Hartford Senators

The 1931 Hartford Senators

The Senators were crowned league champions 5 times throughout team history, though no team ever saw more success than their final Eastern League Championship team of 1931. Considered to be among the elite minor league seasons of all-time by baseball analysts who make it their business to follow such wide spanning considerations, the 1931 Senators finished the year atop the Eastern League standings by the monstrous margin of 18 games. The Senators won well over twice as often as they lost with a final record of 97-40, a winning percentage of .708. So dominant were the Senators, the club was one of only two teams with a winning record in the 8-team league for the 1931 year, joined by the second place Bridgeport Bears.Midway through the year 1931, the Senators had proven to be exponentially superior to their competition, causing league directors to invoke arguably the largest “Mercy Rule” in baseball history. The Eastern League decided to hit the reset button and divide the season into two parts in order to give the other 7 teams a clean slate, with the Senators leading the way with 44 wins and 17 losses, winning at a .721 clip before split. Part two of 1931 did little to slow the team’s momentum, finishing 12 games ahead of Bridgeport over the second half of the year, after only leading the Bears by 6 games at the end of the year’s first half (bringing the aggregate total to 18). To the rest of the league’s credit, the Senators’ second half was marginally tempered despite increasing their lead over Bridgeport, closing with a 53-23 record, equal to a .697 winning percentage. The Springfield Ponies finished in third place an amazing 33 combined games back over both parts of the year. With 7 All-Star selections to pace the Eastern League, the 1931 event may as well have been a Senators scrimmage.