For what it's worth, Elias, the official statistician of MLB, has Welch's 1891 record as 6-12.

 

Dan Holmes

 

-----Original Message-----
From: SABR_Records@yahoogroups.com [mailto:SABR_Records@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Jean-Pierre CAILLAULT
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2006 12:50 AM
To: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com
Cc: SABR_Records@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [SABR_Records] Mickey Welch's victory total

Sorry to bother you with this, but in 1891 Mickey Welch pitched 14 CGs, of
which he won 5 and lost 9. The MLB.com, baseball-reference.com, and
retrosheet.org websites, as well as David Nemec's 19th century encyclopedia
and TB8, all have his record as 5 and 9.

Daguerreotypes (1968) has his record as 6 and 9.

Here're the relevant parts of the account of the game in question (from The
New York Times via ProQuest):

"Five pitchers took part in to-day's game, and the New Yorks won after an
interesting struggle. Clarke was injured in the opening inning and O'Rourke
was called in to catch. He couldn't hold Rusie's fast delivery, and Welch
was put in. ... In the third inning Gore hit for two bases, [go through most
of NY batting order until] Whistler, Bassett, and Welch followed with
singles ... In the eighth Welch was handled pretty roughly and Sharrott took
his place. ..."

Here's the line score:

NY - 0 0 6 3 0 0 0 0 2 - 11
Phi - 0 0 1 1 0 0 3 3 0 - 8

So, Welch came in VERY early, when it was still 0-0, and stayed until it
was, at worst, 9-8. Surely Rusie cannot have been credited with this win.
Was Sharrott given the win because he put out the fire in the 8th and shut
out the Phils in the 9th, i.e., what we'd call a save today? I know that is
similar to the reasoning Frank Williams applied in his famous article about
1900-1920 W-L decisions, but, well, I thought that only applied to
1900-1920.

And, finally, since W-L weren't such a big deal back then, and, hence,
authoritative decisions weren't made contemporaneously, who is it that
ultimately decided (or decides) who gets the W?

Thanks,
JP Caillault

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