From the desk: WHEN THE POLO GROUNDS WAS THE WORLD
100 Years Ago Today at the Polo Grounds:
New York Giants & New York Yankees
1921 Seasons Revisited
In their last season at Hilltop Park, the now formerly known New York Highlanders lost 102 games. Rebranded as the Yankees, in 1913, they moved just a few blocks away into the Polo Grounds as tenants of the Senior Circuit's New York Giants. To the chagrin of Giants manager John McGraw, the Americans proceeded to lose another 94 games.
Known to hold a grudge, McGraw, two full decades later, still harbored much animosity not only towards Ban Johnson and his rebel circuit (unkept promises included) but more so towards the Yankees themselves who were founded at the expense of his rendered defunct Baltimore Orioles.
For as long as the Yankees paid their rent, the tenant/landlord relationship with the Giants remained amicably strained. Mainly because the middling Americans, except for one season in 1916, never elevated themselves above the ranks of Junior Circuit also-rans. But that changed in 1919 when they briefly vied for the pennant but tuckered out down the stretch to finish third. A franchise-record 619,164 fans showed up to root for the American League contenders. However, the Yankees' burgeoning success was not yet a pressing issue, per se, for the Giants, who were coming off a second-place finish and their best season in a decade at the turnstile.
Then, in 1920, baseball's tectonic plates along the New York/New England fault shift. The Yankees' purchase of George Herman "Babe" Ruth from the Boston Red Sox sends seismic waves reverberating throughout the baseball world but none more intense than in Washington Heights. Ruth's earth-shattering record of 54 home runs was something never experienced before in the history of baseball but an accomplishment for which John McGraw has little appreciation as one who believes players work too hard and earnestly only to have their skills disrespected by some miscreant's lone swing of the bat.
Gotham's citizenry never before descended from Coogan's Bluff in such quantity and spectacle than in 1920 as the Giants would set a franchise record with 929,609 reported attendance. However, the New York Nationals faced an economic dilemma of Ruthian proportions. McGraw's disdain for his tenants was further heightened when the Yankees outdrew the host Giants in their own home for the first time in each franchise's history. Headlined by Babe Ruth, the Yankees seized the city's attention, evidenced by an all-time major league record of 1,289,422 in attendance.
In 1921, over two million fans would again pack the Polo Grounds. Babe Ruth would continue forward, accomplishing the unimaginable, and if that wasn't surreal enough, he proceeds to top it. All the while, with each passing day, John McGraw grows more incensed. Lest we forget, New York City is still Little Napoleon's empire.
Sharing a ballpark for both teams is becoming an insufferable condition. A solution lies not too far away ...
In the meantime, two major league titans charge headlong into a season-ending October clash at the Polo Grounds. It is New York City's first-ever World's Championship Subway Series. All games are played at the Polo Grounds, making Coogan's Bluff the center of the baseball universe.
This is my replay of that season. I'll be exercising my creative license whenever and wherever ever possible. More than anything, this is about having fun and celebrating New York City's baseball history.
- Stats: BASEBALL REFERENCE
Enjoy the games ... PLAY BALL!
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GAME #12
Washington Senators @ NEW YORK YANKEES
POLO GROUNDS
Motivated Yankees Salvage Series Finale Against Senators
Gharrity and Ruth Exchange Pleasantries and Almost Come to Blows
Jacob Ruppert Jr. is seldom heard from. But he is said to have conveyed good wishes and regards to second-year owner Clark Griffith upon the Washington Senators' departure from New York. Before Thursday's game, the Colonel is also believed to have slipped underneath the Yankee clubhouse door several poignant words of wisdom directed at the players. Mr. Ruppert's partner Tillinghast Huston is a known detractor of Miller Huggins. So, this was interpreted as a veiled threat at their fourth-year skipper. The team responds by salvaging the series finale in front of a contented 15,000 fans.
Despite an early flurry of activity, the Yankees come away with a 5-4 lead after two. Shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh's error in the top of the first clears the way for three unearned Senators' runs, including Sam Rice's steal of home. Wally Pipp drives in Chick Fewster in the bottom half of the frame. In the second, right fielder Clyde Milan's two-out double drives home catcher Patsy Gharrity with the Senators' fourth run. But the Yankees storm back with four runs on five hits against Washington starter Tom Zachary. Starter Bill Piercy helps himself with a run batted in, followed by a pair of runs driven in from Peckinpaugh and one other from Babe Ruth.
After which, starter Bill Piercy effectively settles into a rhythm, whereas Yankees batters continue offering Washington pitchers no quarter. Peckinpaugh drives in a run in the fourth, and Bill Piercy drives in his second of the game in the fifth. Washington generates a run on three hits in the eighth against Piercy but do for themselves no favors in the bottom half of the eighth when third baseman Howie Shanks fields Aaron Ward's grounder but throws wildly to first, allowing two more Yankee base runners to score. Bill Piercy strikes out the first two batters faced in the ninth, then sets down Sam Rice to end the game.
Piercy gives his skipper little to fret, allowing just two earned runs on ten hits and two walks with four strikeouts in a complete-game effort. He improves to 2-1 with a 1.73 ERA through his first three starts, and 26.0 innings pitched. The victory snaps New York's five-game losing streak and elevates them back to par. The Yankees now head north for their first season visit to Boston.
- FINAL: WAS 5; NYY 9
- RECORD: 6-6 (.500); fourth place, 3 GB of Cleveland
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GAME #12
Ebbets Field
Brooklyn Robins Take Over Second Place at the Expense of Giants
Imported from Cincinnati, southpaw Dutch Reuther demonstrates to Uncle Robbie his worth. Making his third start and second straight against the visiting New Yorkers, Reuther limits the Giants to one run on seven hits and one walk with a pair of strikeouts for his second win of the season against one loss. His counterpart, inexperienced right-hander Rosy Ryan yields two earned runs on just four hits and two walks through seven gamely innings, albeit in a hard-luck loss.
It's the Giants who open the scoring in the second when High Pockets Kelly lashes a one-out triple to left field and scores on a fielder's choice. The tide remains unchanged through the sixth. Third baseman Jimmy Johnston then leads off the seventh with a triple to straightaway center and touches home on Tommy Griffith's ensuing hit to left. With one out, big Ed Konetchy drives in Griffith for a 2-1 Robins lead and their final margin of victory. That makes four straight for Brooklyn and a sweep of the New York Giants at Ebbets Field, where the 1920 National League pennant waves snappingly in the stiff April breeze. Brooklyn leapfrogs into second place, two full games ahead of the Giants and 1.5 games behind the Pirates.
Yankees partner Tillinghast Huston years back wanted Wilbert Robinson as manager of the Yankees, not Huggins. Robinson, John McGraw's former confidante, has since guided the Brooks to a pair of National League pennants. The Giants return to the Polo Grounds tomorrow, where they'll host the Boston Braves.
- FINAL: NYG 1; BKN 2
- RECORD: 6-6 (.500); fourth place, 3.5 GB of Pittsburgh
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