1919 NL - Games of Monday, 21 July

Cardinals 9, Braves 7: St. Louis built a large lead in the early going and were then forced to sweat out a late Boston rally before prevailing at Braves Field. A four-run 1st got the visitors off and running behind two stolen bases plus RBI hits from Milt Stock, Austin McHenry and Doug Baird. The score was 5-1 in favor of the Cardinals when they bounced Al Demaree (7-5) from the game with another three runs in the 5th, pitcher Red Ames providing the final insult with a two-run single that put a premature end to Demaree's work day, and the gap became eight runs when McHenry added a run-scoring single in the 6th. After escaping a bases-loaded none-out mess in the 2nd with just one run against his ledger, Ames (2-2) had been sharp as his mates ran up the score, surrendering just one hit in his last three innings of work heading into the 6th. But Boston stung him for five hits in the inning, a single by Demaree's replacement Ray Keating and a triple by Buck Herzog each delivering two runs before Ames was also forced from the mound early. It was still a four-run lead, but the Braves weren't done quite yet - the first two men singled to start the 7th, Jim Thorpe brought in one of the them with a sacrifice fly, Rabbit Maranville the other with a three-base knock, and suddenly there were alarm bells ringing on the St. Louis bench. The decisive play of the game came next - Art Wilson lofted a fly ball to medium center field and Maranville was gunned down at the plate by Jack Smith's throw and the crisis was averted. Bill Sherdel finished the game off (earning his League-leading 6th save) with two scoreless innings, although he did have to retire Maranville (3-for-5) for the game's final out with the tying runs on the bases for Boston. McHenry and Herzog also finished the day with three hits to their names. [box]

1919 NL - Games of Saturday, 19 July

Giants 3, Cubs 2: Larry Doyle's bounding ball to second base pushed across the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning as New York outlasted Chicago in an extended affair in the Empire City. The game was tied 2-2 through seven innings, the visitors riding a four-bagger from Charlie Hollocher and the Gothams building on triples by Heinie Zimmerman and Benny Kauff, but the batters found the going hard in the late innings. Each team could muster just one base hit over the next three innings as the two starters toiled late into the afternoon. Fred Toney (4-7) worked his way around a pair of free passes in the top of the 11th, striking out Lee Magee and getting Charlie Pick to sky to right, but Hippo Vaughn (8-11) would not be so fortunate. Ross Youngs led off the home half of the inning with a single and Art Fletcher followed with a base hit to center that moved Youngs around to third base. With the Chicago infield pulled in close in desperation, League batting leader Doyle - suffering through the rare hitless afternoon - chopped one in front of the plate that came down into the hands of Pick, but too late for his throw home to have any chance of cutting down the Giants' swift right fielder. [box]

1919 NL - Games of Friday, 18 July

Braves 10, Pirates 3: Jim Thorpe and Hank Gowdy each collected three hits and three runs batted in as Boston belted the Bucs in front of an appreciative home crowd. When they came to bat in the bottom of the 4th inning, the home team had gone in arrears by a count of 3-1 on Casey Stengel's two-run homer in the top of the inning, but the Braves would quickly erase the deficit. Ray Powell singled and Red Smith walked to start the frame, then Walter Holke sacrificed them into scoring position for Thorpe's looping hit into right field that tied the game. Three more singles followed in quick succession against Frank Miller (6-7) as Boston raced to a five-run inning and a 6-3 lead. The Olympian's RBI double extended the lead in the 5th before Gowdy added an RBI for the third consecutive inning and the rout was on. The Braves scored two more times in the 8th without help from either man this time, and Dick Rudolph (9-5) retired eighteen of the final nineteen Pirates to leave no room for doubt as to the final result. [box]

1919 NL - Games of Thursday, 17 July

Cardinals 5, Phillies 4: St. Louis scored three times in the top of the 9th inning to spoil a fine Phillies debut by starter Lee Meadows. The matchup at the Baker Bowl featured two hurlers that were part of the big deal between the two clubs just a few days ago, Meadows joining the Philadelphia nine along with infielder Gene Paulette in exchange for pitchers Elmer Jacobs and Frank Woodward plus infielder Doug Baird. Jacobs got the nod for the home club as well this afternoon, and the two new boys made both of their new clubs happy in the early going. There had only been one safe hit in the game before Rogers Hornsby came to the plate in the top of the 4th; he drove one deep to left-center field and Austin McHenry collided heavily with the outfield fence just after the ball had done the same. Before Paulette could back him up from center field and get the ball back into the infield, Hornsby had circled the bases for his sixth homer of the season and the first score of the game. Paulette tied the score with an RBI double in the 5th, and the Phillies took the lead when another new acquisition, catcher Walt Tragesser, followed two PHI singles and a sacrifice with a run-scoring fly ball to right field. But Doc Lavan's circuit clout to left knotted the scores again in the 7th and the contest went to its final frames tied at two. Philadelphia grabbed control when three straight one-out hits produced a pair in the 8th, Meadows (5-8) singling home the second himself, and the bespectacled 24-year-old took the mound in the 9th looking to finish off a nice day's work. He retired the first Cardinal, and got the second out after a pair of singles, but pinch-hitter Burt Shotton ripped a three-bagger over Paulette's head in center field to tie the game and Jack Smith then followed him with another sharp drive to center. Paulette, who had primarily fielded the first sack for St. Louis but was doing fill-in work for the Phils in center field in the continued absence of Cy Williams, broke in on the ball before realizing how well it was struck. He couldn't recover and Smith trotted into second with a double that gave the visitors the lead. Oscar Tuero relieved Jacobs (5-10) in pursuit of the final three outs and got those after allowing a leadoff single by Paulette, who reached base four times. [box]

1919 NL - Pitching Leaders through 15 July

Pitching leaderboards in the National League through the games of Tuesday, 15 July . . .

