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 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 previous 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 #147
POLO GROUNDS
Yankees Score Season-High Twenty-One Runs; Seize First Place
Forty-thousand fans aren't supposed to fit into the Polo Grounds, but they did. What they saw far exceeded anyone's imagination, maybe even those of Miller Huggins, who spent the better part of Summer seething over getting three-hit on July 23, at Cleveland. Since 1918, the Yankees have improved under his stewardship from one season to the next. They're now within two wins of surpassing last season's total and three away from resetting the franchise record. But in truth, that is mere window dressing that failed to insulate the Yankee's lockerroom from rising temperatures and wavering loyalties throughout the dog days. Players had no qualms openly discussing with local scribes their displeasure with Miller Huggins' managerial style. It nearly cost him his job were it not for the restraint of Col. Ruppert. He has since improved his bullpen application, and by all measures of surveyance, the team finally appears settled upon a solid foundation. What the Yankees failed to achieve back in July and through yesterday's game, they more than made up for on this uproarious Sunday afternoon below Coogan's Bluff. After an innocuous first inning, the Hugmen land two stiff jabs in the second and third innings, then connected on a straight right in the fourth inning Cleveland never saw coming. The umpire is still counting. Pundits aren't expecting Cleveland to recover from such a heavy blow. Indians' manager Tris Speaker could do little else but watch as the Yankees pushed across twenty-one runs on twenty hits, with six going for extra bases. The Yankees knock starter Ray Caldwell out of the box with five runs before the second inning is through. Left-hander Duster Mails is inserted into sacrificial lamb duty, allowing ten runs on nine hits and four walks over 2.2 innings pitched. Right-hander Bob Clark fares no better, yielding six earned runs on six hits and three walks over the final four innings. Cleveland's seven runs on 13 hits will go overlooked; New York's season-high 21-runs will not. Carl Mays improves to 26-9 with a 3.07 ERA. He is the first pitcher this season to surpass 25 wins. Bob Meusel goes 3 for 6 with a double, home run, and five RBI giving him 137 this season, and Wally Pipp drives home two giving him 101 runs batted in. Elmer Miller goes 2 for 5 with a triple and four RBI, and Carl Mays aides his cause with three hits, three runs batted in, and two runs scored. Revel, briefly, for the Highlander lead is only one. The series resumes Monday afternoon.
- FINAL: CLE 7; NYY 21
- RECORD: 93-54 (.633); First Place, 1.0 GA of Cleveland
⚾
GAME #149
Sportsman's Park
Phil Douglas Career-High 15th Win Pokes Pirates Onto The Plank
Who misses Dave Robertson now? John McGraw correctly speculated the value in trading baseball's former two-time home run champ to the Cubs. Traded again in July to the Pirates, Robertson would love nothing more than to see the Giants fail, if for no other reason than a trip to the World Series, of course. He's presently batting .305, but only through 77 games played, hardly a fit in Mister McGraw's outfield, not with Irish Meusel - another example of McGraw's masterful maneuverings. In return for Dave Robertson, right-hander Phil Douglas has done nothing less but prove his worth. He owned a 59-76 career record before his acquisition. Phil Douglas is now 31-24 as a New York Giant. Today, he wins his career-best fifteenth game of the season. The Giants stake Phil to a 3-0 lead in the first, and Douglas makes it stand, holding the St. Louis Cardinals to just a pair of runs on ten hits and four walks with four strikeouts through nine. Above and beyond personal achievement, Douglas gets the Giants back on track towards the pennant. Right fielder Ross Youngs drives in his 100th run this season, while left fielder Irish Meusel goes 4 for 5 with two doubles and four runs batted in - that makes eight hits for Meusel in his last two games. With the loss, St. Louis is eliminated from the pennant chase. Meanwhile, Dave Robertson and idle Pittsburgh Pirates can only cringe as the Giants take a full three-game lead with very near too few games to go.
- FINAL: NYG 5; STL 2
- RECORD: 92-57 (.617); First Place, 3.0 GA of Pittsburgh
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