The Cleveland Indians had little trouble determining their two spitballers for 1920, as only Stan Coveleski and Ray Caldwell used the pitch. On the contrary, the St. Louis Browns could pick just two of their three spitballers. They designated Urban Shocker and Bert Gallia, leaving Allen Sothoron without one of his top pitches.

The impact was evident on April 14, in front of 19,984 fans3 on Opening Day at Cleveland’s League Park. Coveleski, with his dancing and darting spitball in tow, allowed only five hits throughout the afternoon, and his offense backed him in a 5-0 victory over Sothoron and the Browns. It was the first Opening Day shutout in franchise history and the first step toward Cleveland’s first AL pennant and World Series victory.

Through careful veteran additions, the development of young pitchers, and a change in managerial control in the middle of the 1919 season, owner James C. Dunn’s Indians came into 1920 as a popular pick to win the AL pennant as baseball returned to a 154-game schedule following two shortened seasons due to World War I.

“Everyone is picking Cleveland to win the pennant. If we don’t, it probably will be a big disappointment,” said manager Tris Speaker, who led the Indians to a 40-21 record after taking over managerial duties on July 19, 1919, and got the club to within 3½ games of the pennant.4

Temperatures hovered around 40 degrees on Opening Day 1920, leading fans in an overflow crowd to collect scorecards, newspapers, and peanut shells to start around 50 to 60 bonfires in the outfield grass.5 The 30-year-old Coveleski, not known as a strikeout artist, struck out seven in his fourth straight Opening Day assignment. The former Pennsylvania coal miner often used his side-arm spitter once he got two strikes on a batter6 and got through the game in 104 pitches without allowing a runner to reach third base.7 “Covey” fell only one strikeout shy of matching his career high for a nine-inning game,8 and his season-opening tally began his journey to an AL-leading 133 punchouts by the end of the year.9

He was likewise not known for his hitting (he carried a .178 batting average into 1920), but he and his treasured bat “Abie”10 helped spark Cleveland’s first offensive rally, which put the Indians on the path toward a franchise-record 856 runs for the season.11

The second-inning uprising came against the 26-year-old Sothoron, a 20-game winner in 1919, but without his spitball as 1920 began.

“Sothoron seemed bothered a bit by the restrictions on the pitchers imposed in the winter’s legislation. He looked awkward as he held the ball away from his glove or shirt,” Newspaper Enterprise Association sportswriter Fred Turbyville noted. “He used to be rubbing it against himself all the time. But on opening day he carefully took off his glove and held the ball at arm’s length when he rubbed it in his hands. He didn’t want to be canned from the game. This was all unnatural to him, and probably it made him feel as awkward as he looked.”12

Sothoron got out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the first, but Doc Johnston and Steve O’Neill led off the second with singles. After failing to lay down a sacrifice, Coveleski sent an RBI single down the right-field line. Jack Graney’s double into the overflow crowd scored another run, and Elmer Smith’s two-run single gave the Indians a 4-0 lead and more runs in one inning than any other AL team scored that day.13 The Browns could never get a rally going, even as Coveleski allowed three doubles. He held eventual AL batting champion George Sisler hitless in four at-bats, twice retiring him with a man on base.14

“When [Sothoron] could doctor the horsehide, he was one of the greatest puzzles in the league,” wrote the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Henry P. Edwards. “It was different yesterday. … He just had to stand up there and pitch curves and fast ones.”15

Sothoron tried to “bluff” spitballs in the first, but after umpire Billy Evans reminded Browns manager Jimmy Burke of the new rule, Sothoron pitched the rest of the game with traditional mechanics.16 Johnson had advised umpires to enforce the new rules without wiggle room. “I didn’t make the rules,” he said, “but I shall see that umpires enforce them.”17 Position players were also reminded before the game that they could incur a punishment by scuffing the ball in the dirt and returning it to the pitcher.18

The St. Louis Star suggested that Burke made a “grievous mistake” in leaving Sothoron off his list of approved spitball pitchers for 1920. Without his trick deliveries and pitching through less-than-ideal weather conditions, Sothoron surrendered 13 hits and walked three on Opening Day, but he bore down in jams – twice leaving the bases loaded and holding a man on third in two other innings, proving there was more to his past success than deceit. Altogether, Cleveland stranded 12 runners, and Burke showed support for his pitcher publicly, even after he tried to undo his original decision with the league office.

“Sothoron never has received the credit for being the great pitcher he really is,” Burke, a third-year manager, said. “When he was so successful last year, they said he was using the ‘emery ball,’ the ‘shiner,’ the ‘sailor,’ and everything else. Now, he is prevented from using any such stuff and is out to show he needs no such aids to be effective. The next time he tackles Cleveland, he will stand the Indians on their heads.”19

Before the game, the Browns had petitioned Johnson for a relaxation of the rule regarding how clubs could designate spitball pitchers, which initially declared only pitchers designated by a team at least 10 days prior to the season could use the pitch in 1920. Upon hearing St. Louis’s argument that the club made a mistake in submitting Gallia’s name, Johnson announced on April 20 that teams could interchange their approved spitballers by giving the league office five days’ notice.20

By the time Sothoron pitched next – in St. Louis against Cleveland on April 25 – he had his spitball back and looked more like his 1919 self during a 4-1 win. Sothoron went 6-1 against Cleveland in ’19 on his way to becoming St. Louis’s first 20-game winner since 1903.21 His success caught the attention of Dunn, who offered the Browns $15,000 and two players in a deal, but St. Louis owner Phil Ball refused to give up Sothoron during his breakout season. Dunn unsuccessfully tried to add several pitchers in 1919, believing his club was one standout starter away from winning the pennant.22

But Sothoron did not take another step forward in 1920. He ended the season at 8-15, his worst showing in four full campaigns with the Browns. The Boston Red Sox selected him off waivers early in 1921 but returned him to St. Louis after he posted a 13.50 ERA over two starts. Cleveland then gave him a try, and Sothoron rebounded, going 12-4 in 3½ months with the Indians in ’21.23

In Cleveland, what started and ended as an exciting season in 1920 had several trying moments throughout. On May 28, Coveleski’s 28-year-old wife, Mary, died unexpectedly, and tragedy struck the entire team on August 17 when shortstop Ray Chapman died after getting hit in the head by a pitch the day before.

Cleveland, however, persevered. The race for the pennant was tight from start to finish. The Indians never led or trailed by more than four games as the White Sox and Yankees made it a three-team battle. Cleveland’s 98-56 record gave the club a two-game cushion over Chicago and a three-game margin over New York. The Browns finished a distant fourth at 76-77.

In the NL, the Brooklyn Robins held a seven-game edge over the New York Giants to claim the pennant. Coveleski became the eighth pitcher in history to win three games in a World Series, allowing only two runs in 27 innings of work for a 0.67 ERA as the Indians won the best-of-nine Series in seven games. Perhaps because Coveleski and his spitball gained national attention during the World Series, baseball slightly relaxed its opinion on the spitball going into 1921, allowing 17 pitchers24 to continue using the pitch until retirement – including Coveleski and Sothoron.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent material and box scores. He also used information obtained from news coverage by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Star, and The Sporting News. Two books, Harry J. Dietz, Jr.’s Covey and Scott H. Longert’s The Best They Could Be, also provided valuable insights.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE192004140.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1920/B04140CLE1920.htm

Notes

1 AL spitballers nominated were Boston’s Allen Russell, Chicago’s Eddie Cicotte and Red Faber, Cleveland’s Coveleski and Caldwell, Detroit’s Dutch Leonard and Doc Ayers, New York’s Jack Quinn, and St. Louis’s Shocker and Gallia, who was sold to the Philadelphia Phillies in May. Neither the Philadelphia Athletics nor Washington Senators nominated a spitballer. Henry P. Edwards, “American League Clubs Nominate 10 Moist Delivery Pitchers for Season,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 13, 1920: 18.

2 NL spitballers for the season were Boston’s Dana Fillingim, Dick Rudolph, and Ray Keating, who was sold to the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League about two weeks later; Brooklyn’s Burleigh Grimes and Clarence Mitchell; Chicago’s Claude Hendrix; Cincinnati’s Ray Fisher; New York’s Phil Douglas; Philadelphia’s Brad Hogg, who a week later abruptly retired from baseball to practice law full time; and St. Louis’s Bill Doak, Marv Goodwin, and Óscar Tuero, a third-year veteran who pitched only two-thirds of an inning in 1920 and never pitched in the big leagues again. Pittsburgh did not designate a spitballer. “National Leaguers Dispose of Routine Matters at Meeting,” Chicago Tribune, February 11, 1920: 15.

3 Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet list the attendance at 25,000, as did a report in the St. Louis Star. Reports from the Cleveland Plain Dealer and St. Louis Post-Dispatch both stated the attendance as 19,984. The Sporting News also noted a crowd of slightly less than 20,000 in its April 22 edition. “Indians Making Good on All That Pre-Season Boosting,” The Sporting News, April 22, 1920: 1.

4 Henry L. Farrell, “‘They’re Off!’ Cry of the Fans as Races Start,” Brooklyn Daily Times, April 14, 1920: 8.

5 “Bands Blare While Furs and Fires Keep Fans From Freezing,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 15, 1920: 16.

6 “Sothoron Like a Boat Without a Rudder in Forest City Opener,” St. Louis Star, April 15, 1920: 24.

7 “Johnston Kills Base-Hits for Williams and Sisler in Sixth,” St. Louis Star, April 15, 1920: 24.

