At the dawn of the roaring twenties, baseball was struggling to overcome two of its darkest moments: the death of a player during a game and the revelations of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. At this critical juncture for baseball, the two teams that emerged to fight for the future of the game were also battling for the hearts and minds of New Yorkers as the city dramatically rose to the pinnacle of the baseball world.

1921 tells the story of a season that pitted the New York Yankees against their Polo Grounds landlords and hated rivals, John McGraw’s Giants, in the first all–New York City World Series. Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg re-create the drama that featured the charismatic Babe Ruth in his assault on baseball records in the face of McGraw’s disdain for the American League and the Ruth-led slugging style. Their work evokes the early 1920s with the words of renowned sportswriters such as Damon Runyon, Grantland Rice, and Heywood Broun, and with more than fifty photographs, offering a vivid picture of the colorful characters, the crosstown rivalry, and the incomparable performances of this classic season.