Are your New York Yankees!
The Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Robins with relative ease, taking the series 4 games to 1. The only blot on the Yankees' record was a Brooklyn walkoff in a see-saw Game 2. In retrospect, Brooklyn was lucky to avoid a sweep as they were outscored 31-11 in the series. Red Faber went 2-0, Cobb hit .600 to win the MVP, and Cy Williams came back from injury to hit a home run in each of Games 3-5 to set a World Series record. The Yankees' pitching was the real surprise to me, since I was expecting a rehash of the 1921 World Series (and explicitly expecting 1918 again), but the staff had an ERA of 2.22 compared to Brooklyn's 5.79 (plus 4 unearned runs). The one clunker in the group was Ruether's Game 2 start, which still wasn't unrecoverably bad--5 runs in 5 innings. The relievers did well in that game, too, and the game was won for Brooklyn by an on-fire Casey Stengel more than lost by the relievers or the hitters. Luque and Vance complemented Faber's starts with excellent starts of their own, Vance's a CGSO in the final game.
In the end, the Watsonian description I laid out at the end of the preview post was much closer to the way things played out than the Doylist hard look at the numbers made me expect, which perhaps means I should also write a Watsonian recap. The Yankees just took care of business, and there was really a minimum of drama after Game 2 ended.
So, what now? This is an on-year for the Fall Barnstorming Tour, which will take the teams through a bunch of stadia they haven't played in yet. I'm planning to add an A-level Eastern League, and some of the American Association teams will move there and be replaced by more Rust Belt cities. Grover Cleveland Alexander retired, to my surprise, which solidifies the Barnes and Robinson for Alexander trade as the worst I've ever swung. Baker did not retire, but at the moment I think he's going to be splitting playing time with Moore in 1923. For now, though, I'm just enjoying the glow of being champion. ;)