8 Coveleski struck out 10 batters over 12⅔ innings on May 15, 1918.

9 Coveleski’s 133 strikeouts matched his career high (1917) and were the fewest by an American League leader to date. Excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and the strike-shortened 1981 season, only three other years have seen an AL pitcher lead the league with fewer strikeouts (Tex Hughson and Bobo Newsom, 113 in 1942; Lefty Grove, 116 in 1925; and Walter Johnson, 130 in 1923).

10 “Bands Blare While Furs and Fires Keep Fans From Freezing.”

11 The best offensive season in Cleveland prior to 1920 was 1911, when they scored 692 runs. Three other AL teams set new single-season scoring marks in ’20 – the Yankees (838), Browns (797), and Senators (723). In 1921, Cleveland scored 925 runs, establishing a new franchise standard that remained until 1996 (952). Through 2023, Cleveland’s single-season record is 1,009 runs (1999).

12 Fred Turbyville, “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down,” Atlantic City Gazette-Review, April 19, 1920: 5.

13 On Opening Day, the White Sox beat the Tigers 3-2 and the Athletics beat the Yankees 3-1. The game between the Red Sox and Senators was postponed, and the following day, the Red Sox won, 7-6.

14 Sisler became the first Browns player to hit over .400, and his .407 mark outdistanced Speaker, who finished as the runner-up with a .388 average. Two years later, Sisler hit .420 to win a second batting title. No other player in franchise history ever hit .400.

15 “Indians Trim Browns in Opening Game, 5 to 0,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 15, 1920: 16.

16 “Sothoron Like a Boat Without a Rudder in Forest City Opener.”

17 “It’ll Be Costly for a Hurler to Rub Ball on His Uni Today,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 14, 1920: 14.

18 “Johnston Kills Base-Hits for Williams and Sisler in Sixth.”

19 “Brown-Cleveland Game Off; Sothoron Fails, Opening Day,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 15, 1920: 16.

20 “Sothoron Authorized to Hurl His Spitter,” St. Louis Star, April 20, 1920: 22.

21 Willie Sudhoff won 21 games in 1903. The only other 20-game winners in franchise history until that point were Red Donahue and Jack Powell, who each won 22 decisions in 1902.

22 Dunn made attempts to acquire Walter Johnson, Dutch Leonard, Carl Mays, and Scott Perry throughout the 1919 season. Henry P. Edwards, “Dunn Went Limit to Get Star Hurler to Strengthen Indians,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 25, 1919: 22.

23 Sothoron went 24-32 with a 3.98 ERA the rest of his career, making six appearances with Cleveland in 1922 and hurling for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1924 to ’26. He spent 1923 with the Louisville Colonels of the American Association.

24 The pitchers were Ayers, Caldwell, Coveleski, Doak, Douglas, Faber, Fillingim, Fisher, Goodwin, Grimes, Leonard, Mitchell, Quinn, Rudolph, Russell, Shocker, and Sothoron.

Hearing no word from the ballclub, they reported to Braves Field. That’s when Oeschger found out he would be the starting pitcher, if and when.2

By game time at 3:00 P.M., the rain had let up, but it was overcast, damp, and raw, not much more than 50 degrees, when Oeschger threw the first pitch in the longest game in major-league history. The game lasted 26 innings. So did Oeschger. So did the Dodgers’ pitcher, Leon Cadore. They were both right-handed, both 28 that year, neither a star.

The Dodgers scored in the fifth after Oeschger walked the leadoff batter and bobbled a double-play grounder. With a runner on second, Dodgers second baseman Ivy Olson poked a two-strike, broken-bat flare over shortstop to give Brooklyn a 1-0 lead.

The Braves tied it in the next inning. Walt Cruise tripled to the scoreboard in left and crossed the plate on Tony Boeckel’s single up the middle. Rabbit Maranville followed with a double, but Boeckel was thrown out at home.

After that, nothing. The teams played 20 scoreless innings.

Boston missed a chance to win in the bottom of the ninth. Maranville led off with a single. Pinch-hitter Lloyd Christenbury tried to sacrifice him to second, but both were safe when Cadore’s throw to first hit Christenbury. After a sacrifice moved the runners up, Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson ordered an intentional walk to fill the bases with one out. The Braves’ Charlie Pick slapped a hard grounder to second baseman Olson, who made a fine stop, tagged the runner coming from first, and threw out Pick for a game-saving double play.

Leon Cadore’s defense had bailed him out, not for the first time. At least one Brave had reached base in each of the first nine innings on 11 hits, two walks, and an error. A writer for the Sun & New York Herald commented, “Time and again it looked as if Cadore would fall, but time and again the Brooklyn men behind him rose to heights of superefficiency as they converted seeming hits into outs and lifted their pitcher out of many a tight situation.”3 In addition to Olson’s double play, left fielder Zack Wheat had made a shoetop catch and first baseman Ed Konetchy snared a foul popup while teetering on the dugout steps.

Oeschger, throwing fastballs almost exclusively, was just hitting his stride. Beginning in the eighth, he set down 18 consecutive Dodgers. Only six of them got the ball out of the infield.

The Dodgers got to Oeschger in the 17th, when they loaded the bases with one out. Rowdy Elliott grounded back to the mound and Oeschger threw home for the force out. Catcher Hank Gowdy fired to first, going for an easy double play, but his throw was wide and first baseman Walter Holke could only knock it down. The Dodger runner from second, the slow-moving Konetchy, saw Holke scrambling after the ball and lumbered around third, carrying the go-ahead run. Holke’s desperate throw pulled Gowdy off the plate, but he sprawled headlong in front of Konetchy’s spikes and put on the tag to complete a spectacular double play. Gowdy’s dive “saved my neck,” Oeschger said.4

Oeschger didn’t allow another hit for the final nine innings. Cadore, relying on his curveball, had found his groove, retiring 15 straight, allowing a single in the 20th, and then setting down 19 more. A misty rain was falling again. Newspapers estimated that anywhere from 2,000 to 4,500 spectators had been in the stands at the start; there’s no telling how many went home as the afternoon grew chillier.

In the 20th inning manager Robinson offered to relieve Cadore, but the pitcher replied, “If that other fellow can go one more inning, I can too.”5 Braves manager George Stallings never asked Oeschger how he was holding up. Oeschger explained, “If a pitcher couldn’t go the distance, he soon found himself some other form of occupation.”6

The 23rd inning set a new National League record; the Dodgers and Pirates had played 22 in 1917. In the 25th it became the longest game in major-league history, surpassing a 24-inning contest between the Philadelphia Athletics and Boston Americans in 1906. Braves second baseman Charlie Pick made the last out in the 25th to finish his own historic day. His batting line for the game, 0-for-11, has not been equaled in at least 100 years.

A quirk of the calendar made the longest game possible. May 1 was the first day of Daylight Saving Time, meaning sunset came an hour later than the day before. The 26th inning ended at 6:50 P.M. EDT, still nearly an hour before official sundown, but the sun was nowhere in sight. The dark clouds and mist made it hard to see. Oeschger said, “The batters were griping to end the game.”7 The umpire in chief, Barry McCormick, talked to both managers and called a halt because of darkness.8

The teams played 26 innings, almost three full games, in 3 hours and 50 minutes. Each half-inning, on average, took less than five minutes, even counting the breaks in between. While there has never been another 26-inning game in the majors, the White Sox and Brewers played 25 in 1984; that one, completed over two days because of a curfew, lasted 8 hours and 6 minutes. The 1974 Cardinals and Mets played 25 innings in a brisk 7:04. Obviously players moved at a different pace in 1920.

At the time nobody knew how many pitches Oeschger and Cadore threw. Nobody asked until more than 30 years later. Oeschger guessed his total was about 250. Cadore thought he was close to 300.

“I don’t say I wasn’t a little tired after those 26 innings,” Oeschger said, “but I have been more fatigued in some nine-inning games when I got into a lot of jams. They are what wear a pitcher out. There weren’t too many tight situations in this long game.”9 Oeschger went on to win 20 games the next season, the best year of his career.

Cadore finished the 1920 season with the 10th best ERA in the league. He pitched in the majors for four more years, but said his arm was never the same after the marathon game.

Today a 26-inning complete game seems preposterous, not to mention abusive. Even by the standards of 1920, Oeschger and Cadore’s feat was recognized as extraordinary. A Boston Globe cartoon the next day portrayed them taking their place in the Hall of Fame. (The Hall did not exist, but the idea did.)

Marathon pitching performances were rare, but not unknown. In the previous record-longest game, in 1906, Jack Coombs of Philadelphia and Boston’s Joe Harris pitched all 24 innings. With the help of Retrosheet, baseball-reference.com, and researcher Philip J. Lowry, the author has identified 20 times when a starter worked 20 or more innings. The first was in 1892, the last in 1929. Oeschger himself went 20 in 1919, the only man to reach that mark twice. We can wish for a time machine to take us back to July 4, 1905: Cy Young against Rube Waddell for 20 innings.

Mercifully, the Braves had a day off after the longest game, because Sunday ball was not allowed in Boston. But the Dodgers took a train home, where they played 13 innings before losing to the Phillies, 4-3. Then they returned to Boston to wrap up the series there. The two teams played 19 innings on Monday, as the Braves squeaked out a 2-1 win. The Dodgers had fought through 58 innings in three days, without a single victory to show for their labors.

• Related link: Click here to view an enlarged version of the Boston Globe cartoon

This article appeared in “Braves Field: Memorable Moments at Boston’s Lost Diamond” (SABR, 2015), edited by Bill Nowlin and Bob Brady. To read more articles from this book, click here. 

