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Now that we’re in the dog days of August and the pennant races in MLB are heating up, one book I recently devoured might whet your appetite for the postseason.
Novelist, journalist, and historian, Kevin Baker, wrote an entertaining, well researched book about America’s national pastime: “The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of New York City.”
Baker describes how baseball with its origins as a simple country game, first played in cow pastures and rural patches of farm land, eventually migrated to the major metropolises and in particular New York City.
NYC has been the most populated city in the United States since 1790, when it
exceeded Philadelphia.
It continued to grow by leaps and bounds in large part through immigration. The population of NYC was 3. 4 million in 1900; and doubled over the next 50 years, leaping to 7.89 million residents in 1959.
Before the big ballparks were erected, historians tell us early baseball in New York were played in Central Park, the Parade Ground near Prospect Park, Carroll Park in Brooklyn, and open lots and public parklands in New Jersey.
The decade between 1947 and 1957, of course, was christened the golden age of baseball in New York City.
And for good reason.
During that span, the Yankees won nine pennants and seven World Series-five of them in a row. The Dodgers won six pennants and one world championship. Three times they finished second. The Giants won two NL championships and one World Series.
Taken together, from 1947 through 1957, New York teams came away with 13 MVP awards, eight Rookie of the year honors, seven home run titles, five no-hitters, and four batting championships.
The New York Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the New York Giants—advanced to the World Series every year (between 1947-1957) except 1948, the last year Cleveland won a World Series.
And speaking of Cleveland, Baker’s book has plenty of material that would interest Cleveland baseball fans.
He touches on the 1920 World Series, when the Cleveland Indians beat the Brooklyn Robins (Dodgers) in seven games in a best of nine series, a Series which was especially noted for the first unassisted triple play executed in World Series history by the Indians second-sacker, Bill Wambsganss, who made a leaping catch of a line drive, scorched off the bat of Clarence Mitchell in the 5th inning for the first out; he stepped on second base to retire Brooklyn’s Pete Kilduff for the second out, and then tagged a surprised looking Otto Miller (caught between first and second), squashing a Brooklyn rally and completing the historic feat.
Game 5 of the 1920 Series was additionally noted for featuring the first home run hit by a pitcher in a World Series, Cleveland native, Jim Bagby, of the Indians, who cracked a three-run blast off of Brooklyn pitcher Burleigh Grimes in the 4th inning.
History was previously made in the first inning of Game 5 of the 1920 World Series when Elmer Smith of the Indians smacked the first grand slam in World Series history.
The Dodgers wouldn’t be in another World Series for more than 20 years; Cleveland would have to wait almost 30 years.
Baker devotes a significant amount of space to the Polo Grounds, located between 155th and 157th streets at Eighth Avenue, nestled on the Harlem River in Upper Manhattan, home of the New York Giants of the National League from 1891 through 1957.
The Polo Grounds was additionally the home of the New York Yankees from 1913 to 1922 and New York Mets in their first two seasons (1962, 1963).
Source: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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In addition to the Giants winning five World Series titles in the Polo Grounds, the stadium is best remembered, sadly, for the place where Cleveland Indians’ shortstop, Ray Chapman, was struck in the head by a pitch thrown by Yankees pitcher Carl Mays on August 16, 1920 and died within hours.
He was only 29 and was the only MLB player killed by a pitch.
Baker provides readers with some fascinating details of Chapman and the submarine pitcher for the Yankees. Mays had a sordid reputation for being erratic with his pitches, some even went so far as to label him, a “headhunter.” In 1917, he led the league in hit batters.
Ty Cobb, in particular, was constantly getting plunked by Mays offerings. Fed up with his wild pitches, Baker wrote that Cobb once laid down a bunt on the first base line and intentionally spiked the back of May's leg, splitting it open and vowing, "The next time you cover the bag, I'll take the skin off your other leg."
Prior to his ill-fated at bat against Mays, Chapman never hit the Yankees submarine pitcher very well; so, the theory goes, the Indians’ shortstop crouched down in the batter’s box, hoping to give himself a competitive advantage in picking up Mays low pitches. When he was first hit, Chapman stood motionless before quickly collapsing to the ground. The ball hit Chapman’s head with such a force, the ball rolled forward to the pitcher’s mound.
