September 17, 1926: Frankie Frisch, Giants derail Reds’ pennant drive

On the eve of the 1926 season, the venerated New York Giants were the consensus pick to win the National League pennant, while the Cincinnati Reds were expected to finish in fourth place.1 But when the two teams met on September 17, the underachieving Giants were mired in fifth place − 15½ games out − and the surprising Reds were in a first-place tie with the St. Louis Cardinals. Giants team captain Frankie Frisch, who had briefly left the team in August after manager John McGraw berated him in front of his teammates, connected on two key late-game hits, including a 10th-inning walk-off homer, to snap Cincinnati’s eight-game winning streak and deal the Reds a pivotal defeat in their pennant race with the Cardinals.

Some onlookers put the blame for New York’s poor season on McGraw, now in his 25th season as Giants manager.2 The intense field general, never one to accept defeat happily, was particularly critical of his team in 1926. Will Murphy of the New York Daily News thought that McGraw’s tongue-lashings had a demoralizing effect on his players. “The Old Man is a great guy to win for,” Murphy wrote, “but he’s hell to lose for.”3

McGraw had directed a significant amount of his ire at Frisch in the previous two seasons. The situation came to a head on August 20 when the 28-year-old second baseman missed a sign and was out of position defending against a hit-and-run, allowing the winning run to score.4 After the game, McGraw vehemently criticized Frisch in front of the team. The next morning Frisch left the Giants without informing his manager.5 McGraw fined him $500 for jumping ship and the pair eventually patched things up enough for Frisch to rejoin the team in early September.6

The Reds’ unexpected rise – they had scored the fewest runs in the league and finished 15 games out of first in 1925 – was largely because of their improved offense.7 Bubbles Hargrave had a career year, hitting .353 and becoming the first catcher to win the batting title in the National or American League, and rookie outfielder Walter “Cuckoo” Christensen finished a close second with a .350 average.8 Veteran Wally Pipp, purchased from the New York Yankees in the offseason, was solid at first base and led the Reds with 99 RBIs.9

Cincinnati’s pitching also got a boost in 1926 when 34-year-old Carl Mays bounced back from a shoulder injury to win 19 games.10 The addition of Red Lucas, whose contract was purchased in the offseason from Seattle in the Pacific Coast League, gave the team a valuable swingman.11

Veteran righty Dolf Luque, who had won the NL ERA title in 1925, started the September 17 game for the charging Reds. The diminutive Cuban had a disappointing 12-15 record and a 3.34 ERA, although he had returned to his old form of late, posting a 2.29 ERA since the beginning of August.12

McGraw tapped knuckleballer Freddie Fitzsimmons to start for New York. The 25-year-old right-hander was in his first full season in the big leagues and his record stood at 12-10 with a 3.54 ERA.

Threatening skies limited attendance to just 3,000 on a gloomy Friday afternoon.13 The sparse Polo Grounds crowd watched both Fitzsimmons and Luque record one-two-three innings in the first two frames.

New York opened the scoring with an unearned run in the third. Travis Jackson doubled to open the inning and he moved to third on Hargrave’s passed ball. With one out, Fitzsimmons hit an easy one-hopper to shortstop Hod Ford and Jackson broke for the plate; Ford booted the grounder, allowing Jackson to scamper home and give the Giants a 1-0 lead.14

Cincinnati touched Fitzsimmons for a trio of runs on an RBI single by Luque in the fifth, Ford’s sacrifice fly in the sixth, and Hargrave’s RBI single in the eighth. The Reds led 3-1 heading into the bottom of the eighth.

Luque had limited the Giants to just an unearned run on two hits – a double and an infield single − through seven innings. “Luque had the Giants at his mercy,” observed the New York American, “but he blew up higher than the Woolworth Building in the eighth.”15 (Lower Manhattan’s 792-foot-high Woolworth Building was the world’s tallest structure until the Empire State Building was completed in 1931.)

Jackson got things going with a one-out infield single that could have been scored as an error on third baseman Chuck Dressen.16 After Luque got the second out, Jack Bentley pinch-hit for Fitzsimmons and singled. With the potential tying runs on base, McGraw had Doc Farrell and Andy Cohen pinch-run for Jackson and Bentley respectively.