Sources

Box scores for this game can be seen on baseball-reference.com, and retrosheet.org at:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BSN/BSN192005010.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1920/B05010BSN1920.htm

Retrosheet’s play-by-play account had not yet been published when this article was written. David W. Smith of Retrosheet.org provided it.

“Boston and Brooklyn Break Big League Record by Battling for 26 Innings,” New York Times, May 2, 1920.

“Brooklyn Ties in Record Game of 26 Innings,” Sun & New York Herald, May 2, 1920.

Corbett, Warren. “Marathon Men.” The Hardball Times Baseball Annual. Fangraphs and the Hardball Times, 2014.

Cunningham, Ed. “Darkness Finds Longest Game in All Big League History Still Undecided,” Boston Sunday Herald, May 2, 1920.

“How It Seems to Pitch a 26-Inning Game,” Baseball Magazine, July 1920.

Lieb, Fred. “Leon Cadore, Who Pitched 26-Inning Duel, Dies at 65,” The Sporting News, March 26, 1958.

Lowry, Philip J., email, August 23, 2014.

“Major League Record Broken; Score is 1-1,” New York Tribune, May 2, 1920.

Murphy, Edward T. “Cadore Recalls That 26-Inning Duel with Oeschger,” New York World Telegram and Sun, April 30, 1955.

Murphy, Edward T. “Cadore Replays Longest Major Game – 26-Inning Dodger-Brave Tie in ’20,” The Sporting News, January 18, 1956.

National Weather Service and weatherunderground.com.

O’Leary, James C. “Braves-Dodgers in 26-inning Tie,” Boston Globe, May 2, 1920.

O’Leary, James C. “Oeschger in Good Trim After His Record Game,” Boston Globe, May 3, 1920.

Rice, Thomas S. “Superbas in 26 Inning Tie,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 2, 1920.

Rice, Thomas S. “Bats Not Swinging True for Dodgers,” The Sporting News, May 13, 1920.

Ruane, Tom. “A Retro Review of the 1920s,” Retrosheet.org, retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/rev1920_art.htm#A1920, accessed June 18, 2014.

Notes

The Yankees scored in the bottom of the first. Aaron Ward drew a leadoff walk and was sacrificed to second by Roger Peckinpaugh. Wally Pipp’s single to right plated Ward and gave Shawkey all the support he would need. However, the Yankees were not finished. In the fourth, Ruth led off by slamming a double off the right-field wall. Duffy Lewis grounded out to first, advancing Ruth to third. Del Pratt hit a groundball to Boston shortstop Everett Scott, who fired to first baseman Stuffy McInnis for the second out. Ruth “started down the third base line with the swing of Scott’s arm and crossed the plate before McInnis could get the ball to [Roxy] Walters at the plate.”3 It was 2-0, New York.

Throughout the early part of the game, three Yankees voiced displeasure with the two umpires’ calls. Pitchers Carl Mays, Ernie Shore, and Lefty O’Doul4 heckled umpires Bill Dinneen and Dick Nallin. By the fifth inning, the bickering escalated enough for the umpires to stop play and eject all three Yankees, sending them “from the bench to the Siberia of the club house,”5 as the fans “yelled in soprano, alto, bass and baritone against the high-handed demonstration of the law of the diamond.”6 Pop bottles and papers were tossed onto the field.

Although Ruth had shown signs of life in this game with his fourth-inning double and nifty baserunning, he was brand new to the Yankees after being acquired from the Red Sox, and “entering May, Ruth’s season and that of the Yankees was at a crossroads. Ruth was hitting .226 in nine games. The only record he was pursuing was the strikeout mark.”7

But in the sixth inning with one out, Ruth, the two-time reigning home-run champion,8“lambasted a home run high over the right field grand stand into Manhattan Field.”9 Babe’s first home run of the season as a Yankee was labeled a “sockdolager,”10 or “a heavy, finishing blow,”11 which was fitting as the ball cleared the roof in right field and virtually sealed the home team’s victory. The blow “seemed to dishearten the Sox.”12 The New York Timesreported that “the ball flitted out of sight between the third and fourth flagstaffs on the top of the stand. Ruth smashed it over the same place when he broke the world’s home run record last season.”13 The only other batter besides Ruth to have hit a ball over the right-field grandstand was Joe Jackson in 1913.14 Duffy Lewis followed Ruth with another blast, as he “belted the pellet into the left field stand.”15 The Boston Sunday Globe reported, “Hardly had the ovation to Ruth simmered when Duffy Lewis, another former Red Sox player, brought another wave of enthusiasm by smashing the spheroid into the left-field bleachers for another four-base clout.”16 The two home runs were on consecutive Pennock pitches, both “knee-high.”17

The Yankees added to their advantage in the seventh frame “with a brace of markers.”18Harry Harper relieved Pennock to start the inning and walked both Muddy Ruel and Shawkey. Ward lifted a fly ball to center, allowing Ruel to scamper to third. Boston manager Ed Barrow made the call to the bullpen and brought in Gary Fortune. Peckinpaugh greeted the third Boston hurler with an RBI single, sending Shawkey to third base. Pipp walked and Ruth rolled a grounder to first that enabled Shawkey to score. Harper was charged with the two runs in one-third of an inning pitched, but “every pitcher that Barrow sent to the mound was bombarded in heartless manner.”19

The game lasted 2 hours and 5 minutes and the fans went home talking about Ruth’s colossal clout. According to the Boston Sunday Globe, “[A] good time was had by all, save the Sox.”20 With the 6-0 final score, Boston was “certainly slaughtered to make a Yankee holiday, and the chief cause of the jubilation was the fact that the great Babe Ruth found his batting eye.”21 In addition to the four-bagger, Ruth had a double, two runs batted in, and two runs scored in his four plate appearances. Ruel and Ping Bodie also had two hits for New York.

Shawkey limited the Red Sox hitters to just four hits, all singles, in the shutout. Sixteen Boston batters made fly-ball outs. For the Red Sox, only Harry Hooper reached second base, after he singled in the top of the ninth. Shawkey issued one free pass and struck out four. He raised his record to 1-3 and lowered his ERA to 1.56. Pennock suffered his first loss of the season. New York batters touched him for eight hits, including the two home runs, and four earned runs in six innings.

The Yankees won three of five against Boston in this series. At the end of May, the Yankees swept four more games from the Red Sox in Boston, ousting them from first place, and the Red Sox never recovered, ending the 1920 campaign in fifth place with a record of 72-81-1.22 After losing the first four meetings of the year against Boston, New York finished the season with a 13-9 mark against the Red Sox. Their season record of 95-59 was good only for third place in the American League, three games behind the pennant-winning Cleveland Indians and a game back of the Chicago White Sox.

Ruth homered the next night as well, and he went on to smack 12 homers and hit .329 in the month of May. Ten of his record-breaking 54 round-trippers in 192023 came against his old club, the Red Sox. He broke his 1919 record of 29 homers on July 19and became the first player to hit 30, 40, and 50 home runs in a single season.

“Babe Ruth had delivered in every possible way” for the Yankees. They “drew a stunning 1,289,422 fans to the Polo Grounds, 300,000 more than the Giants and nearly twice the number of fans any team had ever drawn in a single season. The Red Sox drew just over 400,000.”24

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org. The author sincerely thanks Ms. Lisa Tuite of the Boston Globe for providing newspaper accounts and Jack Zerby for his insightful recommendations.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA192005010.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1920/B05010NYA1920.htm

Notes

That distinction, however, has two significant qualifications.

First, “all-Latino” accurately described Tampa Bay’s batting order, but the Rays’ starting pitcher, who did not bat because of the designated hitter, was Shane McClanahan, a Baltimore native. When Panamanian Javy Guerra pitched in relief in the bottom of the eighth, Harold Ramírez was no longer in the game, replaced at second by Taylor Walls. Thus, by the time the Rays had a Latino on the mound, they no longer had an all-Latino lineup.

Moreover, coverage of the 2022 game appears to have used “MLB” as shorthand for the American League, National League, and other formerly segregated White-only major leagues.2 In December 2020, however, MLB had retroactively recognized seven of the Negro Leagues as major leagues.3 This opened up the possibility that a “major league” team had fielded an all-Latino lineup years before the Rays.

As it happened, the initial Negro National League, founded by Rube Foster, included a Cuban Stars team – known historically as “Cuban Stars West” – in its eight-club ranks when league play opened in 1920.

While Tampa Bay’s 2022 “all-Latino” lineup reflected increasing inclusiveness in the once-segregated majors – starting with pre-1947 players like Cuban Dolf Luque, Mexican Mel Almada, and Puerto Rican Hi Bithorn, then accelerating after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball and the game’s popularity grew worldwide4 – the Cuban Stars were, from their inception, a team of Cuba-born players.

Owned by Abel Linares and managed by Tinti Molina, as of 1910, versions of the Cuban Stars had barnstormed in the United States since 1906, often competing against the independent Black teams that also were the roots of Foster’s league.

