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 CALLED: WET GROUNDS
Next Game: Thursday, September 22, 1921
POLO GROUNDS
GAME #147
Cubs Field
John McGraw Manvuevers Tenacious Giants to Win Over Cubs; Depart Chicago With Four Game Lead Over Pittsburgh
Nothing has come easy for these Giants. They've scratched and clawed through 146 previous games and this day proved no different. The McGrawmen's dogged tenacity and determination were on full display again this afternoon before a sparse crowd of 4,000 at old Weeghman Park. Credit is due to Chicago for their gamesmanship and respect for the game with little else to play for. For John McGraw pushed every button, pulled every lever, and Cubs' interim manager Billy Killefer matched him move for move.
Facing Chicago right-hander Speed Martin, the Giants strike for single runs in the first and second innings, then tally a pair in the third, knocking Speed Martin out of the box. Reliever Buck Freeman allows one run in the fifth on four hits through the sixth inning. Gotham starter Art Nehf surrenders single runs in the second and third innings. But when Nehf yields a run on four hits, three consecutively in the fifth, Mister McGraw summons to the mound Phil Douglas who ends the threat and preserves what is now a 5-3 New York lead. Douglas, like Buck Freeman, then hurls a scoreless sixth.
Chicago's Percy Jones pitches a scoreless top half of the seventh.
Phil Douglas surrenders a one-out hit at the bottom of the frame and walks a pair to load the bases. Bob O'Farrell then singles home two runs, and Percy Jones singles home two more for a 7-5 Cubs' lead. Mister McGraw replaces Douglas with Red Shea, who secures the third out.
Percy Jones pitches himself into similar trouble in the eighth, surrendering a run on two hits, a wild pitch, and a walk. Afterwhich, he is relieved by Elmer Ponder, against which the Giants score three more runs before the frame is through.
John McGraw then brings in Fred Toney, who throws a scoreless eighth and ninth inning to preserve New York's hard-fought 9-7 triumph. Red Shea earns the victory after recording one out in the seventh. The Giants support their moundsmen with three double-plays and
McGraw's men batted 7 for 13 with runners in scoring position. George Burns goes 2 for 5 with three runs batted in, mirrored by High Pocket Kelly's 2 for 5 with three runs batted in, giving him 131 for the season. Ross Youngs leads with three hits and one run batted in, while Johnny Rawlings and Earl Smith drive a run apiece.
The Giants salvage a two-game split with Chicago while improving to 13-6 in September. Meanwhile, not too far away at Forbes Field, the Brooklyn Robins shut out the Pirates. The Giants' lead is now four, perhaps too complex for Pittsburgh to overcome.
- FINAL: NYG 9; CHI 7
- RECORD: 91-56 (.619); First Place, 4.0 GA of Pittsburgh
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