Home Fires Burning
Retelling the 1920 Indians’ story
Try to put yourself in the leather shoes and felt hat of an Indians fan in July, 1920.
There was no radio or electronic media. Perhaps you saw pictures of those monstrous scoreboards nailed outside newspaper offices to keep track of games. Well, those were mostly used when the local team was in the playoffs.
The newspaper was your only reliable source for baseball news. Even then, newspapers relied mostly on wire accounts of the game and the descriptions of key events and plays from a stringer, someone who got a few bucks to enhance the wire reports. He often was another reporter in the home city. Very seldom did readers even see a quotation from players or even the manager.
The Indians spent most of July on the road, beating lesser teams and taking a beating in New York and Chicago. They rarely were more than a game ahead or a game behind their chief rivals, the Yankees and White Sox. Then they lost three in a row to the Yankees at the Polo Grounds and fell out of first place. The Indians won the next day and the Plain Dealer told Clevelanders their Indians were back in first place. Yankees 61–33 .649 vs. Indians 59–31 .656. The pennant was heating up. (A previous version of this edition had incorrect percentages).
Imagine how welcome this headline must have been:
Then came what passed for hype at the time.
“The Tribe, on its tour did better than was expected. It practically equaled the record of the Yankees who played most of their games at home during the same time. By so doing, it demonstrated it was as game a team as ever represented this city and one of the gamest that ever represented any town in the league. Coming up from behind it won repeatedly when defeat stared it in the face. Every player was up on his toes, never admitting defeat until the last out had been registered.
“The five victories taken by Chicago from Cleveland at the start of the tribe made the White Sox a contender in the pennant race. They still are a big factor in the battle for the championship and it is expected that close to 30,000 fans will be on hand at League Park today to see the encounter between the two rivals.”
Most of the buzz about baseball back then was by the fans themselves in kitchens, on porches and in barber shops. If you wanted to buy tickets, you didn’t have to go the stadium, your local men’s clothing store had them available — real tickets that you paid for in real cash, hoping they were genuine. I have no evidence that any of those tickets went for greater than face value but imagine that haberdasher must have been tempted to offer his last few tickets to a big game for a few bucks over face value.
(When I moved to Ashtabula in 1969 the local clothier still offered Indians tickets but Sam McDowell and friends did not merit a premium price. Even then, he told me it was barely worth his time and was thinking about giving up the practice.)
The game at League Park between the Indians and White Sox on July 25 was surely a hot ticket and the game did not disappoint.
Here’s what the PD told readers the next morning:
“Back from a victorious trip around the American League circuit, the Indians yesterday inaugurated a long home stay by defeating one of their greatest rivals for first place, the Chicago White Sox, 7–2. The victory was Cleveland’s eleventh over the White Sox this season and makes it impossible for the tribe to lose the campaign’s series to the 1919 champions.
“The Indians won because Stan Coveleskie completely outpitched Williams, the Chicago Southpaw and the Indians emphatically outfielded their adversaries. The Sox gathered almost as many hits off Covey as the Indians did off Williams, but they lacked the assemblage tactics of the Clevelanders. Where the Sox were forced to restrict their safe hits to one an inning except in the sixth, the Indians tied their safe blows in packages and made them count for runs.”
Seven different Indians knocked in runs, including Coveleskie who hit a double, his fourth of the season.
Coveleskie allowed nine hits and three walks in the complete-game victory, his 16th of the season.
Clearly the city and its newspaper were eager to get the crown ready for the baseball team.
“It was a splendid home coming for the tribe after a month’s absence and the fans demonstrated repeatedly that they appreciated the Indians great work on the road. There was an ovation when the Indians first game upon the field for batting practice for the early fans beat the players to the scene of action by close to an hour. There was another outburst of enthusiasm when the redskins trotted out for their fielding session, another when Tris Speaker Babe ruthed the ball over the right field wall and into Lexington Avenue and still others when the league pace setters instituted scoring sessions.”
The Yankees instilled no fear:
“Not having the advantage of playing on the Polo Grounds with its trick boundaries, the Yankees should strike a slump. It will be no surprise if they go back home in third place with Cleveland leading them by three or four games. Meusel and Peck will not make many home runs on the road while Babe Ruth certainly will not make as many as he does at the Polo Grounds. “
But there was grudging respect for the game’s greatest player:
“It now looks certain that Babe will make at least fifty circuit knocks this year, but it is rather doubtful if he will exceed that mark, as the Yankees are on the road for the greater portion of the remainder of the campaign and will find the fences and walls further away from the late than at the Polo grounds.”
We all know it would be a championship season for the Indians, but it would not be easy certainly heartbreaking long the way.
Playing it again
Unlike many previous games replayed using Strat-O-Matic, this one was nothing like the real game on July 25, 1920. Stan Coveleskie (who changed the spelling to Coveleski after retiring) was pounded in the sixth inning of this one and the Indians never recovered.
The worst of it was when Happy Felsch hit a grand slam, his 14th homer of the season in this replay.
Apparently, my favorite opponent, Jason Miller, has learned how to pull the strings against the Tribe. It wasn’t much more than rolling the dice (on the computer) as Lefty Williams threw a complete game and he made no substitutions in the field.
The Indians, however, used four pitchers, most because of failed pinch-hitting attempts to get back in the game when the score was only 6–4.
Previous blog posts:
The Spitter Starts Sliding Out of Baseball
It Happens Every Spring — in Cleveland Anyway
Cleveland Fans Party — Tribe Style
Throwing it around in the old days
Bagby Flashes but Soon will Fade
Dave Scott was a newspaper writer and editor for 40 years. He is a lifelong baseball fan and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research for decades, although SABR records might indicate I skipped my dues on occasion! DavidAScott@gmail.com I owe a great debt to the Cleveland Public Library for its excellent resources.
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David Bodemer
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Thanks to all of you!
