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 #141
POLO GROUNDS
Waite Hoyt Outlasts Detroit's Dutch Leonard; Yanks Reforge First Place Tie With Cleveland
The American League is effectively up for grabs. With the Yankees series-opening win against the Tigers and Cleveland's loss at Griffith Stadium, the two teams are again tied for first place, albeit fractionally in favor of the Hugmen. Detroit's veteran southpaw Dutch Leonard duels Waite Hoyt to a one-all tie through the fifth inning. In the home sixth, third baseman Mike McNally homers off Leonard giving the Yankees a 2-1 lead. Dutch Leonard is dispatched to the showers on the losing side after six, allowing two runs on nine hits and two walks through six innings. Still facing Waite Hoyt in the eighth, first baseman Lu Blue singles home Ty Cobb tying things at two. But the Yankees rally for a pair of runs in the bottom of the frame on runs batted in from Wally Schang and Waite Hoyt himself. Hoyt then retires the Tigers in the ninth to seal the victory. The Erasmus High School product limits Detroit to two runs on a dozen hits and no walks for his 17th win against 13 losses with a 3.06 ERA. All four runs are driven in by the bottom third of the lineup, McNally, Schang, and Hoyt. Babe Ruth goes 2 for 4 with a triple, lifting his batting average to a .383 mark.
- FINAL: DET; 2; NYY 4
- RECORD: 89-52 (.631); First Place, tied with Cleveland
NOT SCHEDULED
Next Game: Monday, September 19, 1921
FORBES FIELD
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