Old minor league pennant races fascinate me because their stories are so forgotten. If you're new to pennant race analysis, these pennant race reviews make an ideal introduction to many of the terms and concepts I'll be using in the "Game Dots" review of major league pennant races.

Shown here are Davenport graphs of significant minor league seasons, 1898 to 1904, for which I was able to gather weekly standings data. Davenport graphs show "Monday morning standings" and therefore do not have the resolution that allows the viewer to see day-to-day standings changes. However for the purposes of reviewing broad sweeps of seasons at a low cost of data entry time, Davenport graphs are excellent. Davenport graphs are so named for John Warner Davenport, professor, University of Wisconsin, and author of "Baseball Graphics", the first published collection of pennant race graphs, First Impressions Press, 1979. Unlike the "Game Dots", Davenport graphs show the full season, another reason this section of the web-site is best for users looking for an introduction to pennant race analysis.

2005 is the 135th season of major league baseball (I count the 1871-1875 National Association). Until 1969, each major league featured only one pennant race. That year the American and National leagues inaugerated the two-division format. The effect divisional play has upon pennant races will be addressed in detail when the work of adding text to the 1970's Game Dots images commenses. The three division format became a reality in 1994, and a bastard child - a second place race marketed as a "wild card" - became a reality in 1995. The second place race had been tried in the NL between 1894 and 1897 but was considered a disappointment a unceremoniously dropped. Thus, the six pennant races of 2004 (three in the AL and three in the NL) brought the all-time total to 346.

There are two kinds of pennant race analysis: a mid-season nomenclature whose aim is to label the season for the purposes of prediction and an end-of-season description whose aim is to simply describe for the sake of discussion how a pennant race unfolded. We will concern ourselves on this web-site with the latter. There are nine types of pennant races and they are sorted here by the positive effect they have on attendance, with the most interesting types of pennant races listed first.

RUMBLE, (50 races). Former baseball commissioner Ford Frick was fond of offering his pre-season prediction thusly: "I want to see eight teams tied on the last day of the season". From this statement (pre-divisional play) we can infer three patterns: 1) all eight teams would have a winning percentage of .500, 2) team standings at any point during the season would be tightly bunched. and 3) first place would have changed hands frequently. Mr. Frick was describing a RUMBLE. Rumbles are identified by a straight-line winning percentage of a leading pack of teams for at least one month; first place changing hands about five times in that period, sometimes more. Only two teams are required for a RUMBLE, but it should be noted that the fewer teams involved increases the potential winning percentage gait of this first place pack. In Mr. Frick's example - all eight teams - the winning percentage gait of the pack would be .500. A four team rumble, like the AL in 1967, had the front runners playing at a combined .583 pace after July 22. A three team rumble, like the NL in 1908, had the front-runners in a gait of .675 after July 13, and the front-runners in the two-team NL RUMBLE in 1897 played at a .780 clip over the final stretch of the season. Generally, the winning percentages of front-running packs in a RUMBLE are between .540 and .590.

CAROUSEL, (22 races). These races are distinguished from RUMBLES insofar as first place is held for up to three to five weeks at a time, with usually three teams changing places. CAROUSELS are common in races that feature evenly matched front-runners and one or two terrible teams. The attainment of first place for any one club in a CAROUSEL is then dependent on the relative strengths of the schedules each contender is playing. Where one contender might face an abysimal team, the other two contenders might be struggling with stronger teams, or each other, thus reinforcing the mechanics of this type of pennant race.

VAPORS, (24 races). These races do not have many of the similarities as found in other classes, but are distinguished instead by the sudden downward "change of direction" of a contender which materially proves to be the defining moment of a pennant race. Ironically, the great "collapses" as most fans remember them - 1951 NL, 1964 NL, 1978 ALe, and 1995 ALw, to name a few - are not listed here. My perspective is that there are no collapses, only adjustments not unlike the price of a stock. Therefore, like an airplane low on fuel or "running on vapors" so too a baseball team can keep a pace beyond it's abilities by incorporating a heavy use of its' star pitchers or taking advantage of some hot hitting in their lineup. Invariably, these types of teams suffer an "adjustment" in the form of a losing streak. These streaks always end when the winning percentage of the team equals the winning percentage the players are comfortable with. For example, all of the "collapsing teams" in the four seasons listed above went on winning streaks after their falls and three of the teams actually forced a playoff game. The great collapses listed above really don't qualify as VAPORS. Their losses are instead rooted in some deeper phenomenon explained by sports psychology. VAPORS pennant races generally display collapses of a number of teams and the pennant race graphs often look like a game of Chutes and Ladders.

HOVER, (59 races). This race is defined by a first place team that can't seem to expand on it's lead, yet maintains first place for most - if not all - of the Summer with a lead of 1.0 to 8.0 games. HOVER teams don't play over .500 unless some second place team threatens them at which point the HOVER will spend a day tied for first and then begin a win streak to re-establish their lead.

TRELLICE, (12 races). These races really are HOVERS in which the first place team generally stakes a lead larger than 8.0 games and then finishes the year with three or four months of .500 ball.

CHARGED RUN, (49 races). These appear to be rumbles through July but one contender manages a straight-line winning percentage which no other team can match, thus, slowly building a lead, never being threatened, and generally winning with a lead of around 5.0 games.

DELAYED BLOWOUT, (34 races). Similar to the CHARGED RUN races except that the leads built up in the second half of the season attain at least 10.0 games and make the clinch date academic.

BLOWOUT, (66 races). Very common in today's contrived pennant race formats, BLOWOUTS are races where the first place team attains a 10.0 game lead prior to August. However, a lack of any strong second place team can qualify races as BLOWOUTS even if the 10.0 game lead is obtained after August. Most of the all-time great collapses (as listed in VAPORS, above) are classified as BLOWOUTS, so it is possible for a team to be on top of a BLOWOUT and still be defeated. For the record, entering 2005, of the 153 teams who have attained a 10.0 game lead, eight have dropped to second place later in the year.

FANNED, (19 races). This bunch comprises the worst type of pennant race possible: a race where no two teams are near each other by winning percentage and where furthur play only spreads out the distances between teams. Theoretically, this type of race is not possible on the major-league level and should only exist in the low minors where the player talent on different teams varies to the extreme. However, the failure of MLB since 1994 to cope with team vs. team salary inequities and the split of each league into three divisions (creating four and five team pennant races) has brought about a sort of rennaisance period for the FANNED. The standings in this pennant race should be the same whether you check them in April or October. In some cases, a 5th or 6th place team will move up to 4th or 5th place, or the two tail enders will switch position: I consider such vicissitudes irrelevent to the class.

Eleven pennant races cannot be described. These include the split season of the NL in 1892, the four split seasons in 1981 (NL east, NL west, AL east, and AL west), and the six races in the truncated 1994 season (AL east, AL central, AL west, NL east, NL central, and NL west).

The vocabulary thus described, the survey of pennant races begins.