December 26, 1919: The Yankees Purchase Babe Ruth

Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert,

manager Miller Huggins, and slugger Babe Ruth

December 26, 1919: The New York Yankees purchase the contract of outfielder George Herman "Babe" Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. It is the most famous transaction in the history of North American professional sports -- or, if you're a Red Sox fan, the most infamous.

Let's take a step back, to properly set it up: On July 30, 1919, Harry Frazee, owner of the Red Sox, traded pitcher Carl Mays to the Yankees for pitchers Bob McGraw and Allen Russell (neither of whom ever did much for either club) and $40,000. There was a hell of a to-do about this, as Mays had left, or "jumped" the Sox and gone home, and was suspended. At the time, the rules said you couldn't trade a suspended player.

This trade pretty much split the American League: Frazee, Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert, and Chicago White Sox owner Charlie Comiskey were on one side; on the other were AL founder and President Ban Johnson and the owners of the other 5 clubs. They were the brothers John and Ben Shibe and Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics, former Yankee manager Clark Griffith of the Washington Senators, Frank Navin and Walter Briggs of the Detroit Tigers, Phil Ball of the St. Louis Browns, and Sunny Jim Dunn of the Cleveland Indians.

The National Commission, which oversaw baseball in those days, ruled in favor of Frazee and Ruppert, and Mays became the 1st major player to go from Frazee's Sox to Ruppert's Yanks. There would be more. (Mays' role in the death of Cleveland Indians player Ray Chapman is a story for another time.)

As a result of the Mays contretemps, Frazee, Ruppert, and Comiskey, now known as "the Insurrectos," could pretty much now only make deals with each other, as the other AL owners, "the Loyal Five," wanted nothing to do with them.

Due to circumstances that Frazee should have been able to control, but didn't, he had to get rid of Babe Ruth, who, in 1918 and '19, had gone from being baseball's best lefthanded pitcher to being the biggest power hitter in the game, but also the biggest headache. He was already a carouser, and he was demanding that his salary be doubled from $10,000 to $20,000 for the 1920 season.

So Frazee sold the Babe to the Yankees, mainly because Ruppert was willing to pay $125,000 for Ruth's contract; while the other possibility, the White Sox, were run by Comiskey, a notorious cheapskate. (His parsimony led to a problem with that year's World Series, as you may be aware.)

So if you're a Red Sox fan, don't blame Frazee for what happened: He didn't have much choice, unless he wanted the press and the public to think Ruth was running the team.

The deal was announced on January 5, 1920. People in Boston weren't happy about it. But nobody could have foreseen what would result from it. Ruth revolutionized the game with the Yankees, turning the home run from a rare thing into a common occurrence. And there would be more deals between Ruppert and Frazee, as Mays would be joined on the Yankee pitching staff by former Sox Waite Hoyt, "Bullet Joe" Bush and "Sad Sam" Jones.

From 1918 to the present... Yankees 27, Red Sox 0. Without cheating, anyway.

UPDATE: The Red Sox have a team Hall of Fame. From their 1912, 1915, 1916 and 1918 World Champions: Manager Bill Carrigan, shortstop Everett Scott, 3rd baseman Larry Gardner, left fielder Duffy Lewis, center fielder Tris Speaker, right fielder Harry Hooper, and pitchers Smoky Joe Wood, Dutch Leonard, Herb Pennock and Babe Ruth.

But from the 1920s, they have inducted only outfielder Ira Flagstead and pitcher Red Ruffing -- and, in Ruffing's case, it's only because he's in the main Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, and that for what he did later, after he was... traded to the Yankees. From the 1930s: Team owner Tom Yawkey, general manager Eddie Collins, shortstop and manager Joe Cronin, catcher Rick Ferrell, and pitchers Lefty Grove and Wes Ferrell. That should give you an idea of how bad the Sox were from the 1919 sale of Ruth until Yawkey bought the team in 1933.

*

December 26, 1919 was a Friday. It was the off-season for baseball, The NFL and the NBA did not yet exist. The NHL did, but it held no games that day.

In Western Canada, there was 1 game in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. The Victoria Cougars beat the Seattle Metropolitans, 2-1, at the Patrick Arena, built by the hockey-playing brothers Lester and Frank Patrick, in Victoria, the capital of the Province of British Columbia. 

This was no mean feat, as the Metros had won the PCHA title and reached the Stanley Cup Final in the previous season, against the NHL Champion Montreal Canadiens, but it was called off due to the Spanish Flu epidemic. In 1917, they had beaten the Canadiens to become the 1st American-based team to win the Stanley Cup. They would go on to win the PCHA title again in 1920, but lose the Stanley Cup Final to the Ottawa Senators, and fold in 1924.

The Cougars would win the West Coast Hockey League title in 1925, and beat the Canadiens, making them the last team from outside the NHL to win the Stanley Cup. They moved to the Western Hockey League, and won their title in 1926, but lost the Stanley Cup Final to the Montreal Maroons. Along with their league, they folded, but the bulk of their players were signed for a new team in the NHL. While not officially true, it can legitimately said that the Victoria Cougars still exist today, as the Detroit Red Wings.

In Britain, December 26 is known as Boxing Day, and England's Football League plays on the day, usually nearby rivals, to make it easier for people to travel. In this era, there tended to be what Americans would call a split doubleheader: Two teams facing each other at one's ground on Christmas Day, and at the other's ground the next day.

For North London team Arsenal, it wasn't a nearby team on this occasion. On the 25th, they lost to Derby County, 2-1 at The Baseball Ground, so named because Derbyshire was one of the few parts of the British Isles where baseball caught on, but only briefly. By this point, the stadium had been redeveloped so that playing baseball there was just about impossible, and you had a stadium which, like the Polo Grounds in New York, was named for a sport that was not being played there. On the 26th, Arsenal and Derby played at Highbury, and Arsenal won, 1-0.

November 2, 1934: The Yankees vs. the Yankees of Japan

Eiji Swamura

November 2, 1934: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and several other baseball players, led by manager Connie Mack, step off the cruiseliner Empress of Japan at the port city of Yokohama, and begin a tour of Japan. This was the 1st time that American major leaguers faced Japanese professionals.

The American "besuboru" players were adored by the Japanese fans, especially "Babu Rusu." But as much as they loved their own players, the natives were under no illusions: No one was surprised when the Americans won 17 out of 18 games.

The big surprise occurred when 17-year-old Eiji Sawamura of the Tokyo Baseball Club struck Ruth, Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Charlie Gehringer out in succession in a game in Shizuoka. But Gehrig also hit a home run off him, and the Americans won 1-0.

