After a rambunctious and topsy-turvy regular season, it was time for the 1920 BBW Replay World Series. Last year's combatants, the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds will reprise their roles as their respective league champions. A letter signed by both league presidents stated the order and dates of games would be the same as last season, so Cincinnati would be the home team for games one through three, followed by a travel day, and then Chicago would host the final four (as needed).
Besides just pennant races, a lot had
happened over this previous year. While Cincinnati had won the 1919 World
Series, in just the past week they had learned that Chicago may have thrown the
World Series to the benefit of gamblers. The Reds were convinced they were good
enough to have won it to begin with, but now, doubt had been cast on the
population at large, and the Reds knew they needed to get this win now to if
nothing else, restore their own reputation.
Baseball and the World Series were pretty
important in 1920, but now with a gambling scandal thrown in the middle of it,
the whole country has cast their eyes upon Cincinnati and Game One, so that could only mean it was time to play …
Tuesday, October 5, 1920 - Game One
Chicago (AL) 4 Cincinnati (H) 2 (17)
The 1920 World Series got started with a
seventeen-inning nail-biter, with both starters - Chicago's Red Faber
and Cincinnati's Dutch
Ruether, going fifteen innings but neither getting a decision.
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| Ray Schalk |
There the score stayed until the bottom of
the eighth when Ruether was allowed to remain in the game, and he showed his
appreciation by slapping a double to right-center. Rath sacrificed Ruether to
third, and then Ruether scored when Daubert hit a fly ball that was caught at
the wall, deep enough for Ruether to score with ease and to tie the game at 2-2.
Nobody knew it yet, but the game was only
half-over at this point and both teams flashed their defensive prowess to hold
off the other. The Reds bunted into three double plays and Heinie Groh
was caught stealing in the thirteenth inning in a bang-bang play at home, but
the White Sox hit into three double plays in the game to kill scoring
opportunities for the visitors.
In the top of the seventeenth, now facing Hod Eller
(0-1, 9.00), Chicago got on the board when Schalk came through again, this time
with a run-scoring two-out single. Roy
Wilkinson (1-0, 0.00), having earlier relieved Faber, then added an insurance
run when his sharp single to left center plated Schalk to give the White Sox a
4-2 lead. Wilkinson put two Reds runners on base in the bottom half of the
inning but then got a pop-up and an easy fly-ball to end the game.
Wednesday, October 6, 1920 - Game Two
Chicago (AL) 4 Cincinnati (H) 3 (10)
Another extra-inning affair, another road
win, another nail-biter, and another White Sox victory to give the White Sox a
2-0 lead. Dickey
Kerr (1-0, 3.60) went all the way for the win, although he was forced to
pitch out of several critical situations to earn the victory.
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| Dickey Kerr |
Groh and Edd Roush started off the bottom half of the sixth with singles and Pat Duncan drove home Groh to keep Cincinnati in the game, but Kerr buckled down and got through the rest of the inning with no more damage.
Chicago kept up the pressure when Jourdan
singled in the top of the seventh, and Eddie
Collins tried to scoot him over with a hit-and-run. The batted ball was an
easy bouncer back to the mound, Luque fielded it cleanly and saw that he
couldn't get the runner at second, so instead he went to first and proceeded to
throw the ball down the right field line. Jourdan came all the way around to
score and the White Sox now owned a 4-2 lead in the middle of the seventh.
In the bottom of the seventh Nick Allen
batted for Luque and singled to start the inning. Allen moved to second on an
infield out, and following a fly out, Groh singled home Allen to cut the lead
to 4-3. Again Kerr was able to get through the remainder of the inning without
further issue.
Cincinnati finally tied the game at 4-4 in
the bottom of the eighth when Duncan dribbled a single to left, went to second
on a sacrifice bunt, and then scored on an Earle
"Greasy" Neale single. And, as before, Kerr was able to pitch out of trouble and the game moved on. Neither team scored in the ninth
and we were off to extra-innings for the second game in a row.
The White Sox wasted no time as Amos Strunk
singled to lead off the top of the tenth, he was then sacrificed to second, and
Schalk did it again when he singled home Strunk to give Chicago a 4-3 lead.
Kerr wasted no time either as he shut down the Reds 1-2-3 in the bottom of the
inning to give the White Sox a 2-0 lead in the World Series.
Ray Schalk went 5-for-11 in the first two
games and drove in six runs to give him the early lead in the MVP voting.