Mays initially thought the ball hit Chapman’s bat, so he rifled the ball to first base, before chaos ensued. When he was carried to the clubhouse, one of the last words heard from Chapman’s mouth was the request that his wedding ring be placed on his finger.
Medical records determined Mays pitch cut a three-and-a-half fissure along the base of Chapman's skull, which drove a piece of bone down against his brain.
Despite being demonized for throwing the pitch that killed and greeted with a cascade of boos on road games, Mays maintained his innocence throughout his career. “My conscience is absolutely clear,” the sulky pitcher once said. He also told the press, “I merely wish to say that I am not a murderer, nor do I take unfair advantage of anyone."
At least 5 other A.L. teams, according to Baker, threatened to boycott games if Mays pitched.
Mays was 26-11 in 1920 and sported a league-leading six shoutouts.
Despite winning over 200 games in his bumpy career, allegations first reported by New York journalist, Fred Lieb, that he threw the 1921 World Series, put the kibosh on any thoughts of Mays being considered for the Hall of Fame when his career ended.
Beginning in 1921, owners of the New York clubs began to see the size of the gate receipts swell. In 1923, the Giants had drawn the largest National League crowd ever, 41,000 for a regular season game; and the 1921 World Series between the Yankees and Giants drew the very first million-dollar gate for the Fall Classic.
1921 would mark the first of 13-Subway Series’ (1921-1956) the Yankees would play against either the Giants or the Dodgers in World Series matchups, driving home the universal impression that New York was, indeed, the undisputed baseball capital of the nation.
After a 44-year hiatus, the New York Subway Series was resurrected when the Yankees defeated in the New York Mets in 5 games during the 2000 World Series.
Baker does a superb job in batting down some myths that have been floating through the annals of baseball history. One is that the New York Yankees adopted pinstripes on their uniforms to cover up Babe Ruth’s bulging waistline. Not true. The Chicago Cubs were actually the first team to wear pinstripes in 1907; then the Giants began wearing them in 1911. The Yankees first adopted the pinstripes in 1912, well before the Babe came on board. They stopped wearing them in 1913 and 1914, then began wearing them permanently, beginning in 1915.
Baker also clarifies the term, “Murderers' Row” used to describe the first six hitters of the 1927 Yankees (Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel, and Tony Lazzeri) was actually first used to describe the 1919 New York Yankees, though that team paled in comparison to the 1927 Yankees who sported an astounding 110–44 record (.714), captured the A.L. pennant by 19 games, and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series.
For those long-entrenched New York Yankee haters, long stretches of Baker’s book might be awfully hard to swallow, such as this poisonous line: “In a 30-year run from 1923 to 1953, the Yankees met and defeated every NL team but the Braves, they won 16 of 18 World Series and compiling a record of 68-26 in the Fall Classic, for a .723 winning percentage. The only World Series they lost at all in this period were the Cardinals, in 1926 and 1942.”
It gets worse Yankee bashers.
“In the 1930's,’’ Baker reminds us, “the Yankees reeled off consecutive seasons of 102, 102, 99 and 106 victories and lost a combined total of three games in four World Series triumphs. The streak culminated in a 1939 team than many would rank as the best major-league team of all time, ahead of the 1927 Yankees.”
Those kind of nauseating statistics would turn anyone’s stomach, including the Brooklyn Dodgers, who only managed one World Series championship (1955) over their cross-town rivals after losing in 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953. The Yankees beat the “Dem Bums” again in 1956, the Dodgers final season in Brooklyn, before packing up and dashing off for the West Coast.
Still, those baseball fans who take a dim view of New York baseball teams can at least take heart, that all these feats and gargantuan triumphs Baker writes so eloquently about, are in the past, which took place during a bygone era and have softly faded into the night.
The Yankees, after all, haven’t been in a World Series for 15 years, the Mets for almost 10 years.
I’m sure 28 other teams and their fans in MLB hope it stays that way for another 15 years.
--Bill Lucey
August 10, 2024