The Tokyo BC was founded that season, and in 1947, they became known as the Yomiuri Giants. Unlike in North American sports, where sports teams merely sell the naming rights to their venues to corporations, in Asian sports leagues, corporations buy teams, and name them after themselves. (This has also been done by Red Bull of Austria, buying the New York Red Bulls and the former soccer teams of Salzubrg and Leipzig.) Yomiuri Shumbun started as a newspaper, and has grown to a massive media conglomerate.

The Giants have won 47 Pennants (38 of them in the Central League, including in 2021) and 22 Japan Series (the last in 2012). Because of this, despite bearing the name and colors of the New York (now San Francisco) Giants of the National League, they are known as "The Yankees of Japan."

Among the American players on that tour was Moe Berg, a good catcher, and an intellectual from Newark. Dave Harris, a teammate on the Washington Senators, was told that Berg spoke 7 languages, responded, "Yeah, and he can't hit in any of them." He was right: Berg's lifetime batting average was .243.

Moe Berg

But his skill with languages, and with a camera, led the U.S. Department of State to include him on the roster. With the countries not yet at war, but with tensions between them rising, Berg was able, without suspicion, to go onto the rooftops of major buildings in Japan's various cities, and take pictures and home movies. These images aided the U.S. Department of War (which became the Department of Defense in 1947) to pick bombing targets once Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 forced America into World War II.

That war cut Sawamura's career short: He ended up being killed in 1944, when his ship was sunk by an American ship. The Japanese leagues now give the Eiji Sawamura Award to their best pitcher, their equivalent of the Cy Young Award.

Berg last played in the major leagues in 1939, served with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, forerunner of the CIA), and lived on until 1972.

*

November 2, 1934 was a Friday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season wouldn't start until November 8. So there were no scores on this historic day. But Australian tennis legend Ken Rosewall was born on this day.

October 31, 1924: The Babe vs. the Big Train In California

I don't know when this photo was taken,

and I don't know why they're holding chickens.

October 31, 1924: A postseason barnstorming tour brings baseball's greatest hitter, Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees, and baseball's greatest pitcher, Walter Johnson of the newly-crowned World Champion Washington Senators, to Brea, Orange County, California. Although born in Kansas, Johnson, a.k.a. the Big Train, spent his teenage years in Brea, and went to nearby Fullerton High School.

Also making the trip: Yankees Bob Meusel and Ernie Johnson (no relation to the Ernie Johnsons who went into baseball broadcasting), St. Louis Browns star Ken Williams, and, since he lived nearby, retired Detroit Tigers' star Sam Crawford, who would join the Babe and the Big Train in the Hall of Fame.

Johnson pitched for a team of all-stars under the name of the Anaheim Elks. Ruth, who hadn't pitched in a major league game in 3 years, started for a team called, without much imagination, the Babe Ruth All-Stars.

Johnson was the hometown favorite, but the Bambino spoiled the party. Not only did he pitch a complete game, he hit a towering drive off Johnson, said to have gone about 550 feet. Ruth's All-Stars won, 12-1. In the 100 years since, housing has been built on the site of the field.

*

October 31, 1924 was a Friday, and Halloween. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season didn't start for another 29 days. So, this game aside, there were no scores on this historic day.

Two notable sports figures were born on this day. Dee Fondy was a 1st baseman, who played 8 seasons in the major leagues, batting .286. With the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 24, 1957, he became the last player to bat at Ebbets Field: Facing Danny McDevitt, he grounded out to shortstop Don Zimmer, as the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pirates 2-0. He later became a scout for the Mets and the Milwaukee Brewers, signing future Hall-of-Famer Paul Molitor in 1977. He died in 1999.

And Marcelino Huerta Jr. was a pilot for a B-24 bomber over Nazi territory in World War II. He was an All-American guard at the University of Florida. He went into coaching, at the University of Tampa and later Wichita State University. In 1963 he led WSU to the Missouri Valley Conference title. He finished with a record of 104-53-2. He died in 1985, and was posthumously elected to the College Football and Florida Sports Halls of Fame.

October 23, 1923: Babe Ruth of the New York... Giants?

Babe Ruth (left) and John McGraw

October 23, 1923: Babe Ruth plays for the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds.

No, this is not an "alternate history" or "counterfactual" story, where he was signed by a different team. Or chose another sport and played football. It is one of the many quirks of actual baseball history.

McGraw had tried to get Ruth in 1914. He had seen Ruth pitch for his hometown team, the Baltimore Orioles of the International League, against the Newark Indians. McGraw called Orioles owner Jack Dunn, and offered $5,000. Dunn turned him down, later accepting $8,500 from the Boston Red Sox.

In the meantime, Ruth had helped the Red Sox win the World Series in 1915, 1916 and 1918, move to the New York Yankees, and help them win American League Pennants in 1921 and 1922. But the way Ruth revolutionized the home run was taken by McGraw as a personal affront.

Like the man Ruth had replaced as baseball's greatest player, Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers, McGraw preferred what had come to be called "inside baseball" or "scientific baseball," what would be known today as "small ball": Get your runs any way you can, instead of getting somebody on base and then waiting for a home run.

McGraw made his point when the Giants won the National League Pennant in 1921 and 1922, by having his pitchers through Ruth nothing by off-speed pitches in the World Series. It was successful enough that the Giants won, both times. But the Yankees gained their revenge in the 1923 World Series, for their 1st World Championship, clinching in Game 6 at the Polo Grounds on October 15.

Just 8 days later, a benefit game was held at the Polo Grounds, for 2 destitute men who had been at the founding of the Giants, as the New York Gothams, in 1883: Original owner John B. Day, a tobacco magnate who had lost his fortune in the Players' League war of 1890; and original manager Jim Mutrie, who gave the team its permanent name in 1886, when he referred to his players as, "my big boys, my giants."

Ruth and McGraw swallowed their differences, despite being about to have their teams play each other in the World Series for the 3rd straight season. Ruth's Yankee teammates Aaron Ward and Elmer Smith also suited up for the Giants. The opponents were the champions of the International League, the Baltimore Orioles -- not just Ruth's 1st professional team, but the namesake of the National League team for whom McGraw played, winning Pennants in 1894, 1895 and 1896, and made his reputation as a rough but smart baseball man.

Ruth was 1 of 4 Giants who hit home runs, in his case a 5th-inning blast that soared over the right-field roof, as the Giants won, 9-3. It's not clear how much money was raised. Day, already ill with cancer, died a little over a year later, in early 1925. Mutrie lasted until 1938.

McGraw died in 1934, just before Ruth began his last season with the Yankees. Between playing and managing, McGraw was involved with 13 Pennant winners and won 3 World Series. Ruth died in 1948, having been with 10 Pennant winners and 7 World Series winners. Ruth was 1 of the 1st 5 players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1936. The following year, McGraw and Connie Mack were the 1st 2 managers elected.

