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APBL 1903: THE KNICKS TAKE OUT PROVIDENCE AGAIN
HISTORIC SIX-WAY RACE FOR BATTING TITLE; BORDEN WINS UNANIMOUS MVP

Pundit predictions for the 1903 APBL season had two clear favorites, and they were last season’s Adams Trophy finalists: the Providence Saints & Manhattan Knickerbockers. The “experts” had Providence down for about 80 wins and the Colonial pennant by roughly a week’s worth of games, while the Knicks were expected to win 85 games and take the Metropolitan by about ten. There was parity anticipated in the rest of the league, with most other teams winning 45-55% of their games and Jersey City being the rock-solid caboose since they can never seem to put together a competitive squad.

How did the regular season play out? Well…almost exactly as expected:

Providence won the Colonial Conference by eight games but were a bit off their win prediction at 75-52. Manhattan had almost the exact record they were predicted to finish with and won the Metropolitan by the ten games they were expected to win it by. Instead of all the other teams outside of Jersey City winning 45-55% of their games, they all basically won 40-60% of them, which was the most team-by-team parity the league has had in the sixteen-team era.

The Colonial Conference pennant race looked like it was completely up for grabs with six weeks left in the season as Providence & Buffalo were tied at 50-43, with Baltimore two games behind, Boston three behind, and the rapidly improving young Pittsburgh team five games behind. However, Providence did what they usually do late in the season: by mid-August they were five games up on Buffalo & Baltimore and that was the end of anyone else thinking they’d beat the Saints.

Halfway through the Metropolitan Conference season, Manhattan and the New York Athletics were both 41-25, with three teams – Excelsior, Brooklyn, & Pennsylvania – all four games back. However, over the second half of the season the Knicks blew the rest of the conference away with a 46-20 record and nobody else stood a chance against a team that ended 1903 with the best record in the APBL by a full ten games.

Why such a great second half for the Knicks? Their talented attack found a higher gear, and they ended up leading the league in Runs (729) by 60, Extra-base Hits (393), Walks (573) by more than 40, Stolen Bases (274), OPS (.760), Win Probability Added (15.78), and Batting WAR (31.1). Such offensive excellence was incredible given that the famously intimidating Elysian Fields the Knicks call home is a renowned pitcher’s park (AVG FACTOR: .909, FENCES: 380-438-490-517-479-432-376’). Adding that to their talented trio of mid-20s starting pitchers made the team functionally unstoppable.


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That meant for the second year in a row Providence & Manhattan would compete for the Doc Adams Trophy and the chance to play in the President’s Cup. This time around Charley Rankin was healthy, although he’d just finished his worst season from the batter’s box since 1891. Of course, by “worst” that meant he “only” had a Batting Average of .300, an OPS of .828, and a WAR of 6.2 while winning another Golden Glove and being named to yet another Team of the Year.

Unlike last year where Rankin’s absence tilted the series irreversibly in Manhattan’s favor, this time around the Knicks were simply too good. After Providence took a 2-1 series lead at home, the Knicks throttled the Saints in Providence in games 4 & 5 before clinching the series in dramatic fashion at home in Game Six.

Game One nearly saw history, as Providence won 3-0 and ace Chuck Carlyle would’ve thrown the APBL final series’ first no-hitter were it not for a solitary single by Leonard Cochran in the bottom of the 5th. Game Two was a tight one, all even at 2-2 until the Knicks scored five times in the bottom of the 8th to even the series. Providence retook the series lead in Game Three thanks to some decent hitting and excellent pitching by Frank Barber, but Manhattan made it 2-2 in the next afternoon’s Game Four with an 11-run outburst made possible by Shaun Scott’s five hits and four RBI. Carlyle, so dominant in Game One, set a series record by allowing all 11 runs in defeat. The Knicks cruised to a 9-0 win in Game Five to finally go ahead in the series, with Scott bagging three more hits and three more RBI.

