n Wednesday, September 24th, 1919, the Red Sox
headed into the top of the ninth inning, down 1-0 to the hometown Yankees. With a mighty
blast that carried the ball over the roof at the Polo Grounds (the home of the Yankees
from 1913-22), Boston's Babe Ruth tied the game at 1-1. Though the Yankees eventually won
the contest in 13 innings, the Babe's homer had broken Williamson's thirty-five year old
major league record for most home runs in a single season. Three days later, on September
27th, Ruth upped his season home run total to 29 by hitting a round-tripper off
Washington's Rip Jordan. It was Ruth's first and only home run in Washington that year,
but the final clout meant that the Babe had homered in every city in the league, a feat
never before accomplished.One week after Ruth eclipsed Williamson's record, the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds met in the fateful World Series of 1919. A year later, eight members of the "Black Sox" would be forever barred from the game — an eerie echo of the Louisville scandal that followed George Hall's home run record of 1876.
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