*

October 23, 1923 was a Thursday. There were no other scores on this day: The baseball season was over, no football games were scheduled, professional basketball was strictly minor-league at this point, and the NHL season would not begin until December 15.

October 15, 1923: The 1st Yankee World Series Win

The 1923 World Champion New York Yankees.

Babe Ruth is in the top row, 2nd from the right.

October 15, 1923: The New York Yankees, managed by Miller Huggins, win Game 6 of the World Series, riding a 1st-inning home run by Babe Ruth and the pitching of "Sad" Sam Jones, to beat the New York Giants, 6-4 at the Polo Grounds, and clinch their 1st World Championship, in their 1st season of playing in Yankee Stadium in The Bronx.

This was not, however, the 1st title for many of the Yankee players. Some of them, including Ruth and Jones, had won titles with the Boston Red Sox in the 1910s. In fact, of the 25 men on the Yankee roster when they won their 1st World Championship, 12, nearly half, had been Red Sox sold off by Boston owner Harry Frazee.

This was also the beginning of the end for Giant manager John McGraw and his style of baseball: Finally, the Yankees had put together a team that did not have to simply rely on Ruth's home runs to beat McGraw's style of "inside baseball" – what would, today, be called "small ball." The Giants would win another Pennant the next season, but that would be their last under McGraw’s leadership.

Up until this moment, the Giants had won 11 Pennants and 3 World Championships, either through the World Series, pre-1900 postseason series, or the title of the only league then playing; the Brooklyn Dodgers, 6 and, by the means available to them to win a "world championship" at the time, 3, but none since 1900; the Yankees, 3 and none.

From the Yankees' 3rd Pennant in September 1923 until the end of the Giants' and Dodgers' last season in New York, September 1957, the count was: Yankees, 21 and 17; Giants, 7 and 2; and Dodgers, 7 and 1.

Lou Gehrig had made his major league debut on June 15, 1923, a 10-0 Yankee win over the St. Louis Browns at Yankee Stadium. But he only played 13 games at the major league level that 1st season, and was not included on the World Series roster.

The last active member of the 1923 Yankees was rookie 1st baseman Lou Gehrig. The last surviving member of the team was center fielder Ladislaw Waldemar Wittkowski, a.k.a. Lawton Walter Witt, a.k.a. Whitey Witt, who lived until 1988.

*

October 15, 1923 was a Monday. Football was in midweek. Professional basketball barely existed. And the NHL season was 2 months away. So this was the only score on this historic day. 

October 14, 1928: Ruth & Gehrig In Montreal

October 14, 1928: Fresh off their 3rd straight World Series appearance and 2nd straight win, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees bring their "barnstorming" tour to Delorimier Stadium, the new 20,000-seat home of the International League's Montreal Royals.

They would play for Ahuntsic, a semi-pro team from the north side of the city (Montréal-Nord), against the Chappies, a team of black American players led by George "Chappie" Johnson, the top catcher in black baseball in the 1900s and 1910s.

Bad weather held the crowd to 16,000, but they were thrilled when Ruth hit 5 balls over the fence in batting practice. The actual game was tight, and the Babe came in to pitch. In the top of the 9th, Gehrig hit a home run to give Ahuntsic the lead, and the fans rushed the field, making the bottom of the 9th unplayable.

People who favor the modern game of baseball -- and people who simply hate the Yankees -- love to point out that Ruth and Gehrig never played against black players, since black players weren't allowed in the major leagues until 1947. But tours like this render the argument a half-truth. They did face black players, albeit not in regular-season competition or in the World Series. But, on some occasions, it was on a black team's home field, in front of mostly-black crowds, in conditions that favored the all-black teams. And their pitchers couldn't stop the Sultan of Swat and the Iron Horse any more than the white pitchers could.

This ballpark, also known as Delorimier Downs, Montreal Stadium and Hector Racine Stadium, would be home to the Royals from 1928 until their dissolution after the 1960 season; and the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes from 1946 to 1953. A survey was done to determine if it could be used as the home of the expansion Montreal Expos in 1969, but it was determined that the stadium was already in such bad shape, they might as well build a new one elsewhere. That became Jarry Park. The old one was torn down in 1971, and a high school was built on the site.

After Montreal, Ruth and Gehrig went on to Hull, Quebec, across the Ottawa River from the national capital of Ottawa, and, on October 15 at Dupuis Park, beat a team that included brothers Frank Boucher of the New York Rangers and Georges "Buck" Boucher of the Ottawa Senators, both members of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Then they headed back to the U.S., touring the Midwest and the West, before their planned finale in Denver on Halloween was rained out. MLB rules said that barnstorming tours must be completed by October 31. This was before Bud Selig was born, allowing baseball games after that date.

*

October 14, 1928 was a Sunday. Héctor Rial was born that day. The Argentine forward helped Nacional win Uruguay's league in 1952, before being purchased by Real Madrid. With them, he won 5 La Liga titles, and the 1st 5 European Cups, 1956 to 1960.

And these games were played in the NFL:

* The football version of the New York Yankees (like the Giants, containing no players from the baseball team for whom they were named) lost to the Detroit Wolverines, 35-12 at Yankee Stadium.

* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Bears, 13-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Providence Steam Roller beat the Dayton Triangles, 28-0 at the Providence Cycledrome in Rhode Island. Always without the S on the end ("Roller," not "Rollers"), Providence would win the NFL Championship that season. It would take another 73 years for another NFL team based in New England to take the title.

* And the Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Cardinals, 20-0 at City Stadium in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

October 13, 1921: Rawlings to Kelly to Frisch

George "High Pockets" Kelly

October 13, 1921: For the last time, the World Series is a best-5-out-of-9 affair. From the following season onward, it has always been a best-4-out-of-7.

Game 8 is played at the Polo Grounds, home for one more season after this of both the National League's New York Giants and the American League's New York Yankees. George "Highpockets" Kelly of the Giants hits a ball through the legs of Yankee shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh in the 1st, scoring a run. It is the 1st time Peckinpaugh has blown it in a Series game, but it will not be the last.

The game is still 1-0 in the 9th, when Aaron Ward draws a walk with 1 out. Frank "Home Run" Baker, previously a Series star for Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics against the Giants, hits a line shot that Giant 2nd baseman Johnny Rawlings snares, and throws to 1st to get Baker with the 2nd out. Ward, thinking the ball had gone through, heads for 3rd base, and Kelly throws across the infield to Frankie Frisch, and Ward is out on the double play, a rare 4-3-5 double play.

That's the game, and the 1st "Subway Series" (although the term wouldn't be used until the Yankee-Giant Series of 1936 and '37), as the Giants win, 5 games to 3.

For the Giants, it is their 2nd World Series win, their 1st since 1905. For Giants manager John McGraw, it is proof that his scrappy, run-scratching, pitching-and-defense-leading style of baseball, is better than the Yankee style, which is to get guys on base and wait for someone (most likely Babe Ruth, who was ineffective in this Series) to hit a home run. For the Yankees, their 1st World Series ends in disappointment. They will, however, be back.

