1922 – For the first time, the entire World Series will be broadcast over the radio. Writer Grantland Rice does the announcing of the New York Giants-New York Yankees Series for station WJZ, in Newark, NJ, whose signal is relayed to WGY in Schenectady, NY.
1922 – The Yankees play their farewell home game in the Polo Grounds. An estimated 40,000 overflow the stadium with another 25,000 turned away. Joe Bush beats the Philadelphia A’s, 10 – 3, in the opener, and Waite Hoyt edges the A’s in the second, 2 – 1. Plans are in the works to expand the park to 56,000 capacity, but this is the last regular season American League game at the Polo Grounds. The Yanks will play their next 18 games on the road, and then open in Yankee Stadium next spring.
1922 – After hitting home run number 28 in the 1st inning, Babe Ruth argues too strongly over a called strike in his next at bat, and he is thrown out of the game. He’ll be suspended for the fifth time of the year, and is out for three days.
Rogers Hornsby ties the National League single-season home run record with his 27th, matching the 38-year-old mark set by Ed Williamson of the Chicago White Stockings in 1884. Hornsby’s 8th-inning solo shot off the Giants’ Bill Ryan carries into the Polo Grounds’ left field bleachers and pulls the Cards to within 2 runs of their New York hosts. But hospitality goes only so far; New York answers right back with two and closes out St. Louis, 8 – 4.
At age 31, pitcher Dazzy Vance makes his Brooklyn Robins debut and loses to Phil Douglas and the New York Giants, 4 – 3. In 1915, when Vance made one start for the Pirates, it was Douglas who beat him. Since then Vance has been in the minor leagues. Despite his late start, Vance will win 197 games in a 16-season career and a place in the Hall of Fame in 1955.
Sponsor this Page On October 13, 1921, at the Polo Grounds (home for both NY teams) the New York Giants win the first “Subway Series.” The Giants defeat the New York Yankees, 1-0, to take the World Series, five games to three. The only run of the game scores on a first inning error…
On June 1, 1921 At the Polo Grounds Dave Bancroft became the ninth player in Giants franchise history to hit for the cycle. He accomplished the rare event just a season after teammate George Burns (who hit for the cycle on September 17, 1920) and a season before teammate Ross Youngs (April 29, 1922)….
On May 30, 1921 During an impressive Memorial Day ceremony at the Polo Grounds, Eddie Grant Memorial, erected in memory of a former Giants player killed in World War I, is dedicated. Under the watchful eye of Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the five-foot-high monument, located at the base of the clubhouse wall in center…
1920 – Cleveland SS Ray Chapman, 29, is beaned by a Carl Mays pitch. A righthanded batter who crowds the plate, Chapman freezes and fails to get out of the way of the submarine delivery. He is carried from the field and dies the next day from a fractured skull. Mays, a surly, unpopular pitcher, is the target of fans’ and players’ outrage. Chapman, a Cleveland favorite since breaking in in 1912, had been married the previous year. In October his wife will receive a full World Series share, $3,986.34. The incident has no effect on Mays’s pitching. One week later he will blank Detroit, 10 – 0, and go on to win 26 and lose 11. Joe Sewell will be called up to take Chapman’s place, and for 14 years he will be the hardest man to strike out in the Major Leagues.
1920 – Babe Ruth becomes the first player in MLB history to hit 30 home runs in one season. The shot off Dickey Kerr of the White Sox breaks his record of 29 from the previous year. He added a second home run later in the game, but the Yankees lost at the Polo Grounds, 8-5. Ruth finished with an astounding 54 homers in 1920, outhomering every other MLB team except the Phillies (64).
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