SABR Games Project celebrates Opening Day and start of 2023 baseball season
Babe Ruth, center, leads the New York Yankees across the field on Opening Day before the first game at the new Yankee Stadium on April 18, 1923, in New York. (Library of Congress)
MARCH 28, 2023 — One hundred years ago, the participants in the previous two World Series — played on their shared home field, the Polo Grounds — opened their seasons. On April 17, 1923, the New York Giants, two-time defending National League champions and winners of both the 1921 and 1922 World Series, beat the Boston Braves 4-1 at Braves Field. With Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in attendance, Heinie Groh paced the Giants with a triple and home run.
A day later, Commissioner Landis was in the Bronx to see the New York Yankees, who had won the ’21 and ’22 American League pennants but lost the World Series, open against the Boston Red Sox. For a decade, the Yankees had been the Giants’ tenants at the Polo Grounds, but now they had their own home: Yankee Stadium, erected for $2.5 million on a 10-acre plot across the Harlem River. Babe Ruth inaugurated the stadium, eventually known as “The House That Ruth Built,” with a three-run homer in the Yankees’ 4-1 win.
At the end of the 1923 season, the Giants and Yankees again played in the World Series, and this time the Yankees won the first World Championship in franchise history.
Accounts of the Giants’ 1923 opener at Braves Field, by Kurt Blumenau, and the Yankees’ Yankee Stadium debut, by Frederick C. Bush, are available at the SABR Games Project.
As we celebrate the start of a new baseball season in 2023, the SABR Games Project has published a variety of new stories on memorable Opening Day games, including first steps in championship seasons, notable lineup and broadcasting debuts, the beginning of a farewell season, the equaling of one of the game’s most venerated records, and an independent Black team’s opener with a White team in 1925.
- April 17, 1923: Reformer, rogue meet before Giants’ win on Opening Day in Boston, by Kurt Blumenau
- April 12, 1925: Homestead Grays open season by defeating McConkey Macks, by Donna L. Halper
- April 17, 1929: Athletics open season by setting tone for dynasty to come, by Jake Bell
- April 16, 1935: Wes Ferrell two-hits ‘Ruth-less’ Yankees on Opening Day, wins on Gehrig error, by Thomas E. Merrick
- April 18, 1939: Red Barber graces the airwaves in first Brooklyn Dodgers radio broadcast, by Richard Cuicchi
- April 16, 1957: Gino Cimoli homers in 12th inning, Dodgers edge Phillies on Opening Day, by Steven C. Weiner
- April 19, 1960: Maris stars in Yankee debut; Williams passes Gehrig on all-time homer list, by Tim Otto
- April 4, 1974: Hank Aaron ties Babe Ruth’s home run record as Braves lose to Reds, by Thomas J. Brown Jr.
- April 6, 1979: Expos edge Pirates in 10-inning season opener, by John Fredland
- April 8, 1985: Detroit’s Chris Pittaro lives up to manager’s hype on celebratory Opening Day, by Chad Moody
- April 4, 1988: Dave Dravecky goes the distance in Giants’ Opening Day win over Dodgers, by Tom Schott
- April 1, 1996: Pat Hughes joins Cubs broadcast booth, Mark Grace wins opener in 10th, by Cory Ritterbusch
- April 1, 2013: Red Sox begin journey from worst to first with Opening Day win at Yankee Stadium, by Bill Nowlin
To find more stories from the SABR Games Project, visit SABR.org/gamesproject.
Originally published: March 28, 2023. Last Updated: March 28, 2023.