1904 New York Giants
With talks of potential strike issues looming for baseball, many fans immediately think back to 1994 when the season was lost, but it wasn't the first time we went without a World Series. 90 years before that stoppage we actually got in an entire regular season, but for different reasons we got no postseason after. The reasons were varied, but it ultimately came down to one team...
By 1904, the Giants were completing a turnaround that saw them climb from a disastrous 48-88 record just two years prior into a powerhouse. The biggest reason for such a change in fortunes was the seducing of Player-Manager John McGraw away from the new American League, who brought with him a few other stars. That AL team that McGraw left were the Baltimore Orioles...just not the Orioles we know of today. That Orioles team collapsed without their players, the franchise seized up by AL president Ban Johnson, and ultimately sent elsewhere, but more on them later.
For the '04 season, the Giants dominated to a 106-47 record, blowing away the 2nd place Chicago Cubs by 13 games and easily claiming the pennant. There was a time when that right there and then would have wrapped up the season, but we were freshly in a new era of baseball. Just the year prior was the 1st ever World Series that saw the upstart American League claim victory over the established National League when the Boston Americans beat the Pittsburgh Pirates. And while the Giants had their pennant wrapped up early, the AL was coming down to the wire between two teams, and neither winner made the Giants feel good.
First option was the defending "champion" Americans, who employed future Hall of Famers like Cy Young, who had until recently been carving up NL hitters before he went to Boston, and just that year pitched a perfect game. The other possible WS opponent was even more alarming for the boys at the Polo Grounds. Remember that Orioles team that collapsed? The franchise was reestablished by Ban Johnson (possibly out of spite) to follow McGraw to New York and in 1903 the New York Highlanders were born. That Highlanders team were now fighting for the pennant and a chance to face the Giants directly.
John McGraw and the Giants already thought very low of the American League. Even with the 1903 World Series results, the AL was viewed more of a minor league trying to stand on even ground with the superior NL. But the prospect of the more well established New York team having to battle and possibly lose to the "lesser" New York team was too much of a risk, so the Giants made it clear that this new fangled World Series "exhibition" would not be taking place in 1904. Even when it was the Americans who prevailed to win the AL pennant, the Giants stuck to their decision, with McGraw punctuating the decision by claiming they had already won the "only real major league."
Backlash from fans and writers was fierce. The result was Giants owner John Brush reversing his opinion. Instead of criticizing the "exhibition" that the World Series was, he instead pushed to finally formalize it as the proper conclusion to the baseball season. The rest is history, and we've had a World Series to conclude the baseball season every year (*1994) since.
As for the Giant's misgivings about their potential foes in that 1904 World Series? It all proved true. In 1912, the now Boston Red Sox finally had their WS matchup with the Giants, and Boston prevailed. And those Highlanders? They later renamed themselves as the Yankees and would get 6 WS matchups with the Giants. The Giants would win the first couple, then the Yankees would dominate and win control of the city.
