The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Tragedy, triumph for 1920 Tribe with rally
After Ray Chapman died 100 years ago, Tribe rallied to capture World Series
One season in particular in Indians’ history was marked by tragedy and triumph, 100 years ago.
One season in particular in Indians’ history was marked by tragedy and triumph, and that season was played exactly 100 years ago.
Ray Chapman, the Indians’ shortstop, was hit in the head with a ball pitched by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees on Aug. 16, 2020, at the Polo Grounds in New York.
He died before dawn the next day after a futile attempt by doctors to remove part of Chapman’s fractured skull from his brain.
“The accident occurred at the outset of the fifth inning,” read a story printed in the Washington Evening Star on Aug. 17, 1920. “Chapman was the first batter up and hit by the first ball pitched. So terrific was the blow that the report of the impact caused spectators to think the ball had struck his bat.”
The headline on the story read “Loss of Indians’ star may cost team flag,” and with good reason. Chapman played in 111 games in 1920, scored 97 runs and was hitting .303 with three home runs and 49 RBI when he was killed. He walked 52 times and struck out only 38 times in 435 at-bats.
The newspaper story captured the tragedy of Chapman’s death, complete with the detail of Indians player-manager Tris Speaker phoning Chapman’s wife, Kathleen, in Cleveland to inform her what happened, and that Kathleen boarded a train to New York to be with her husband in his final moments.
The Indians lost seven of their next nine games, but the gloom and doom headline predicting losing Chapman would cost the Indians the American League pennant was wrong.
The Indians pulled out of their slump and went 2418 to finish the season 9856, two games ahead of the White Sox and three games ahead of the Yankees to win become AL champions, From there, they went on to beat the Brooklyn Robins (93-61) to win the World Series..
One of the heroes of the late charge was Joe Sewell, who was called up from New Orleans after only 92 games in the minors to replace Chapman. Mike Sowell, author of “The Pitch that Killed,” recounted Sewell replacing Chapman in a podcast titled “Baseball by the Book.”
“It looked like this was going to be the end of Cleveland’s hopes, losing Chapman,” Sowell said. “Sewell had just gotten out of college. Out of desperation, they brought him up. He was quite scared.
“When he got off the train in Cleveland, he checked into the hotel. As he was lying in bed that night, he imagined when he put on the Cleveland uniform he would become Ray Chapman reincarnated. That’s what steadied his nerves. He sat out one game while watching what was going on. Once they put him in the lineup, he started hitting and playing just like Chapman did. In many ways, Sewell was Ray Chapman reincarnated.”
Sewell, who played for the Indians in 11 seasons in his Hall of Fame career, hit .329 in 22 games as a rookie and .320 while playing with the Tribe from 1920-1930. He played with the Yankees from 1931-33 (.282), and in 8,333 plate appearances used only one bat — a 40-ouncer he dubbed black beauty — his entire career, according to his Hall of Fame biography..
Back then the league champions went directly to the World Series. The Indians beat the Robins (later called the Dodgers) of the National League to win their first World Series, five games to two, back at a time when it was a best-of-nine affair, as it was in 1903, and 1919. The World Series was also a best-of-nine in 1921. The Indians wore new blue uniforms for the World Series. They wore black socks and black armbands to honor Chapman.
Television did not exist a century ago. Radio was in its infancy. A scoreboard 18 feet high and 24 feet across was erected at Public Square in downtown Cleveland to keep fans informed of play by play, according to a Youtube video narrated by historian Peter J. Rea. Play-by-play had to be relayed from the game site to the scoreboard operator by telegraph.
The first three games of the 1920 World Series were played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. The Dodgers led the series, two games to one, when it shifted to League Park in Cleveland for the next four games.
Game 4 was played Oct. 9, 1920. The Indians scored two runs in the first inning and Stan Coveleski pitched a complete-game five hitter as the Indians won, 5-1, to set the stage for a game that will forever be part of World Series history.
Burleigh Grimes, 2311 with Brooklyn in 1920, started for the Robins. Jim Bagby, 31-12, was on the mound for the Indians. His 31 victories were tops in both leagues. It was a rematch of Game 2, won 3-0
“An unassisted triple play by William Wambsganss, a native son of Cleveland, and home runs by Elmer Smith and Jim Bagby were a trio of individual feats which formed flashlight photographs on the brains of the fans which no future diamond battle can erase.” — Baltimore Sun account of Game 5 of the 1920 World Series
by the Robins.
The Indians won, 8-1, and in Game 5, three things happened: The Indians’ Elmer Smith, in the bottom of the first inning, hit the first grand slam in World Series history. Bagby in the bottom of the fourth, with two runners on, became the first pitcher ever to hit a World Series home run. His blast gave the Indians a 7-0 lead.
What followed never happened before, and hasn’t happened since in the World Series.
Pete Kildulf singled to start the Robins’ fifth inning and then Otto Miller singled to center, Speaker, the center fielder and player-manager, fired the ball to third base to keep Kilduf from advancing past second.
Clarence Mitchell was Brooklyn’s next batter. He hit a line drive toward right-center. But Bill Wambsganss, the Indians’ 5-foot11 second baseman, timing his leap perfectly, caught the ball, stepped on second before Kilduf could retreat to the bag and tagged Miller running to second base for the only unassisted triple play in a World Series game in Major League history.
The Baltimore Sun newspaper described what happened that day in League Park before a crowd of 26,884 in these words:
“An unassisted triple play by William Wambsganss, a native son of Cleveland, and home runs by Elmer Smith and Jim Bagby were a trio of individual feats which formed flashlight photographs on the brains of the fans which no future diamond battle can erase.
“The victory broke the tie between the pennant winners of the two major leagues, and tonight Cleveland is confident that the first American League pennant ever won by this city will be overshadowed by the great glory of the World Series banner to be flung in the breeze next spring.”
The Indians on Oct. 11 took a 4-2 series lead by winning 1-0 in a game that took only 94 minutes to play — current MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred would have wept with joy — when Duster Mails pitched a complete game three-hitter. The Indians scored the game’s only run in the sixth inning when Speaker singled and scored on a double by George Burns.
Coveleski for the Indians and Grimes for the Robins dueled in Game 7. Coveleski, like the Hall of Famer he would become, pitched a five-hitter in a 3-1 clinching victory, making him 3-0 in the World Series. Speaker, also in the Hall of Fame, delivered a run-scoring triple in the fifth inning for a 2-0 Indians lead.
Cleveland citizens celebrated for five days, according to the Rea video. The share for winning the World Series was $4,168 for each Indians player. The Indians voted a full share to Kathleen Chapman, who was pregnant with her and Ray’s first child.