Sisler ties record with six-hit day for Browns

Written by: Evan Gerike

On Aug. 9, 1921, George Sisler took advantage of a 19-inning game between his St. Louis Browns and the Washington Senators, joining an exclusive club and tying a record when he collected six hits in one game.

The extra-inning affair provided Sisler with opportunity to come to the plate nine times, and one of baseball’s best pure hitters came through to help his team earn an 8-6 victory.

Sisler hit five singles and a triple, becoming only the 11th player in the modern era (post 1900) to notch six hits in one contest. After tripling to lead off the 10th inning, Sisler scored on a single to give the Browns a one-run lead, but Washington responded in the bottom of the 10th to re-tie the score.

His team’s day wrapped after Sisler scored the go-ahead run in the 19th on a single to left from center fielder Baby Doll Jacobson.

“Sisler’s hot smash through [Senators first baseman Joe] Judge was the beginning of the end,” Denman Thompson wrote in the Washington Evening Star.

Judge himself had quite a day, tying a league record that still stands with three triples.

The 19-inning marathon lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes and finished one frame before it would have been called due to darkness.

Sisler’s six hits helped pitcher Dixie Davis earn his 11th win of the season. Davis threw all 19 innings, including nine straight scoreless, hitless innings to finish the game after allowing the tying run in the 10th.

Davis allowed 13 hits, struck out eight and walked five.

“Instead of showing signs of weakening, Davis appeared to gain strength as the game proceeded,” Jack Nye wrote in The Washington Herald the next day.

The game was the third longest in American League history.

Sisler raised his batting average eight points to .352 on the day. He was on his way to a .371 season average and a fifth place finish in the majors in 1921, one year after pacing the American League by batting .407.

A year later, Sisler batted over .400 for the second time in his career and earned the AL Most Valuable Player Award. He hit .420 in the season, which remains tied with Ty Cobb for the third highest single-season average all time in the modern era.

Sisler finished his career with a .340 average. He set an AL record for most consecutive games with a hit at 41, which would later be broken by Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game streak, and hits in a season with 257, broken in 2004 by Ichiro Suzuki.

Evan Gerike is the public relations intern in the Hall of Fame’s Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program for Youth Leadership Development