The majors saw all eleven scheduled games played on August 14, 1920, but only ten of them ended in a decision. Among the three double headers that day, the Cardinals played the Pirates in Pittsburgh. Game one ended in a 1-0 Cardinals win, the low scoring game of the day. Game two was close, a 1-1 tie as rain ended the contest after eight inning. At the high end of scoring, the Giants beat the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds 7-6.

That Dodgers at the Giants game is full of drama. Frank Snyder of the Giants earns a tie for best offensive game of the day. The catcher goes three for three with an intentional walk and a double. He played parts of 16 seasons, but his career peaked early. He posted 5.3 rWAR in 1915 at the age of 21, but he only cracked two rWAR twice more in his career.

The game story is rather florid. It was a pitching duel for five innings, then both teams scored three runs in the sixth. The Giants scored three more in the seventh to take a nice lead, but the Dodgers came back with three runs in the top of the ninth to tie the game. That set up one of the oddest walk-off wins in history.

With the bases loaded and one out, the play is listed like this on Baseball Reference.

Baserunner Advance; Bancroft Scores/Adv on E2 (throw)/unER; Spencer to 3B; Frisch to 2B

So where was Dodgers catcher Ernie Krueger throwing? From the game story:

Al Mamaux, because of his speed, had been called in to relieve Clarence Mitchell. He made a heave to Krueger with a moist and clammy pill. A postmortem verdict is that Krueger should have wiped the pill on his trousers. But he did not. He heaved the ball carelessly and it hit the ground before Mamaux and skidded. Brancroft dashed across the pate with the winning run.

New York Tribune

So Krueger was throwing the ball back to Mamaux, and he made a bad throw that allowed the runner to score. Why was the ball wet? Spitballs had been banned before the 1920 season, but a number of pitchers who threw that pitch were allowed to continue. One of them was Clarence Mitchell. While the ball was no longer allowed to be defaced, balls still did not come out of the game until they were damaged. Dirt and moisture stayed there. So the ball stayed wet even after Mamuax had come in and walked a batter.

The article also states that Johnny Evers served as the acting manager for the game. The reason John McGraw missed the game sits on the front page. McGraw gave information to the police on a drunken fight that involved him a week earlier. Note that whiskey was illegal at the time, and the club where the fight took place said none was sold there. The police wanted to know how a friend of McGraw’s John Slavin, was injured in front of McGraw’s house. McGraw basically said he was too drunk to remember.

Mike Menosky of the Red Sox went four for five to equal Snyder’s game score. The Red Sox beat the Athletics 6-3.

On the pitching side, Pete Alexander of the Cubs pitched a shutout against the Reds for the best pitched game of the day. He allowed five hits and one walk while striking out five. He is leading the NL in games started with 30, complete games with 25, and wins with 19.

Tris Speaker of the Indians goes head-to-head with George Sisler of the Cardinals as the two battle for the AL batting title. The Browns take the game 5-3 as Speaker goes zero for three to drop to .405. Sisler goes 1 for 4 and drops to .402, but that reduces the gap between the two to three points. Note that the players with the four highest batting averages in the AL, Speaker, Sisler, Babe Ruth, and Joe Jackson each lead in one of the hit counting categories. Sisler leads in hits with 173, Speaker leads in doubles with 37, Jackson leads in triples with 16, and Ruth who homered on the day, leads that category with 42.

The Yankees win their game against the Senators 3-2, and the White Sox beat the Tigers 5-2. That puts the Yankees in first place, 1/2 game ahead of Cleveland and Chicago, but the Indians own the better winning percentage for second place.

In the NL, the Giants gain on both the Reds and the Dodgers. The Reds remain in first place by percentage points, while the Giants are two games back of both.