October 17, 1920: American Giants barely avoid no-hitter and win ‘Little World Series’

One of the doubleheader’s several previews in the New York Tribune said the games were part of the “Little World Series.” Interestingly, the two paragraphs did not mention the race of Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants and the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, much less note that the Chicago club was the champion of the Negro National League in that circuit’s first season of existence.

In fact, the Tribune implied that the series was to determine the nation’s “semi-pro” championship. A New York Times Evening Telegram preview of the prior Sunday’s doubleheader between the two teams at the same park stated explicitly, while also omitting any mention of race, “The world series in point will be for the semiprofessional title of the United States. …”

Conversely, the Brooklyn Daily Times, for one, did characterize the doubleheader correctly: “The games are advertised for the championship of the colored teams of the country.”1 Regardless of the extent to which the Tribune and Telegram sports departments misunderstood the significance of the games, the players involved might have welcomed the free publicity.

Less than a week earlier, Brooklyn had been abuzz with baseball fever. Alas, on October 12, their Brooklyn Robins (later the Dodgers) had lost the World Series to the Cleveland Indians, five games to two. The most recent game of that series at Ebbets Field had been played on October 7. Though the offseason had begun, baseball remained big news, including in Brooklyn because of the Robins’ owner, Charles Ebbets.

On the day of this doubleheader between the American Giants and the Bacharachs, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle announced on its front page that Ebbets had been asked by Assistant State’s Attorney Hartley L. Replogle of Cook County, Illinois, to appear before a grand jury that was investigating corruption in the major leagues.2 The focus was the infamous 1919 World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago White Sox.

Beginning on August 7, the two teams played six games in Chicago, and the American Giants won four from the visitors.3 The Bacharach Giants never appeared in the NNL’s standings but the club had affiliated with the league in May and was considered an “associate member.”4 The Bacharach Giants had the second-best winning percentage among the East’s major independent teams, finishing behind the Brooklyn Royal Giants. Brooklyn’s record of 13-7-2 equaled a winning percentage of .650 while the Bacharachs’ record of 22-16-2 yielded a winning percentage of .579.5 Apparently, however, the Bacharachs and the Royal Giants did not play each other during the 1920 season.6

Just before the Bacharach Giants began the series with their Chicago counterparts, they had defeated Babe Ruth’s All-Stars at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, home of the AL’s Athletics, on October 4 by a score of 9-4. In addition to Ruth, who started at first base but later pitched, among the four other major leaguers on the All-Stars was starting pitcher Carl Mays.7 On October 4 the American Giants finished a postseason tour of Southern cities by splitting a doubleheader with the Atlanta Black Crackers. The American Giants had played their last regular-season game not quite three weeks into September and had clinched the pennant comfortably long before then.8

The entire series between Atlantic City and Chicago received much more advance publicity than reporting of outcomes. Sometimes newspapers were inconsistent about the number of games to be played in their city, and it remains unknown whether certain announced games were actually played, such as one scheduled to take place in Wilmington, Delaware.9 Similarly, as the series progressed, papers did not always agree on how many games had been played already.10 Nevertheless, sufficient evidence exists that the first game of the series took place on October 6 in Shibe Park, and by the time of the doubleheader the series was tied (possibly with three wins each).11

A Sunday, October 10, doubleheader had drawn “some 12,000 enthusiasts,” according to the Brooklyn Daily Times. For the October 17 doubleheader rematch, the Chicago Defender gave the attendance as 14,000. In stark contrast, the bottom of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s first box score reported the attendance at just 3,000, while the end of its second box score put that figure even lower, at 2,000.12 In part because the weather was so pleasant on October 17, a turnout of 14,000 seems much more likely than just 3,000.

Most of this twin bill’s previews did not mention the first game’s starting time, but on the day before, the Brooklyn Daily Times had specified 2:00 P.M. As far as is known, none of the previews said anything about the price of tickets, not even the large ad in the New York Age (a prominent African American weekly) that had promoted the prior Sunday’s doubleheader between the same two teams.13 The temperature on the 17th peaked at 4:30 (likely just after the first game concluded), when thermometers reached 68 degrees.14 There was a pair of umpires for the doubleheader a week earlier, apparently a duo with whom the Bacharach Giants were familiar, but the twin bill on October 17 was called by just one ump, named Jones.15 Whoever he was, that’s the authority figure who presumably got the game going by yelling, “Play ball!”

