1899 Cleveland Spiders season


The 1899 Cleveland Spiders season was the team's 13th and final season in Major League Baseball, and their 11th season in the National League.
In 1899, the owners of the Spiders, the Robison brothers, Frank and Stanley, bought the St. Louis Browns baseball club from Chris von der Ahe, renaming it the Perfectos. However, they continued to retain ownership of the Cleveland club, an obvious conflict of interest that was later outlawed.
Stanley Robison publicly announced his intention to run the Spiders "as a sideshow", and fans took him at his word: after the first 16 home games, Cleveland's total attendance was 3,179, for a trifling average of 199 people per game. Other NL teams responded by refusing to travel to Cleveland's League Park, since their cut of the ticket revenue would not come close to covering their travel and hotel expenses.
As a result, the Spiders only played 26 more home games for the rest of the season, including only eight after July 1. In so doing, they set a number of negative records, including one, 101 road losses, that is unbreakable under MLB's current schedule. Sportswriters of the day began referring to the team as the "Exiles" and "Wanderers." Their final record for the season was 20–134 for a win ratio of.130, still the worst in Major League Baseball history.

Offseason

The Robisons decided that a good team in St. Louis would draw more fans, so they transferred most of the Cleveland stars, including future Hall of Famers Cy Young, Jesse Burkett and Bobby Wallace, as well as manager Patsy Tebeau, to St. Louis. Most of the players Cleveland received were non-entities. Jack Clements and Joe Quinn were at the end of successful careers, and player-manager Lave Cross was traded back to St. Louis after the Spiders got off to an 8–30 start.
According to various individual pages at Baseball-Reference.com, most of this activity took place on March 29, 1899, just 17 days before the beginning of the new season:
;Pitchers
;Catchers
;Infielders
;Outfielders
They also transferred numerous home games to the road—including the original Opening Day game to St. Louis. As a result, the Spiders did not play their first home game until May 1.

Regular season

With a decimated roster, it was apparent almost from the start that the Spiders would make a wretched showing. After their first game, in which they were beaten by the Perfectos 10–1, the headline of the April 16 edition of The Plain Dealer proved to be prescient: "THE FARCE HAS BEGUN."
Ultimately, the club finished 20–134, losing 40 of their last 41 games of the season. By season's end, they trailed the pennant-winning Brooklyn Superbas by 84 games, and finished 35 games behind the next-to-last place Washington Senators. For comparison, this would project to 21–141 under the current schedule, and Pythagorean expectation based on the Spiders' results and the current 162 game schedule would translate to a record of 25–137.
The 1899 Spiders were 11–101 on the road and 9–33 at home. The 101 road losses is far and away the most in major-league history, and will never be threatened, since under current scheduling practices a team plays 81 road games.
The team's longest winning streak of the season was two games, which they accomplished once: on May 20 against the Phillies and May 21 against Louisville. The Spiders were winless against two teams: Brooklyn and Cincinnati. Spiders opponents scored ten or more runs 49 times in 154 games. Pitchers Jim Hughey and Charlie Knepper tied for the team lead in wins. The pitching staff allowed a record 1,252 runs in 154 games. The Spiders batters combined to hit 12 home runs, matching former Spiders star Bobby Wallace, who hit 12 home runs for St. Louis.
A mere 6,088 fans paid for Spiders home games in 1899, or an incredibly low average of 145 people per game. By comparison, St. Louis drew 373,909 fans for their home season, including 15,000 for one game. In the last 57 games of the season, the Spiders only won three games. They also accumulated the second longest losing streak in league history, at 24 games from August 26 to September 16, trailing only the 26 game losing streak set by the 1889 Louisville Colonels.
Somewhat ironically, the 1899 Spiders did lead the league in one notable statistic - games played. Cleveland was the only team in the league to finish all of its games in the then-154 game schedule of the 1899 season, a rather unusual occurrence in that era.

Aftermath

The dismal 1899 season was the end for the Spiders, and for National League baseball in Cleveland. The Spiders were disbanded, along with franchises in Baltimore, Louisville, and Washington, as the National League contracted from 12 teams to 8.
The departure of baseball from Cleveland left an opening for the upstart American League, which opened for business in 1901 as a second major league and included among its charter members a new team, the Cleveland Blues. The Blues still exist today as the Cleveland Indians., the 1962 New York Mets and 2003 Detroit Tigers have the post-1900 NL and AL records for most losses in a season, respectively. After the Spiders folded, a National League team wouldn't play in Cleveland again until the Indians played the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1920 World Series, which they won in 7 games. Meanwhile, in St. Louis, the Perfectos were renamed the St. Louis Cardinals in 1900, which they are still called today.

Season standings

Record vs. opponents

Opening Day lineup

Notable transactions

Player stats

Batting

Starters by position

Note: Pos = position; G = Games played; AB = At Bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting Average; HR = Home Runs; RBI = Runs Batted In
PosPlayerGABHAvg.HRRBI
C7625069.276014
1B127456110.241040
2B147615176.286072
3B127473116.245055
SS148541129.238143
OF147605168.278235
OF142567142.250150
OF11341899.237131

Other batters

Pitching

Starting pitchers

Other pitchers