It was unseasonably hot at Cincinnati’s Redland Field for the debut game of the 1919 World Series. For the first time in memory, baseball fans attended the Fall Classic in their shirtsleeves. The October 1 series opener, the first since 1918’s was suspended because of World War I, had few of the customary formalities, aside from the famed John Phillip Souza directing a band playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” The series pitted the National League’s Cincinnati Reds against the American League’s Chicago White Sox, the winner of the 1917 series. Since the core of the Sox’s team remained, including batting ...