They joined the Negro National League in 1920, a time when baseball’s color line had some fluidity for Cuban natives. Luque appeared in 37 games as a Cincinnati Reds’ swingman in 1920, on his way to a 20-season National League career. Catcher Mike González had played in over 100 games with the St. Louis Cardinals each season from 1916 through 1918. One member of the Cuban Stars, Ramon “Mike” Herrera, went on to appear in 84 games with the Boston Red Sox in 1925 and 1926.5

When the Negro National League season opened in the spring of 1920, Linares and Molina’s Cuban Stars were a “traveling team,” participating in the league without a dedicated home field. They opened their schedule on May 9, with a Saturday afternoon doubleheader against the Indianapolis ABCs in Indianapolis. Every member of the Cuban Stars’ roster was born in Cuba, making their lineup against the ABCs – pitcher José Leblanc, catcher Eufemio Abreu, first baseman Marcelio Guerra, second baseman José López, third baseman Herrera, shortstop Matías Ríos, left fielder Valentin Dreke, center fielder Bernardo Baró, and right fielder Faustino Valdés – the first all-Latino lineup in a major league.

Starting for C.I. Taylor’s Indianapolis ABCs was 33-year-old right-hander Dicta Johnson, long established as one of Black baseball’s top starting pitchers. Leblanc, a 27-year-old righty from Cienfuegos, took the mound for Molina’s Cuban Stars. The Indianapolis Star estimated attendance at 10,000, “the largest crowd that the local colored stars have ever played before in Indianapolis.”6

Johnson held the Cubans scoreless in the top of the first, and Indianapolis scored two runs against Leblanc in the bottom of the inning.

Neither team scored again until the fifth inning when the Cubans put one run across. The ABCs immediately matched that with another run of their own in the bottom of the fifth, making it 3-1.

In the top of the seventh, the Cubans scored again, closing the gap to one run, but Indianapolis added another run in the bottom of the eighth.

A Cubans rally was squelched by Oscar Charleston in the top of the ninth. The 24-year-old Indianapolis center fielder, described by the Star as the “Black Ty Cobb” and inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976, saved the day. He had already made two “sensational catches” earlier in the game. In the ninth there were two outs, but the Cuban Stars had two men on base. Leblanc, the pitcher, was up to hit.

Characterized by the Indianapolis Star as “one of the heavy hitters with the visitors,” Leblanc “drove a long fly ball to deep center. … Charleston, with his back to the stands, leaped high in the air to pull down the ball, and so delighted were a number of the A.B.C. followers that they ran out on the field and greeted him with hands full of money.”7

The ball had been hit “far out in left center. It looked like a certain triple until Charleston speared it out of the air, thereby saving the game for the locals … a great catch because Charleston was running with his back to the stands at the time.”8

The Indianapolis News concurred, also recognizing some solid defense from the visitors: “The Cubans also cut in with some nice work in the field, their young shortstop playing particularly well.”9

There were no home runs in either of the day’s games. There was one triple in the first game, by Cubans catcher Abreu. Both ABCs first baseman Ben Taylor and catcher Russell Powell had two-base hits. Charleston had two hits, both singles.

The Cubans committed four errors – two by Guerra and one each by Ríos and Herrera. ABCs shortstop Morten Clark and third baseman Connie Day were charged with errors.

Leblanc struck out four. Johnson struck out five. Leblanc was charged with one balk. There were three stolen bases – López for the Cubans, and Indianapolis right fielder Jim Jeffries and left fielder George Shively.

The day’s second game was won by the same 4-2 score but was cut short in the sixth inning because of a 6:00 P.M. curfew. The pitchers had been Dizzy Dismukes for Indianapolis and José “Cheo” Hernández for the Cuban Stars.10 Dismukes walked two but gave up only two hits, one of them a double by Guerra. Hernández gave up five hits, including triples by Ben Taylor and Shively. He walked three.

At season’s end, the Chicago American Giants were first in the Negro National League standings.11 The ABCs (44-38, with 4 ties) finished in fourth place, 10 games behind. The Cuban Stars (35-34) finished fifth, 12½ games back.

In 1921 the Cuban Stars played their home schedule at Cincinnati’s Redland Field, home of the NL’s Reds. They competed in the Negro National League through the 1930 season.

Author’s Note

Thanks to Thomas Van Hyning for inspiring this article. A baseball historian and researcher with a particular interest in Caribbean baseball, Van Hyning undertook to determine if there had ever been an all-Latino lineup in the 1920-1948 period during which one or more of the seven Negro Leagues – now regarded as major leagues – had operated. He identified the May 9, 1920, doubleheader between the Cuban Stars and ABCs in Indianapolis which preceded the September 15, 2022, Tampa Bay Rays all-Latino lineup by 102 years, 4 months, and 6 days.

Van Hyning also found that the eight “regulars” with the 1941 New York Cubans were from Cuba (5), Dominican Republic (2), and Puerto Rico (1), per Seamheads.com.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to John Fredland and Kurt Blumenau for working on this article. It was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Tinti Molina, Trading Card Database.

Sources

All data is as presented on the Seamheads.com website. The author also consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information. Thanks to Gary Ashwill of Seamheads for supplying newspaper accounts of the game.

Notes

1 See, for instance, Adam Berry, “Rays Field MLB’s First All-Latino Lineup on Clemente Day,” MLB.com, September 15, 2022. https://www.mlb.com/news/rays-lineup-all-latino-players-on-roberto-clemente-day, and Austin Nivison, “Rays Make History by Starting MLB’s First All-Latino Lineup on Roberto Clemente Day,” CBSSports.com, September 15, 2022. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/rays-make-history-by-starting-mlbs-first-all-latino-lineup-on-roberto-clemente-day/.

2 There was no such entity as MLB before the last year or two of the twentieth century. Bill Nowlin, “Did MLB Exist before the Year 2000?” Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2019: 63-66.

3 “MLB Officially Designates the Negro Leagues as ‘Major League,’” MLB.com, December 16, 2020. https://www.mlb.com/press-release/press-release-mlb-officially-designates-the-negro-leagues-as-major-league.

4 Notably, Osvaldo “Ozzie” Virgil Sr. became the first native of the Dominican Republic to play in the National or American League when he debuted with the New York Giants in 1956, leading a surge of Dominican talent in the major leagues. See Bill Nowlin and Julio C. Rodriguez, eds., Dominicans in the Major Leagues (Phoenix: SABR, 2022).

5 This is the same player known as Mike Herrera, who played in 84 games for the Boston Red Sox in 1925 and 1926, batting .275 with 27 RBIs. The Red Sox are known as the last team in the American and National Leagues to have fielded a Black player – Pumpsie Green in 1959. It is interesting that Herrera played in the Negro Leagues both before and after his time with the Red Sox.

6 “Great Playing Beats Cubans,” Indianapolis Star, May 10, 1920: 12. All gameplay information is drawn from this article unless otherwise indicated.

7 The Star used the word “sands” but that was clearly a typographical error.

8 “A.B.C.s and Islanders Resume Play; Charleston Shines in Sunday Bill,” Indiana Daily Times (Indianapolis), May 10, 1920.

9 “A.B.C.s and Cubans Get Together in Third Game,” Indianapolis News, May 10, 1920: 16.

10 Hernández played five seasons in “organized baseball” – in the Florida State League, 1921-1924 and 1927.

11 See Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin, eds., The First Negro League Champion: The 1920 Chicago American Giants (Phoenix: SABR, 2022).

The players’ pent-up energy was released in the initial frame, which foreshadowed how the game would unfold. The Tigers missed a shot for the first run when Ty Cobb (on first via a fielder’s choice), was thrown out at home on a “perfect relay” from right field on Bobby Veach’s double.3

The Nationals, as the team was often called by sportswriters, wasted no time taking advantage of John Glaiser, whose big-league experience consisted of six innings and who was making what proved to be his first and only start in the majors. Joe Judge led off by drawing a walk but was caught in a rundown between third and home on Sam Rice’s one-out grounder. After Braggo Roth walked, Bucky Harris doubled home both runners. Frank Ellerbe also caught the “pedestrian fever,” noted the Washington Post, and then in Deadball-Era style, Harris stole third, and subsequently home in a daring double steal for the Senators’ third run.4 Red Shannon drew yet another free pass from Glaiser, but was forced at second.

The Senators’ pitching “staff suffered from inaction,” opined Dougher, who described starter Tom Zachary as “look[ing] like a busher.”5 The 24-year-old didn’t resemble the southpaw who had blanked the New York Yankees on five hits six days earlier for his fifth big-league victory. Harry Heilmann led off the second with a single, took second on Sammy Hale’s single, stole third, and then sped home on Oscar Stanage’s fly to left field. According to Nationals beat writer J.V. Fitz Gerald, home-plate umpire George Hildebrand called Heilmann out but reversed his call when Patsy Gharrity dropped the ball.6 The Tigers tied the game, 3-3, in the fourth on Stanage’s two-run double, plating Veach (who had led off with a two-bagger) and Ira Flagstead.

The Senators stormed back in the fifth, loading the bases on singles by Clyde Milan and Rice and a walk to Roth. Milan was tagged at home on Harris’s squeeze bunt, but Ellerbe and Shannon followed with run-scoring singles and Gharrity with a sacrifice fly for a 6-3 lead.

