Bainbridge Island Lumberjacks

88-74, third in the ACL
April: 18-3. May: 16-13. June: 11-16.July: 15-10.
August: 12-16. September: 14-13. October: 2-3.

First season: Did not play; expansion team.

NOTES
Bainbridge couldn't sustain a red-hot start, having bad months in June and August and a so-so finish. They started the last series just a game out of first, but lost three of four at home to Tacoma and wound up in third, just two games off the pace. The Jacks weren't eliminated until the second-to-last day of the season.

Lumberjack statistics

What went right?
April. The Jacks roared out of the blocks at 18-3 and looked like they'd run away with the ACL flag. They led by five games at the end of April and maintained that through May. The lead was down to one by the first of July. BI stayed near the top but in the end couldn't hold off red-hot Seaview. They were second in the league in scoring and ERA.

Sam Crawford was the club's hitting star. Wahoo Sam led the ACL with 18 triples and finished in the top 10 in slugging, runs created, total average, runs, and hits. The dead-ball hitters adjusted reasonably well to the rabbit ball and hit 147 home runs, led by Crawford with 25 and Harry Davis with 21. Cy Young went 16-13 and got some consideration for the Cy Young award. Ed Walsh finished fifth in the league in ERA.

What went wrong?
The Lumberjacks tore the cover off the ball at the start of the season, but tapered off. Napoleon Lajoie, a career .338 hitter who batted .426 in 1901, managed a paltry .268, though he did hit 36 doubles, 11 triples, and nine homers in 127 games. Lajoie had hit .386 playing for Portland in season one. The Jacks were a little shaky on defense, committing 110 errors and finishing last in fielding percentage.

Connie Mack is managing the Jacks after skippering the Snoqualmie Falls (AL 40s) to a 78-76 record and third place, 29 games behind eventual Century League champ Portland, last season. Mack won 734 games in the 00s, more than any other manager in the decade, 158 ahead of Clark Griffith, who finished second.

The third-place finish might have been expected of Mack, who was once quoted as saying:

It is more profitable for me to have a team that is in contention for most of the season but finishes about fourth. A team like that will draw well enough during the first part of the season to show a profit for the year, and you don't have to give the players raises when they don't win.

Despite that, he had five World Champs and nine pennant winners.