The last survivor of the '21 Giants was Kelly, who died on October 13, 1984, exactly 63 years after this triumph.

Frisch is justifiably in the Hall of Fame, but his presence, and those of later teammate Bill Terry and a couple of friendly sportswriters, on the Veterans' Committee led to the election of several of his teammates on the Giants, and the St. Louis Cardinals, who many consider to be unworthy.

Some fans use the term "the Frisch Five" to refer to his beneficiaries, although the list is not definitive: Among those included are Giants Kelly, Rube Marquard, Ross Youngs and Dave Bancroft; and Cardinals Jesse Haines and Charles "Chick" Hafey.

*

October 13, 1921 was a Thursday. Also on this day, Lou Henry Saban was born. He is the only man ever to coach the Buffalo Bills in a season in which they went as far as the rules would allow them to go, winning the 1964 and '65 American Football League Championships. Typical Bills luck, these would be the last 2 AFL Champions who would not face the NFL Champions in a world championship game, a.k.a. the Super Bowl. 

Lou died in 2009. You may know him best as the father of Nick Saban, winner of National Championships at Louisiana State and Alabama.

Also on this day, Ivo Livi is born. The family escaped Italy's fascist regime, and moved to Marseille, France. He began singing in music halls, under the French name Yves Montand, and was discovered by Édith Piaf. He became one of Europe's biggest actors, living until 1991.

Baseball season was now over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season was still a few weeks away. So this was the only score on this historic day.

October 10, 1926: Grover Cleveland Alexander vs. Tony Lazzeri

October 10, 1926: For the 1st time, Yankee Stadium hosts a Game 7 of the World Series. The Yankees trail the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 in the bottom of the 7th inning, but Cardinal starter Jesse Haines, a future Hall-of-Famer, develops a blister on his hand, and can’t pitch any further.

Rogers Hornsby, the great-hitting 2nd baseman who doubles as the Cardinal manager, brings in another future HOFer, Grover Cleveland Alexander. Old Alex (also nicknamed "Pete") had pitched and won Game 6 the day before, but celebrated afterward, and legend has it that he was really hungover.

Even if he wasn't, he had gone the distance the day before. And he was 39 years old, and an alcoholic, and also suffered from epilepsy, and was troubled by what he had seen in World War I (which, along with his epilepsy, he tried to treat with his drinking.)

He was, and nearly 100 years later he remains, one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He would retire with a total of 373 victories, tied for 3rd all-time with Christy Mathewson (sharing 1st all-time in National League wins, as Walter Johnson's 417 were all in the American League and Cy Young's 511 were split between both Leagues). But in the Autumn of 1926, he was a shadow of his former self.

And he comes in with a 1-run lead, the bases loaded, and a dangerous hitter at the plate, Tony Lazzeri. Although just a rookie at the major-league level, the nearly 23-year-old native of San Francisco had hit 60 home runs in a Pacific Coast League season, and would have been the American League's Rookie of the Year had the award existed in 1926.

Italians in New York loved how his hits would "push up" baserunners, and, in their accent, he became known as "Poosh-em-Up Tony." Aside from Babe Ruth, he was probably already the 2nd-most popular player on the Yankees, ahead of Lou Gehrig. (He would not remain so, as Gehrig's 1927 season allowed him to surpass all ballplayers except Ruth in popularity.)

Lazzeri hits a long drive down the left-field line, but just foul. That brings the count to 0-and-2.  Alexander fires in, and Lazzeri swings and misses. He's out.

It is the most famous strikeout in baseball history -- unless you want to count the one by "the mighty Casey" in Ernest Thayer's poem "Casey At the Bat" -- and, according to legend, it ended the World Series, turning Alexander into a bigger hero than ever.

Except it didn't end the game. There were 2 more innings to play. Alexander got through the 8th, and with 1 out to go in the 9th, he walked Babe Ruth. Then, for reasons known only to him -- Yankee manager Miller Huggins said he hadn't given him the signal to try -- the Babe tried to steal 2nd base. Catcher Bob O’Farrell threw in, and Hornsby slapped the tag on him.

The Babe was out, the game was over, and for the 1st time in 40 years -- since the Cardinals, then known as the Browns, won the 1886 American Association Pennant and defeated the Chicago team now known as the Cubs in a postseason series -- a St. Louis baseball team was World Champions.

This was also the 1st time the Yankees had played a Game 7 of a World Series, and they lost it. Actually, the Yankees' record in World Series Game 7s isn't especially good. They've won in 1947, 1952, 1956, 1958 and 1962; and they've lost in 1926, 1955, 1957, 1960, 1964 and 2001, for a record of 5-6. At home at the old Yankee Stadium, it was even worse: 1-3. But they've still won more World Series in a Game 7 than all but 6 franchises have won Series regardless of how long they've gone – and the number drops to 4 if you only count the Series they've won in their current cities.

Alexander was a hero all over again. But it was a last stand. He helped the Cards back into the World Series in 1928, but, that time, the Yankees knocked him around. He spent much of his retirement walking into bars, and trading his story of how he struck out Lazzeri for drinks.

In 1945, interviewed for John P. Carmichael’s book My Greatest Day In Baseball, he told of meeting Lazzeri on the street in New York, and telling him, "Tony, I'm getting tired of fanning you." And Lazzeri told him, "Perhaps you think I'm not." Alexander's health problems killed him in 1950, aged only 63.

Incredibly, he outlived Lazzeri. Poosh-em-Up Tony would rebound from this strikeout to help the Yankees win 5 World Series, bridging the 1920s Ruth-Gehrig Yankees to the 1930s Gehrig-DiMaggio Yankees. But he, too, had epilepsy. In 1946, he suffered a seizure at his home, fell down the stairs, and broke his neck. He was just 43.

And, unlike Alexander, he did not live long enough to see his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was finally elected in 1991, 53 years after Alexander was so honored. Sadly, for all each man did, each had a hard life, and each is still best remembered for that one at-bat.

This is due in large part to the 1952 film The Winning Team, starring Ronald Reagan as Alexander, Doris Day as his wife Annie, and Frank Lovejoy as Hornsby.

Reagan as Alexander

Bob Lemon, still in the middle of a Hall of Fame career as a pitcher at that point, played Jesse Haines. Also playing players were real-life players Harry "Peanuts" Lowery, George "Catfish" Metkovich, Irv Noren, Hank Sauer, Al Zarilla, and future managing star Gene Mauch. But the actor playing Lazzeri is not credited.

