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Show Ffjats of Man o? War and "Babe" Ruth the Outstanding Features B J professional sports made rapid recovery from world war crisis lull in amateur field i I GEOR ' 'jACK DE-MPSEY 'J WORLDS CHAMPION INDIANS LIGHT HFAVYwEISHT CHAMPION LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPION -ESI!BALlS GREATE5T HITTER HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION , 1 I WONDER YEAR r FOR BASEBALL I Greatest cason in Game's History His-tory Was Capped by Its I '"orsf Scandal. ww i By Frederick G. Lieb I The year of !K) In baseball was a Hi'' Hjcn lied the fondest dreams. s I r, axed bj 1 -; s andal In baseball h.s:..r .1 P . 1 f ' I end of the ' ir ie was a backwash I series of 1313 but ;art!y through I Hsebrs li took a Chicago Grants Jury to I Hgai;K. of tin? eight men j I v. i; i i!mii frto baseball chronology i I I i f f PJ Fuiure generations will look back nt i f " r of 1 ' lf' S t I f , I T , I ... i .i lis ida Will 1 " jthb.rg. Fred McMuliln and Buck t 11 from baseball a a c Bin the scandal already has had a i J Ua , Ik. l.irt' responsible foi ihe crooks , L ; i full I I o' ' 1 -iniri anil order 1 1 pr.. , I - new deal would I 1 j W As a result eight rich owners cf the Hsetii-- with three progrssl owners I r 1th the if"''' i I ' 1 ' lne '.an,,;. Mountain Landis. the Chicago jurist ijW-srJ sportsman, .1- supreme dictator of WM nh( spnrt. La nd is takes h.I.J of hl Hob uih powers never before enjoyed . ' iat ball h ad and bo drastic that Ihe can enter any league or club or ium-' ium-' Imoo any document when he boHevcs Ithat the wellare of baseball demands It. 1 Crowds Smashed All Records. I The reason of 1920, however, v,as a , Irtcorxl breaker In more ways than brlng- 1 lt; to light the record ncatodal The crowd.. v,u.h attended the games In J lth two major leagues t: unprece- , i dt.TtAd and both leaguei smashed all 1 t attendance records to smiihreen; The r American Leaj : I eat . 1 ' anee. formerly us bi si scosi 'n, bv nearly Lea?Lic went am t itudancc which wa Lhaj . Wear In the parent league'L history. inree rcat.r .New ly0rk clubs tte Yankees. Giants and ( Dodgers-set I ! : : " " f4r volume of jbusinw;. the Yankees srrfashing every 7lTn " ' I" bai AlOed by the remarkable Ruth'l 1 abllllf- clb Pla3fcd to UWfiOC paid admlulons at home and approxl- tlV.C; l.Vy.Mi or, the rW,ad I The Yankees establish new att!nd. knee recorda last .v.asof, on the Polo l Z cBoston; Leaw- Par"- Cleve- 1 lar.'l. and Sportsman's ' r nut. lwcniy.lwo games, two I o them being !aycd .1 parts of double benders. The Cinnts also er,t well over a million In their Polo Ground business, and h.id on..- of th'.r finest seasons on the road. Brooklyn, aided by seventeen Sundays, alo played to a land office business. Prohibition, the so.ron.i yr-ar of Sund.iv his. ball in th greater city, Baba Rutii and exceptionally good weather were :n ng the leading reasons for thegre.it crowds. Closing saloons sent men to ball parks for their recreation, while Sundey bisebnll In New Y..rk hjs been ona of the cri'ji.-?; I'.wnm to the rport. Not a Sunday gam iv.is loat In New Y'ork cltv lasi kVason. svhlli the lo.-ai club slo encountorf.l m . inlonallv good weather ln the West. The Yankees had only-two only-two poatROnements in the West all season, sea-son, one of them being played off on an cpe'ii d.ire r 1 N- York Yankees put Up a hard UghS In the American Lenuue. and gave New Ycrl; fr.s many thrills, but after beating C eland two out of Hire games In their last September scries they blew the pennant by losing three .'