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 Season Revisited
In their last season at Hilltop Park, the now formerly known New York Highlanders lose 102 games. Rebranded in 1913 as the Yankees, they move 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 proceed to lose another 94 games.
Known to hold a grudge, McGraw two full decades later still harbors much animosity not only towards Ban Johnson and his rebel circuit (unkept promises included) but more so towards the Yankees. As they were founded at the expense of his rendered defunct Baltimore Orioles.
As long as the Yankees paid their rent, the tenant/landlord relationship with the Giants remains 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 of 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 at the turnstile in a decade.
Then, in 1920, baseball's tectonic plates shifted along the New York/New England fault. 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. However, it was an accomplishment for which John McGraw had little appreciation. He believes players work too hard and earnestly 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 as 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 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 - if the preceding season 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 is becoming an insufferable condition—the Giants attempt to evict the Yankees before the 1921 season 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. Of course, I'll be exercising my creative license whenever and wherever ever possible. But, 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 #140
POLO GROUNDS
Browns Salvage Finale, Knock Yankees Back Into Second Place
Bob Shawkey puts forth a second consecutive troublesome start for the Yankees. After three scoreless innings, the Browns tally four times in the top of the fourth on a run-scoring single by Ken Williams and a bases-loaded clearing double by center fielder Baby Doll Jacobson. Browns' back-to-back twenty-game winner Urban Shocker makes it stand. Babe Ruth hits his 56th home run in the bottom half of the fourth, and Elmer Smith and Roger Peckinpaugh with consecutive doubles drive home two. But the Hugmen score no more. Urban Shocker allows three runs on seven hits and no walks with seven strikeouts for his 25th win against eleven losses with a 3.77 ERA. Shawkey is pulled after six, having surrendered six runs (five earned) on nine hits and no walks for the loss. Jack Quinn tosses two scoreless innings. But the Browns get the better of Tom Rogers in the ninth on George Sisler's grand slam home run as St. Louis salvages the series finale. The Yankees cede first place back to the Cleveland Indians, who shut out the Senators at Griffith Stadium.
- FINAL: STL 10; NYY 3
- RECORD: 88-52 (.629); second place, 0.5 GB of Cleveland
GAME #143
Forbes Field
Fred Toney Throws Two-Hitter; Crowd Throws Pop Bottles; McGrawmen Increase Lead Over Sinking Pirates
Fred Toney drapes Forbes Field with a curtain of silence by twirling 6.2 innings of no-hit baseball. In the much-anticipated final showdown between the National League's two top contenders, the home crowd of 25,000 gasps in dismay as the Giants strike against starter Earl Hamilton for five runs in the third, highlighted by extra-base hits from Dave Bancroft and Frankie Frisch, and two runs batted in by Fred Toney himself. From the mound, the Giants' right-hander limits the Pirates to just two late hits and two walks with five strikeouts over nine innings in what is easily Toney's finest performance this season. In the top of the eighth inning, the crowd's bewilderment turns to rage in disagreement over an out-call made the previous inning against a Pirate baserunner. Manager George Gibson lodges his on-field protestations to no avail. But the crowd activates like a hornet's nest. With the Giants coming to bat, one soda pop bottle comes flying out of the stands towards the first baseline, and in a blink of an eye, hundreds more follow, one striking umpire Barry McCormick on the wrist and another just missing his head. Police at Forbes Field ultimately settled matters. Going back to his last start at Brooklyn, Fred Toney has allowed no runs and just five hits over his last sixteen innings pitched. Fred Toney improves to 18-8 with a 3.59 ERA. Meanwhile, Pirates veteran Earl Hamilton does not make it out of the third. For the Giants, their ninth consecutive win, a new season-high. They are now 12-3 in September and 20-3 over their last 23 games. Since owning a 7.5 game advantage over the Giants on Aug. 23, the Pirates have gone 8-15 over the same stretch. The Giants now lead Pittsburgh by 3.5 games. After the game was over, more bottles found their way onto the field.
- FINAL: 5; PIT 0
- RECORD: 89-54 (.622); First Place, 3.5 GA of Pittsburgh
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