The 1928 Philadelphia Athletics
The 1928 Athletics are the Tenth Best Baseball Team Of All Time
Mar 24, 2007
Okay, so the 1928 Philadelphia Athletics didn’t win the World Series. They didn’t even win the American League pennant. Then why do they make the Top Ten? Because the team had six future Baseball Hall of Famers: Ty Cobb, Jimmie Foxx, Tris Speaker, Eddie Collins, Mickey Cochrane and Lefty Grove.
They also won 98 games and only lost the American League by two games to the New York Yankees. The A’s had a .646 winning percentage; one of the highest percentages ever for a second place team. That’s a dubious distinction. But this was no real second place team. This was a franchise on the verge of a dynasty.
The 1928 Philadelphia A's Had Six Baseball Hall of Famers
Robert Moses Grove (a/k/a ‘Lefty’) is one of the more overlooked pitchers in baseball history. During his career, Lefty Grove won 300 games and lost only 141. He also led the AL in wins four times, in ERA nine times, and was tops in strikeouts seven times. In 1928, Grove won 24 games, lost only 8, posted a 2.50 ERA and had 183 strikeouts.
Backing up Grove in the rotation was 44-year old Jack Quinn, who went 18-7 with a 2.90 ERA. That was Quinn’s best performance in 15 years. The team’s number three starter was Rube Walberg, who also had his best season in 1928, winning 17 games and posting a respectable 3.55 ERA. Reliever Eddie Rommel won 13 games with a 3.06 ERA out of the bullpen.
The Athletics also had one hell of a lineup. Ty Cobb hit .323 with 54 runs scored in just 353 At-Bats. A 20-year old behemoth slugger named Jimmie Foxx showed signs of his future greatness by hitting .313, with 29 doubles, 10 triples, 13 HR and 79 RBI in just 118 games. Catcher Mickey Cochrane won the MVP Award.
Their best hitter that year was Al Simmons, who hit .351 with 15 HR and 107 RBI.
The 41-year-old Eddie Collins finished with a .303 average. Tris Speaker, in his final season, also chipped in as a reserve player and part-time pinch hitter. On the day the season ended, Speaker had 3,514 hits, which was the second most ever, although he still trailed teammate Cobb by almost 600 hits.
The 1928 Philadelphia A’s scored more than 200 runs over their competition, had the second best offense in the AL, and the least amount of runs surrendered all season.
They Ran Into the Yankees
So, what exactly, was the problem with this superstar-laden club? How did they not win it all? The answer is simple: they were in the same league as the New York Yankees, who had won 110 Games in 1927 and had the best lineup of all time with Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Tony Lazzeri, Earl Coombs and Bob Meusel. Their potent offense combined with future Hall of Fame pitchers Waite Hoyt, Herb Pennock and Stan Coveleski to hold off Philadelphia down the stretch.
While the two teams played the rest of the American League just about even, the Yankees dominated the Athletics in head-to-head competition, winning 16 of their 22 head-to-head match-ups.
1928 Philadelphia A's Place in Baseball History
It is hard to rank a team that didn’t win it all in the Ten Best Baseball Teams of All Time. However, because of their incredible cast of Hall of Fame players, and the fact that they fell just short of beating the Dynastic Yankees, they're in. In any other season, in any other league, this team would have won 105-108 games and also won the World Series.
They proved it the next three seasons, winning 104 games, 102 games and 107 games, respectively. They also took home three straight pennants and two World Series. But by 1929, Cobb and Speaker (and their 7,700 hits) were retired, and the team, though arguably better, lost some of its historical cache.