Heinie Mueller singled to right, scoring Farrell and advancing Cohen to third. After Mueller stole second, Luque issued an intentional walk to Freddie Lindstrom, loading the bases for Frisch.17 Against a drawn-in infield,18 Frisch rapped a solid single to right field, scoring both runners and giving the Giants a 4-3 lead. The hit extended his modest batting streak to seven games.

The three-run uprising ended Luque’s afternoon. Pete Donohue, who had shut out the Giants the previous afternoon, came out of the bullpen to get cleanup hitter George Kelly for the third out.

Giants workhorse Jack Scott relieved Fitzsimmons in the ninth and retired the first two batters.19 With Cincinnati down to its final strike, Curt Walker worked Scott for a base on balls.20 Billy Zitzmann, pinch-running for Walker, took off for second on the first pitch21 to Edd Roush and he slid in just ahead of the tag, although the New York Daily News griped that the safe call was “a mighty bad decision” by the umpire.22 Roush lashed a sharp single to right and the game was tied, 4-4.

Despite having pitched two complete games for Cincinnati in the previous four days, veteran lefty Eppa Rixey took to the hill in the bottom of the ninth. The Giants put a runner in scoring position with two outs, but Rixey escaped unscathed, sending the game into extra innings.

After Jimmy Ring set the Reds down in order in the 10th, Rixey returned to the mound for his second inning of work. He retired the first two batters on groundouts. By the time the next batter, Frisch, stepped into the batters’ box, the scoreboard had already flashed the news of the Cardinals’ blowout victory in Philadelphia.23

On a 1-and-1 count, Rixey threw a curveball on the outside of the plate; Frisch hit it the other way and his fly ball cleared the wall near the right-field corner, which was just 258 feet from home plate.24 An enthusiastic crowd poured onto the field as Frisch, now batting .348 since returning to the team, rounded the bases on his thrilling walk-off homer.25

The loss snapped Cincinnati’s eight-game winning streak and dropped the Reds a game behind St. Louis with eight games to play. Manager Jack Hendricks remained upbeat, noting that his team still had one game remaining against the Cardinals, on the final day of the season.26

But the September 26 showdown at Redland Field failed to materialize. Frisch’s stunning homer kicked off a crushing six-game losing streak for the Reds and the Cardinals clinched the pennant – their first as a member of the NL − on September 24.

Cincinnati finished with an 87-67-3 record, two games behind St. Louis. The next season the Reds fell to fifth place, their first of 11 consecutive finishes in the second division. The Giants ended the season in fifth place with a 74-77 record, 13½ games behind the Cardinals. It was the only time they posted a losing record in the 16-year span from 1916 to 1931.

Frisch hit .314 with 23 steals in 1926, his worst season since 1920. He had been one of McGraw’s favorites when he was helping the Giants win four pennants and two World Series championships from 1921 to 1924, but his relationship with Little Napoleon had been permanently damaged when he walked away from the team in August. On December 20, 1926, the Giants made a blockbuster deal with the Cardinals, trading Frisch and Ring for Rogers Hornsby just two months after the Rajah had led St. Louis to a World Series championship.

Frisch’s career was rejuvenated with the Cardinals and he helped win them four more pennants and two World Series titles between 1928 and 1934. He finished a close second in NL MVP Award voting in 1927 and 1930 before finally winning MVP honors in 1931. Frisch took over the Cardinals’ managerial duties when Gabby Street resigned in the middle of the 1933 season. He retired as a player in 1937 and managed the team until September 1938, compiling a .564 winning percentage.

Frisch finished his playing career with a .316 batting average, 105 home runs, 1,244 RBIs, and 419 stolen bases in 19 big-league seasons. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1947.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Frankie Frisch, Library of Congress.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, Retrosheet.org, and the Seamheads.com Ballparks Database. The author also reviewed the SABR biographies of Frankie Frisch, John McGraw, Freddie Fitzsimmons, and Art Nehf. Unless otherwise noted, all play-by-play information for this game was taken from the article “Reds Lose to Giants; Cards in First Place,” on page 11 of the September 18, 1926, edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NY1/NY1192609170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1926/B09170NY11926.htm

Notes

1 Henry L. Farrell (United Press), “Big Leagues Swing into Action Today as Easter Skies Give Approval,” Monrovia (California) Daily News, April 13, 1926: 3; “Consensus,” New York Daily News, April 13, 1926: 28.

