September 24, 1922: Rogers Hornsby becomes first to bat .400 and slug 40 home runs in same season as Cardinals delay Giants’ pennant

A Sunday crowd of 30,000 fans1 came to the Polo Grounds2 on September 24, 1922, hoping to see their defending World Series champion New York Giants clinch another National League pennant. They might have been disappointed with that expectation, as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Giants 10-6, but they were still witnesses to history: St. Louis second baseman Rogers Hornsby “electrified the huge throng by hitting two homers,”3 raising his NL-record total of “four-base swats”4 for the season to 42.

The first-place Giants were hosting the Cardinals in a four-game series that began on September 23. In that game, Hornsby – who had shattered Ed Williamson’s 38-year-old NL homer mark of 27 by early August – hit his 40th home run of the season, and his 2-for-4 performance kept his batting average at a league-leading .397. Despite Hornsby’s efforts, however, a four-run outburst in the bottom of the eighth inning secured the win for New York, and the Giants, with a six-game lead over the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates, needed just one more win to clinch the pennant.5

John McGraw’s team had the opportunity to clinch in this second game of the series, and Rosy Ryan started for the New Yorkers. In his second full season with the Giants, the 24-year-old right-hander was making his staff-high 44th appearance of the season. This was Ryan’s 22nd start of 1922, but he had primarily been a reliever since the middle of August.6 He came into this game with a 3.05 earned-run average.

Opposing Ryan on the mound was Bill “Wee Willie” Sherdel, who also split time between starting and relieving for St. Louis. This was the 46th appearance for the left-hander, and his ERA was an even 4.00.

The Cardinals were blanked in the opening frame. Hornsby walked with two down in the top of the first, but Ryan retired Jim Bottomley for the third out. In the home half, Dave Bancroft led off with a double just inside the left-field line. Heinie Groh singled, sending Bancroft to third. With Frankie Frisch batting, Groh attempted to steal second and made it safely when Hornsby dropped catcher Eddie Ainsmith’s on-target throw for an error. Frisch’s sacrifice fly brought Bancroft home for the game’s first run.

St. Louis answered by sending 10 men to the plate in the second inning. Milt Stock reached on an error by shortstop Bancroft. Joe Schultz singled and Doc Lavan bunted safely, loading the bases. After Ryan struck out Ainsmith, Sherdel grounded a hit through the right side, and two runs scored. Ray Blades singled to center, plating Lavan, with Sherdel holding at second.

The Cardinals led, 3-1, and McGraw wasted no time calling Carmen Hill from the bullpen to replace Ryan. Hill had recently been called up from the Double-A American Association’s Indianapolis Indians. Jack Smith forced Blades at second for the second out of the inning, but the Cardinals still had runners at the corners. Hornsby then “bumped Carmen for a single which scored Sherdel.”7 Smith took third and Hornsby advanced to second on the throw to third. Bottomley slashed a double to right, and St. Louis tallied two more runs, giving the Cardinals six in the inning. Hill struck out Stock, and the pitcher’s day was done.

Both Bill Cunningham and Frank Snyder reached to start the Giants’ second inning. Ralph Shinners pinch-hit for Hill and forced Snyder at second. Bancroft’s sacrifice fly plated Cunningham. Groh followed with an RBI double, and the Cardinals’ advantage was trimmed to 6-3.

Rookie Virgil “Zeke” Barnes became the third New York hurler in the top of the third. He walked Schultz, and Lavan reached on an error. Ainsmith forced Lavan at second, but Schultz overran third base, and he too was retired in what went down as a rare 3-6-5 double play. Sherdel notched his second single of the game,8 putting runners at the corners. Blades tripled over Cunningham’s head in deep center; both Ainsmith and Sherdel scored to restore St. Louis’ five-run lead.

Leading off the top of the fourth, Hornsby took a strike from Barnes. Hornsby then shot the next pitch into deep left field. The ball banged against the fence and rebounded away from both left fielder Irish Meusel and center fielder Cunningham. By the time the ball was returned to the infield, Hornsby “had scampered across”9 home plate with an inside-the-park home run, and St. Louis’ lead was 9-3.