Swedish-born Eric Erickson had taken over for Zachary and pitched a scoreless fifth. “He was Olaf when he strode to the mound,” wrote the acerbic Dougher, and “was Oh Laugh within two innings.”7 Flagstead beat out a roller to lead off the seventh and Stanage and Chick Shorten, pinch-hitting for Glaiser, drew one-out walks to load the bases. Castigated by Dougher for his “ludicrous lack of control,” Erickson’s third straight walk, to Ralph Young, forced in a run and sent the hurler to the showers.8

To the rescue with the bags bursting came Walter Johnson, sitting on 299 career victories. The 32-year-old right-hander had finished the decade of the teens by winning at least 20 games each season, 265 in all, including 74 shutouts. He led the AL victories five times during that stretch and posted a career-best 36 in 1913. Vying with Grover Cleveland Alexander as the decade’s best hurler (at least until Old Pete was debilitated from serving in the Great War), Johnson relieved regularly, and 20 percent of his appearances in the 1910s were in relief.9

Johnson had been uncharacteristically hit hard in his last two outings, both complete-game losses, yielding 24 hits and 12 runs (8 earned), and seemed confused when the first batter he faced, Donie Bush, hit a tapper back to the mound. According to sportswriter Jack Nye of the Washington Herald, the Big Train threw late to home and Babe Pinelli, pinch-running for Stanage, scored.10 Johnson was on the verge of putting out the fire, but the Georgia Peach, coming off his 12th AL batting crown in 13 seasons, yet batting just .243 in 1920, belted a line drive that center fielder Sam Rice handled “as if it was a chunk of TNT,” quipped Fitz Gerald.11 Cobb cleared the bases (credited with two RBIs on Rice’s error) to give the Bengals an 8-6 lead.

Despite that rough inning, allowing three inherited runners to score (charged to Erickson’s slate) and yielding an unearned run, Johnson “brought a semblance of order out of a wild and woolly game,” wrote the Herald.12 He held the Bengals scoreless over the last three frames, and helped lead the Senators’ comeback with his bat.

The Senators rallied in the seventh off reliever Ray Oldham, back in the big leagues after a four-year absence. Roth led off by walking, and Ellerbe beat out a one-out grounder. Shannon’s grounder forced Ellerbe but second baseman’s Ralph Young’s relay throw to first was wide, enabling Roth to scamper home and Shannon to advance to second. After Gharrity walked, Johnson blasted a single to drive in Shannon and tie the score, 8-8. No slouch with the bludgeon, Johnson was a robust .235 career hitter and regularly pinch-hit. Manager Jennings, seemingly out of patience with his hurler, took a page out of Griffith’s playbook and called on his ace, Hooks Dauss, to stop the bleeding. A longtime workhorse who was coming off 21 victories in 1919, Dauss retired Judge to end the frame and then hurled a scoreless eighth.

The Senators put on their “big shillalah act in the ninth,” cooed the Post.13 Singles by Ellerbe, Shannon, and Johnson loaded the bases against Dauss. With the outfield drawn in for a play at the plate, Joe Judge came to bat. Mostly forgotten by modern baseball historians, Judge was a productive hitter throughout his 20-year career (1915-1934), collecting 2,352 hits and batting .298. He blasted a ball to center field, where “Tyrus made no effort to chase after it,” reported the Post, and was credited with a single, giving the Senators a 9-8 victory in 2 hours and 35 minutes.14

Johnson earned his 300th career victory, becoming just the 10th pitcher to reach that milestone and the first since Eddie Plank in 1915, and also joined Plank and Christy Mathewson as the only members of that fraternity who started their careers in the twentieth century.15 Despite the importance contemporary sportswriters and fans place on statistics and cumulative accomplishments, Johnson’s achievement was apparently lost on contemporaneous sportswriters. Neither the Herald, Post, nor Times mentioned his 300th victory in its game summary.

The biggest story about Johnson in May focused on his uncharacteristic struggles. Two days after his win in relief, the Big Train was shelled for 12 hits in a complete-game 4-2 loss to the St. Louis Browns. On May 20 he was hammered for nine hits and 10 runs, though only two were earned, in a disastrous six-inning relief appearance resulting in another loss and dropping his record to 3-5. Washington scribes wondered if Barney was washed up, and those sentiments grew louder when Johnson was tagged for four runs in four innings of relief in his next outing. For the first time in his career, Johnson was suffering from an injury, to his shoulder. Given extra time between starts, Johnson was inconsistent. On July 1 he tossed arguably the best game of his career, holding the Boston Red Sox hitless and fanning 10 while walking none at Fenway Park. Fifteen days later, his season was over (8-10, 3.13 ERA) as pain made pitching impossible.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com, and SABR.org.

Notes

1 Louis A. Dougher, “Looking ’Em Over,” Washington Times, May 15, 1920: 17.

2 J. V. Fitz Gerald, “Judge’s Hit Yields Victory Over Tigers,” Washington Post, May 15, 1920: 12.

3 Harry Bullion, “Washington Beats Tigers in the Ninth Inning, 9 to 8,” Detroit Free Press, May 15, 1920: 13.

4 Fitz Gerald.

5 Dougher.

6 J.V. Fitz Gerald, “In the Wake of the Game,” Washington Post, May 15, 1920: 12.

7 Dougher.

8 Dougher.

9 In the decade of the teens, Johnson started 361 of 454 appearances (79.5 percent); in his career, he started 666 of 802 appearances (83.0 percent).

10 Jack Nye, “Joe Judge’s Timely Drive Over Ty Cobb’s Head in Ninth Wins Game for Nationals,” Washington Herald, May 15, 1920: 12.

11 Fitz Gerald.

12 Nye.

13 Fitz Gerald.

14 Fitz Gerald.

15 The leaders in wins at the time were Cy Young (511), Christy Mathewson (373), Pud Galvin (365), Kid Nichols (361), Tim Keefe (342), John Clarkson (328), Eddie Plank (326), Old Hoss Radbourn (309), and Mickey Welch (307).

Some Yankees said so.1

The New York ballplayers believed their Thursday afternoon game in Detroit should have been called long before it reached the ninth inning. Rain, wind, and hail began their assault midway through the contest and grew stronger as the game progressed, dousing and endangering players and the few dedicated spectators who braved stormy conditions at Navin Field.

“But umpire Brick Owens insisted on the players being drenched,” the New York Times reporter wrote the next day. Many ballplayers, the writer continued, insisted that anyone who loves rainy, wet conditions like Owens seemed to, must have similar traits to a fish.2

Dark, threatening clouds arrived at the ballpark early and brought rain and lightning in the fourth inning.

The Yankees’ thunderous bats began booming in the second.

“There was so much noise at Navin Field this afternoon that it was difficult to distinguish between the claps of thunder and the Yankees thumping the ball,” the anonymous Times reporter wrote.

After pitching a scoreless first inning, Tigers starter Frank Okrie dealt with control issues in the second. He walked the bases loaded, issuing free passes to Babe Ruth, Ping Bodie, and Truck Hannah. Hitting a few ticks below .220, Yankees pitcher Carl Mays came to the plate with two outs and smacked an Okrie offering over the head of right fielder Harry Heilmann. The ball rolled to the fence, 370 feet from home, clearing the bases.

Mays’s “eyes-closed”3 three-run triple gave the New Yorkers a quick 3-0 lead, but that advantage didn’t last long.

The Tigers pounced back with two runs of their own in the bottom of the second. First baseman Babe Ellison smacked a double to center with one out, and Babe Pinelli knocked him home with a triple down the right-field line: Yankees 3, Tigers 1.

Eddie Ainsmith batted next in this scrambled Detroit lineup. Tigers coach and acting manager Jack Coombs picked the day’s batting order by tossing player names into a hat and picking them one-by-one in hopes of snapping the team’s five-game losing skid.4

The shakeup seemed to be working when Ainsmith ripped a Mays pitch into left field. Pinelli scored from third, cutting the Yankees’ lead to 3-2. Mays quickly regained control of the inning; however, striking out the next two batters.

It didn’t take long for the Yankees to get traffic on the basepaths in the third inning. Bob Meusel, hitting close to .360, popped a single to left. Wally Pipp’s sacrifice moved Meusel to second, setting up another showdown between Okrie and Ruth, who was “batting into the teeth of a furious gale,” the Times reporter wrote.

With a runner threatening in scoring position, Detroit fans didn’t want to see another walk given to the slugger. “The crowd implored Okrie to whiff Ruth,” the Times reported, “but Babe caught one on the end of his club and thumped a home run into the right field bleachers, propelling Meusel over the plate ahead of him.” Ruth’s 16th blast of the season gave the Yankees a 5-2 advantage and “satisfied even the most skeptical of fanatics,” at Navin Field.

Just as in the second inning, the Tigers threatened in the third, scattering Mays’s pitches around the park. Center fielder Chick Shorten smacked the ball back up the middle, bouncing it off Mays’s shoes and through the infield for a single. The right-handed pitcher also had no answer for Bob Veach, who clobbered a double to right field that pushed Shorten to third with one out. Ruth’s lack of fielding dexterity in right made him look “like a chump” on the play, the Detroit Free Press wrote.

The infield defense, however, bailed Mays out of the jam. Pipp caught a sharp liner at first from Heilmann for the second out, and Ellison grounded to second to end the third inning.

The weather worsened in the fourth as a wall of rain began to drum the field; it grew heavier as the game progressed. “It was dark and gloomy and the rain came down in buckets, and the wind howled just as it does in the third set of a melodrama,” the Times reported. “And it hailed — sweet sandwiches, how it hailed!” Some of the hailstones were almost as big as eggs.6

The game played on despite dire weather conditions. Elsewhere in the city that afternoon, a lightning bolt killed four Northeastern High School baseball players and injured six others before a game. A woman was struck and killed in her home, and people were reported to have been injured by lightning.7

At Navin Field, the umpire decided to let the game continue, and the Tigers inched closer to tying the contest in the bottom of the fourth. With one out, Ainsmith slowly took his turn at the plate “while the heavens were rolling and the skies were growing bleaker,” the Free Press reported. He drew the ire of “Umpire Owens, who suspected that Eddie was stalling for time.”

Ainsmith eventually walked and Okrie sacrificed him to second. Ralph “Pep” Young then singled to shallow center and Ainsmith scored, moving his Tigers to within 5-3 of the visiting Yankees.

