October 10, 1923: Casey Stengel is hero as Giants nip Yankees in Game 1

The New York Giants had defeated the New York Yankees in the 1921 and 1922 World Series. The Giants won nine games, lost three, and tied one in those two Series. When the teams met again in the 1923 World Series, the Yankees were expected to fare much better.

Game One of the 1923 World Series was played on Wednesday, October 10, at the new Yankee Stadium.1 The biggest ballpark in the biggest city was a monument to baseball in America. The paid attendance was 55,307, a World Series record. Luminaries of sportswriting were there: Hugh Fullerton, Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, commissioner of baseball, was prominent, a visible reminder of the effort to clean up the sport after the Black Sox scandal had tarnished the 1919 World Series.

John McGraw was in his 22nd season managing the Giants, and Miller Huggins was in his sixth year at the helm of the Yankees. Each starter in McGraw’s Game One lineup had batted.290 or higher during the regular season except pitcher Mule Watson. Huggins’ lineup featured in right field the game’s greatest slugger, the incomparable Babe Ruth, who had hit .393 with 41 home runs. The Yankees’ starting pitcher was Waite Hoyt, whose 3.02 ERA ranked second in the American League. The left fielders were brothers: Irish Meusel for the Giants and Bob Meusel for the Yankees.

In center field for the Giants was Casey Stengel, a 33-year-old platoon player who had batted .339 with five home runs in 75 games. He was a colorful comedian and fan favorite. Stengel is “one of the most valuable players that ever wore a Giant uniform,” said McGraw, “due not only to the fact that he’s still a great hitter, thrower and fielder, but also because his unfailing good humor and his optimism and cheerfulness” encourage his teammates.2

The weather was pleasant for Game One, a comfortable 68 degrees. The comedy duo of Nick Altrock and Al Schacht entertained the crowd before the game. Vendors hawked hot dogs, sandwiches, coffee, lemonade, and souvenirs.3 The fans seemed to be split, half for the Yankees and half for the Giants, though some were ambivalent and simply pleased that a New York team would become champion.

Four umpires were on duty: Billy Evans (home plate) and Dick Nallin (second base) from the American League; and Hank O’Day (first base) and Bob Hart (third base) from the National League. Judge Landis threw out the ceremonial first pitch,4 and the game commenced at 2:00 P.M.

The Yankees got off to a fine start. They scored a run in the first inning via a base on balls and Bob Meusel’s double. In the top of the second, Ruth deftly climbed the embankment in front of the right-field wall to snare Stengel’s near home run.5 In the bottom half, singles by Aaron Ward and Wally Schang, and a sacrifice by Everett Scott set the table for Whitey Witt. His “screaming single to center” drove in two runs, and the Yankees led 3-0.6

But the lead was short-lived. In the third inning, two singles, a base on balls, and an infield out brought in the first Giants run. Heinie Groh, a right-handed batter, lashed the ball down the first-base line. The ball caromed off the wall in right field, taking “a wicked bound from the concrete.”7 Ruth fell down chasing it. Two men scored, tying the game, and Groh reached third base. The official scorer ruled it a triple.

Huggins replaced Hoyt with Bullet Joe Bush. Frankie Frisch greeted the new pitcher with a single to right. Groh trotted home, and the Giants led 4-3.

McGraw replaced Watson with Wilfred “Rosy” Ryan to start the bottom of the third. With the Giants clinging to a one-run lead, the game turned into a duel of pitchers, Bush and Ryan, who were aided by stellar defense.

In the fourth inning, Stengel drew a walk but was quickly erased. The Yankee infield “worked beautifully” as George Kelly grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, Scott to Ward to Wally Pipp.8

The Giants played Ruth, a left-handed batter, to pull the ball. With one out in the fifth inning, he crossed up the defense by driving the ball down the left-field line. In a close play at third base, he evaded Groh’s tag by an elegant hook slide. It was a triple for the Bambino.

Bob Meusel lifted a fly into short right-center field. It looked as if it would fall in, but Frisch, the second baseman, raced back and made a sensational over-the-shoulder catch. Ruth tagged up at third and headed home. Frisch whirled and threw a strike to catcher Frank Snyder. This time Ruth chose an inelegant approach: He tried to steamroll the big catcher. Snyder survived the collision and held onto the ball, and Ruth was called out. “It was one of the worst crashes I have ever seen in baseball,” said sportswriter Charles J. Doyle.9

Frisch’s fielding was again on display in the sixth inning. With two outs and Schang on second base after a double, Scott rapped a grounder toward the hole on the right side of the infield. It looked like a game-tying single, but Frisch raced far to his left and grabbed it and threw to first baseman Kelly for the third out.

Stengel, a left-handed batter, led off the top of the seventh with a hit down the right-field line. “The drive shot into foul territory after passing first base and Ruth timed the carom from the wall perfectly.”10 Ruth’s fast retrieval and throw held Stengel to a single. Kelly then grounded into another 6-4-3 double play.