In many ways, the teams were evenly matched. Each lineup was missing only one of its regular-season members. For Chicago, 21-year-old Frank Warfield was at shortstop instead of Bobby Williams. For Atlantic City, 27-year-old George Shively patrolled left field and frequent center fielder Lico Mederos was absent. The teams had the same average age, 27, and almost all of the players spent more than a decade with top African American clubs of that era. One difference was time spent with their respective teams. All the American Giants except Warfield played multiple years with that club, while only shortstop Dick Lundy spent a tenure of any great length with the Bacharachs; he played off and on for the team from 1916 to 1927.16

The American Giants batted first against Atlantic City’s player-manager, Dick “Cannonball” Redding. He had an uneventful first inning, and then Chicago’s pitcher took the hill. He was listed as “Johnston” in two box scores the next day but as “Johnson” in the Times; thus, he was presumably Tom Johnson, whose record for Chicago was 11-0 in 1920.

Johnson likewise faced no threat in his first inning of work, and he ultimately pitched a complete game in which he scattered five singles. Only George Shively managed two hits off Johnson. One of the Bacharachs reached on an error, and the box scores disagreed on whether Johnson walked three or two hitters. However, the Bacharachs left only two runners on base during the entire game, due in part to three double plays behind Johnson.17

Redding, who also pitched the entire contest, fared better overall across the first eight innings. He helped his own cause considerably by striking out seven American Giants (while Johnson fanned nobody). Offsetting those strikeouts to an extent were four walks and a hit batsman. Redding did not benefit from any double plays, but the fielding behind him drew considerable the praise from one Brooklyn daily: “Left fielder Shively roamed all over the outfield and pulled down several flies that were labelled for extra bases,” the Times enthused. The paper also heaped praise on teammate Oliver Marcell:

“Third sacker Marcelles [sic] was particularly brilliant. He cut off at least three safeties by making great stops and catches of difficult chances. One catch, while lying flat on his stomach, was the fielding feature. With two out in the seventh Catcher Brown, of the Westerners, hit a liner toward third that did not rise more than a foot from the ground. Marcelles fell flat, and with a desperate effort, grabbed the scorcher with his gloved hand.”18

Such stellar defensive play helped to keep Chicago off the scoreboard, but Johnson was also hurling a shutout. The American Giants failed to mount a threat against Redding in the top of the eighth inning, and the game had become a “thriller,” as the Brooklyn Citizen commented, because he took a no-hitter into the ninth.

The Times provided details of that dramatic inning, though something in its account fails to add up after looking at the three box scores. “Redding disposed of the first two batters in this frame on easy chances, but then momentarily lost control, passing Demoss [sic] after he had two strikes on him,” the Times wrote. Therefore, not only was Redding merely one out from nine complete innings of no-hit pitching, but he was also one strike away. However, there may have been only one out before Bingo DeMoss walked.

In any case, future Hall of Famer Cristóbal Torriente batted next against Redding. “Torriende [sic] shattered his no-hit dreams by slashing safely through the box,” the Times continued. “Dickson [sic] was here inserted as a pinch hitter and made good by bouncing the ball off the right field wall for three bases, chasing both the men on the bases home.”19

The complicating factor is that the trio of box scores all agree that Warfield was in the batting order right behind Torriente, yet George Dixon, a catcher, batted for starting catcher Jim Brown (who had lined out so powerfully to Marcell to end the seventh inning). The box scores also agree that Dixon remained in the game to catch the bottom of the ninth inning for Johnson.

If Dixon batted for the newcomer Warfield rather than Brown, then the box scores all omitted Warfield’s replacement at shortstop (who would have been inserted in Brown’s spot in the batting order). On the other hand, the two box scores that recorded at-bats implied that Brown did indeed bat in the ninth inning as well (in which case he very likely made the third out).20

If Brown did not bat right after Dixon’s triple because he was removed, then Warfield must have made the second out – which would mean DeMoss walked after the first out rather than after two men were out.

Whatever the correct personnel and batting order may have been, the American Giants suddenly had a two-run lead. There is no indication that the Bacharachs managed any sort of rally in the bottom half of the frame, and Johnson had a shutout. If the American Giants could claim a second victory that afternoon, they would claim the crown in this “World Series.”

Therefore, the second game started after 4:00.21 Box scores show that, other than using different starting pitchers, the two teams used lineups that were almost identical to those of the first game. The lone exception was that the pinch-hitting hero of the first game, George Dixon, was behind the plate for Chicago rather than sitting on the bench and hoping to enter as a substitute.22 The two starting pitchers for the second game were 22-year-old Red Ryan for the Bacharachs and 23-year-old Tom Williams for the American Giants, each of whom was eight years younger than his respective first-game counterpart.23