The Giants made the game closer with single runs in the fourth and fifth. In the fourth, Snyder grounded to St. Louis shortstop Lavan, who threw the ball away, and Snyder took second. Snyder moved to third on a groundout and scored on Bancroft’s second sacrifice fly of the game. In the fifth, Sherdel yielded two doubles, to Meusel and George Kelly. The score was now 9-5.

McGraw had gone to the bullpen again in the top of the fifth, summoning Jesse Barnes – Virgil’s elder brother by nearly five years – to “t[ake] up the pitching burden his younger brother laid down.”10 The Barnes brothers both had multi-season affiliations with the Giants, but 1922 was the only year that they both were on the Giants roster for the entire season.

Jesse pitched a clean fifth, striking out both Lavan and Ainsmith. In the sixth, he retired both Blades and Smith, but then Hornsby blasted a pitch into the right-field stands for his second homer of the game. That made the score 10-5, in favor of the visitors, and although New York had scored in four of its first five innings at the plate, the Giants seemed defeated at this point.

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat told its fans that “The Giants forgot to score in their half”11 of the sixth and managed just one more run in the game (a run on two hits and a groundout in the seventh). The New York Times continued this reasoning, reporting that “by the time the ninth rolled around it had become so dark that the Giants thought it was bedtime, so they rolled over and played dead.”12

The final score was 10-6. Ryan’s record fell to 16-12. Only two of the five runs he allowed were earned. Of the New York pitchers, Jesse Barnes was the most effective, allowing only one hit in his four innings of work, the solo home run by Hornsby. Rookie Claude Jonnard pitched a scoreless ninth for the Giants, striking out Hornsby.

While the Giants used five hurlers in the losing effort, Sherdel pitched his 16th complete game of the year, earning his 17th win, as the Cardinals “took great delight in deferring the clinching of the flag”13 for the Giants. New York did clinch the next day, by defeating the Cardinals, 5-4 in 10 innings. This was eighth NL championship for the Giants since McGraw became New York’s manager in 1902.

Hornsby had victimized both Barnes brothers, hitting his 41st homer off Zeke in the fourth inning and his 42nd off Jesse in the sixth, prompting the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to print the headline, “Rogers Hornsby Seems to Have Been Indulging in a Little Barnes Storming Yesterday.”14

In addition to the two home runs, Hornsby scored three times and drove in three runs. He also had a walk. With his 3-for-4 performance against the Giants, Hornsby raised his batting average to .400.

Dubbed “home run king”15 in the next day’s newspapers, Hornsby went on to win the Triple Crown, leading the NL in batting average (.401), home runs (42), and runs batted in (152).16 His home-run total led all National League and American League batters; nobody else in the NL hit more than 26,17 and Ken Williams playing for the St. Louis Browns, hit 39 round-trippers to lead the AL.18

Hornsby became the first batter to hit 40 or more home runs and bat .400 or better in the same season. One hundred years later (as of the end of the 2022 season), he remained the only major leaguer to accomplish both feats in the same season. Hornsby’s performance also marked the first time a player had won the Triple Crown by hitting more than 15 home runs.19

Hornsby won the coveted Triple Crown again in 1925 (.403, 39, 143), missing out on the .400/40 Club by one homer.20 He became the second major leaguer to win the Triple Crown twice.21

The 1922 season also marked the third consecutive year in which Hornsby led the National League in batting average. He continued to dominate the senior circuit, leading the league for each of the next three seasons as well, including posting a .424 mark in 1924.

Author’s Note 

Through the first four games of the 1922 season, Hornsby had 5 hits in 15 at-bats. That .333 mark was his lowest batting average of the entire season. When June began, he was batting .377, and he started July hitting .396. From August 13 through September 19, he put together a 33-game hitting streak, which lifted his batting average to an even .400. He hovered above and below that point over the next eight games, and on September 29, he went hitless in four trips to the plate against the Chicago Cubs, dropping his average to .398. In his final three games, though, he hit safely 7 times in 12 at-bats, finishing the season at .401. He batted .400 at home (126-for-313) and .403 away (124-for-310).