Bush led off the bottom of the seventh with a single to center field. After Witt flied out, Joe Dugan, a right-handed batter, sent a liner to the right-field wall. Ross Youngs had trouble corralling the ball, which hopped up the embankment there.11 Bush scored the tying run, and Dugan cruised into third base with a triple. With only one out and Ruth coming to bat, the Yankees were poised to take the lead. But they were thwarted by the most dazzling of the day’s fielding gems.

Ruth “smashed a drive down the first-base line that left a trail of flame and smoke,” reported Grantland Rice.12 Kelly was playing a deep first base, near the line and “on the edge of the outfield grass.”13 He knocked down Ruth’s “fierce bounder on the first hop,”14 picked up the ball, and fired it “as accurately as a rifle into the hands of Frank Snyder,”15 who tagged out the incoming Dugan. The Yankees “seemed stupefied” by the play; it was “a shock to everybody.”16 “No infielder ever stopped a harder shot,” said sportswriter Melville Webb.17 It was “a truly miraculous effort,” said Huggins.18

In the bottom of the eighth, Pipp led off with an infield single and advanced to second base on a wild pitch. But he wandered too far from second base and was picked off by a snap throw from Snyder to Dave Bancroft, the shortstop. Pipp was widely criticized for the blunder.19

The score remained tied entering the ninth inning. Bush retired the first two Giants batters. In 6⅓ innings of relief, he had allowed three hits and no runs. Stengel had made one of the three hits, but little was expected from him with two outs and the bases empty in the top of the ninth.

Yet on a full count, Stengel launched “a ferocious, made-to-order liner”20 to the deepest part of the ballpark in left-center field. It traveled 460 feet to the wall21 and “kissed the barrier as [center fielder] Witt speeded toward it.”22 Witt relayed to Bob Meusel, who threw home. As Stengel rounded third, he was given the green light by coach Hughie Jennings, and he raced home and beat the throw by several feet.23 It was an improbable inside-the-park home run and it gave the Giants the lead.

Ryan retired the Yankees in order in the bottom of the ninth to close out the game. The final score was Giants 5, Yankees 4.

“Stengel tagged a fast ball for as clean a homer as ever was hit,” said Huggins. “We have no alibi to offer against that blow.”24 McGraw said it was the best game he had ever seen.25 Judge Landis felt the same.26

Stengel hit another game-winning home run in the 1923 World Series; his solo homer gave the Giants a 1-0 triumph in Game Three. But the Giants lost the Series four games to two, as the Yankees won their first World Series championship. Stengel went 5-for-12 (.417) in the six games, and a month later, he was traded to the Boston Braves.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA192310100.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1923/B10100NYA1923.htm

Notes

1 Yankee Stadium opened on April 18, 1923.

2 Frank G. Menke, “Sportograms,” Nashville Banner, May 8, 1923: 14.

3 Associated Press, “Giants Win First Game,” Elmira (New York) Star-Gazette, October 10, 1923: 1.

4 “McGraw’s Clan Wins First Game of 3d Series between New York Teams for Title,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) News, October 10, 1923: 1.

5 Melville E. Webb Jr., “Giants Beat Yankees 5-4,” Boston Globe, October 10, 1923: 1.

6 Denman Thompson, “Giants’ Triumph in First Game Is Signal Case of Victory of Brain over Brawn,” Washington Star, October 11, 1923: 27.

7 Webb, “Sidelights on Opening Game of World Series,” Boston Globe, October 11, 1923: 10.

8 “McGraw’s Clan Wins First Game of 3d Series between New York Teams for Title.”

9 Charles J. Doyle, “Giants Beat Yankees in First Game, 5-4,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, October 11, 1923: 2.

10 Webb, “Sidelights on Opening Game of World Series.”

11 Webb, “Giants Beat Yankees 5-4.”

12 Grantland Rice, “Giants Win First, 5-4 on Stengel’s Ninth Inning Homer to Centre Field,” Wilmington (Delaware) Every Evening, October 11, 1923: 10.

13 Doyle, “Giants Beat Yankees in First Game, 5-4.”

14 James C. O’Leary, “Stengel’s Home Run Wins in Ninth for Giants, 5-4,” Boston Globe, October 11, 1923: 10.

15 Thomas S. Rice, “Poor Baserunning and the Phenomenal Plays of Giant Infield Cost Yanks Game,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 11, 1923: 2A.

16 Doyle, “Giants Beat Yankees in First Game, 5-4.”

17 Webb, “Sidelights on Opening Game of World Series.”

18 Miller Huggins, “Fate Plays Pranks on Yank Plans,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, October 11, 1923: 11.

19 Rice, “Poor Baserunning and the Phenomenal Plays of Giant Infield Cost Yanks Game.”

20 Doyle, “Giants Beat Yankees in First Game, 5-4.”

21 Philip J. Lowry, Green Cathedrals (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1992), 61.

22 Doyle, “Giants Beat Yankees in First Game, 5-4.”

23 David J. Walsh, “Giants Beat Yanks,” Marion (Ohio) Star, October 10, 1923: 2.

24 Huggins, “Fate Plays Pranks on Yank Plans.”

25 John J. McGraw, “Giant Boss Lauds Work of Players,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, October 11, 1923: 11.

26 Chilly Doyle, “Chillysauce,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, October 11, 1923: 11.