The two clubs traded runs in the “gathering darkness” of the fifth.8

For the Yankees, Pipp stroked a triple to the center field fence and crossed the plate a batter later when Ruth grounded out to Young at second. Pitching with a wet ball, Mays allowed Heilmann to single in the bottom of the inning, sending home Veach, who had doubled to right with one out. After five, the Yankees led 6-4.

Meusel came up for New York with the bases loaded and two out in the top of sixth. He sent a long drive to center field, to nearly the same spot to which he had homered the day before. The ball soared so high, however, that the strong wind held it inside the ballpark and Shorten made a running grab near the fence to end the inning.9

The Tigers growled back for a run in the sixth. Okrie had reached base and was standing on third when Young singled to center field. Okrie dashed home. Bodie grabbed the ball in center and threw it toward home, attempting to nab the runner. Instead, he pelted him in the back. The ball rolled into the Tigers dugout, and Okrie scored his team’s fifth run. The Detroit deficit was 6-5.

The Tigers were moving closer, but Ruth was due up in the seventh. As the rained poured, the Yankees slugger faced off with Okrie and sent a booming drive “that stayed up in the sky so long that it seemed as if the game would have to be called on account of darkness before it came down,” the Times reported. But just like Meusel’s blast an inning earlier, the wind caught the ball, and so did Shorten, near the center-field fence.

“[Ruth and Meusel] both pumped spectacular drives up into the inky sky and the wind was so strong that the ball stopped in its tracks both times and looked like a quinine pill glued to the clouds,” wrote the Times reporter.

Rain and wind couldn’t stop the Yankees from tacking on an extra run in the eighth when Roger Peckinpaugh singled with the bases loaded to score Bodie.

As the game moved to the ninth, the storm intensified. Okrie struggled controlling the wet ball and walked five New York batters. Duffy Lewis and Bodie added singles that pushed across five more runs against an inferior Tigers defense.10

Rain dropped harder in the ninth and the game was stopped and started twice.

“It was impossible to play good baseball under the conditions, but Owens kept them out on the rainy diamond,” the Times reported. “The Yanks at times shot dirty looks at Owens and he probably kept them playing in the rain to wash them away.”

As a “cloudburst and hail storm compelled cessation,”11 the umpire called the game, for good this time. New York lost its five ninth-inning runs, but won the contest, 7-5. The win was the Yankees’ third straight at Detroit and it kept them in a first-place tie with Cleveland in the American League. Meanwhile, the Tigers fell to 16½ games out of first place and remained in last place after grinding through the soggy mess.

“The game should have been called long before the ninth,” the Times opined, but the umpire didn’t relent to the storm until it was too much to bear. “The strong inclination which Owens had for water led many of the players to refer to him as a fish. Not a poor fish, as that term is generally understood, but they argued that anyone who loves to wallow in water as Owens does, must have some sympathetic traits of a fish, poor or rich.”

Sources

baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET192006100.shtml

retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1920/B06100DET1920.htm

Notes

1 “Tigers Trounced Again by Yankees,” New York Times, June 11, 1920: 14.

2 Ibid.

3 “Tiger Chat,” Detroit Free Press, June 11, 1920: 20.

4 New York Times.

5 “Babe Ruth Branded O.K. by Detroit Fans, Gets Home Run,” Daily News (New York), June 11, 1920: 16.

6 New York Times.

7 “Storm Toll, 7 Dead, 13 Hurt; Bolt Kills 4 High School Boys,” Detroit Free Press, June 11, 1920: 1.

8 New York Times.

9 Ibid.

10 Harry Bullion, “More Changes Due to Be Made in Bengals’ Defense,” Detroit Free Press, June, 11, 1920: 19.

11 Harry Bullion, “Cloudburst Eases Sting of Bengals’ Third Defeat at Hands of the Yankees,” Detroit Free Press, June, 11, 1920: 19.

The Pittsburgh Pirates, under first-year manager George Gibson, came to Philadelphia for a three-game series and took the first two games by scores of 6-4 and 6-1. The third game of the series was played on Tuesday, June 15, a hot, sunny day at Philadelphia’s Baker Bowl. Gibson chose 38-year-old Babe Adams as his starting pitcher; Cravath sent 28-year-old George Smith to the mound.

The Philadelphia bats came to life in the first inning with four runs on five hits, and Adams was knocked out of the game. Casey Stengel, the Phillies’ colorful outfielder, slugged an impressive solo homer in the second inning off relief pitcher Jack “Mule” Watson:

“Casey connected with the pill and sent it on a line toward the center field fence. The ball struck the wire netting [above the wall], but instead of dropping back in the field it kept on going and broke through the barrier. It was one of the hardest hit balls ever seen in the park.”4

Smith retired the first nine batters he faced. After Max Carey drew a walk in the fourth inning, Billy Southworth delivered the first Pirates hit, a home run over the right-field wall. Stengel doubled off the center-field wall in the fifth and scored on Art Fletcher’s double, and the Phillies led 6-2 after five innings.

Smith struggled in the sixth. With two outs, George “Possum” Whitted, George Cutshaw, Charlie Grimm, and Dinty Barbare hit consecutive singles, and two runs came home for the Pirates. Smith walked Walter Schmidt to load the bases, but fanned pinch-hitter Bill Hinchman to end the threat. Earl Hamilton, a “little southpaw,”5 took the mound for the Pirates and held the Phillies hitless for three innings. After eight innings, Philadelphia led 6-4, and Smith needed three more outs to secure a Phillies victory.

Barbare singled off Smith to begin the ninth inning. Schmidt then grounded into a force play at second base; the Phillies “missed a double play by a whisker.”6 Reserve outfielder Fred Nicholson stepped to the plate, pinch-hitting for Hamilton, and tied the score with one swing:

“Bang! Nick caught one of George Smith’s offerings plumb in the home-run groove of his favorite bat and a brand-new ball was lost among the sunburned clan in the left-field bleachers. … The angry drive crashed into the seating section high among the seats.”7

Pirates relief pitcher Elmer Ponder, a “rangy boy from Oklahoma,”8 retired the Phillies in order in the bottom of the ninth, and the game went to extra innings.

In the top of the 10th, Red Causey replaced George Smith as the Philadelphia hurler. The first batter was Southworth, who fouled out to catcher Frank Withrow. After drawing a walk, Whitted ran to second base on a hit-and-run play as Cutshaw hit a groundball behind him and was thrown out at first. Grimm then singled on a hot smash down the third-base line; third baseman Ralph Miller knocked it down with his bare hand, but could not recover in time to tag Whitted, who came sliding into third. With two outs, Grimm on first base, Whitted on third, and Barbare at bat, the Pirates attempted a double steal. Grimm “boldly sprinted over to second and the instant the ball left Withrow’s fingers, Whitted tore for home.”9 Withrow’s throw to second “was a trifle high and hard to handle.”10 Second baseman Johnny Rawlings “only managed to deflect the ball toward left field” as Whitted came home with the go-ahead run.11

Stengel led off the bottom of the 10th with a walk. After two outs were made, Gene Paulette struck out but reached first base when catcher Schmidt dropped the third strike and his throw to first “hit Paulette in the back and rolled into right field.”12 With runners on first and third, Miller lined out to second baseman Cutshaw to end the close, thrilling game. The final score was Pittsburgh 7, Philadelphia 6. Ponder was the winning pitcher, and Causey took the loss.

The Phillies finished the season in last place, 30½ games behind the first-place Brooklyn Robins. Although Cravath had done his best under trying circumstances, he was not rehired for the 1921 season. The Phillies again finished in last place in 1921.

Notes

More than 6,600 fans assembled at Cubs Park for a contest between the top high-school teams of Chicago and New York and a championship aura prevailed. New York’s High School of Commerce had advanced to the New York City championship by defeating Flushing (Queens) High School 7-2 in the semifinals and Commercial (Brooklyn) High School in the finals, 6-5. Lane High School had taken the Chicago championship by defeating rival Englewood High School.

Prior to departing for Chicago from New York’s Grand Central Station, the 16 New York players had practiced under the watchful eye of Coach Harry Kane at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. The entourage going to Chicago included Kane, the players, and the school’s director of athletics, A.K. Aldinger.

When they arrived in Chicago, the host team, led by the school band, accompanied them on a parade through the city to their hotel. While in Chicago the boys from Commerce stayed at the Hotel Sherman. Sponsors of the event included the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News and William Veeck Sr., president of the Chicago Cubs.

At Wrigley, the Lane team was led on to the field by their school’s marching band and throughout the game music was provided by Jack Bramhall’s jazz band. The partisan locals were urged on in the cheering by three of Lane’s top cheerleaders, and taking the field to perform was the famous vaudevillian jazz dancer Joe Frisco, known for, among other things, telling his audiences, “Don’t applaud, folks, just throw money.”

Commerce scored three first-inning runs off Tom Walsh to take the early lead but Lane tied things up in the third inning. Commerce regained the lead with a run in the fourth inning, and a pair of fifth-inning runs made the score 6-3. But Lane pulled to within one run with a pair of fifth-inning runs. Walsh, Lane’s star pitcher, left the game with a sore arm after five innings, and the Windy City boys were somewhat hampered as his replacement, Norris Ryrholm, generally toiled at shortstop or behind the plate. On this day, he had caught the first five innings.