Hornsby’s home-run hitting was also consistent. In the first three months of the season, he blasted 17 round-trippers, adding 25 in July through September. He spread his homers around, hitting at least four against each of the seven other teams in the NL. The New York Tribune joked, “If this youngster could only hit, he might make a big leaguer.”22

Acknowledgments

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

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NY1/NY1192209240.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1922/B09240NY11922.htm

Notes

1 This figure varies, depending on the source. Both Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet list an attendance figure of 30,000. However, the New York Daily News, New York Tribune, and St. Louis Star and Times all wrote that 32,000 fans showed up. According to the New York Times, the figure was 28,000, while the New York Herald reported only 25,000 fans turned out.

2 This is now referred to as Polo Grounds V.

3 James M. Gould, “Hornsby Hammers Out Two Homers as Cards Defeat Giants, 10-6,” St. Louis Star and Times, September 25, 1922: 17.

4 Charles F. Mathison, “Hornsby’s Homers Help Beat Giants,” New York Herald, September 25, 1922: 10.

5 Pittsburgh had only six games left in its schedule. Just to tie for the pennant, the Pirates needed a miracle, where they won all six and New York lost its remaining nine games.

6 Ryan had not started since September 5, when he recorded one out against the Boston Braves, walked the next two batters, and was pulled from the game. The first batter he walked made it to third and then stole home with the game-winning run, so Ryan was charged with the loss. For the season, Ryan made 46 appearances (22 starts), and earned a decision in 39 of those games. He also led the NL with a 3.01 ERA.

7 “Cardinals Defeat Giants by 10 to 6,” New York Times, September 25, 1922: 18.

8 This was Sherdel’s fourth multi-hit game (as a batter) in 1922.

9 “Hornsby bats out two home runs, Cardinals beating Giants, 10 to 6,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, September 25, 1922: 8.

10 “Hornsby bats out two home runs, Cardinals beating Giants, 10 to 6.”

11 “Hornsby bats out two home runs, Cardinals beating Giants, 10 to 6.”

12 “Cardinals Defeat Giants by 10 to 6.”

13 “Cardinals Defeat Giants by 10 to 6.”

14 “Rogers Hornsby Seems to Have Been Indulging in a Little Barnes Storming Yesterday,” headline in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 25, 1922: 9.

15 Mathison.

16 George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns led the American League with a .420 batting average and St. Louis’s Ken Williams paced the AL with 155 RBIs.

17 Cy Williams of the Philadelphia Phillies, who had led the NL in homers with 12 in 1916 and 15 in 1920, hit 26 in 1922.

18 New York’s Babe Ruth clubbed 35 home runs in 1922, third-best in the AL, behind Ken Williams (39) and Tillie Walker (37). Hornsby broke Ruth’s streak of four consecutive seasons leading the majors in home runs (1918-1921). Between 1918 and 1929, Ruth led the majors in home runs every season except two: 1922 and 1925, when Hornsby clinched the Home Run King title.

19 Hornsby remains the only National League Triple Crown winner to hit more than 31 homers (Joe Medwick hit 31 in 1937 and Chuck Klein hit 28 in 1933), and Hornsby did it twice (42 in 1922, 39 in 1925).

20 Coincidentally, Hornsby hit his final home run of the 1925 season (his second Triple Crown season) on September 24.

21 Oscar Charleston won the Triple Crown three times (in 1921, 1924, and 1925, while playing in the Negro National League and Eastern Colored League). Ted Williams is the only American League player to win the Triple Crown twice in his career (1942 and 1947).

22 John Kieran, “Hornsby Hits Two Homers as Cards Defeat McGrawmen, 10-6,” New York Tribune, September 25, 1922: 8. In 1922 Hornsby was playing in his eighth big-league season.