100 Years Ago Today 8/31/1920: Brooklyn Robins Take Back First Place As September Looms

From the desk of: FINGERPRINTS OF THE BUMS

100th Anniversary

BROOKLYN ROBINS
1920 National League Champions

Game #126: Tuesday, August 31, 1920 - BR
Brooklyn Robins vs. St. Louis Cardinals
Sportsman's Park

First Place Brooklyn Robins Achieve Victory Number Seventy with Twenty-Nine Games Left to Play 

Message to Uncle Robbie: Don't look back or you just might see who is behind you.

After all, New York City is still John McGraw's empire.  But it's also a not so subtle reminder that the National League pennant is up for grabs. 

If over these last five months you've remained a member of the staunch Brooklyn skeptics and Robins naysayers, then perhaps Tuesday's contest finally swayed you into believing this surprisingly irrepressible team - virtually unchanged from last season - genuinely stands poised to win another National League pennant.  From the lips of yours truly to the ears of Charlie Byrne!  But the McKeever Brothers and Charlie Ebbets himself believe this to be true.  Fans filing into 55 Sullivan Place in exponentially record numbers are all the proof they need.

With Tuesday's 5-2 victory at Sportsman's Park the Robins finish the month of August with a modest 14-13 record.  However, the true significance of Tuesday's game is that it marks Brooklyn's seventieth victory of the regular season.  It's one win above last season's total; thirteen more than achieved in 1918; and presently matches their 1917 output.  Only difference being this year's Robins still have twenty-nine games left to play.  Everything now points back to 1916 when the Robins win 94 games and capture the pennant by a 2.5 game margin over Philadelphia.  It may take that many wins if not more in order to keep at bay the defending champion Cincinnati Reds and surging New York Giants.  But make no mistake, the road to the pennant presently courses through Brooklyn, as both Cincinnati and the New York Giants visit Ebbets Field in late September.

Back on the field, the Robins lose their series against St. Louis but at least salvage a victory in their final visit this season to Sportsman's Park.  Unlike yesterday Brooklyn stays a step ahead of the Cardinals with a 2-1 lead after three, trading runs in the sixth, then closing with two more runs in the seventh en route to a 5-2 final.  Bernie Neis getting a start in center field goes 2 for 5 with two runs batted in.  Hi Myers, Ed Konetchy and Pete Kilduff also drive in a run apiece.  Starter Jeff Pfeffer improves to 12-8 with a 2.90 ERA, after yielding two runs on seven hits and no walks with four strikeouts through a full nine.  Boston's extra-inning triumph over Cincinnati coupled with Brooklyn's victory once again gives the Robins a half-game lead over the Reds. 

Meanwhile, the New York Giants lose yet again at Forbes Field placing them two games out of first.  We know Wilbert Robinson and John McGraw are no longer the close friends they once were.  It seems the only things they have in common theses days are their respective issues playing Pittsburgh.

• RECORD: 70-55 (.560)
• 1st Place; 0.5 GA