1919 NL - Batting Leaders through 15 July

Offensive statistical leaders in the National League through the games of Tuesday, 15 July . . .

1919 NL - Games of Tuesday, 15 July

Cubs 2, Braves 1: Each club could manage only eight hits but, as has so often happened in his nine-year big-league career, Pete Alexander was slightly better when the chips were on the line and Chicago won a nail-biter in Boston. Two lapses in concentration were all it took to doom the Braves - in the 3rd, a two-out error by Tony Boeckel set the table for Charlie Hollocher's RBI hit and, in the 4th, Hugh McQuillan hit leadoff hitter Fred Merkle with a pitch to start the ball rolling towards Les Mann's run-scoring single three batters later. McQuillan (3-2) was excellent after that, allowing only four Cubs to reach over the final five innings, but it was already too late with "Old Pete" toeing the rubber on the opposite side. Boston got just one hit against him in the first three innings, and didn't really threaten seriously until the 7th when Boeckel singled with one out and Hank Gowdy tripled two batters later to cut the Chicago lead to 2-1. But McQuillan popped out to leave the potential tying run 90 feet shy and Boston didn't get a whiff of hope again until they had poked a pair of singles with two outs in the bottom of the 9th; pinch-hitter Johnny Rawlings was asked to be the hero, but he was no match for the 200-game winner, who forced him to hit a lazy fly ball to center field which was pocketed by Lee Magee for the final out. Alexander held the Braves to 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position by pitching to contact (one walk, two strikeouts) and recording fourteen ground-ball outs (retiring eleven of the first fifteen in that fashion). Magee had two hits to lead the Cubs, while Gowdy had three base knocks for Boston. [box]

1919 NL - Games of Monday, 14 July

Braves 1, Cubs 0: A scintillating pitchers' duel at Braves Field was decided in favor of the home nine when Rabbit Maranville's slow ground ball pushed across a run in the bottom of the 7th inning. Safe hits were in short supply in the early going, as Max Flack led off the game with a single and Chicago wouldn't record another base hit until the 5th, and Boston only had four of their own through five. Both sides had the makings of a rally erased by double plays, the Cubs seeing Fred Merkle's line drive turned into two outs by Maranville with two on in the 1st and Buck Herzog bouncing into a 463 with two Robins aboard in the 3rd. The home team got two on with one out in the 6th, but Hippo Vaughn (8-10) escaped on two ground ball outs; he would not fare as well in the 7th. Red Smith and Hank Gowdy began the inning with singles and Al Demaree bunted them both into scoring position; Brooklyn pulled the infield in close, but Marnaville hit one off the end of the bat that got past the mound and, by the time shortstop Charlie Hollcher could glove the ball with the runners going at the crack of the bat, Smith was nearly home and he was forced to take the out at first base. Now staked to the slimmest of leads, Demaree (7-4) got to work - he wobbled a bit in the 8th, allowing two men to reach with one out before escaping via two weak grounders back to the mound, and a leadoff error in the 9th came to nought when he ended the game by inducing two can-of-corn fly balls to center. Lee Magee of the Cubs and Jim Thorpe of the Braves were the only players to walk off the field with more than one base hit. [box]

1919 NL - Games of Sunday, 13 July

Giants 15, Pirates 6: New York extracted equal measure in response to their pummeling at the hand of Pittsburgh yesterday afternoon, scoring fifteen times including eleven in the first two innings. Honors were settled quite quickly at Coogan's Bluff, as the luckless Earl Hamilton (3-13) simply could not find a way to navigate the Giants' lineup. After retiring the first batter in the bottom of the 1st, he allowed six of the next seven to reach safely, throwing in a balk for the sake of completeness, as New York scored five times in their first at-bat of the game with Mike Gonzalez providing a two-run single. And it wouldn't get any easier for Hamilton the next time the home team picked up the bats - the leadoff hitter hit a sharp one back to the box which the little left-hander fielded well but then threw over the head of the first baseman for a two-base error, and that was almost the highlight of the inning for the Pirate hurler. Now completely unsettled, he walked Ross Youngs and then served up a soft toss which Art Fletcher hit out of the yard (5) for three runs, and the next three Giants singled. Before he had managed to retire the tenth and final batter of the frame, the score was 11-0 in favor of McGraw's men and the rest of the day was to be played for show only. New York added four more runs in the 5th, and Pittsburgh did manage some damage against Rube Benton (6-7), but the Giant moundsman was clearly pitching to the score and went the distance despite being allowing eleven safe hits. Fletcher scored three times and drove in four, Gonzalez had a big day at the plate with three hits, and Billy Southworth had three hits and three RBI in support of the losing cause. [box]

1919 NL - Games of Saturday, 12 July

Pirates 11, Giants 2: Casey Stengel homered twice to highlight a four-hit day as Pittsburgh crushed New York at Brush Stadium. The Pirate right-fielder singled, stole a base, and scored in a three-run 1st inning that got the visitors off and running, and then homered to lead off the 4th after the Giants had pulled back a pair in the 2nd with the help of George Cutshaw's error. He again led off the inning in the 5th with a circuit clout (his third of the campaign) and this blow was the opening shot of a four-run frame that put Pittsburgh in complete control; the coup de grâce was a two-out, three-run home run by Walter Schmidt (1) which was the final straw for Fred Toney (3-7). Casey singled in another run in the 7th as the Pirates kept the scoreboard ticking over against the New York relief corps. Wilbur Cooper (11-3) was outstanding on the hill for Pittsburgh, scattering seven hits and three walks, while fanning six Giants to join the League leaders in victories. [box]