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!
WORLD SERIES
POLO GROUNDS
The Tables Are Turned; Babe Ruth's Availability In Question
The Yankees just may have made a grave mistake, perhaps in more ways than one.
In a duel between eighteen-game winners, the third tilt pits Fred Toney for the Giants against Bob Shawkey for the visiting Yankees. But after two scoreless innings, neither starting pitcher makes it out of the third.
Wally Schang draws a leadoff walk, and Bob Shawkey's single positions runners at the corners. Elmer Miller slashes a hit to right field, scoring Schang, while Shawkey holds at second. Another walk to Roger Peckinpaugh loads the bases. Babe Ruth follows through with a base hit to center field, scoring both Shawkey and Miller. John McGraw can tolerate no more and promptly summons Jesse Barnes to the mound. With runners again at the corners, and Bob Meusel at the bat, Babe Ruth is thrown out attempting to steal second base - Frank Snyder to Johnny Rawlings. Of course, Meusel then walks. Wally Pipp follows with a sharp grounder to second, which Johnny Rawlings prevents from leaving the infield and secures the out at first as Peckinpaugh scores from third. Jesse Barnes then strikes out Aaron Ward to end the threat, but not before the Yankees deliver a seemingly crushing four-run blow, all charged to Fred Toney.
However, the Yankee lead is fleeting. Poised to take a veritable stranglehold in the series, the Hugmen fail to keep the Giants down, although Camp McGraw would say it was only a matter of time before they rise up.
After muddling through twenty scoreless innings, Jesse Barnes opens the home third with a single to left field. With one out, Dave Bancroft singles, and Frankie Frisch walks, loading the bases. Bob Shawkey issues another walk to Ross Youngs, forcing home the Giants' first run this series. Afterwhich, Shawkey walks his third consecutive batter, High Pockets Kelly, pushing across a second run, and like John McGraw, Yankee manager Miller Huggins can stand no more. Facing Jack Quinn in relief of Shawkey, Irish Meusel grounds to first base handled unassisted by Wally Pipp with Frankie Frisch scoring from third. Next up, Johnny Rawlings hits one through the left side scoring Ross Youngs to knot the game at four.
Both Quinn and Barnes pitch into and out of trouble in the fourth before settling in for two more scoreless innings through the sixth.
And then the bell tolls ...
All the Giants' shortcomings and fielding misplays, all of which they failed to achieve at the bat in games one and two, are reconciled in the home eighth.
Frankie Frisch leads things off with a single, Ross Youngs doubles to right, and High Pockets Kelly draws a walk to load the bases. Irish Meusel doubles, plating two, and Johnny Rawlings singles to center driving home two more. Miller Huggins dispatches Jack Quinn to the showers with haste. With Frank Snyder now facing Rip Collins, Johnny Rawlings is thrown out while attempting to steal second base - Wally Schang to Peckinpaugh. But the Giants reload the bases on consecutive base hits from Snyder, Jesse Barnes, and George Burns. Dave Bancroft's sacrifice flyball to left field scores Snyder. Rip Collins then walks Frankie Frisch to once again load the bases. Afterwhich, Ross Youngs sends all runners home with a triple to the deepest reaches of center field. Rip Collins joins Shawkey and Quinn on the scrap heap while right-hander Tom Rogers finally secures out number three. All told, the Giants erupt for eight earned runs on eight hits, with three going for extra bases for a commanding 12-4 lead.
Leading off the eighth, Babe Ruth draws his fifth walk of the series and gets replaced by pinch-runner Chick Fewster, who soon scores on Aaron Ward's two-out base hit. Leading off the home eighth, Irish Meusel singles to center, steals second base, and scores on Frank Snyder's hit to left field, giving the Giants a 13-5 final margin of victory.
No pitcher goes unscathed, but it's the Yankee hurlers who are left licking their wounds. Bob Shawkey allows four earned runs on five hits and four walks in only 2.1 innings pitched. Jack Quinn suffers the loss after yielding four runs on eight hits and two walks in 3.2 innings of work. Rip Collins likewise gets his offerings hit to all corners of the field for another four runs on four hits and one walk, in only 0.2 innings. Tom Rogers rounds out the list of casualties, surrendering one run on three hits over the final 1.1 innings of the game.
Pitching in relief of Fred Toney, right-hander Jesse Barnes plays a lead role in turning the Giants' fortunes, yielding a lone run on just four hits and two walks over the final seven innings with seven strikeouts against a game-high 25 batters faced.
George Burns goes 4 for 6, and Frank Snyder 4 for 5, as the restless Giants wield twenty hits against Yankee pitchers. Ross Youngs drives home four runs, while Irish Meusel and Johnny Rawlings plate three apiece. Frankie Frisch is now 7 for 10 with a triple, three walks, three runs scored, and two stolen bases through three games.
Now we hear that Babe Ruth is playing with a wounded left elbow, injured during the last regular-season series against Cleveland. Through three World Series games, Ruth is 2 for 7, with no extra-base hits, five walks, four strikeouts, and three runs batted in, hardly the slugging anticipated by Miller Huggins and fans. The Babe's next start is now in doubt.
Should this be the case, the Yankees diminutive skipper needs to be held accountable. Huggins knowingly played Ruth down the stretch through a bothersome leg, then a wrist injury, without so much as a day off. Lest we forget, Ruth closed out September in his hotel room battling a case of the flu. However, if Ruth indeed injured his left arm in that late September series with Cleveland, why on earth did Miller Huggins let Babe Ruth pitch and face 24 batters in an inconsequential October 1 game against the Athletics?