In 1949, Ogden Nash, my grandmother's favorite poet, wrote "Line-Up for Yesterday" for Sport magazine, an alphabetical list of star players. For the letter A, he wrote:

A is for Alex
The great Alexander;
More Goose eggs he pitched
Than a popular gander.

The last survivor from the 1926 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals was infielder George "Specs" Toporcer -- so nicknamed because he was one of the few players to wear glasses on the field in that era -- a Manhattan native who died in 1989 on Long Island, age 90.

UPDATE: The Cardinals have a team Hall of Fame. From their 1926 World Champions, they have inducted team owner Sam Breadon, general manager Branch Rickey, 2nd baseman and manager Rogers Hornsby, 1st baseman Jim Bottomley, left fielder Charles "Chick" Hafey and pitcher Jesse Haines -- but, oddly, through the 2025 season, not pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander.

Bottomley and Hornsby were elected to the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame. Rickey and Hornsby were elected to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

Tony Lazzeri is in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but has never been honored with a Plaque in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. When the Yankees began wearing uniform numbers, he was given 6. The Yankees have retired that number, but for later manager Joe Torre.

*

October 10, 1926 was a Sunday. Obviously, this was the only baseball game of the day. And basketball and hockey were out of season. These NFL games were played that day:

* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Bears, 7-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Brooklyn Lions beat the Hartford Blues, 6-0 at Ebbets Field.

* The Providence Steam Roller (for some reason, never written with an S on the end) beat the Columbus Tigers, 19-0 at the Providence Cycledrome.

* The Pottsville Maroons beat the Dayton Triangles, 24-6 at Minersville Park in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

* The Akron Indians and the Canton Bulldogs, neighbors and arch-rivals, played to a 0-0 tie at League Park in Akron.

* The Detroit Panthers beat the Kansas City Cowboys, 10-0 at Navin Field in Detroit. (It was renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938, and Tiger Stadium in 1961.)

* The Duluth Kelleys beat the Hammond Pros, 26-0 at Turner Field in Hammond, Indiana, outside Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Badgers beat the Racine Tornadoes, 13-2 at Horlick Field in Racine, Wisconsin.

* The Chicago Cardinals beat the Green Bay Packers, 13-7 at Green Bay City Stadium.

This was also the season of the 1st league to be named the American Football League. But it only played 2 games on this day:

* The Brooklyn Horsemen lost to the Los Angeles Wildcats, 23-0 at Commercial Field in Brooklyn. Both teams were named for their star players: The Horsemen had Harry Stuhldreher and Elmer Layden, two of "The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame"; while the Wildcats had George "Wildcat" Wilson, star back of the University of Washington.

* And the Rock Island Independents, formerly a team in the NFL, beat the 1st sports team named the Chicago Bulls, 7-3 at Browning Park in Moline, Illinois. Moline and Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, on opposite sides of the Mississippi River, are known as the Quad Cities. After this season, it became clear that the Quad Cities, even all put together, were way too small to host a major league sports team -- even if the NFL wasn't really "major league" at this point, and the original AFL certainly wasn't.

That year, there were 22 teams in the NFL, and 9 teams in the AFL. The market was overestimated, and saturated: It was too much, even in the prosperous "Roaring Twenties." A total of 31 professional football teams wouldn't be matched again until 1999.

October 9, 1916: Babe Ruth's 16-Inning World Series Win

October 9, 1916: Game 2 of the World Series is played at Braves Field in Boston, because it has a higher seating capacity than Fenway Park, and the Red Sox had previously extended the use of Fenway to the Boston Braves in the 1914 World Series, for the same reason, before Braves Field was completed. The Braves would also allow this for the Red Sox in 1915 and 1918.

Boston's opponent in this series was the Brooklyn Robins. They carried this name starting in 1914, when they hired Wilbert Robinson as their manager. After firing him at the end of the 1931 season, they would go back to the name they had from 1911 to 1913: The Brooklyn Dodgers.

The starting pitchers were Sherrod "Sherry" Smith for the Robins, and George Herman "Babe" Ruth for the Boston Red Sox. Both were lefthanders. Smith was a 25-year-old native of Georgia, who would also help the Robins win the Pennant in 1920. He appeared in the major leagues from 1911 to 1927, and went 114-118 in his career. But this game would be his most notable appearance.

Ruth, from Baltimore, was only 21, completing his 3rd major league season, his 2nd full season. He had gone 18-8 for the Red Sox in 1915, but did not make an appearance in the World Series. In 1916, he went 23-12, and led the American League with a 1.75 ERA. Along with Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators and Grover Cleveland Alexander of the Philadelphia Phillies, he was already 1 of the 3 best pitchers in baseball. He had also hit 7 home runs in 228 at-bats over the last 2 seasons, a good ratio for the period now known as "The Dead Ball Era."

The Series began 2 days earlier, at Braves Field, and the Red Sox won, 6-5. Sunday baseball still being illegal in New England, they took the day off, and Game 2 was played on this day. Both starters went the distance. This was hardly unusual for the time period, but the distance turned out to be exceptionally long.

In the 1st inning, Hy Myers hits an inside-the-park home run, the only round-tripper hit off Ruth the entire season. Ruth, in most un-Ruthian fashion, ties the game with a groundout in the 3rd. After that, runs were very hard to come by.

The Dodgers got a leadoff walk by Jake Daubert in the 4th, a single by Ivy Olson with 2 out in the 5th, a walk by Jimmy Johnston in the 6th, and singles by Mike Mowrey and Otto Miller that gave them 1st and 3rd with 1 out in the 8th. But, despite having Zack Wheat, a Hall-of-Famer, and Daubert, a lifetime .303 hitter, they could not score again.

The Red Sox got a walk from Dick Hoblitzell in the 4th, a triple from Pinch Thomas with 2 out in the 5th, a leadoff walk from Hoblitzell in the 7th, and a leadoff double from Hal Janvrin and an intentional walk to Duffy Lewis in the 9th. But, despite having Ruth, Lewis and Hall-of-Famer Harry Hooper in their lineup, they could not score again, either, and the game went to extra innings.

Ruth walked Olson with 2 out in the top of the 10th, but stranded him. Everett Scott singled to lead off the bottom of the 10th, and was sacrificed over by Thomas. But Smith struck Ruth out, and when Hooper hit a grounder to 3rd, Mowrey, the Dodger 3rd baseman, tagged Scott out before he could get to the bag. Hoblitzell drew another walk with 2 out in the bottom of the 11th, but was stranded. Scott drew a walk with 1 out in the bottom of the 12th, but could not be brought home.

Finally, in the bottom of the 14th inning, Hoblitzell led off with his 4th walk of the game. Mike McNally was sent in to pinch-run for him. Lewis bunted him over to 2nd. Del Gainer was sent in to pinch-hit for Larry Gardner -- a bit of an irony since Gardner's sacrifice fly in the 12th inning of Game 8 had won the 1912 World Series for the Red Sox. This time, Gardner singled to left, and McNally scored.

