When They Went After the Commissioner

by Harold Friend

user LouGehrig

The 1922 Yankees were a team in turmoil for much of the season, and most of the turmoil centered around Babe Ruth. Following the 1921 World Series, Ruth formed a team of major league all stars that would barnstorm around America. Before the free agency era, baseball players usually worked in the off season because they needed the money. Baseball players earned only slightly more than most Americans, and some even used public transportation to get to work. In the off season, many players sold used cars or insurance (Bob Feller and Al Rosen), some were teachers (Joe Black), and some dug graves (Richie Hebner) to help the family business.

On November 12, 1920, baseball owners installed a new commissioner following the revelation that the Cincinnati Reds had been given unfair help in winning the 1919 World Series. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was elected baseball's monarch in an attempt to restore public confidence in the game's integrity.

Landis had a rule that prevented players who had participated in the World Series from barnstorming in the off season, and Landis ruled with an iron fist. When the commissioner discovered that Babe Ruth had ignored his edict, he suspended Ruth for 39 days, forcing the greatest of all Yankees to miss more than a month of the 1922 season. Babe's teammate, Bob Meusel, a member of Ruth's barnstorming all stars, was also suspended.

Ruth was one of the strongest of all personalities, as was Landis. The barnstorming tour started in Buffalo and ended five days later in Scranton when Landis told Ruth to end it. Ruth challenged Landis to make him end it, and Landis met the challenge. The new commissioner not only suspended Ruth and Meusel---he fined them each $3,362.26, which equaled their 1921 World Series shares. But Babe Ruth was Babe Ruth, and when the Yankees opened the season in Washington, President Warren Harding threw out the first ball with Babe Ruth at his side. The Babe watched the game from the presidential box. Landis didn't win them all.

After beginning his season more than a month late, Ruth complicated matters. Upon his return, he threw dirt in an umpire's eyes and was suspended again. The "fun-loving" Babe also went into the stands after a heckler, and when the fans booed him, he stood on top of the dugout, shook his fist at the fans, and called them all yellow. In total, Ruth missed almost one third of the season but still managed to hit .315 with 35 home runs and 99 RBIs.

The Yankees won the pennant in a close race with the St. Louis Browns. The Browns had an outstanding team, probably the best in their history, and led by Hall of Fame first baseman George Sisler, they gave the Yankees almost more than they could handle.

The Browns batted .313 as a team. Sisler hit .420 with a .467 on base average and a .594 slugging average while outfielder Ken Williams batted .332 and led the league with 39 home runs. St. Louis out hit the Yankees, .313 to .287, out homered the Yankees, 98 to 95, and out slugged the Yankees, .455 to .412. The Browns' team ERA was 3.38. The Yankees' team ERA was 3.39. But statistics are one thing and the game on the field is often something else. The Yankees won the pennant by a single game.

The Yankees were slight favorites to win the World Series, primarily because the Giants pitching staff was perceived as weak and the Yankees had a healthy Babe Ruth to lead a potent offense. The Giants staff was led by Art Nehf, who had won 19 games but who had given up 286 hits in 268 2/3 innings. Jesse Barnes won 13 games, Phil Douglas had won 11, and no other Giants' hurler had double figures in wins while the Yankees' Joe Bush had won 26 games, Bob Shawkey had won 20, and Waite Hoyt had won 19. So what happened? The Yankees didn't win a single game. The best they could manage was a 3-3 tie in Game 2.

The Giants were the home team for Game 1. The Yankees were leading 2-0 in the bottom of the seventh inning with ace Joe Bush on the mound. What occurred was described by one sportswriter as the darkest inning of the game for the Giants. With one out, the National Leaguers loaded the bases on three singles, bringing up pitcher Art Nehf. Giants' manager John McGraw sent up slugging catcher Earl Smith to hit for Nehf. Bush worked carefully and got Smith to hit a ground ball to shortstop Everett Scott, who tossed the ball to second baseman Aaron Ward for one out. Ward fired to first to complete the double play and end that threat. But there would be another.

The Giants won the game in the eighth inning. Dave Bancroft, the Giants shortstop, led off with a single. After the game, Bush blamed himself for pitching carelessly to Bancroft. Henie Groh, considered a weak batter but a hitter who had already had tripled and singled, went after Bush's first pitch and singled to right. Frankie Frisch, who has become an underrated player with the passage of time, took a pitch for ball one and then lined a single to left with Bancroft stopping at third, not wanting to test left fielder Bob Meusel's arm. The Giants had the bases loaded for the second consecutive inning, this time with no outs.

The batter was Bob Meusel's brother, Emil "Irish" Meusel, a powerful right handed hitter who had batted .331 with 16 home runs. Bush thought that with the bases loaded and his team trailing by two runs late in the game, Meusel would be taking. That was the way the game was played in those days, but that was not the way the game was played on this day. Meusel's brother lined Bush's first pitch up the middle, past the mound, over second, into center for a single. Bancroft crossed home with the Giants' first run, Groh came around from second to tie the game, and Frisch raced all the way to third.

Yankees' manager Miller Huggins brought in Waite Hoyt to face Ross Youngs, another powerful batter. Youngs hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Frisch with the lead run. Hoyt retired George Kelly and Casey Stengel (yes, him) on strikeouts to end the inning, but the teams were finished scoring and the Giants led the Series.