Most of the game’s players were not heard of again, including New York’s battery of Jacobs and McLaughlin. Jacobs scattered 12 hits, and catcher McLaughlin, who was hurt in a collision in the sixth inning, momentarily left for a courtesy runner but returned to catch the final four innings. And then there was the Chicago shortstop with the melodic name of Salvatore Pasquinelli. Long-term baseball fame would elude him as well.

The star of the game was “Gherig”2, that 17-year-old who played first base for the Easterners. He had contributed extra-base hits in each of his squad’s final two games in New York and was highly heralded. As the ninth inning began, Commerce led 8-6, although the Midwesterners were outhitting them. “Gherig,” hitless to that point with two walks in four plate appearances, drove the ball over the fence atop the right-field wall with the bases full. The ball landed on Sheffield Avenue and came to rest on a porch across the street. The grand slam ended the scoring. The article in the New York Times indicated “Gherig” had been “touted as the Babe Ruth of the high schools in New York.”3

After the game, the players from both teams were escorted to the Olympic Theater, where they saw the play Poker Ranch.

Twelve years later, the player whose grand slam broke the game open returned to Chicago for the World Series. By that point Lou Gehrig was in his ninth season with the New York Yankees and was batting behind Babe Ruth. On October 1, 1932, Gehrig hit two homers at Wrigley Field, as did Ruth as the Yankees won 7-5 to take a commanding 3-0 lead in the World Series. They completed the sweep the next day. It was the last time that Ruth and Gehrig would be together on a championship team.

(Click image to enlarge)

This article appears in “Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison” (SABR, 2019), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book online, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted:

Crusinberry, James. “New York Preps Down Lane Tech in Hitfest, 12-6, Gherig Swats Homer with the Bases Loaded,” Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1920: 2-1.

Crusinberry. “Lane Plans Noisy Welcome for New York Prep Champs,” Chicago Tribune, June 24, 1920: 15.

Box score: Chicago Tribune via Newspapers.com

Notes

1 James Crusinberry. “Englewood and Lane Meet Tuesday for Championship,” Chicago Tribune, June 19, 1920: 13.

2 Gehrig’s name was often misspelled in newspaper articles during his high school years. The proper spelling was always Gehrig.

3 “Commerce Team Wins,” New York Times, June 27, 1920: Sports 2.

Bancroft made his big-league debut with the Phillies in 1915 and was instrumental in Philadelphia’s winning its first-ever National League pennant that year. He was among the top five National League shortstops in numerous fielding categories over the next five years and legendary Giants manager John McGraw admired him from afar. McGraw suggested to Giants owner Charles Stoneham that he try to acquire Bancroft.

By early June of 1920, Philadelphia was headed for its second straight eighth-place finish in the eight-team NL. The New York Herald reported that Bancroft had asked for a trade after a feud with Phillies manager Gavvy Cravath. They got into a heated argument on May 22 in Chicago after Cravath pulled Bancroft in the middle of that day’s game because Cravath believed Bancroft wasn’t giving his best effort.1

Phillies President William Baker took a train from Philadelphia to New York to meet with Stoneham and they finalized a trade for Bancroft, who was batting .292 through 42 games. The Phillies received shortstop Art Fletcher and $100,000 in the deal, and Bancroft was in a Giants uniform on June 7.

New York had added a sharp-eyed student of the game. In Bancroft’s first game with the Giants, catcher Frank Snyder offered to explain the team’s signs to his new teammate. “Why, have they changed?” asked Bancroft. “If not, I know them already.”2

The June 28 game at the Baker Bowl was Bancroft’s 20th game with New York. The Giants entered with a 28-33 record, while the Phillies were 25-35. The Giants’ starting pitcher was Art Nehf, a lefty from Indiana who later started and won World Series games every year from 1921 through 1924. The Phillies countered with right-hander Lee Meadows, who also went on to pitch in multiple World Series, starting one game each in the 1925 and 1927 fall classics for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Beginning with shortstop Bancroft hitting second, four consecutive members of McGraw’s lineup eventually made the Hall of Fame. Right fielder Ross Youngs, third baseman Frankie Frisch, and first baseman George “High Pockets” Kelly followed Bancroft, who started his big day in the top of the first by singling and advancing to second on an error by Philadelphia left fielder Irish Meusel.3 Youngs sacrificed Bancroft to third, but he was left there when the scoreless top of the first ended.

The Phillies scored in the bottom of the first on an RBI single by Cy Williams and still led 1-0 when Bancroft came up next in the top of the third. Bancroft singled for his second hit in two at-bats and later scored on Frisch’s three-run home run. The Phillies didn’t score in the bottom of the frame and the Giants led 3-1 after three innings.

The top of the fourth was the Giants’ most productive inning of the day. New York scored seven runs on five hits and three walks. The Giants already had a run in and runners on second and third when Bancroft singled home Earl Smith and Neft to make it 6-1.

Bancroft went to second on a single by Youngs, and the Phillies replaced Meadows with Lefty Weinert. Weinert threw a wild pitch to advance Bancroft and Youngs, and walked Frisch. He then gave up a grand slam to Kelly. It was only the fourth inning, the Giants led 10-1, and Bancroft was 3-for-3 with three singles.

It was still 10-1 when Bancroft led off the top of the sixth with a single to center. It gave him four singles in his first four at-bats. He singled again in the top of the seventh but was caught stealing by Philadelphia catcher Walt Tragesser. Four other Giants scored in the seventh though, moving New York’s lead to 14-1. At the seventh inning stretch, Bancroft was five-for-five with five singles and his new team was crushing his old team.

In the top of the ninth, the switch-hitting Bancroft stepped into the left-handed batter’s box against Phillies right-hander Huck Betts with an opportunity for a baseball rarity – a six-hit game. Only 32 National League batters had compiled six hits in a nine-inning game from 1876 to that point, and nobody had done it in the NL since George Cutshaw of the Brooklyn Dodgers on August 9, 1915.4 Bancroft pulled a single to right field for his sixth hit, all singles, and was replaced by pinch-runner Al Lefevre, playing in his first of only 17 major-league games.

Bancroft was the only NL player with six hits in a nine-inning game in 1920. No NL batter accomplished the feat again until Brooklyn’s Jack Fournier on June 29, 1923. As of August 2024, Bancroft was one of only seven players in Giants history to collect six hits in a nine-inning game.5

The Giants brought in four runs in the top of the ninth, gave up two runs in the bottom of the ninth on a home run by Fletcher, and beat the Phillies 18-3. New York’s 18 runs were tied for the second-most by any NL team in a game that season. Nehf pitched a complete game, allowing nine hits. He didn’t strike out or walk any batters. It was one of Nehf’s 22 complete games that season in 33 starts.

The game took one hour and 50 minutes to complete, and the two-man umpiring staff consisted of Bob Hart behind the plate and Pete Harrison on the bases. Bancroft was busy in the field that day as well; he had four putouts and eight assists, and made a throwing error.

Bancroft’s six-hit feat was featured in newspapers around the country the next day. As one example, the Boston Globe’s headline of the game summary read, “Bancroft’s Six Hits Rare Performance.”6

Robert W. Maxwell of the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger witnessed the game and wrote, “Dave Bancroft covered himself with glory during the afternoon both in the field and at the plate. … He connected with six safeties in as many times at bat, and you can’t beat that. Six hits in a day is good work in any league.”7

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jim Nasium, the pen name of sportswriter and cartoonist Edgar Forrest Wolfe,8 blasted the Phillies’ pitchers in his recap. “They whacked and mauled Lee around the premises until he disappeared in a volley of brutal blows in the fourth period, in which inning the Giants collected seven tallies: then they thumped and abused ‘Lefty’ Weinert until Lefty got out of that and gave the job to ‘Delaware’ Betts, and they kept right on hammering Betts until they had to quit on account of the rules providing that they shall cease hostilities when nine complete innings have been played,” Nasium wrote.9

Bancroft played against the Phillies at Baker Bowl five times in late June 1920. He reached base multiple times in all five games and the Giants won four of them.

It wasn’t surprising that all six of Bancroft’s hits were singles; 1,575 of his 2,004 career hits were singles. He was known as a contact hitter who batted above .300 in five different seasons and struck out only 487 times in 8,250 plate appearances. He was a studious hitter who once said the “business of batting and fielding is a contention between minds.”10 Bancroft was also an outstanding bunter and he had a great eye at the plate, as evidenced by his walking 340 more times than he struck out in his career.11 Sportswriter and official scorer William Hennigan called Bancroft “a timely swatter and a good waiter.”12

The Giants finished 1920 with an 86-68-1 record, in second place, seven games back, while the Phillies finished 62-91, in eighth place in the eight-team NL, 30½ games out of first.

Bancroft led NL shortstops in assists (598), defensive WAR (4.0), double plays (95), fielding percentage (.955), putouts (362), and range factor/game (6.40) in 1920. He helped the Giants reach the World Series every year from 1921 to 1923. They met the American League champion New York Yankees all three years and beat the Yankees in 1921 and 1922.

After 10 more years as a major-league player, including four as player-manager of the Boston Braves (1924-1927), Bancroft hung up his spikes. He was later a coach for the Giants under McGraw and a minor-league manager for teams in Minneapolis, Sioux City, Iowa, and St. Cloud, Minnesota. From 1948 to 1951, he managed teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in Chicago, South Bend, Indiana, and Battle Creek, Michigan.

He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971 and died one year later.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources 

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used Baseball-Almanac.com, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com, and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI192006280.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1920/B06280PHI1920.htm

Photo credit: Dave Bancroft, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Bancroft Comes to Giants in Trade for Fletcher,” New York Herald, June 8, 1920: 13.