The Red Sox won, 2-1, and Ruth was the winning pitcher, having gone the last 13 1/3rd innings without allowing a run. His streak of 29 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings pitched was underway, a World Series record that would stand until 1961, when Whitey Ford surpassed it.

This would be the longest World Series game by innings for over a century. Game 3 in 2005 and Game 1 in 2015 also went 14 innings. The record finally fell in 2018, when Game 3 went 18 innings. Again, it was the Red Sox and the Dodgers, by this point in Los Angeles. The joke on social media was that the game began at Ebbets Field and ended at Dodger Stadium.

In 1986, a National League Championship Series game went 16 innings. In 2005, an NL Division Series game went 18. And in 2014, we had another NLDS game go 18 innings. Through the 2021 World Series, 18 innings remains the postseason record.

The Robins/Dodgers won Game 3 of the 1916 World Series, but the Red Sox -- described by one newspaper at the time as "the carmine-hosed warriors" -- won Games 4 and 5, and repeated as World Champions. Ruth did not appear in the Series again, such was the strength of the Sox' pitching. But, with both his arm and his bat, he would help the Sox win the Series again in 1918.

That season, he led the AL with 18 home runs. In 1919, playing the outfield nearly full time, he set a new record with 29. He would finish his career with a record of 94-46, and an ERA of 2.28. It's been said that, had he stuck with pitching, he might have made the Baseball Hall of Fame with that.

Of course, he stuck with neither pitching nor the Red Sox. For the 1920 season, fed up with his salary demands and his carousing, the Red Sox sold him to the New York Yankees. The rest is history, and legend.

*

October 9, 1916 was a Monday. Football was in midweek. Hockey was out of season. And the NBA hadn't been founded yet. So there were no other scores on this historic day.

October 8, 1927: The Yankees' Murderer's Row, "The Greatest Team Ever"

The 1927 New York Yankees. In the top row,

Lou Gehrig is furthest to the left.

and Babe Ruth is 5th from the left.

October 8, 1927: The 1927 Yankees, considered one of the best teams in baseball history, live up to their reputation as they beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3, to sweep the World Series in 4 straight.

But this Game 4 concludes in an unusual fashion: In the bottom of the 9th, with the score tied, Pirate pitcher Johnny Miljus loads the bases with no out. He begins to work out of it, striking out Lou Gehrig swinging and Bob Meusel looking. Facing Tony Lazzeri with 2 outs and an 0-and-1 count, Miljus uncorks a wild pitch, and Earle Combs races home with the winning run, to give the Bronx Bombers the sweep and their 2nd World Championship.

This is the only time the winning run of a World Series has scored on a wild pitch. Flip the last 2 digits, and in 1972 the Pirates became the 1st (and still only) team to lose a League Championship Series on a wild pitch, by Bob Moose against the Cincinnati Reds.

The team was known as "Murderer's Row" as early as 1926, when they won the 1st of 3 straight Pennants, but lost the World Series before winning it in 1927 and 1928. Right fielder Babe Ruth was the greatest player in the history of the game. Gehrig was the greatest 1st baseman ever. 2nd baseman Lazzeri, center fielder Combs, and pitchers Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock joined Ruth and Gehrig in the Baseball Hall of Fame, as did manager Miller Huggins, general manager Ed Barrow, and owner Jacob Ruppert. Left fielder Meusel was a heavy hitter, and shortstop Mark Koenig and 3rd baseman Joe Dugan were decent players.

Dugan was circumspect about his role on the team: "It's always the same: Combs walks. Koenig singles. Ruth hits one out of the park. Gehrig doubles. Meusel singles. Lazzeri triples. Then Dugan goes in the dirt on his can." In other words, pitchers were tired of pitching to these guys, so they threw Dugan a brushback pitch.

Oddly, the team was the weakest at the most important position: They never settled on a starting catcher, with Pat Collins playing 92 games, Mike Gazella 54, and Benny Bengough 31.

Gehrig was the last active member of the Yankees' 1927 and 1928 World Champions, playing unti 1939. Koenig was the last living member, living until 1993.

In 1949, Ogden Nash, my grandmother's favorite poet, wrote "Line-Up for Yesterday" for Sport magazine, an alphabetical list of star players. For the letter G, he wrote:

G is for Gehrig,
The Pride of the Stadium;
His record pure gold,
His courage, pure radium.

But even in this poem, the Bambino took precedence, if not alphabetical order:

R is for Ruth.
To tell you the truth,
There's just no more to be said,
Just R is for Ruth.

On a 1998 episode of the ABC sitcom Sports Night, Casey McCall, the anchor of the eponymous show-within-the-show (played by Peter Krause), was asked to compare the Yankee team that had just gone 125-50 and swept the World Series with the 1927 edition. He remarked that the 1998 Yankees would win, because the 1927 Yankees would have been too confused by the airplanes flying overhead to focus on beating the 1998 version. Series creator and writer Aaron Sorkin must have forgotten that there were airplanes in 1927. Or maybe he thought the '98 Yanks played home games at Shea Stadium.

UPDATE: Among the Yankees' many traditions is Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. From the 1920s Dynasty, they have honored manager Miller Huggins, right fielder George "Babe" Ruth, and 1st baseman Lou Gehrig with Monuments. Huggins never wore a number, but the team retired Number 3 for Ruth a 4 for Gehrig, although they didn't start wearing the numbers until the 1929 season. They have also honored team owner Jacob Ruppert and general manager Ed Barrow with Plaques.

Despite having been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, pitchers Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock have never been honored in Monument Park.

*

October 8, 1927 was a Saturday. There were no other baseball games. The NHL season wouldn't start for another month. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There was an NFL game played, but it wasn't worth watching: The Frankford Yellow Jackets and the Dayton Triangles played to a 0-0 tie at Frankford Stadium in Northeast Philadelphia.

However, there were college football games, including these:

* Illinois beat Butler, 58-0 at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois. The Illini went on to win the Big Ten Conference title, and were retroactively awarded the National Championship.

* The University of Pittsburgh beat West Virginia, eventually their arch-rivals, 40-0 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* Notre Dame beat the University of Detroit, 20-0 at Titan Stadium in Detroit. Now known as the University of Detroit Mercy, the Catholic school dropped their football program after the 1964 season. In their 1st season with the "Fighting Irish" name being official -- they had previously been the "Ramblers" -- Notre Dame went 7-2-1.

* Mississippi College, the team that went on to win the Southeastern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, forerunner of the Southeastern Conference were idle. Not to be confused with "Ole Miss" or Mississippi State, Mississippi College now play in NCAA Division II.

* Missouri beat Nebraska, 7-6 at Memorial Stadium (now Faurot Field) in Columbia, Missouri. The Tigers went on to win the Missouri Valley Conference, a precursor to the Big 8/Big 12.

