1919 Major League Baseball season 1919 Major League Baseball season The 1919 Major League Baseball season, is best remembered for the Black Sox Scandal, in which the Chicago White Sox threw (purposely lost) the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, 5–3, in order to illegally gain money from gambling. This scandal resulted in commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banning eight players from baseball for life. The season began on April 19, 1919, when the Brooklyn Robins defeated the Boston Braves 5–2 at Braves Field in the first game of a double header. The regular season ended on September 29 with the New York Yankees defeating the
Babe Ruth total to 11, tying his career best from 1918. The first record to fall was the AL single-season mark of 16, set by Ralph "Socks" Seybold in 1902. Ruth matched that on July 29, then pulled ahead toward the major league record of 24, set by Buck Freeman in 1899. Ruth reached this on September 8, by which time, writers had discovered that Ned Williamson of the 1884 Chicago White Stockings had hit 27—though in a ballpark where the distance to right field was only . On September 20, "Babe Ruth Day" at Fenway Park, Ruth won the game with