Game 2 is a fascinating study of how things seem to change with time, the more they really don't change at all. The home team Yankees started Bob Shawkey against the Giants' Jesse Barnes. New York's Giants struck quickly. Following Bancroft's grounder to second for the first out of the game, Henie Groh continued his harassing of the Yankees by hitting a single to left. Frankie Frisch singled him to second. Irish Meusel hit a home run to put New York's Yankees in a 3-0 hole. They crawled out.

Wally Pipp, who in a few years would learn that sometimes taking a day off can be costly, singled home Joe Dugan, who had reached on Dave Bancroft's error. A fourth inning Aaron Ward home run cut the Yankees' deficit to a single run and then, in the eighth inning, after Dugan was thrown out attempting to beat out a bunt, Babe Ruth hit a double, which was one of his only two hits in the entire Series. Wally Pipp then flied out to center, moving the speedy (no kidding) Ruth to third with two outs, bringing up Irish Meusel's Yankee brother. Bob Meusel singled to tie the game and in a little while, the fun would begin.

Neither team scored in the ninth, and neither team scored in the tenth. Bob Meusel fouled out to Giants' backstop Frank Snyder to end the tenth inning. The Yankees took the field as home plate umpire George Hillebrand wheeled around, held up his hand, and announced at 4:45, in a voice that few could hear, that the game had been called on account of darkness. It was not a popular announcement.

The Giants left their dugout for the clubhouse but the Yankees were thunderstruck. They watched Hillebrand in total amazement as he left the field and headed for the exit behind the Yankees' dugout, with the other three umpires in close pursuit. The bewildered fans started to realize that the game was over. They reacted slowly at first and then most started for the exits, but many of the more than 37,000 fans headed for the box that was near the Yankees' dugout on the first base side of the field which was inhabited by baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis .

Before he realized what was happening, Judge Landis and his wife were surrounded by hundreds of angry fans. Some fans wanted to know why the game was called while others implored baseball's monarch to allow the game to continue. One fan shouted, "Barnum was right, and we're the suckers." Some fans claimed the game was called so "the fakers could have another chance at our money." One fan asked Landis if "this is what you get $100,000 a year for?" Special police arrived on the scene. They didn't have riot gear.

Landis held his hand up to the crowd for silence but the crowd, unlike those in baseball over whom he ruled, ignored the judge and continued their jeers. The police attempted to lead Landis off the field, but he refused them, stating that "I'm not afraid of any crowd in New York. I'll make my own way from the field." And he did.

No attempt was ever made to harm the Commissioner and he made his way out of the ball park, calling the fans cowards. Later, he made his way, unescorted, to his car. Landis said, "I know baseball fans and I was never for a moment in fear of physical harm. In fact, I asked the police not to try to pick a path for me across the field. I was perfectly able to make my way without assistance." Think a baseball commissioner would try that in 2006?

The other umpires and many players agreed with Hillebrand's decision. It was decided that the day's receipts, totaling $120,544 would be given to disabled veterans and other relief funds. The Giants maintained their 1-0 Series lead.

Waite Hoyt faced Jack Scott in the next game. Cincinnati had released Scott early in the season after he tore a shoulder muscle and the Giants, in need of pitching, signed him. Scott lost 20 games while winning only 10 in 1920 (he again lost 20 games in (1927) and he finished his career with a 103-109 record, but on this particular day he shut out the Yankees. The Giants reached Hoyt for two unearned runs in the third inning, one earned run in the seventh, and went on to a 3-0 victory to lead the Series, 2 games to 0.

The Giants won the next two games by scores of 4-3 and 5-3 to become World Champions for the second consecutive season. In the fourth game, the Giants started Hugh McQuillan whom they had acquired from the Braves earlier in the season. McQuillan won 6 while losing 5, allowing 111 hits in only 94 1/3 innings, but he held the Yankees to 3 runs and 8 hits as he pitched a complete game to best Carl Mays. Art Nehf bested Joe Bush the next day to end the Series.

New York's American League franchise now had been in existence for 22 seasons and it had not yet won a World Championship. The record for futility belongs to the Sox---no, not the Red Sox, the WHITE SOX, who went from 1917 to 2004 without winning the World Series. The Phillies have won the World Series only once, which is an unbelievable fact that must be believed since it is true. The Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Texas Rangers, and Washington Nationals have never won the World Series, but all are expansion teams, although some, such as the Astros (1962), Padres (1969), and Nationals (Expos, 1969), have been in existence many years. Expansion teams that have won the World Series include New York's other team, which won it all in 1969, which was after only seven seasons of futility, the Royals, the Blue Jays, the Marlins, and the Diamondbacks.

References:

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/H/Hebner_Richie.stm

http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/landis_kenesaw.htm

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/M/Meusel_Bob.stm

http://www.thebaseballpage.com/past/pp/ruthbabe/

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL_1922.shtml

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/S/Scott_Jack.stm

"Big-Scale Wagers Lacking in Series; Many Small Bets Have Been Made, With Yankees Slight Favorites Over Giants." New York Times, 4 October 1922, p.31.

"Giants Win, 3-2, Out batting Yanks in First of Series; Victors, Two Runs Behind in Eighth, Rally and Drive Bush from the Box." New York Times, 5 October 1922, p.1.

"Fans in Uproar as the Game is Called; Receipts to Charity; Thousands in a Riotous Protest After Umpire Halts Play On Account of Darkness. Landis Menaced on Field. He Defies Hecklers and Calls Them 'Cowards'---Refuses Protection of Police." New York Times, 6 October 1922, p.1.

Date

Fri 07/07/06, 7:45 am EST