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 #142
POLO GROUNDS
The Hugmen Suffer Late Round Knockout; Cleveland Moves Back Into First
Back into second place, they go. With the Yankees leading 4-0 after three, a Monday crowd of 12,000 is left jaw-dropped when the Tigers pounce all over starter Carl Mays, then Bob Shawkey, and then Waite Hoyt in an eighth-inning eight-run debacle. Phil Douglas yields another two-run single in the ninth. The Yankees managed single runs in the eighth and ninth for naught. Detroit left fielder Bobby Veach and first baseman Lu Blue join together for eight hits and four runs batted in, while manager Ty Cobb
and right fielder Harry Heilmann join for six hits. The idle Cleveland Indians move back into first place by one half-game ahead of the Yankees.
- FINAL: DET 10; NYY 6
- RECORD: 89-53 (.627); second place, 0.5 GB of Cleveland
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GAME #145
Forbes Field
The Everlong Crafty Babe Adams Hurls a Gem; Bucs Salvage Series Finale
The wily lifelong corsair and two-time twenty-game winner Babe Adams salvages the series finale for Pittsburgh near single-handed. A first-inning error by second baseman George Cutshaw clears the way for Frankie Frisch to score the game's opening run. But the Giants do not score again. Babe Adams holds the McGrawmen scoreless on just four more hits and no walks over the final eight innings for the win. Babe Adams also leads off the sixth inning with a triple and scores the tying run. Starter Phil Douglas pitches well, just not well enough, allowing two runs (one earned) on just four hits and three walks through seven innings for the loss. Nevertheless, the Giants depart Pittsburgh with a 3.5 game lead over the Pirates with only nine games left to play.
- FINAL: NYG 1; PITT 2
- RECORD: 90-55 (.621); First Place, 3.5 GA of Pittsburgh
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