The First of Twenty Six
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by Harold Friend
user LouGehrig
The Yankees started the 1923 season in a new ball park. The Yankees have been associated with the upper class in our classless society, which is debatable, but it is a fact that in 1921, they purchased 10 acres of land in the Bronx from the estate of William Waldorf Astor for $675,000 because the Giants, with whom the Yankees shared the Polo Grounds as a tenant, were upset that the upstart Yankees were drawing more fans. The Giants informed the Yankees that it would be best if they moved as soon as possible. Yankees’ management originally thought that they would build a park that could seat over 100,000 fans, but eventually a smaller seating capacity was decided upon and Babe Ruth had a house that he could build.
The Yankees were the favorites to win the pennant. The team was virtually the same as the one that won the 1922 pennant, but Joe Dugan, acquired late that season from friends in Boston, would be the third baseman for the entire season. Herb Pennock, also picked up from Boston, was the left hander needed by the pitching staff. Most experts expected the Tigers and Browns to be the greatest threats to the Yankees winning their third consecutive American League flag. In the way experts are correct, the experts were right.
The Tigers finished second but their problem was that they were 16 games behind the first place Yankees. It was a great season for the team that was taking over New York. The team from the Bronx batted .291, hit 105 home runs, and led the league with a 3.62 ERA. Babe Ruth hit .393, which is still a team record, belted 41 home runs, including one against the Red Sox on the day the Stadium opened, knocked in 131 runs, and drew 170 walks. The only other Yankee to hit double figures in home runs was second baseman Aaron Ward, who had 10. First baseman Wally Pipp, whose days as the Yankees first baseman were numbered, batted .304, while Bob Meusel ended at .313 and Whitey Witt finished at .314.
Sad Sam Jones wasn't too sad, leading the staff with 21 wins and only 8 losses. Joe Bush won 19 while losing 15, and Herb Pennock, who had been 10-17 in Boston, having yielded an obscene 230 hits in 202 innings, won 19, lost 6, and had a fine 3.13 ERA. Pennock and Dugan continued to make the Yankees happy to have such good friends in Boston.
In 2006, starting pitchers are "innings pitched challenged." A complete game is as rare as a fat kid who hates cookies. Last season, the Cardinals led the majors with 15 complete games while not a single American League team had as many as 10. The 1923 Yankees played 152 games. They had 101 complete games. Each of their 5 starters pitched at least 238 innings, led by Joe Bush's 275 2/3. It was a very good year.
At the end of play on July 4, 1923, the Yankees led the second place Philadelphia Athletics by 11 1/2 games. An amazing statistic is that the Yankees scored 392 runs while yielding only 262. They had won 47 while losing only 22 for a .681 winning percentage. There was no pennant race as the Yankees coasted to the World Series to once again meet the Giants, but this time it would be different.
Yankees' owner Jacob Ruppert was an extremely intelligent individual. He was also quite shrewd. After the Yankees had failed to win even one game during the 1922 World Series, rumors persisted that manager Miller Huggins didn't have the support of Yankees' management and as a result, had lost control of the team Ruppert took care of matters.
Just before the 1923 World Series was to begin, Colonel Ruppert announced that Miller Huggins had signed a one year contract to manage the Yankees in 1924. There would be no thoughts among players, fans, or writers that Huggins didn't have management's full support. Huggins would face the Giants with the confidence that his bosses thought he was the best man for the job. One well-known baseball man was quoted as saying,
"Huggins knows baseball and is one of the keenest students in the game. As a strategist, he rates with the best. I know that he retains the respect of every one of his men. He is real modern and quickly adapted to himself to the change in the style of play brought about by the lively ball. As for discipline, there will be no back talk and no laying down on him. Watch Huggins in the coming series."
The Yankees were the early favorites to win, but as Game 1 was about to begin, the Series had become an even money affair. In many of leading betting commission houses (yes, it was legal), the Yankees started out as 8-5 favorites, but Yankees' backers became cautious with reported injuries to some Yankees' players. J.S. Fried and Co, Wall Street betting commissioners, placed between $5,000 and $10,000 at even money that the Yankees would win the Series. The firm also reported that one wager of $110 against $100 was made that Babe Ruth would hit at least one home run during the Series. Hello, Joe Jackson.
