THE LOUISVILLE COLONELS
From 1902-1952 the Colonels of Louisville posted seven first-place finishes. Here is a summary of those seasons.
The Colonels’ first season atop the American Association occurred in 1909. It was a fight to the finish between Louisville, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. But the Colonels came out on top.
With a record of 93-75 (.554) under player-manager Henry (Heinie) Peitz, the Colonels established themselves as a force in the league during the 1909 season.
Pitcher Selby was the team’s lone 20-game winner. In 305 innings of work, Selby appeared in 41 games on his way to a 20-13 record.
As a team, the Colonels placed sixth among Association teams with a batting average of .233. The league average for team batting was .237 during a season which saw a preponderance of good pitching and lackluster hitting. Still, this was one of the most exciting American Association finishes in the history of the league.
Shortstop Larry Quinlan would have been the team’s strongest hitter, winding up with a .257 batting average, but he was traded to Columbus mid-season. Next up among regulars was outfielder Jack Dunleavy who mustered a .244 average in 467 at-bats.
Despite the modesty of their talent, the Colonels took charge by holding off the Milwaukee Brewers during the last week of the season.
Eclipsing the 100-victory mark in 1916, Louisville took the Association’s top-spot under manager Bill Clymer. Finishing the season with a mark of 101-66 (.605), Clymer’s Colonels landed 5.5 games ahead of runner-up Indianapolis.
With a .259 team batting average, the Colonel’s place fourth in the league. They made a strong showing with 95 triples (a league second) and 229 doubles. With only 31 home runs, they performed just below average with respect to the remaining seven teams of the Association.
Acquiring the strong-hitting first-baseman Jay Kirke from Milwaukee in late June of 1916 certainly helped the Colonel’s cause. He finished the season with a .313 average (633 at-bats), far superior to either of his teammates.
Pitcher Jim Middleton was the team’s only 20 game winner. His 21-9 (.700) record made him the ace of the Colonel’s staff. Underscoring that achievement was his 2.01 ERA through 278 innings of work. Appearing in 38 games, Middleton had an impressive strikeouts-to-walks ratio of 137-66. Jake Northrop had 16 victories, while Hub Perdue had 14 for Peitz’s players.
In 1921, Louisville loaded up on 98 wins against 70 losses under manager Joe McCarthy to take the Association’s top-spot. The Colonels overtook Joe Cantillon’s Minneapolis Millers by 4.5 games and wound up facing the International League’s Baltimore Orioles in the Junior World Series.
Jay Kirke came on strong as a solid slugger, walloping his way to a league-leading .386 batting average in another league high 730 at-bats, posting 21 home runs and slugging out 43 triples to lead the team in each of the latter two categories. He was truly a phenom
Cuban-born outfielder Baldomero (Merito) Acosta followed suit by slugging out a .350 batting average in 588 at-bats. Along with his 36 doubles and 10 triples, Acosta walked on 116 occasions while striking out only 35 times.
Ernie Koob took the mound in 50 games, pitching 270 innings and coming home with 22 wins against 9 losses (.710). Roy L. Sanders brought another 18 wins the Colonels’ way.
In the Junior World Series, Louisville defeated the Orioles of Baltimore, five games to three. They scored 57 runs in that series to the O’s 44. McCarthy had a good recipe for success.
The year 1925 saw McCarthy’s Colonels hit their peak. With a record of 106 wins and 61 losses (.635), they landed in first-place in the American Association for the fourth time since the league’s inception. Indiana-polis landed a wholesome 13.5 games behind them.
With three 20-game winners, Louisville was dominant in the pitching department. Norman Cullop was the team leader in wins with 22 against 8 losses. Ed Holley won 20 while losing 7 to establish the league’s best winning percentage (.741). Joe DeBerry had 20 wins as well, losing only 8 games. The Colonels’ fearsome threesome did some serious damage against Association teams.
An outfielder of Native American ancestry led the league in batting for the Colonels by posting a .363 average in 628 at-bats. His name was Joe Guyon. He is a member of both the Professional Football Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame. Guyon’s 9 homers was a team-topper.
Fellow outfielder Albert Tyson did his part by hitting .352 in 644 at-bats. His 8 homers was sufficient to make him a threat, but his 132 RBI topped the team for McCarthy’s Colonels.