Thursday, October 7, 1920 - Game Three
The Cincinnati fans were desperate as now the
"crippled" White Sox had won Games One and Two of the World Series in
Crosley Field and with the final four games (as needed) to be played in
Chicago, they needed a win right now at home to be able to salvage any
opportunity at consecutive titles, plus maybe a little revenge. With their two
best starters out of the way, Chicago planned to start Roy
Wilkinson, a reliever all season but pressed into service as a starter
today because he had the most experience, while spitballer Ray Fisher
was to take the mound for the Reds.
Chicago may not have expected to have been up
2-0 at this point of the series, but they wanted to press their luck and got
off to a hot start in Game Three. Eddie
Murphy walked to start off the top of the first, was sacrificed to second
by Ted
Jourdan, and then moved to third on an infield out. John
"Shano" Collins then slapped a two-out single to left and the
White Sox were up 1-0. Bibb Falk
followed with a single to put runners on first and second, and then Amos Strunk
singled home Collins to put Chicago up 2-0.
As had happened in the earlier games,
Cincinnati came right back to keep it close. Jake
Daubert drew a one-out walk, advanced to second on an infield out, and Edd Roush
provided a two-out single to score Daubert and make the score 2-1. There the score
stayed until the bottom of the fifth when Ivey Wingo
singled, was sacrificed to second by Fisher, and one out later Daubert singled
him home to tie the score at 2-2.
And then things got interesting. Eddie
Collins started off the top of the sixth with a single, stole second, and
then scored on a Shano Collins double. Falk hit an easy fly to left, but Pat Duncan
muffed it, leaving the White Sox with runners on first and third. A sacrifice
fly off the bat of Strunk scored Shano Collins and made the score 4-2, but then
light-hitting Hervey
McClellan tripled home Strunk and suddenly the White Sox were up 5-2.
Before things got out of hand Hod Eller
was brought in to relieve Fisher, but Eller got touched when Ray Schalk
hit a sacrifice fly to score McClellan, Schalk's seventh RBI of the series.
With time starting to run out the Reds
finally put on their hitting shoes. Roush singled to lead off the inning, and
Duncan walked right behind him. A fielder's choice saw Roush thrown out at
third, but Greasy
Neale then singled home Duncan, and that was followed by another run-scoring
single, this one off the bat of Wingo, making the score 6-4 and with only one
out in the inning and runners on first and third.
Clarence
"Shovel" Hodge was called upon to relieve Wilkinson while
Cincinnati called upon Charlie See to
pinch-hit for Eller. It wasn't much, but See's infield chopper scored Neale from
third and allowed Wingo to advance to second, the score now being 6-5 with the
top of the Reds lineup coming to bat. Dodge got the third out and the game
moved into the seventh with the White Sox leading by one.
Buddy
Napier took the mound for Cincinnati and Murphy led off the seventh with a
single, was sacrificed to second, and following a strikeout Shano Collins hit a
bouncer to third that bounced off Groh's glove for an E5 and Murphy came around
to score, Chicago now up 7-5.
Hodge and Napier finished strong and neither
got into any more trouble. Hodge pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to secure the win for
Wilkinson and Chicago found itself up 3-0 and returning home for the World
Series finale. Reds fans were noticeably disconsolate, while White Sox fans
crowded Union Station the next morning to welcome home their newfound heroes.
Saturday, October 9, 1920 - Game Four
Chicago (AL) 4 Cincinnati 3 (11)
The series resumed in Chicago, with the
Cincinnati team looking a bit shell-shocked as they got off the train at Union
Station yesterday morning, trailing the hometown White Sox 3-0. The Reds had
fought so hard for this opportunity, they were expected to win, especially with
the White Sox team decimated by the suspensions and banishment of the eight
players responsible for the Black Sox scandal of last year's World Series, and
now they saw their hopes slipping through their fingers.
Reds manager Pat Moran
had been brutally honest with his charges, reminding them they weren't going to
win four games at once, but rather they were going to have to win one game at a
time, so all they could do now was to start today. White Sox manager Kid Gleason
had told his team from the start that they had the pitching to get them through
and so far their strategy had worked, so he instructed them to keep it up and
to "let's close this thing out."
Today's pitchers were a repeat of the Game
One hurlers, Red Faber
for Chicago and Dutch
Ruether for Cincinnati. After a scoreless first, Pat Duncan
knocked a one-out single and was then promptly moved along to third when Larry Kopf
singled behind him. While trying to induce a ground ball Faber accidentally got
a pitch up in the zone and Greasy
Neale made it a 3-0 game when he deposited the pitch in the right field
stands for a three-run homerun (the first homerun of the series).