Once again, the American Giants played the role of the visiting team and batted first. Box scores in three Brooklyn dailies agree that there was no scoring in the first three innings. In the top of the fourth inning, Chicago played what today is often called “small ball,” which was wise given how many scoreless innings the two teams had already played that afternoon. Bingo DeMoss led off the fourth with a walk – the only free pass issued by either moundsman – and stole second while Torriente followed at bat. DeMoss went to third as Torriente made an infield out. That brought up Frank Warfield with one out, and the newcomer lifted a fly to left field on which DeMoss scored.24

DeMoss also hit a triple in either the first or sixth inning, but Chicago had only one other hit in the second game, a single by Warfield. The Bacharachs had but one extra-base hit among their four safeties, a double by Bill Handy. Ryan tried to help his own cause on offense with one of his team’s few hits and the game’s only other stolen base, but his efforts went for naught. Redding, his manager, batted for him in the bottom of the game’s sixth and final inning.25

Each pitcher struck out six opponents, and as additional evidence of just how closely matched the teams were that afternoon, the game ended with Chicago winning, 1-0. There was disagreement among three box scores about the number of innings the two teams actually played. The Citizen’s line score showed nine innings and stated that “Redding batted for Redding [sic; Ryan] in the ninth.” The Eagle’s box score similarly noted that Redding pinch-hit “for Ryan in 9th inning,” yet its line score beneath that note showed only six innings. The Times also printed a six-inning line score.

The two box scores that reported the duration of the game agreed that it took one hour to complete. Additionally, those two box scores showed Chicago with 19 at-bats and Atlantic City with 21, totals befitting a six-inning game and not one lasting a full nine.26

Though the Times had the most detailed coverage of the doubleheader after the fact, it fell to a Brooklyn newspaper to indicate the significance of the outcome. “The American Giants have won five of the eight games played between the teams,” the Citizen noted.27 Still, in their coverage none of the three papers connected the games to a championship of any sort as had been done beforehand.

Nevertheless, by sweeping this doubleheader, Rube Foster capped an incredibly important and successful year, which began with the launch of a successful league, included winning that circuit’s first pennant the previous month, and ended with the conquest of the Bacharachs in the East.

Sources

The Seamheads.com Negro Leagues Database was consulted for all statistics.

Notes

1 “‘Little World Series’ Set for Ebbets Field,” New York Tribune, October 13, 1920: 14. “Championship at Stake in Ebbets Field Games,” New York Evening Telegram, October 9, 1920: 6. “Redding and Ryan Pitchers for the Bacharach Giants,” Brooklyn Daily Times, October 15, 1920: 14. Interestingly, the Tribune’s announcement originated in Lexington, Kentucky, and not Chicago or Atlantic City.

2 “Ebbets and Frazee Invited to Appear Before Grand Jury,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 17, 1920: 1.

3 “Rube’s Giants Lose to Stars,” Gary (Indiana) Evening Post, August 9, 1920: 3. “American Giants Leading League,” Freeman (Indianapolis), September 4, 1920: 7.

4 “Seen and Heard,” New York Age, May 22, 1920: 7. Center for Negro League Baseball Research, “Formation of the Negro National League, http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/FL/Formation%20of%20Negro%20National%20League.pdf.

5 For the records of NNL and Eastern independent teams in 1920, see https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/year.php?yearID=1920. See also Center for Negro League Baseball Research, “‘Colored Championship’ Series,” http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/RL/Colored%20Championship%20Series%20(1920-1931).pdf.Though the Hilldale club of Philadelphia was a distant third among top Eastern teams with a record of 9-9-2, it played Brooklyn in a four-game series during the first half of October to name the “Colored Champion of the East” for 1920. “It is important not to confuse a ‘Colored Championship’ with a Negro League World Series Champion,” the Center for Negro League Baseball Research cautioned. “Many if not most ‘Colored Championship’ series were played between two self-appointed teams, while the Negro League World Series was played [between] the champions from two different formalized leagues.” (The Center for Negro League Baseball Research said Hilldale won the final game and thus the series, contrary to “Series Ends in Tie,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 16, 1920: 14.) The overlapping series between Chicago and Atlantic City was much more similar to the first official Negro League World Series in 1924.

6 See daily reports for the Bacharach Giants compiled by Peter W. Gorton at http://negroleagues.bravehost.com/aaj.html, where there are also links to the same for many other 1920 clubs.

7 “Babe Ruth’s Nine Beaten by Bacharach Giants,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 5, 1920: 18. Besides Ruth and Mays, the others identified by the Inquirer as major leaguers were center fielder Wally Schang, right fielder Lefty O’Doul, and a catcher named Hoffman, but the latter surname doesn’t obviously correspond to any contemporary minor-league catcher of some accomplishment, much less any major leaguer around then.

8 “Black Crackers and American Giants Divide,” Atlanta Constitution, October 5, 1920: 12. Dave Wyatt, “Foster Team Ends Chicago Season,” Chicago Whip, September 25, 1920: 5.

