The subject of today’s newsletter is the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics, who are No. 10 in the Best 50, my list of the greatest ballclubs in history. The rankings come from my new book, Baseball’s Best (and Worst) Teams.
Here’s a quick boilerplate explanation that I’m appending to every story in this series:
I compiled the Best 50 by analyzing 2,544 major-league teams from 1903 to 2024. Those clubs have been ranked by their team scores (TS), which are plotted on a 100-point scale. (A given club’s all-time percentile is the percentage of the other 2,543 teams that it outperformed.)
See my book for an explanation of my TS calculations. The book also offers separate breakdowns of the best and worst clubs for every decade and franchise, comprehensive profiles of the Best 50 (including position-by-position lineups and much more information than you’ll find in this newsletter), and similar summaries of the 10 worst teams of all time.
Now on to today’s profile.
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Team: 1929 Philadelphia Athletics
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Team score: 90.587 points
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All-time rank: 10 of 2,544
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All-time percentile: 99.65%
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Season record: 104-46 (.693)
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Season position: First place in American League
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Final status: World champion
The Athletics’ glory days were a distant memory by 1929. The franchise had once celebrated three world titles over a four-year span, but the most recent of those championships was secured in 1913. Losing subsequently became the norm.
An infusion of talent brought the A’s back to life. Philadelphia welcomed four future Hall of Famers in 1924 and 1925. Mickey Cochrane, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, and Al Simmons were 24 or younger when they were acquired — Foxx was only 17 — but they sparked the club into contention. The A’s finished second in the American League in 1927 and 1928, trailing only the Yankees.
The latter season offered a taste of things to come. Philadelphia actually held first place for two days in September 1928 before slipping 2.5 games behind New York. The ’29 club left no room for doubt, seizing first place for good on May 13 and rolling to the pennant. The Yankees were stranded 18 games off the pace.
Get the complete lowdown on the 50 greatest (and 10 weakest) clubs of all time
A’s manager Connie Mack played it cute in the 1929 World Series, probably too cute. The Cubs’ batting order was predominantly right-handed, so Mack countered in Game One with righty Howard Ehmke, who had pitched fewer than 55 innings all year. Ehmke piled up 13 strikeouts, then a series record. The A’s won, 3-1, and Mack was hailed as a genius.
The nickname of Philadelphia’s best pitcher, Lefty Grove, explained why he didn’t fit his manager’s strategy. Grove had made 37 starts during the season — the most in the American League — yet he was confined to relief work in the series. He yielded no runs and three hits in 6.1 innings. Mack obviously should have started him.
The Athletics took the series, four games to one. Ehmke struggled in Game Five, but he was bailed out by reliever Rube Walberg as the A’s rallied to defeat the Cubs, 3-2. Walberg, like Grove, was left-handed.
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Left fielder Al Simmons nearly won the Triple Crown in 1929. He topped the American League with 157 runs batted in, ranked second in batting average (.365), and finished third in home runs (34). Simmons was a right-handed hitter who pointed his left foot toward third base — “in the bucket,” in baseball lingo. Old-timers insisted that nobody could succeed with such a stance, though Simmons defied their pessimism throughout a 20-year Hall of Fame career.
Jimmie Foxx bounced around in his first four years, suiting up as a catcher, third baseman, and right fielder. He was installed as the first baseman in 1929 and swatted 33 home runs. The muscular Foxx had been discovered in 1924 by a former A’s star, Home Run Baker. The farmboy was plowing a field in rural Maryland when Baker asked for directions. Legend has it that Foxx picked up the plow to point the way.
Catcher Mickey Cochrane had won the AL’s Most Valuable Player Award in 1928, when he batted .293. He boosted his average 38 points in 1929, but dropped to 13th in the balloting. Cochrane was a take-charge guy — the club’s leader on the field — yet he struggled with anxiety.
George Earnshaw topped AL pitchers with 24 wins, but the star of Philadelphia’s rotation was Lefty Grove, the league’s leader in ERA (2.81) and strikeouts (170). Grove possessed an overpowering fastball and an uncontrollable temper. He rampaged through the clubhouse after one defeat, and Connie Mack advised him to calm down. “To hell with you, Mack,” yelled Grove. The manager, who normally eschewed obscenity, quietly replied, “And to hell with you too, Robert.”