* Texas A&M beat Sewanee, 18-0 at Fair Park Stadium in Dallas. The Aggies went on to win the Southwest Conference title, finishing undefeated at 8-0-1.

* Stanford beat Nevada, 20-2 at the old, but then-new, Stanford Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto, California. Stanford, then known as the Indians but later as the Cardinal, won the Pacific Coast Conference title, and beat Pittsburgh in the Rose Bowl.

* Army beat Marquette, 21-12 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York.

* Navy beat Drake University, 27-0 at Thompson Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland.

* Among New York City teams, Columbia beat Wesleyan University, 28-0 at Baker Field in Manhattan. New York University beat Alfred College, 65-0 at Ohio Field in The Bronx. City College of New York and St. Lawrence University played to a tie, 14-14 at Weeks Field in Canton, New York. Fordham were idle. Columbia and Fordham now compete in NCAA Division I FCS (formerly Division I-AA); while NYU, Wesleyan and St. Lawrence compete in NCAA Division III; and CCNY no longer play football.

* Among New Jersey teams, Rutgers lost to Lafayette, 56-0 at Fisher Field in Easton, Pennsylvania. And Princeton beat Lehigh, 42-0 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton. Rutgers and Princeton used to be arch-rivals, while Lafayette and Lehigh still are. Princeton, Lafayette and Lehigh now compete in NCAA Division I FCS.

And in English soccer, North London's Arsenal beat Portsmouth, 3-2 at Fratton Park in Portsmouth, Hampshire.

October 6, 1926: The Legend of the Babe and the Sick Kid

October 6, 1926: Game 4 of the World Series is held at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Someone got a message to New York Yankees superstar Babe Ruth, asking him to hit a home run for a sick kid in a hospital.

He hit one. It came in the 1st inning, off St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Flint Rhem. (His name was Charles Flint Rhem, but he went by his middle name.)

He hit another, in the 3rd inning, also off Rhem.

And he hit another, in the 6th inning, off Herman "Hi" Bell. It was the 1st time a player had hit 3 home runs in a World Series game.

Ruth, who had 4 RBIs on the day, did have his chances to hit a 4th homer. He drew a walk in the 5th inning, drew another walk in the 8th, and was on deck when the Yankees made their last out in the 9th. Despite all his accomplishments in baseball, he never hit 4 home runs in a game. In fact, only 1 Yankee has ever done that: Lou Gehrig, in 1932. On this day, Gehrig went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

Billy Southworth, later to manage the Cardinals to 3 straight Pennants, went 3-for-5. Rogers Hornsby, also the Cardinals' manager this season, went 2-for-5 with an RBI. But despite allowing 5 runs on 14 hits, Waite Hoyt went the distance, and the Yankees won, 10-5, and tied up the Series.

The boy's name was Johnny Sylvester. That Summer, he was staying at a rented house in Bay Head, on the Jersey Shore, when he was thrown from his horse, and the horse kicked him in the head. He was taken back to his family home in Essex Fells, New Jersey, but the injury got worse, and he developed osteomyelitis in his skull. (Twenty years later, while playing high school football, Mickey Mantle was injured and developed osteomyelitis in his ankle, and nearly lost his leg before he could begin his Hall of Fame career with the Yankees.)

Once Sylvester's story became connected with Ruth, the story was mixed up, as what he had depended on who was telling the story. It's usually been written as "blood poisoning." The confusion led some later observers to say the whole story was a hoax. It wasn't.

It's also not clear whose idea it was to contact Ruth: Johnny himself, his father, or his uncle. But the message did get to Ruth, who sent a package to the Sylvester house, including two balls, each autographed by the one of the entire teams involved in the World Series. Next to his own autograph, Ruth wrote, "I'll knock a homer for you on Wednesday." Which he did. (So who were the other 2 homers for?)

After the game, Johnny's condition improved. The Yankees' condition didn't: The Cardinals won the Series in 7 games. After the Series, Ruth visited the Sylvester home, and Johnny told him, "I'm sorry the Yanks lost."

When Johnny's story hit the national news, he also received an autographed football from Red Grange, and an autographed tennis racket from Bill Tilden. That was half of "The Golden Age of Sports" right there. I wonder if he ever met boxing's Jack Dempsey, hockey's Howie Morenz or golf's Bobby Jones?

At any rate, Johnny grew up, graduated from Yale University, served as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and met Ruth one more time, in 1948. This time, it was as a publicity stunt in connection with the film The Babe Ruth Story, starring William Bendix in a ridiculous account of Ruth's life. At this meeting, it was Ruth who was sick, with throat cancer, and died later in the year.

Sylvester settled in Garden City, Long Island, New York, and ran a company that manufactured packing machinery. He lived until 1990, age 74, and was survived by a son and 3 grandchildren. In 2014, a ball that Ruth gave him was sold at auction for $250,641.

The legend of the Babe and the sick kid has gotten into every movie made about the Babe. The truth is great enough, is Ruthian enough.

*

October 10, 1926, as Ruth said, was a Wednesday. That was the only baseball game played that day, it was midweek for football, it was too soon for the hockey season to begin, and pro basketball was strictly minor-league at the time. (Hence, no basketball player is ever included with Ruth, Grange, et al. in "The Golden Age of Sports.) So there were no other scores on this historic day.

October 4, 2022: Aaron Judge Hits His 62nd Home Run of the Season

October 4, 2022: First batter of the game between the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers: Aaron Judge. Pitcher: Jesus Tinoco. On a 1-1 count, Judge drilled a ball deep into the left-field stands at Globe Life Park in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas, 391 feet.

It was his 62nd home run of the season, surpassing Roger Maris, the most that any American League player -- the most that any player has ever hit without evidence of cheating -- in a single season in the 152-season history of Major League Baseball.

As for the rest of the game: Giancarlo Stanton, who hit 59 with the Miami Marlins in 2017, hit a home run in the 5th inning, but that was all that the Yankees were going to get. Gerrit Cole started for them, and pitched 6 innings, striking out 9, setting a new Yankee single-season record of 257 strikeouts, breaking the 1978 record of 248 set by Ron Guidry. But he didn't get the run support he needed. After the Stanton homer, the Yankees got only 2 baserunners, both walks. The Rangers won, 3-2.

It was the 2nd game of a doubleheader, forced by the postponement of the 1st week of the regular season due to the MLB lockout. The Yankees won the 1st game, 5-4.

There was 1 game left to play in the regular season, and Judge was given the day off, so he finished the season with 62 home runs. He also led the AL with 131 RBIs, and batted .311, which was nearly enough to win the AL batting title and thus the Triple Crown.