It is important to realize that the Giants were attempting to win their third consecutive World Series, a feat that would not be accomplished until the Yankees did it in the late 1930s. The night before Game 1, which would be played at the new ball park in the Bronx, neither manager would name his opening game pitcher. Miller Huggins told reporters that it was a choice between Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock. John McGraw would only say that any one of five starters could be used, but most reporters expected Art Nehf to start. He didn't.
Miller Huggins started Waite Hoyt against McGraw's surprise choice of Mule Watson. Hoyt had won 17 and lost 9 with a 3.02 ERA while Watson had been 8-5 with a 3.41 ERA after coming over from the Braves in midseason. Watson had never won more than 14 games in any year, and that was the only time in his relatively brief career than he had won in double figures, but nevertheless he started Game 1 and the Giants won, 5-4.
Sometimes you hurt the one you will love, or at least love for a while. The greatest Yankees' manager was a pretty good outfielder. He had a .284 lifetime batting average, a .356 lifetime on base average, and as a part time player in 1923, he hit .339 on the heels of his .368 average the previous year.
With the Game 1 score 4-4 in the Giants' half of the ninth inning, the future Boston and Brooklyn and Yankees manager stepped up to plate to face Bullet Joe Bush, who was pitching scoreless ball in relief of Waite Hoyt. The Giants had roughed up Hoyt for 4 quick runs in the third inning to erase a 3-0 Yankees' lead.
The right handed Bush delivered and the left hand hitting Casey Stengel hit a screaming line drive into left center field between center fielder Whitey Witt and left fielder Bob Meusel. The ball rolled all the way to wall. Stengel, sore legs and all, raced as quickly as he could, rounding second and heading for third, and then rounding third and heading home. Despite losing a shoe between third and home, Stengel scored and the Giants won, 5-4.
The Yankees were not a happy team. The players dressed silently and morosely. They were disappointed but not discouraged. One reporter wrote that "... through their gloom beamed a spark of determination and confidence." Was he ever right.
The Yankees won Game 2 behind Herb Pennock at the Polo Grounds to even the Series but when the teams returned to Yankee Stadium for Game 3, Stengel struck again. Art Nehf finally got his start for the Giants, opposed by Sad Sam Jones. The pitchers traded zeros until the seventh inning, when with one out and the bases empty, Stengel hit a Jones pitch into the right field stands for a 1-0 lead which Nehf made hold up, once again putting the Yankees behind in the Series.
But then the Yankees went to work. They scored 8 runs in each of the next two games, winning by scores of 8-4 and 8-1 to finally lead in the Series. One more Yankees' win and it would be over. It was, but not easily.
In a battle of southpaws, Herb Pennock started for the Yankees on three days rest. Art Nehf started for the Giants on two days rest. Ruth got the Yankees off to a good start when he hit a bases empty home run in the top of the first but a Ross Youngs single scored Heinie Groh with the tying run in the bottom of the first. The Giants scored single runs in the fourth, fifth, and sixth to take a three run lead but the Yankees answered with a 5 run eighth inning. Sad Sam Jones stopped the Giants in the eighth and ninth to preserve the lead. The Yankees had won the first of twenty six World Championships.
References:
<http://manhattan.about.com/od/governmentandpolitics/a/nyyankeestadium.htm>
http://www.ballparkwatch.com/visits/yankee_stadium.htm
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/1923.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL_2005.shtml
http://www.forbes.com/tools/glossary/search.jhtml?term=commission_house
http://www.sportingnews.com/archives/worldseries/1923.html
"Yanks Leave Today for Southern Camp; Squad of Six Players Starts from Here for Spring Training." The New York Times, 4 March 1923, p.RE1.
"Huggins is Signed Again as Manager; Affixes Signature to Contract With Colonel Ruppert to Pilot Team Another Year. Move Believed Strategic; Interpreted as Giving Huggins Absolute Control on the Field in World Series." The New York Times, 8 October 1923, p.13.
"Odds Drop to Even on Eve of Series; Rush of Giant Money Makes Yankees No Longer Favorites in the Betting." The New York Times, 10 October 1923, p.17.
"Breaks Against Us, Is Huggins's View; Players Downcast but Spark of Determination Shines Through Pervading Gloom in Clubhouse." The New York Times, 11 October 1923, p.17.
Date
Sat 07/15/06, 7:15 am EST
