... which I got a two-year-old version of for a mere $7 at Barnes and Noble, I found an interesting stat from the 1948 Indians.
That team's pitching was really, really good. The league average ERA was 4.72. Theirs was 3.22. Their nearest team, the Yankees, had an ERA of 3.75.
The team threw 26 shutouts. The nearest team to them, the Yankees again, threw 16.
They gave up 567 runs. The nearest team to them gave up 633.
Bob Lemon and Gene Bearden were among the top ten in just about every pitching category.
The team had six hall of famers, including Bob Feller and Satchel Paige, who was signed in the middle of the season.
With all the pitching, the team finished in a dead heat with Boston at the end of the year.
To get to that playoff game, the Indians fought all the way to the end with Boston and New York.
Down the stretch, Paige went 6-1. He pitched in 21 games, seven of them starts. Of his seven starts, he threw three complete games and two shutouts.
This wasn't even Paige in his prime. Baseball-Reference.com lists him as 41 that year. Nobody really knows his age. As I recall, even he and his mother never got the story straight.
Anyway, here's the point: Isn't Paige one of the greatest mid-season pick-ups ever? Because the standings were so tight, the team could easily have finished in second or third place by losing just one or two more games. Without Paige's contribution, who knows what would have happened?
(A side note: I'd highly recommend reading Paige's autobiography, "Maybe I'll Pitch Forever." It's one of the first baseball books I remember reading.)
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