9 “Colored Championship,” Wilmington (Delaware) Evening Journal, October 9, 1920: 5. “Bacharach Giants and Americans Clash Today,” Wilmington Morning News, October 11, 1920: 12.

10 Each team won two games in Philadelphia, according to “American Giants Play Bacharachs Today,” New York Evening Telegram, October 10, 1920: 8. However, coverage has been found for only three games. Through October 13, the clubs had met reportedly met nine times and each won four, according to “Chicargo [sic] Shuts Out Bacharachs,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 15, 1929: 7. Yet when this October 17 doubleheader was previewed, each team reportedly had won only three games, according to “Colored Teams Contest for the Championship,” Brooklyn Daily Times, October 16, 1920: 8.

11 “Game at Shibe Park,” Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, October 6, 1920: 21. On the previous page was an ad for the game, promoting the “World’s Col. Championship.” Agreeing with the Brooklyn Daily Times that the series was tied at three wins each by the October 17 doubleheader was “Foster’s Semi-Pro Nine Meets Bacharachs Today,” New York Tribune, October 17, 1920: 22. See also Bill Nowlin, “1920 Chicago American Giants Timeline,” elsewhere in this publication. It’s possible a game was played that month which the teams agreed would not “count” and was merely an exhibition. That was true of the nightcap following the third game of the 1942 Negro League World Series, according to “Monarchs Trounce Grays for 3-0 Edge in Series,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 15, 1942: 19.

12 “Bacharachs Win Double Header,” Brooklyn Daily Times, October 11, 1920: 8. “Rube Defeats Bacharachs Twice,” Chicago Defender, October 23, 1920: 6. “Bacharachs Beaten Twice by Chicago Giants,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 18, 1920: section 2, 2.

13 “Colored Teams Contest for the Championship,” Brooklyn Daily Times, October 16, 1920: 8. See also the ad in the New York Age, October 9, 1920: 6. In addition to the first doubleheader at Ebbets Field on Sunday the 10th, this ad promoted two other games as well, both in nearby Harrison, New Jersey, at 3:30. The same two teams played there on the 9th, while on the 11th the Bacharach Giants were to play “John J. McGraw’s N.Y. Giants.”

14 “The Weather,” Brooklyn Standard Union, October 18, 1920: 2.

15 “Bacharachs Twice Beat American Giants,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 11, 1920: section 2, 4. “Bacharachs Beaten Twice by Chicago Giants.” Based on searches of four Brooklyn newspapers, Jones may not have umpired any other games in Brooklyn that entire year. The umpires for the October 10 doubleheader were named “Jamieson” and Smith. Frequent Bacharachs umpire C.J. Jamison was African American but the race of umpire W.T. Smith wasn’t made clear in “Baseball Dope,” Chicago Defender, October 23, 1920: 6.

16 Based on calculated ages as well as other player data accessible via https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/year.php?yearID=1920.

17 “Redding and Ryan Beaten in Twin Bill,” Brooklyn Citizen, October 18, 1920: 5. “Redding Misses No-Hit Game,” Brooklyn Daily Times, October 18, 1920: 7. “Bacharachs Beaten Twice by Chicago Giants.”

18 “Redding Misses No-Hit Game.”

19 “Redding Misses No-Hit Game.”

20 “Redding Misses No-Hit Game.” Oddly, the Citizen and Eagle box scores showed DeMoss with a hit in addition to Torriente and Dixon, yet also showed Chicago’s total hits as just two, about which the Times was adamant.

21 “Colored Teams Contest for the Championship,” Brooklyn Daily Times, October 16, 1920: 8. The first game lasted two hours, according to “Redding Misses No-Hit Game.” However, the first game’s duration was reported at 2 hours and 10 minutes in “Bacharachs Beaten Twice by Chicago Giants.”

22 “Redding and Ryan Beaten in Twin Bill.” “Redding Misses No-Hit Game.” “Bacharachs Beaten Twice by Chicago Giants.” The Citizen’s box score for the first game lists the same Bacharachs as in the other two papers’ batting orders except in a somewhat different sequence, but the Citizen’s box score for the second game showed the batting orders exactly the same as the other two papers’ box scores.

23 Based on calculated ages, accessible via https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/year.php?yearID=1920.

24 “Redding Misses No-Hit Game.” The details about the fourth inning were provided only by the Times.

25 “Redding Misses No-Hit Game.”

26 “Redding Misses No-Hit Game.” The Times came close to getting Ryan’s actual first name correct. It called him “Mervin” while Seamheads shows his first name as “Merven,” at https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=ryan-01red.

27 “Redding and Ryan Beaten in Twin Bill.”