Judge, who grew up in Linden, California, less than 100 miles from San Francisco, and grew up as a San Francisco Giants fan, told an interviewer that the 73 home runs hit by Barry Bonds in 2001, recognized as the official MLB record in spite of his proven cheating, should still be considered the real record.

He is the only person who could look better instead of worse by saying that. Everybody else saying that Bonds holds "the real record" is saying 1 of 2 things:

A. "I don't believe that Bonds cheated." Which makes them dumb. Or:

B. "I know that Bonds cheated, but I don't care." Which makes them rotten.

And don't tell me that throwing out Bonds' record means you have to throw out all pre-1947, pre-Integration records. That's not the same thing at all. As evil as it was, it was the owners doing it. It wasn't the players choosing to take an unfair advantage. Babe Ruth's 60 in 1927 was legitimate. Roger Maris' 61 in 1961 was legitimate. Aaron Judge's 62 in 2022 is legitimate. The totals exceeding those by Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa are bogus.

Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Aaron Judge. All Yankees. All right fielders.

UPDATE: The difference was, when Ruth hit 60 in 1927, the Yankees won the World Series; when Maris hit 61 in 1961, the Yankees won the World Series; when Judge hit 62 in 2022, the Yankees were knocked out of the Playoffs in the American League Division Series. The 1927 and 1961 editions of the Yankees are considered finalists for the title of greatest team of all time. The 2022 edition is considered a failure, in spite of Judge's feat.

*

October 4, 2022 was a Tuesday. These other games were played in Major League Baseball that day:

* The New York Mets swept a doubleheader from the Washington Nationals at Citi Field, 8-0 and 4-2. In the opener, Taijuan Walker (4 1/3rd innings), Stephen Nogosek (2 2/3rds, winning pitcher) and Tylor Megill (2) combined on a 9-hit shutout, striking out 17 and walking none. The nightcap was the Mets' 100th win of the season, the 4th time they had reached that milestone.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 6-0 at Fenway Park in Boston, in a game shortened to 5 innings due to rain, a remnant of Hurricane Ian that had devastated Florida and also soaked the Carolinas a few days earlier.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Miami Marlins, 2-1 at LoanDepot Park in Miami.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-7 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Juan Yepez singled home the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Cleveland Guardians beat the Kansas City Royals, 5-3 at Progressive Field in Cleveland.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 8-3 at Guaranteed Rate Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 3-0 at American Family Field in Milwaukee. Eric Lauer (6 innings) and 2 relievers combined on a 1-hit shutout.

* The Houston Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-0 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston. Justin Verlander and 2 relievers pitched 8 innings of no-hit ball, before Will Smith allowed 3 hits in the 9th. Combined, the Astro pitchers struck out 16 and walked 2.

* The San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-2 at Petco Park in San Diego.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Los Angeles Angels, 2-1 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the RingCentral Coliseum). Ryan Tepera walked Shea Langeliers with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th inning, giving the A's the win.

* And the Seattle Mariners swept a doubleheader from the Detroit Tigers, 7-6 and 9-6 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. Abraham Toro won the 1st game with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 10th.

* And the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays were rained out at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

October 2, 1938: Hank Greenberg vs. Bob Feller

Bob Feller (left) and Hank Greenberg

October 2, 1938: Cleveland Indians fireballer Bob Feller, just 20 years old, strikes out 18 Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, setting a new major league record for strikeouts in a game, surpassing the 17 notched in games by himself and Dizzy Dean. But the Tigers win, 4-1. Twice, Hank Greenberg is a strikeout victim of Feller's.

It was the 1st game of a doubleheader, on the last day of the regular season. The Tigers won the 2nd game as well, 10-8. Greenberg went 3-for-3 with a walk and an RBI, but did not hit a home run. He thus finished the season with 58 home runs, the 3rd time someone has come close to Babe Ruth's record of 60 set in 1927. (Jimmie Foxx, who hit 50 this year, had hit 58 in 1932. Hack Wilson had hit 56 in 1930.)

Some people have argued that, due to Greenberg being Jewish, he was frequently walked (intentionally or "not"), so that he wouldn't break the Babe's record. Hank would go to his grave maintaining his belief that pitchers had pitched to him fairly.

I've seen film from this game, and I believe him: Feller, then wearing Number 14 rather than the 19 for which he would later become better associated, was certainly challenging the original Hammerin' Hank, throwing hard, choosing to, as they would say in Jim Bouton's Ball Four, smoke him inside.

Despite the significance of the 1st game, its status as part of a doubleheader, and its being played on a Sunday, only 26,818 fans came to the 86,000-seat Municipal Stadium.

The next day, in the wake of the Munich Agreement, Nazi Germany moved troops into the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. In 1941, Greenberg would go on to become the 1st player of All-Star caliber to enlist in World War II. Feller would enlist the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Each would miss nearly 4 prime seasons, but beating the Nazis was more important than such milestones as hitting 60 home runs in a season or 500 in a career -- or, in Feller's case, 300 wins or 3,000 strikeouts.

In a manner of speaking, they would later become teammates: Following the 1947 season, Greenberg retired as a player, and Bill Veeck, by then the owner of the Indians, hired him as the team's farm system director. Together, Veeck, Greenberg and Feller were 1948 World Champions. When Veeck sold the team after the 1949 season, Greenberg was promoted to general manager, holding the post until 1957, the year after Feller retired as a player.

*

October 2, 1938 was a Sunday. These other baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Lou Gehrig went 1-for-4. Joe DiMaggio hit a home run. Lefty Gomez pitched just 3 innings, and was removed despite shutting the Sox out. He wasn't hurt: Just 4 days later, he started and won Game 2 of the World Series.

* The New York Giants beat the Boston Bees, 3-2 at the Polo Grounds. (The Braves were known as the Bees from 1936 to 1940.) Mel Ott went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers swept a doubleheader from the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-3 and 7-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* A doubleheader was split at Griffith Stadium in Washington. The Washington Senators won the opener, 5-2. The Philadelphia Athletics won the nightcap, 4-2.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The St. Louis Brown won the 1st game, 4-3. The Chicago White Sox were leading the 2nd game, 3-0, when it was called due to darkness after 6 innings. Comiskey Park got lights the next season.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 7-5 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. It didn't matter: The Cubs had won the National League Pennant.

It was also an NFL gameday. These games were played:

* The football version of the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Chicago Cardinals, 13-0 at Ebbets Field.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 28-6 at Municipal Stadium (later renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium) in Philadelphia.

* The Cleveland Rams beat the Detroit Lions, 21-17 at Shaw Stadium in Cleveland.

* The next day, on an afternoon but an apparent precursor to "Monday Night Football," the New York Giants lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 13-10 at the Polo Grounds. The football Pirates renamed themselves the Steelers in 1940.

* And the Green Bay Packers and the Washington Redskins were not scheduled.