2 McGraw’s leadership was far from the only reason for the Giants’ disappointing season. After stumbling out of the gate, the Giants dumped veterans Art Nehf and Heinie Groh. (Nehf pitched only 1⅔ innings for the Giants because of an injury and Groh was hitting only .229.) Outfielder Ross Youngs was ill and checked himself into a New York hospital in August. He died of a kidney ailment on October 22, 1927, at age 30. Veteran outfielder Irish Meusel had a big drop-off in performance from the previous season and was released by the Giants on September 17. Will Murphy, “M’Graw Blamed for Giants’ Flop,” New York Daily News, September 4, 1926: 20.

3 Murphy, “M’Graw Blamed for Giants’ Flop.”

4 Charles C. Alexander, John McGraw (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 273-74; Associated Press, “Second Sacker Quits New York Team,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 22, 1926: 20.

5 Associated Press, “Second Sacker Quits New York Team.”

6 “Frank Frisch Fined $500 by Manager McGraw,” Waco News-Tribune, September 12, 1926: 11.

7 The Reds scored 4.8 runs per game in 1926, third best in the NL.

8 Christensen also led the NL with a .426 on-base percentage in 1926. When his average dipped to .254 in August 1927, he was demoted to the American Association. Christensen spent the rest of his career in the minors despite having a career batting average of .315 in two big-league seasons.

9 At 33 years old, Pipp enjoyed his last good season in the big leagues in 1926. He hit .291 with 6 homers and 99 RBIs, finishing 14th in NL MVP voting.

10 Mays was 3-5 in 12 appearances in 1925. He went 19-12 with a 3.14 ERA in 1926, finishing 22nd in NL MVP voting. “Mays Back; Arm Better,” Cincinnati Post, May 28, 1925: 20.

11 Lucas became the Reds’ ace in 1927, going 18-11 with a 3.38 ERA.

12 Luque had missed time in June with tonsillitis. “Notes of the Game,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 15, 1926: 15.

13 “Notes of the Game,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 18, 1926: 11.

14 According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Ford would have thrown out Jackson at the plate “with certainty” had he fielded it cleanly. “Reds Lose to Giants; Cards in First Place,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 18, 1926: 11.

15 “Defeat Drops Cincinnati to Second Place,” New York American, September 18, 1926: 17.

16 The Cincinnati Enquirer described Jackson’s infield hit as “an extremely scratchy blow” and the official scorer as “lenient.” “Reds Lose to Giants; Cards in First Place.”

17 As of April 2024, Baseball Reference and Retrosheet did not specify that the walk to Lindstrom was intentional. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the Cincinnati Enquirer both reported that it was intentional. The walk set up a force play at any base, but the move was questionable considering that the switch-hitting Frisch was riding a six-game hitting streak and the right-handed-hitting Lindstrom was in a 0-for-10 mini-slump. The Reds also lost the platoon advantage by walking Lindstrom to get to Frisch. “Frisch’s Homer in 10th Gives Giants 5-4 Victory Over Reds,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, September 18, 1926: 9; “Reds Lose to Giants; Cards in First Place.”

18 The St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that the Reds brought the infield in to get the force play at home. If true, it was a questionable strategy with two outs and a force play in effect at any base. “Frisch’s Homer in 10th Gives Giants 5-4 Victory Over Reds.”

19 Scott led the NL with 50 appearances in 1926, including 22 starts. He led the Giants with 226 innings pitched.

20 Tom Swope, “Game Here May Decide Race,” Cincinnati Post, September 18, 1926: 6.

21 “Frisch’s Home Run in 10th Beats Reds,” Boston Globe, September 18, 1926: 6.

22 Charles Hoerter, “Frankie’s Homer in 10th Whistles Cincinnati Dirge,” New York Daily News, September 18, 1926: 21.

23 “Frisch’s Home Run in 10th Beats Reds.”

24 The Cincinnati Post described Frisch’s home run as “just a pop fly that managed to clear the wall close to the foul line and fall among the spectators.” “Frisch’s Home Run in 10th Beats Reds”; “Game Here May Decide Race.”

25 “Frisch’s Homer in 10th Gives Giants 5-4 Victory Over Reds.”

26 “Notes of the Game.”