“The Midnight Special is now departing from Boston for St. Louis at 6:55 PM, Sunday. Estimated Time of Arrival in St. Louis is 10:55 AM Monday. ALL ABOARD!”
This is major league baseball. The rules of the long season apply. And that means any kind of streaky win/loss pattern is possible – including ones in which better teams get swept by lesser light clubs, etc.
When the Astros returned from this last short roaring success trip to New York and Tampa Bay, they came home with a 6-1 mark and an MLB-best 29-12 record to show for it. Of course, that rush of momentum quickly got stalled by the visiting Cleveland Indians, who out-pitched, out-hit, out-played, and out-lucked our Houston Home Boys for a three-game series sweep.
Don’t feel so bad, Astros! Even the ’27 New York Yankees (110-44) got swept – and, like the 2017 Astros just experienced, it too came at the hands of the 1927 version of those still rascally and warpathing 2017 Cleveland Indians.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/schedule.php?y=1927&t=NYA
The ’27 Indians sweep of the ’27 Yankees occurred in 3 single games played in Cleveland on 3 contiguous days, August 20-22, 1927. The Yankees also had lost their last game in Chicago to the White Sox on the previous day, August 19th. And, remember, this was 1927. The Yankees had to take a long train ride from Chicago to Cleveland right after the game in order to get there in time to start a new series on the road the next afternoon. Plus, it was late August. All teams were tired, but Cleveland had played at home against the A’s on August 19th and had the chance to sleep in their own beds that night that the Yankees were riding the rails to get there on time for the following day’s series opener.
Oh, yeah. The Yankees ended their Cleveland sweep loss series by traveling to Detroit for a sweep of their own – followed by another sweep at St. Louis over the Browns. The ’27 Yankees never got too far away from their Murderers’ Row identity.
Earlier in the season, the Yankees did not come close to what first looks like a 3-game sweep loss on the linked chart. In a series at Yankee Stadium, which started with 3 games played from June 25-26, the Yankees lost all three – the first 2 being a doubleheader played on June 25 and the third being the first game of a double-header, played on June 26. (Keep reading the list.) The Yankees then snapped and won the 2nd game of the DH on June 26 and two single games against the A’s that followed on June 27 and June 28. It was along six game stand that the two teams split at 3-3 – and almost certainly was one of those long series that got built into a travel schedule that had to rely upon rail travel as both an economy and time management factor.
If you read much baseball history about that era, you already are aware of the many times that clubs from the east arrived in St. Louis just in time to dress on the train and go straight to Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis for games against the Browns and Cardinals.
At least, the night train riders of big league baseball in the 1920s didn’t have to lose sleep over concern for any bombs exploding in the dark space above the clickety-clack while they rested.
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Bill McCurdy
Publisher, Editor, Writer
The Pecan Park Eagle
The Pecan Park Eagle 
May 25, 2017 at 3:11 pm |
I a m reading a great book by Bill Bryson entitled One Summer America 1927. He once at 18 hot dogs at one sitting and 1925 he was hospitalized for one month and lost 76 pounds. The event was called the “bellyache heard around the world. Following Lindbergh’s flight June 11 became a national holiday in honor of him. There was a movement to rename Minnesota Lindberghia.