All sixteen teams see action in eight games on July 30, 1920. It’s the seventh highest scoring day of the season (minimum six games played) as games average 12.75 runs. At the low end of runs, the Braves beat the Cubs 4-1 in Boston. In St. Louis, the Yankees pound the Browns 19-3 for the high scoring game of the day.

Rogers Hornsby of the Cardinals takes home best offensive game of the day honors despite a loss to the Giants in New York. Hornsby goes three for four in the game with two home runs and a hit by pitch, scoring twice and driving in four runs. It’s not enough as the Giants win 8-7.

The game generated excitement as one of Hornby’s home runs was inside the park and the Giants walked off in the bottom of the ninth. Hornsby’s homers received a colorful description:

One of them was a genuine, all-wool, eighteen-carat homer into the left field bleachers. The other was a hand-me-down, a single that bounced over the shoulders of Lee King, who was holding down the pasture where Benny Kauff used to be tethered.

New York Tribune

Kauff was being forced out of baseball for auto theft. The Giants scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth on a walk, a double a single, another walk, and a sacrifice fly.

Hornsby dominates the NL leader boards. He will turn out to be one of the few National League players who adopts the power game of the AL. This will lead him to dominate the three averages for most of the 1920s, BA, OBP, and Slugging Percentage.

Hugh McQuillan of the Braves posts the best pitched game of the day in the defeat of the Cubs. It’s almost a no-true outcomes day, as he walks two and strikes out one in giving up four hits and an unearned run. It’s McQuillan’s second pitcher of the day honor.

The big news story of the day, however, involves the retired Christy Mathewson. A report revealed that Mathewson suffers from tuberculosis. The disease would eventually kill him in 1925.

Tris Speaker of the Indians goes one for two to raise his BA to .417, now twenty two points ahead of second place Babe Ruth.

In the AL pennant race, the Indians, Yankees, and White Sox all win, so there is no change in the standings. Cleveland holds a two game lead over New York with Chicago 4 1/2 games back. The fourth place Senators are 17 games out of first place.

In the NL, the Reds beat the Dodgers 11-0, taking three out of four games of series in Brooklyn. That cuts the Dodgers lead to 1/2 game in the NL pennant race. The Giants, who won 14 of their last 18 games, move into third place five games back.