Game Six was a special one, as it saw both pitchers go the distance even though the contest went 11 innings. Providence starter Barber threw 167 pitches, and Manhattan starter George Bullock threw just 158. With two outs and Christopher McGowan on third, Knicks catcher Charles Crawley singled on a 2-1 count to drive in McGowan and keep the Doc Adams Trophy in Manhattan.

Shaun Scott was voted Doc Adams Trophy Series MVP. Thanks to his outbursts in games 4 & 5, Scott finished the series hitting .522 (12/23) with two doubles, a triple, seven RBI, four runs scored, and five walks. Homer Wyatt, who was 2-0 with two Complete Game wins and a 1.50 ERA while walking nobody and striking out ten, would have also been a very worthy MVP.


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Pittsburgh, as expected, was the most improved team in the league, going from 44 to 61 wins. That still put them under .500, but they were 36-96 just two seasons ago. Prized signing Willie Munoz lost 22 games, but much of that was bad luck and his overall performance had him as an above-average pitcher in his first season. Fellow signee Onofrio Barberini was even better, going 19-17 with a 2.90 ERA and 6.5 WAR. Severin van der Kooi ended up just as good as advertised in his maiden season as Pittsburgh’s right fielder (.278, 5 HR, 58 RBI, 42 SB, 4.0 WAR). Finally, Milton Royce won 20 games in his sophomore season (20-17, 3.19 ERA, 178 K) while eventually settling in as the team’s first baseman when he wasn’t pitching.

Buffalo, even alongside Providence with that 50-43 mark in mid-July, crashed to a 12-27 finish and ended with a 62-70 record. This was the second year in a row their performance hit a brick wall during the latter stages of the Colonial Conference pennant race. It initially looked like the Blues front office had done a good job replacing Charles Wilkerson & Edward Millard by going to more of a “Starting Rotation by Committee” approach, but their group of pitchers absolutely faltered in the stretch run.

Massachusetts Bay’s daring trade of James Keller to Minneapolis ended up being a mixed bag, as they were two games worse than last year (60-72 vs 62-70). On the face of it, the Pilgrims accomplished the stated goals of their trade as the pitching staff improved from last in the APBL in Runs Allowed to 10th, and they shot up to 4th in Pitching WAR. Also, Clarence Riggs seamlessly slid over to first base, finishing the season hitting .358 with a .466 On-base Percentage and 7.2 Offensive WAR. New catcher Mark Powell (.308, 8 HR, 96 RBI) was an immediate star, and the signings of Alvin Kozlowski (17-17, 2.90 ERA, 148 K) & Gianluca Cicarelli (11-12, 3.34 ERA, 88 K) gave George Roundtree the help he needed in the pitching rotation. While the other half of the trade, Levi Butcher, didn’t make the MB rotation, he did look good in their reserve team and will likely start for them in 1904. For some reason, the improved parts just didn’t add up to better results on the field.


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The most exciting individual action in the 1903 APBL season was easily the race for the batting title, which was the closest it’s ever been. By the end of the season no less than half a dozen players held the lead at various times, and they all finished within ten points of each other:

• 1st Place: George Bixby (1B, BRK) - .379
• 2nd Place: Gilles Joubert (1B, BOS) - .378
• 3rd Place: Alan Gelmetti (RF, KNI) - .371
• 4th Place: Harold Borden (2B, BAL) - .370
• 5th Place: Avery White (1B, NYA) - .3699
• 6th Place: Shaun Scott (1B, KNI) - .3697

Two of the six players involved in that most fantastic of batting title chases won major awards.

Alan Gelmetti entered 1903 having had a legendary start to his career. Over his first four APBL seasons he’d won a Newcomer of the Year award, been named to three editions of the Team of the Year, had a minimum Average & OPS of .328 & .922 respectively, and his lowest WAR in a season was 6.6. He reached a higher level in 1903, leading the league in On-base Percentage (.482) while being the only APBL player to post an OPS over a thousand at 1.015. He also walked 100 times, stole 50 bases, drove in 91 runs, scored 112 of his own, and put up a Win Probability Added of 6.3 with an Offensive WAR of 8.2. Those numbers earned him Batsman of the Year over Joubert and Borden.

