Associated Press
Rogers Hornsby in 1920 (Not in New Haven)

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The New Haven Weissmen, under the direction of manager and future Baseball Hall of Fame player Charles “Chief” Bender, had just wrapped up their second successive Eastern League title in 1920 when the St. Louis Cardinals came to town for an in-season exhibition on Sept. 20.

Games like this were common, given most cities’ prohibition of Sunday baseball in those days. New Haven native and sports promoter George Weiss, the team owner, had set the contest up under the strict conditions that St. Louis manager Branch Rickey play all of the uninjured Cardinal regulars.

That included future Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby, in the midst of winning the first of six successive National League batting titles (he won seven overall). Hornsby could have rested — he missed both ends of a doubleheader to injury the day before at Boston — but he was in the lineup at New Haven, where he would pick up a few extra bucks by playing.


Read Chip Malafronte's complete story.

Rogers Hornsby baseball-reference.com stats page

This boxscore appeared in Register day after George Sisler and Walter Johnson visited.

Thanks to a Sunday baseball ban in several major American cities, fans in New Haven, which allowed Sunday ball, got to see a steady stream of visiting major league clubs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Whether the opponent was Yale, New Haven’s minor league outfit or one of several competitive semi-pro teams, some of the all-time greats once graced area ballfields, often on a regular basis.

Take September 1919, an especially exciting month. On four straight weekends, the New Haven Weissmen of the Eastern League took on big league opponents.

For recaps on each read Chip Malafronte's full story.

Baseball-Reference.com's stats page for 1919 Weissmen