Year In Review : 1922 American League

Off the field...

On March 20^th, at Norfolk, Virginia, the U.S.S. Langely was commissioned as the first United States Naval Aircraft Carrier. Originally a coaler christened the Jupiter, the mammoth vessel was refurbished for the purpose of conducting experiments in the new idea of seaborne aviation. At the outbreak of World War II, Langley was anchored off Cavite, Philippine Islands and was ordered to proceed to Balikpapan, Borneo, and Darv, in Australia, where she assisted the RAAF in running antisubmarine patrols out of Darwin. She was then assigned to American-British-Dutch-Australian forces assembling in Indonesia to challenge the Japanese thrust in that direction. Early in the morning of February 27^th, 1942, Langley rendezvoused with her usual antisubmarine screen of Navy destroyers as nine twin-engine enemy bombers attacked her. The first and second Japanese strikes were unsuccessful; but during the third Langley took five hits igniting several planes on the flight deck. After an unsuccessful attempt to extinguish the flames, the order to abandon ship was passed. The escorting destroyers fired nine four-inch shells and two torpedoes into the old tender to insure her sinking and she went down about seventy-five miles south of Tjilatjap with a loss of sixteen.

In the American League...

During a 5-4 win over the Detroit Tigers at League Park II on June 3^rd, Cleveland Indians first baseman Stuffy McInnis committed his first error in an astounding one-hundred sixty-three games and one-thousand six-hundred twenty-five chances.

On July 13^th, sixty-eight fans representing the smallest crowd in Fenway Park's history, turned out to watch the visiting St. Louis Browns shut out Alex Ferguson and their Boston Red Sox 2-0.

Chicago and Boston combined to set an American League record with thirty-five singles (Chicago, twenty-one and Boston, fourteen) during a 19-11 White Sox victory on August 15^th.

In the National League...

Ten Pittsburgh Pirates collected two or more hits (twenty-two total) on August 7^th to rally over the seventh place Philadelphia Phillies 17-10. The Phils were headed for a storybook comeback (after scoring six runs in two 2/3 innings), but the Buccos added eight of their own in the fourth to take the lead. The following day Pittsburgh set a Major League record with forty-six hits during a doubleheader against Philadelphia.

On August 25^th, the Chicago Cubs managed to edge out the Philadelphia Phillies 26-23 in one of the worst combined pitching performances in baseball history. The game itself featured fifty-one hits, twenty-three walks, and ten errors with the Phillies stranding sixteen men on base and the Cubs leaving nine.

Rogers Hornsby completed the season with a .401 average making him the first .400-hitter in the National League since Ed Delahanty in 1899. He also set a National League record with two-hundred fifty hits, another with one-hundred two extra-base hits and was awarded the Triple Crown with one-hundred fifty-two runs batted in and forty-two home runs.

Around the league...

For the first time since 1900, there were no playing managers in the National League. It would be 1930 before the American League would follow suite and bench all of its managers.

Following a lawsuit brought by the Federal League's Baltimore franchise, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 9-0 that professional baseball (on any level) was not considered an interstate business.

In an effort to curb the rise of home run hitting (one-thousand fifty-four in the major leagues, up from nine-hundred thirty-six), several American League owners proposed a new zoning system that called for a minimum distance of three-hundred feet for a round-tripper to be "official". Although that motion was denied, another action that required all teams to furnish two uniforms per player was passed and at the National League meeting Charles Ebbets proposed the addition of numbers on players' sleeves or caps.