Week 24 Summary (09/22/1941 - 09/28/1941)

Week Twenty-Four of the 1941 BBW Replay is in the books and the replay regular season is now complete. New York (AL) and St. Louis (NL) have had the pennant clinched for their respective leagues for a good time now and both are rested and ready to go for the World Series. New York finished with one less win in the replay, while St. Louis finished with four additional wins. In the NL the difference was that Brooklyn finished nine fewer wins over the course of the replay, allowing St. Louis to slide past them and into the post-season. 

As both leagues had been decided heading into the last week, all teams (except the Yankees) took the opportunity to activate younger players and to give them a few at-bats or to throw a few innings. This, therefore, implies that some of the regulars were given a few days of rest in the final week, so lineups were often a little topsy-turvy, and often players were run in and out of the lineup, causing further lineup alterations. Translated, what that means besides the changes to the daily lineups as shown in Baseball-Reference.com, I took the opportunity to go through the players and ensure those with an extra relief appearance or an extra pinch-hit appearance (or two) got them in as well. I never get these to match 100%, but for the most part, they come out pretty good.

 

As you might have expected, Joe DiMaggio was not able to re-create his 56-game hitting streak, although he did pull together a nineteen-game hitting streak early in the season. DiMaggio did have a great season - he finished second in batting average (.362), second in runs (125), second in doubles (43), and third in homeruns (27). Even after all that, DiMaggio still might not have been the MVP on his own team though - Charlie Keller hit .331, was second in the AL in homeruns (30) and was second in RBI's (122).

 The really big story from the 1941 season was that Ted Williams was the last player to hit over .400, and this feat was able to be duplicated in the replay. In fact, Williams ended up hitting an other-worldly .470, led the league in homeruns (48), and led the league in RBI's (160) as well, meaning that he captured the Triple Crown - and won it quite handily. It wasn't even close. Williams also led the AL in runs (154), hits (222), doubles (45), and walks (146). Quite a season.

 

This week's post is going to be relatively short. I will be posting a longer team-by-team review, a much more detailed final stats, and leader review, and there is still a world Series to be played, so more to come. As a reminder, there are two blog posts per week of the season - a game-by-game post and then a weekly summary.






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