Because their owner thought a baseball team would be a better draw in St. Louis than Cleveland, which team lost all its best players and finished the next season with a record of 12-134?

gtho4

Cleveland Spiders, 1899 There were 12 teams in the National League that season, and the Spiders finished 35 games out of 11th place. In their last 41 games, the Spiders went 1-40. It should be said that the Spiders had a pretty good excuse. Their owner, Frank De Haas Robison, purchased the St. Louis franchise prior to the 1899 season. After the season, the Spiders were put out of their misery when the National League contracted by four teams. http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/neyer_rob/1507733.html The major reason for the poor season was attributed to Frank Robison, Cleveland owner, who bought the St. Louis Brown's at a sheriff's auction and decided that a good team would draw better in St. Louis than in Cleveland. He then transferred all of Cleveland's stars to the Browns, which he arrogantly renamed the Perfectos. Pitching great Cy Young, batting champion Jesse Burkett, and all the other Spiders stars were replaced by minor-leaguers and semi-pros. After the first 38 games, the Spiders compiled a .211 winning percentage (8-30). Sadly, this was the highpoint in the season as they played .103 ball in the final 116 games (12-104). They lost 24 games in a row, had six streaks of 11 or more losses, and finished a record 84 games behind the league leaders. The Spiders compiled a team ERA of 6.37 and gave up 8.13 runs per game. Pitcher Jim Hughey led the staff in wins with 4 while losing 30 games, 16 of them in a row. Charlie Knepper also won 4 and lost 22, Frank Bates won one and lost 18, Fred Schmitt was 2-17. Willie Sudhoff won 3 of his 11 games for the Spiders. Frank Bates, lost 4, won 1, then lost 14 in a row. The team hit only 12 home runs, while former Spider star Bobby Wallace hit 12 by himself for St. Louis. http://www.nocryinginbaseball.com/hos/spiders.html">www.nocryingbaseball.com Sep 18 04, 10:31 PM

philsgirl

Yay, gtho4. This is the question I was efforting to ask earlier. Sep 18 04, 11:11 PM