Facing the Baltimore Orioles of the International League for the Junior World Series title proved to be no easy task. The O’s had just completed their seventh straight IL championship. Despite being up by two games at the outset of the series, the Birds proved resilient and defeated the Colonels five games to three.
A repeat of the American Association title was in store for the Colonels in 1926 when the club again proved dominant, this time under new leadership, manager Bill Meyer, a career Colonels’ catcher. With a 105 win season, the club lost 62 games (.629), making this the second most successful Louisville club in their Association history.
With SIX players hitting over .300, all Meyer had to do was sit back and watch. The Colonels’ top four pitchers won 72 games while losing 35.
Leading the hitting charge was catcher Al DeVormer who exceeded all expectations with his .368 average in 400 at-bats. Joe Guyon came back to his earlier form, this time hitting .343 in 609 at-bats, stealing 21 bases and driving in 86 runs. Outfielder Earl Webb was in peak form with his .333 average, driving in 111 runs and slugging a team-leading 18 home runs.
Norm Cullop won 20 games for the second straight year while losing 8 and compiling an ERA of 3.62. Native American Ben Tincup won 18 against 7 defeats, posting an ERA of 3.09, the team’s best mark. And Joe Dawson went 17-7 with a 3.26 ERA.
But the Colonels couldn’t handle the pitching dished out to them by the Toronto Maple Leaf team of the International League when they met in the Junior World Series for 1926. In the only five-game sweep in JWS history, the Maple Leaf blew Louisville away in a series involving 2 extra-inning affairs and two shutouts. The Colonels scored 6 runs all-tolled, with Toronto tallying 18. Big bats die hard.
Louisville came back to occupy the Association’s top spot in 1930 with a record of 93-60 under manager Al Sothoron. A mere 2.5 games separated the Colonels from runner-up St. Paul.
Leading the charge for the Colonels’ hitters in 1930 was their star outfielder, Melbern Simons, who accumulated a wholesome batting average of .371 in 668 at-bats. Simons led the league in hits with 248 and in doubles with 49 while appearing in all 154 of his team’s contests. Fellow outfielder Herman Layne followed in Simons’ footsteps by hitting .333 in 628 at-bats, but he also stole a league-leading 40 bases and swatted 19 triples, leading the Association in the latter department as well.
From the mound, Joe DeBerry returned to post a record of 19 wins, 10 losses with an ERA of 3.79 through 252 innings. Ben Tincup’s 14-3 record gave him a league-best .824 winning percentage. But the unsung hero was Phil Weinert who struck out a league-high 132 batters on his way to a record of 16-11 and a team-leading ERA of 3.63. Roy Wilkinson’s 17 wins through 261 innings was another stalwart performance for Sothoron’s Louisville team.
Facing the Rochester Red Wings in the Junior World Series, the Colonels succumbed, five games to three.
Sixteen years would pass before Louisville would show their impressive dominance in the American Association.
In 1946, the Colonels showed the same moxie as their earlier counterparts by putting 92 wins on the board against 61 losses under Manager Harry “Socks” Leibold. Fred Walters would replace Leibold that year after “Socks” received a lengthy suspension for disciplinary reasons. But that didn’t stop the Colonels from taking the cake in the American Association.
Squeezing out Bill Burwell’s Indianapolis Indians by 4 games, Louisville held on by virtue of a balance attack. Hitting only .265 as a team (the league average was .264), Leibold’s team depended on strong individual performances.
The Colonels’ top seven pitchers combined for 71 wins against 39 losses. Al Widmar was the team’s top win-getter with 12 against 9 losses. His 2.43 ERA topped all Association pitchers. Harry Dorish posted a record of 11-4 while Bill “Otey” Clark contributed 11 wins against 7 losses. Jimmy Wilson struck out 126 batters while walking 72 on his way to a 10-6 record. The pieces of the puzzle fit, and the result was first-place.
After clearing their way through the mire of the Association play-offs, the Colonels were Junior World Series bound to meet the Montreal Royals. They did not count on a chance encounter with the up and coming Jackie Robinson who hit .333 during that series, helping the Royals to a 4 games to 2 conquest over the Colonels in 1946.
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