Woodinville Wine Sox

94-68, second in the NCL
April: 14-6. May: 16-13. June: 13-14. July: 16-9.
August: 20-9. September: 12-15. October: 3-2.

First season: did not play, expansion team.

NOTES
Woodinville was eliminated from the pennant race and Fremont clinched on the last day of September. The Sox finished six games back.

Wine Sox statistics

What went right?
Three-Finger Brown won the NCL Cy Young award, going 22-8 and putting up a 3.39 ERA. Woodinville players from the dead-ball era adapted very nicely, thank you, to the rabbit ball of modern times. The Wine Sox led the league in scoring, finishing a scant three runs ahead of league champ Fremont. While they finished fifth in homers, they still hit a robust 246 of them. Woodinville's 4.54 club ERA was second in the league, but a half run higher than Fremont's. That was essentially the difference in the pennant race. Honus Wagner was an MVP contender, batting .326 and crunching 31 homers, 11 triples, and scoring 122 runs. Somehow we believe that from Wagner. But do we really believe these HR totals?: Tommy Leach (31), John Titus (26), "Turkey" Mike Donlin (25), Cap Clarke (23). Did they get into the juice? Brown and Christy Matthewson were two of the league's three 20-game winners.

What went wrong?
Woodinville led the league early on, but when Fremont zipped by in June they never quite got it back. The Sox stayed close until the final week. A little pitching depth would have helped. After Matty and Brown, their top winner was Sam Leever, 13-13, 4.80.

Clarke is one of two player-managers in the Century League this season. Lou Boudreau of Snoqualmie in the ACL was named player-manager of the Falls when Connie Mack left that club to take the reins of the expansion Bainbridge Island Lumberjacks.

Clarke was by far and away the biggest winner among managers in the '00s, piling up 938 victories at the helm of the Pirates, 252 ahead of John McGraw, who didn't really get started until 1903.