently hammering away when luck was against it and keeping ever on the alert to take advantage of an opening.
That is the explanation of the unusual consistency that marked the work of the Red Sox all season and the fact they did not experience a serious slump. In the first month of the season they won twelve games and lost eight. The second month of the race was their poorest one—the nearest they came to a slump. In that month they won eight and lost ten games. In the third month Boston won twenty-three and lost seven games. The fourth month saw them win twenty games and lose eight and in the fifth month their record was twenty victories and five defeats. In the final stages of the race the Red Sox were not under as strong pressure from behind and naturally did not travel as fast after sighting the wire, but the figures produced explain why Boston won the pennant. It started well and kept going faster until there was no longer need for speed. The annexation of the world's championship in a record breaking world's series with the New York Giants was a fitting climax to their season's achievement.
When Clark Griffith stalked through the west on his first invasion of the season with a team of youngsters, some of them practically unknown, and declared he was going after the pennant, everybody laughed or wanted to. A few weeks later everybody who had laughed was sorry, and those who only wanted to laugh were glad they didn't. For Griffith kept his men keyed up to the fighting pitch during the greater part of the season, and when they did start slumping in September, he made a slight switch on his infield, applied the brakes and started them going up again. The result was that Washington finished second for the first time in its major league history, winning that position in the closing days of the race after a bitter tussle with the passing world's champions.