100 Years Ago Today 9/19/1920: Brooklyn Robins Maintain Five Game Lead Over New York Giants

From the desk of: FINGERPRINTS OF DEM BUMS

100th Anniversary

BROOKLYN ROBINS

1920 National League Champions

Game #147: Sunday, September 19, 1920 - BR
Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Brooklyn Robins
Ebbets Field 

Jeff Pfeffer Outlasts Wilbur Cooper

Gripped with pennant fever, 25,000 boisterous fans pack Ebbets Field for the first of two games against the Pirates.  Jeff Pfeffer toes the rubber against 23-game winner Wilbur Cooper.  Both teams trade a pair of runs in the first.  Pittsburgh gets runs batted in from Billy Southworth and Bill McKenchie and the Robins score on runs batted in from Zack Wheat and Hi Myers.  They trade tallies again in the sixth on a run batted in from George Cutshaw and a leadoff home run to deep left off the bat of Jimmy Johnston.  Pfeffer and Cooper trade goose eggs for the next two innings as the game enters the final frame tied at three.  Pfeffer pitches in and out of trouble in the top half of the frame.  In the home ninth Bernie Neis greets Wilbur Cooper with a leadoff double.  With Zack Wheat at the plate, Neis steals second base but the throw from catcher Walter Schmidt escapes into centerfield.  Bernie Neis comes around to score the winning run, and the place goes nuts.  Smith earns his sixteenth win of the season.  After starting the first three months of the season with a 3-8 record an 3.18 ERA, Pfeffer since July has posted a stellar 13-1 record with a lowered 3.04 earned run average.  Today he yields three runs on eight hits and no walks with three strikeouts through nine innings complete.  Elsewhere, the Giants defeat the Reds in eleven innings at the Polo Grounds.  Cincinnati now falls seven games out of first, while the Giants creep within five.  New York has twelve games remaining and Brooklyn has eight.

• RECORD:87-59 (.596)
• 1st Place; 5.0 GA

AMERICAN LEAGUE

• The Yankees lose their fourth straight.  Today they bow to the Browns at St. Louis to fall three games back of first place.  The White Sox, with their accused eight still in uniform, defeat the Athletics at Comiskey.  However, Cleveland whitewashes the Red Sox at League Park to remain 1.5 games in first.