Dave Bancroft | baseballmusings.com

The only games scheduled on September 22, 1920 all take place in the National League. Five contests play to completion, including a doubleheader between the Reds and Pirates in Pittsburgh. Game one, a 2-0 Pirates victory, stands as the low score of the day. The Giants 7-2 defeat of the Cubs in New York produced the most runs.

While the AL saw no game action, the news of the day would begin the destruction of one of the league’s great teams. The headline reads “Seven Chicago Players Accused, Says Prosecutor.” Those seven are accused of throwing games in the 1919 World series, as the grand jury in Chicago continues to hear testimony. AL president Ban Johnson testified:

The investigation was secret, but President Johnson said afterward he had given testimony which he “believed indicated throwing of games last year by certain players.”
New York Tribune

No names appeared in the story, however.

Ed Konetchy of the Dodgers and Dave Bancroft of the Giants tie for best offensive game of the day. Konetchy goes two for three with a double, home run, and a walk as the Dodgers beat the Braves 3-1. Bancroft posts a four for five day with a double in the Giants win.

Down in Pittsburgh, Babe Adams of the Pirates wins best pitched game of the day for his shutout of the Reds in game one. Adams’s teammate Elmer Ponder comes in third, as he holds the Reds to one run in game two, the Pirates winning 3-1. Adams allowed five hits and one walk, but Ponder gave up an unearned run on eight hits and two walks. Adams now leads the NL in shutouts with eight, and owns the lowest BB per 9 IP at 0.59.

That ends Cincinnati’s chance at a repeat. They go 3-12 in their last 15 games, eliminated on the same day they find out their World Championship might be tainted. The Dodgers still lead the Giants by five games, with Brooklyn’s magic number standing at three.

Fourteen of the sixteen major league teams saw action June 28, 1920 in eight games, including a double header between the Cubs and Pirates, swept by Chicago at home. In Brooklyn, The Braves handed the Dodgers their fifth loss in a row in a 3-2, the lowest scoring game on a fairly high scoring day (11.4 runs per game). The Giants pounded the Phillies 18-3 in Philadelphia for the high run total.

Dave Bancroft of the Giants takes home best offensive game of the day. He raps out six singles in six plate appearances in the team’s slugfest. Note that Bancroft gets the second subhead in the news story, as the three home runs hit by the Giants proved to be the bigger lede.

The veterans committee voted Bancroft into the Hall of Fame in 1971, during a time when the committee exhibited a bias toward the Giants of the 1920s. Looking at Bancroft’s statistics, one can understand why his former teammates saw Bancroft as a Hall of Famer. During his first stint with the Giants, from 1920 to 1923 (including a short amount of time in Philadelphia in 1920), Bancroft accumulated 24.1 rWAR. In three of those seasons, his total came in at well over 5.0. That was nearly half his career 49.1 rWAR. He played with the voters at his peak, and that’s what they remembered.

On the pitching side, Slim Harriss of the Athletics broke the team’s losing streak in posting the best pitched game of the day as Philadelphia beats Washington 6-2. Harriss goes the distance, allowing five hits, one walk, and two earned runs while striking out six. The Athletics moved Harriss from the bullpen to the rotation at the start of the month, and he responded with a 3-3 record and 2.82 ERA in six games, all on the road. The A’s won just four games in the month.

Al Mamaux of the Dodgers struck out 11 batters in eight innings in the Dodgers loss, and moves into first place in the NL in K per nine innings. That was the highest number of strikeouts record in a game in 1920 through that date, and the first ten strikeout game of the season.

Cleveland extends their lead over the idle Yankees to one game with a 7-4 win over the Browns. The White Sox keep pace at five games back with a 13-5 pounding of the Tigers.

The Reds move back into first place with a 7-5 win over the Cardinals, a one game lead. The Cubs sweep moves them into a tie with the Dodgers, in games back, 2 1/2, but the Cubs are officially in third with a .001 lead in winning percentage. The Giants, in seventh place, but only 5.5 games back, are still in a wide-open NL pennant race.

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This Date in 1920

This Date in 1920