Harold Borden didn’t win Batsman of the Year but he didn’t exit 1903 empty-handed. The second baseman, in his first year with the Baltimore Blue Crabs after four very successful years with Detroit in the MWBA, led the league in Hits (214) and stole 58 bases to go with his .371 Batting Average. He was also easily the best-fielding second baseman in the APBL, posting a +21.7 Zone Rating and winning a Golden Glove. On top of that, he led the APBL in both Win Probability Added (6.6) and Batter WAR (9.6) in a feat reminiscent of Charley Rankin, which made him the unanimous choice for Most Valuable Player.

Hurler of the Year award was a tough decision. On one hand: long-time Providence ace Charles Carlyle, who went 26-12 with a league-best 2.32 ERA and ten Shutouts, pitching like this might finally be the year he wins HotY. On the other hand: Homer Wyatt of the Knicks, who won a league-high 28 games (9 losses) with a 2.73 ERA and a league-best 8.3 WAR. In the end, what separated the two was that while Carlyle started the season red-hot – 13-2 over April & May with a sub-2 ERA – Wyatt ended the season red-hot – 15-4, 65 K/24 BB, 3.8 WAR over July/Aug/Sept. In the voters’ minds, that put Wyatt over the top even if Carlyle was the sentimental favorite.

There was a historic crop of rookies in the APBL in 1903:

• Bingham Brinkman (P, PENN) – 20-17, 2.89 ERA, 178 K, 3 SHO, 7.9 WAR, 9.2 R9-WAR
• James Broadbent (CF, NJ) - .297, 1 HR, 76 RBI, 33 SB, 1.4 WPA, 2.7 WAR
• Bob Burger (CF, BRK) - .284 AVG, 2 HR, 49 RBI, 61 SB, 3.1 WPA, 4.9 WAR
• Max Byram (C, NJ) - .320, 5 HR, 58 RBI, 0 SB, 2.2 WPA, 3.9 WAR
• Gianluca Cicarelli (P, MB) – 11-12, 3.34 ERA, 88 K, 2 SHO, 4.2 WAR, 3.4 R9-WAR
• Leonard Cochran (LF, KNI) - .255, 2 HR, 87 RBI, 18 SB, 0.8 WPA, 3.3 WAR
• Otto Coggins (P, PHI) – 15-14, 2.94 ERA, 118 K, 2 SHO, 3.8 WAR, 6.1 R9-WAR
• Brandon Draper (RF, PENN) - .290, 11 HR, 58 RBI, 37 SB, 3.6 WPA, 3.4 WAR
• Michael Horak (LF/1B, PHI) - .253, 2 HR, 47 RBI, 84 SB, 1.1 WPA, 2.7 WAR
• Willie Munoz (P, PITT) – 12-22, 3.35 ERA, 197 K, 3 SHO, 4.5 WAR, 4.5 R9-WAR
• Jesus Robles (C/1B, JC) - .321, 2 HR, 57 RBI, 2 SB, 3.2 WPA, 3.0 WAR
• Charles Still (CF, PRO) - .242, 2 HR, 43 RBI, 25 SB, 0.4 WPA, 1.2 WAR
• Severin van der Kooi (RF, PITT) - .278, 5 HR, 58 RBI, 42 SB, 2.9 WPA, 4.0 WAR

How in the world was one supposed to pick a Newcomer of the Year from that Baker’s Dozen? Actually, it was pretty easy once Bingham Brinkman received a closer inspection. The 22-year-old Brinkman, transferred from the Vermont Green Stockings for $6,500 last autumn, was one of a dozen APBL pitchers to win 20 games, and the only rookie to do so. He was 5th in ERA, 3rd in Strikeouts, 2nd in WAR, 5th in Innings Pitched (326.2), and 7th in WHIP (1.25). That meant he was more than just a solid regular like the others on the above list. Brinkman was one of the best pitchers in the APBL, and thus an extremely deserving Newcomer of the Year. Bob Burger finished in second place, and Severin van der Kooi finished in third.