2 Trey Strecker, “Dave Bancroft,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/dave-bancroft/. Accessed September 2024.

3 In July 1921 Meusel, one of the NL’s top hitters, followed Bancroft in another controversial trade from the Phillies to the Giants, sparking allegations of collusion between the clubs.

4 Baseball Almanac, “Six Hits in a Game,” https://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/6_hits_1_game.shtml. Accessed September 2024.

5 The others are Danny Richardson (6/11/1887), Jack Glasscock (9/27/1890), George Davis (8/15/1895), Kip Selbach (6/9/1901), Frisch (9/10/1924), and Jesús Alou (7/10/1964).

6 “Bancroft’s Six Hits Rare Performance,” Boston Globe, June 29, 1920: 7.

7 “Our Phils Lost Everything but the Gate Receipts Yesterday, Says Robert W. Maxwell,” Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, June 29, 1920: 16.

8 Robert D. Warrington, “The Great Philadelphia Ballpark Riot,” The National Pastime: From Swampoodle to South Philly (Philadelphia, 2013), https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-great-philadelphia-ballpark-riot/.

9 “Giants Bury Phils Under 18-3 Score,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 29, 1920: 12.

10 Jonathan Weeks, Baseball’s Dynasties and the Players Who Built Them (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 76.

11 Fred Stein, And the Skipper Bats Cleanup (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2015), 139.

12 “Five Boston Red Sox on World’s All-Star Baseball Selection,” Winnipeg Tribune, November 9, 1915: 11.

Thus, as the Cardinals hosted a three-game series against the Pirates beginning July 1, an estimated 20,000 fans came to see their club in action.2 Attendance was no doubt swelled by an annual benefit for the St. Louis Tuberculosis League, which included an assortment of races, field events, and musical entertainment. Local society women walked through the stands selling programs that held the promise of various prizes. An exhibition game involving Army and Navy personnel preceded the Cardinals-Pirates contest at what was described as “the Browns Park,” a descriptive that popular usage would change to “the Cards Park” within a few years.3

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch faithfully covered these events; not until the fourth paragraph of the article did it touch on the day’s most significant development, and then only in passing. The Cardinals were playing their first “Championship contest” (as the Post-Dispatch expressed it), in Sportsman’s Park. It was an occurrence that would have profound implications for the Browns and Cardinals over the ensuing years. This was unrealized in the next day’s coverage of the game. A mundane recounting of the contest carried the day.4

The matchup featured Ferdie Schupp, 8-4 for far, against the Pirates’ Hal Carlson, who began the contest with a 5-6 record. Pittsburgh, in sixth place, just five games behind the Reds (and two behind St. Louis) drew first blood in the third on Carson Bigbee’s triple and Max Carey’s single. Another Pirates tally came the next inning off the bat of Walter Barbare, whose double followed Howdy Caton’s double to make it 2-0.

Carlson held St. Louis scoreless until the bottom of the eighth, when Cliff Heathcote slammed his second home run of the year. St. Louis then tied the game in the bottom of the ninth on Doc Lavan’s double and pinch-hitter Austin McHenry’s one-out single.

Henry had batted for Schupp, whose 10 hits and three walks surrendered remarkably yielded just two runs for Pittsburgh. He was replaced in the 10th by Bill Sherdel, the Cardinals’ main relief pitcher that year. Sherdel had done yeoman work for the club, and would do so for years to come, but this would not be one of his better efforts. He gave up four hits and a walk, aided by first baseman Jack Fournier’s wild throw, as the Pirates scored four times. St. Louis went quietly in the bottom of the inning to give Pittsburgh a 6-2 victory.

The results of the game had no bearing on a pennant race eventually won by Brooklyn. Pittsburgh ended the season in fourth; St. Louis, plagued by ineffective pitching, faded into a tie for fifth, encouraged, however, that at 75-79 they almost reached.500, substantially better than they had done in 1919. Rogers Hornsby, at .370, won the first of six consecutive batting titles, starting a run that included three seasons over .400.

Quite often the importance of a major-league game is measured by the outcome of the contest, often by what might have been accomplished either individually or by either club. In this game Hornsby had two singles in four at-bats. But what he or anyone else accomplished on the field this day was not the significant story. This was the Cardinals’ first home game at Sportsman’s Park, a field they would use for the next 46 years. That the Cardinals could use Sportsman’s Park for their home games would prove of significant importance not only to their franchise but also to their rival St. Louis Browns.

A review of major-league baseball in St. Louis over the years rightfully focuses on the Cardinals. There was a time, however, when the favored team in St. Louis was the American League Browns — not the Cardinals. Until 1926, when the Cardinals won their first pennant and world championship, the Browns regularly outdrew their National League counterparts to the tune of over 50,000 fans per year on average. The Browns were the better team in the early 1920s, and came breathtakingly close to a pennant in 1922, finishing just one game behind the Yankees.

While the Cardinals, in retrospect, might be seen as a greater draw in those years because of Hornsby, the Browns had just as big a pull in first baseman George Sisler. The same year, 1920, that saw Hornsby lead the league with his .370 average, Sisler batted .407 with a then major-league-record 257 hits.

How allegiance gradually shifted from the Browns to the Cardinals was based on several factors. One involved the Cardinals’ promotion of what was called the Knothole Gang, an effort that arranged for free tickets to mostly underprivileged youth. This program gained scores of loyal Cardinals fans for decades. Another development involved Branch Rickey’s move from the Browns to the Cardinals. The Browns’ wealthy, irascible, and unpredictable owner, Phil Ball, did not appreciate Rickey’s talents and Rickey, seeking better opportunities, was lured to the Cardinals. Although he was mediocre as a field manager, his visionary efforts as a general manager in developing an expansive minor-league farm system were peerless. By the time Rickey left the Cardinals in 1942 he had earned the club six pennants and four World Series championships.

Despite these factors, what really cemented the Cardinals’ future in St. Louis — and the Browns’ eventual departure to Baltimore — was how they gained access to Sportsman’s Park, and how it saved the franchise.

By 1920, Robison Field, the Cardinals’ home ballpark for decades, was in a state of serious disrepair. Built in 1893, the wooden structure had outlived its usefulness. Cardinals president Sam Breadon lacked the wherewithal to refurbish it — he estimated it would cost over half a million dollars to do so.5 As the 1920 season approached, the structure had become a firetrap, ready to collapse. Breadon was warned that the ballpark would not pass a fire inspection.6

Desperate, and without the cash to fix the ballpark or build a new one, Breadon approached Ball to see if he could rent Sportsman’s Park for Cardinals home games. Sportsman’s Park had been used by the Browns since 1902 and had received a major overhaul in 1909 with construction of steel and concrete grandstands.

Ball rebuffed Breadon in large part because he was offended at Rickey having left the Browns for the Cardinals years before. “Are you crazy, Sam? I wouldn’t let Branch Rickey put one foot inside my ballpark. Now get out yourself.”7 Facing financial calamity, Breadon was persistent; after several attempts, he finally asked Ball to listen to his plea. Ball relented.

As historian Fred Lieb told it later, Ball told Breadon, “I was a poor boy — a very poor boy — in New York. I came here to St. Louis, nearly starved at first, but eventually made some money in the automobile business. I got into the Cardinals with that fan group — soon got in over my head — and much of my money is in the club. We’re heavily in debt, and our only chance to salvage what we put into it is to sell the Cardinals’ real estate (Robison Field) for $200,000, get out of debt, and move to Sportsman’s Park. You’re a rich man, Mr. Ball; money doesn’t mean anything to you, but I’m about to go broke, and only you can save me.”

Ball respected determination, and behind his blustery façade rested the temperament of a caring man. Breadon’s entreaty hit its mark. “Sam, I didn’t know you were hooked so bad. I admire your frankness, and what’s more I admire a fighter, a man that doesn’t quit easily. Get your lawyer to draw up a contract, insert a rental figure you think is fair and I’ll sign it. Even if it included having that Rickey around the place.”8

With Ball agreeing to take on the Cardinals as tenants, Breadon was able to sell Robison Field for $275,000, clear outstanding debts and provide working capital for the future. One of the main initiatives Breadon and Rickey could now pursue was establishment of the productive minor-league system that would eventually create a competitive team for decades to come.9 This, and a growing allegiance created out of the Knothole Gang, would bury the Browns.

By itself the game of July 1, 1920, between the Cardinals and Pirates was of no great importance in the scheme of things. Where it was played would prove to have a lasting impact on two major-league franchises.

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Photo Caption

Ferdie Schupp, who posted a 61-39 record in his 10-year career (1913-1922), was the Cardinals’ starter in their first game in Sportsman’s Park. (Library of Congress)

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Retrosheet.org and Baseball-Reference.com.

Notes

1 “Cards’ Biggest Local Attendance This Year, Welcomes Team Home,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 1, 1920: 37.

2 “National League,” The Sporting News, July 8, 1920: 6.

3 “Cards Biggest Local Attendance.”

4 Edward P. Balinger, “Sherdel Hammered for Four Hits in Vicious Exhibition,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 2, 1920: 10.

5 Joan M. Thomas, “Robison Field,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/park/88929e79.

6 Mark Armour, “Sam Breadon,” in The 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, The World Champion Gas House Gang (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2014): 239.

7 Golenbock, Peter, The Spirit of St. Louis: A History of the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns, (New York: Avon Books, Inc., 2000), 267.

8 Frederick G. Lieb, The Baltimore Orioles: The History of a Colorful Team in Baltimore and St. Louis, (Carbondale, Ilinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1955),191-192.

9 Armour. 239