Both pitchers then went to work as Ruether didn’t give up a hit to the White Sox until the sixth and Faber matched him pitch-for-pitch, not allowing the Reds to expand that three-run lead. Chicago finally got on the board in the eighth. Eddie Murphy led off the bottom of the eighth with a single but then proceeded to get himself picked off first. Ted Jourdan singled and was then moved along to second on an infield out. Shano Collins lined a two-out single down the line to score Jourdan, and the White Sox were finally on the board with Collins ending up on second base during the throw home. Bibb Falk then blooped a single into short right, but it was enough to chase Falk home and make the score 3-2 in Cincinnati's advantage. Ruether got out of the inning with no further damage, but the White Sox faithful had now been aroused.
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| Eddie Murphy |
With Faber now out of the game, Roy Wilkinson came in out of the bullpen to take his place. Wilkinson already had two of the three White Sox wins, so he had earned himself the title of a good luck charm for the White Sox. The tenth inning went by quickly with no runs scored by either team, and Cincinnati went scoreless in the top of the eleventh as well.
Ray Schalk
led off the bottom of the eleventh with a walk, #8 given up by Ruether, and
Wilkinson successfully bunted Schalk over the second. Lead-off hitter Murphy
wasted no time as he slapped the first pitch he saw into right and scored
Schalk with the game-winner, and just like that, Chicago had improbably swept
all four games from their NL counterparts to claim an even more improbable
World Series victory.
It was later said that at that moment an
eerie silence settled over the city of Chicago, followed by a cacophony of
yells, screams, train whistles, car horns, and boat horns heard even on the
north side of the city. A World Series victory, and under the most unbelievable
conditions any baseball fan could imagine. Unofficially, prohibition was
suspended for one night in Chicago, although no one would ever admit to having
permitted such a thing.
There was a fervent discussion in the press
box as the game ended: who was the World Series MVP? In a four-game series, the
stats are compressed and the opportunities for greatness are minimized, so the
primary choices were:
Eddie
Murphy played 23 games in the outfield and three games at third base during
the regular season as Murphy spent most of the season as a left-handed swinging
pinch-hitter. Murphy did end the season with a .300 average, but his three
appearances at third base all came on the final three days of the season, so
how would he react when given the opportunity to man the hot corner in the
World Series? Murphy went 5-for-23 (.217) in the lead-off spot, handled
fourteen defensive chances without an error, but came through with two crucial
Game Four hits - he had tied the game in the bottom of the ninth and then he
had singled home the game-winner in the eleventh.
Ray Schalk
caught 150 games during the season, hit .301, and handled the arguably best
pitching staff in the AL. In the World Series, Schalk accumulated seven RBI's
in the first three games of the series to spark the White Sox to a quick 3-0
lead. Schalk also cut off the Cincinnati running game, a major portion of the
Reds attack during the regular season.
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| Roy Wilkinson |
After much deliberation, the decision to give Ray Schalk the MVP award. Maybe it was because of his regular season record, or maybe it was a thanks for noting having gotten involved in the Black Sox scandal, but these crucial RBI's in the first three games were more than enough.
White Sox fans may have eagerly looked
forward to the next season, but White Sox management (and the rest of the AL), knew
this group would be lucky to finish the 1921 season with sixty wins, so now
that the season was over it was time for the White Sox brain trust to get busy
and see what they could do to bolster the team in preparation for the upcoming
season.
1920 BBW Replay Conclusion
This 1920 BBW Replay turned out to be a bit
of a surprise for me. I was looking forward to Babe Ruth's first year with the
Yankees, there were a myriad of Hall-of-Fame players I wanted to see, and I
wanted to see how the whole Black Sox scandal would play out. What I didn't
count on was such an exciting pennant race in both leagues, followed by what
would likely qualify as the biggest upset in World Series history. All in all,
a very exciting and enjoyable replay.
So what is next? My next replay will be 1967,
but I haven’t decided on whether it will be done using APABGO and BBW. No hurry (said
the retired guy). Before that, I want to write up a summary of my 1901-1911-1920-1930-1942-1949-1957
replay arc. Based on my experience gained from these replays I have also
compiled a list of things to consider for those wanting to do a replay, so I
need to finish that as well.
Obviously, I enjoy doing replays, and I enjoy
sharing my results as well. Thanks to all who have followed me and offered
questions, critiques, or comments. Now, let's go play …
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