Sam Rice drops a fly ball and the Yankees rally for five runs in the 8th to beat the Senators, 8 – 3. Babe Ruth has two solo homers to help in the win. The 3rd-place Yanks now trail the Nats by a half game.

The round-robin playoff among New York City’s three major league teams, to raise money for the unemployed, concludes with Brooklyn losing to both the Giants and the Yankees at the Polo Grounds. Again, a near capacity crowd turns out and adds $48,000 to bring the fund to $108,000. In field events held between games, Babe Ruth, normally a left-handed hitter, bats right and wins the fungo hitting contest. He breaks the old distance record held by Big Ed Walsh. Ruth’s drive lands in deep center field, 421 feet away. The old record, set 20 years earlier, was 419 1/2 feet.

1931 – Lou Gehrig drives in four runs to break his old American League RBI mark of 175, set in 1927. By the season’s end he will have a total of 184.

For the first time in 19 years, Gabby Street appears in a major league game. The 48 year-old Cardinal skipper is 0-for-1, but the backstop displays his old catching skills when he nails Brooklyn runner Babe Herman trying to steal a base.

In a 4 – 3 loss to the Cardinals, the Giants’ Mel Ott is beaned by Burleigh Grimes in the 5th inning. Ott suffers a brain concussion and, with the Cardinals clinching the pennant, he sits out the rest of the season.

Lefty Grove wins his 30th game, beating the White Sox, 3 – 1, on five hits. He is the first to win 30 since Jim Bagby of Cleveland in 1920 and will be the last American League hurler to do so until Denny McLain in 1968.

In the first of two, the Yankees and Red Ruffing rough up the Browns and George Blaeholder, 17 – 0. Bill Dickey’s grand slam is the big blow. The Yanks take the nitecap, 6 – 1, behind Lefty Gomez’s three-hitter and Babe Ruth’s 41st and 42nd homers of the year.

1931 – The Philadelphia Athletics clinch the pennant, beating Cleveland at home, 14 – 3. Every starter for the A’s has a hit and RBI. Eddie Rommel, veteran knuckleball pitcher for the A’s, is the winning hurler, as Connie Mack wins his 3rd successive pennant. It is Mack’s 9th, and last, American League championship. The A’s went into first place for good on May 5, when they started a win streak of 17 straight games and 20 of their next 21. In mid-July they won 13 straight.

Yankee Tony Lazzeri steals second base, reaches third, then steals home in the 12th to give Lefty Gomez a 2 – 1 win over Detroit in the lidlifter. New York edges the Tigers, 4 – 3, in the nitecap although Earl Whitehill holds them to six hits. One of the hits is a 2-run home run by Lou Gehrig in the 6th.

After the Giants lose, 1 – 0, to Larry Benton in the opener, Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons pitches New York to a 9 – 4 nitecap win over the Reds. Bill Terry contributes two doubles and two home runs in the win.