John Ganzel’s 1901 card comes from Scott Fennessy. Truth be told, his card probably shouldn’t be considered too terrible since he is from the deadball era. But compared to most any other full time firstbasemen, Ganzel’s card is lacking.
Ganzel batted .215 with a slugging average of .262. He hit 2 homers but did manage to drive home 66 runs for the Giants. He also stole six bases.
| Year | Tm | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1901 | NYG | 138 | 562 | 526 | 42 | 113 | 13 | 3 | 2 | 66 | 6 | 20 | 32 | .215 | .256 | .262 |
The first thing that struck me was that Ganzel is a J-0 playing 138 games. Looking at the stats though, I noticed that the New York Giants went 52-85 in ‘01 for a total of 137 decisions. Delving deeper into the Giants’ game log, I noticed that they played in four ties that year.
[More irrelevant but interesting fun: the Giants won a game by forfeit and lost one by forfeit.]
Ganzel is a simple deadball case of “Good field no hit” but honestly, that was pretty common in his era. We just don’t expect that from a firstbaseman.
Ugly numbers: 31-37, 31-41, 33-7
If the name Ganzel is familiar, you may be thinking of his nephew Babe Ganzel. Babe Ganzel is one of those players only APBA players would be familiar with. He only played two years in the bigs for a total of 23 games. Babe Ganzel did however play for the 1927 Washington Senators which was a team included in the famous World Series set. Not only that, he had a monster year that season batting .438 in 48 at-bats.
I should have waited one day to open the Terribles 1B poll though I’m not sure if John Ganzel would get any votes.
thanks, Scott
“But compared to most any other full time firstbasemen, Ganzel’s card is lacking.”
So despite playing in the deadball era his season was bad compared to what others were doing during this time? Is that what you were saying? I would hope so cuz man his numbers are really bad.