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 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—the Giants attempt to evict the Yankees in 1921 to no avail. But a solution lies not too far away ...
Until then, 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!
GAME #17
POLO GROUNDS
The Art Of Managing As Demonstrated by Mister McGraw; Giants Turn Away Brooklyn In Series Opener
The defending National League champions from Brooklyn arrive for their first visit this season to the Polo Grounds. They bring an eleven-game consecutive win streak with them, including four in a row against the Giants back in April at Ebbets Field.
One of Wilbert Robinson's very few off-season reinforcements, Dutch Ruether toes the slab for a third straight start against the Giants and is opposed by Mister McGraw's little experienced right-hander Rosy Ryan. After trading zeroes through the fourth, Brooklyn strikes. Center fielder Hi Myers singles leading off the fifth, advances to second, and scores on Dutch Ruether's base hit to left field. Then with two outs and runners on the corners, Brooklyn successfully executes a double steal; Ivy Olson breaks for second drawing a throw while Dutch Ruether swipes home, giving the Robins a 2-0 lead.
Two more scoreless innings go by until John McGraw takes over. He replaces Rosy Ryan with Art Nehf, who pitches a scoreless top half of the eighth. Meanwhile, Uncle Robbie sends Ruether out for the bottom half of the eighth. At McGraw's insistence, the Giants strike back. Lee King laces a lead-off double, and Goldie Rapp reaches on an infield hit. With one out and both runners in scoring position, McGraw pinch-hits Alex Gaston for Nehf, who promptly triples into the right/center field gap tying the game at two. McGraw then replaces Gaston with pinch-runner John Monroe, who scores the go-ahead run on George Burns' hit back through the box that hits Dutch Ruether but cannot assist for a putout. After which, Jesse Barnes obliges Mister McGraw by closing out the ninth. No twelfth consecutive victory for the Robins, not in Little Napoleon's empire.
- FINAL: BKN 2; NYG 3
- RECORD: 11-6 (.647); third place, 2.5 GB of Pittsburgh
GAME CALLED: Rain
Wednesday, May 4, 1921
Griffith Stadium
This marks the seventh game this season for the Yankees compromised by rain. Meanwhile, the King of Clout remains stuck at six home runs.
Babe Ruth entered the season with 103 career round-trippers, giving him a total of 109 to date. Roger Conner, the former 19th century Troy Trojans/New York Giants great, holds the major league record with 138 home runs over an 18-year National League career. Lest we forget, just three years ago, while a member of the Red Sox, Ruth led the American League with eleven home runs. A year later, he shatters Philadelphia A's Socks Seybold's 16-year old single-season American League record of 16 home runs. Later that same season he ties and surpasses by one the all-time record of 28 home runs set in 1894 by Chicago White Stockings third baseman Ned Williamson. Then, of course, last season Ruth accomplishes the once-unimaginable, breaking his own record, and resetting it at an incredible 54 home runs in one season - no player before had ever before hit 50 home runs.
The man is hitting more home runs than whole teams! Fans of both circuits are still struggling to comprehend the historical events unfolding before them. In Ruthian terms, he is a mere 29 home runs away from tying Roger Connor with upwards of 140 regular-season games left to play. If last season is any indication, the home run record once again rides a pale horse.
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