.t-aight games to Chicago. Cleveland, '"liieago and New York came down tho finish nerk and neck, the Indians finally winning by a two-game margin over the White Sox and three games over the Yankees. It was the closest tho Yanks came to winning .1 pennant since Happy Jack Chesbro tossed off the 1904 flag with a wild pitch on tho last day of the season. Huggfna' team had the satisfaction satisfac-tion of winning the year's scries from both Cleveland and Chicago. The victory of the Indians waa well deserved, and was due largely to the great Individual play and skilful managing manag-ing by Trls Speaker, baseball's first playing play-ing manager ln several years. The Cleveland Cleve-land club sustained a terrible blow In August when Kay Chapman, tin great shortstop, died from the effects of being accidentally hit on the head by Carl Maxs. the Yankee pitcher. The pennant won by Cleveland was tho first mnjcr l.-aguc flag tna ever has flown In the Forest City. First Pennsnt for Cleveland. Oddly enough after both of Ohio's great cities Cincliina tl and Cleveland-went Cleveland-went pennantlesa for fifty years they won the championship in successive years, the Beds In 1919 and the. Indian? !n 1920. Both clubs topped league championships cham-pionships with the world's pennant. The 1920 world's series was a grear succes, though the fctronc finish of the Clcvclands took most of the starch out of Brooklyn and thi series. After the Dodgers won two of tho first three games played in Brookb n the Indian' returned horn,, and reeled off four straight victories, winning five gamer out of seven n Ith the "66. creating an Olympic re cord. That we won but nine of the thirty events establishes the fact that Wi must be up and doing If we are to maintain main-tain our supremacy as the leader of the world In track and field doings. It had repeatedly been shown In these columns that Continental Kurope would be likely to keep us on the Jump In order that we should retain supremacy, und that the other nations did that very thing can be glimpsed by the fact that Finland annexed an-nexed no fewer than five, while the British Empire scored In seven. Bah won two events and France, Norway end Sweden ono each. How Wo Hove Gone Bark. While we won, it Is to be remembered that at Stockholm. In 1912, our winning portion was, fourteen out of thirty-one. while at London. In 100. We totalled fifteen of :i possible twenty-seven evonts. all of which would Indicate that the competition Is becoming keener or Unl we are going back a bit In the matter of close application to our athletic knlftltu'. The performances at the American championships In Boston were nnthine to enthuse over, with the possible exception ex-ception of the feit by Milton Angler. Illinois A. C. Who threw the Javelin 10.1 feet 10 I ii r lies At that time, the track was Conceded ly far from the condition lbs llarvord Stadium usually l. and that Its shape militated against top-notch top-notch marks le admitted by all the train-or train-or who had men In competition. As a general proposition It was the In- I door work of the track anil field contingent contin-gent that stood out prominently. For hoth Indoor and outdoor competition ten j new American records were made dininir the year. The fli-st of these were seen with the fracturing or the sixty yards flat and seventy v.ir.l- high hurdle records rec-ords by Harold Lever of University of Pennsylvania! who did H2-S seconds for the slxtv. and when Kverett Smaltey, another Red nnd Blue uthlete. did 0 1-' seconds for the seventy yards three feet six. Inch hurdles. The la'tr- effort was equalled at the A.A.U. Indoors bv Walker Walk-er Smith, of Cornell, when the liharan "Htud' won the champion-hip on March n. Some 1920 Records. The Ali-Ruddalo team of r!ay runner - Hasher field i Kopplsch, Sutton and Brandt, ran a mile In 3 minutes 21 seconds sec-onds at the Seventy-fourth Regiment Armory In April and gave the quarter mllers something' to shoot at In this game. Juno 2T proved a banner period for record smashing, with tho athletes of th. v, v' el iwlbg in btiung fashion . . 1 1 r r&t f hef '.'hue. |
