September 14, 1947: For the 76th time, Connie Mack neither wins nor loses

Tucked in among Connie Mack’s many major-league managerial records – most wins, most losses, most games managed – is an oddball distinction. As of the spring of 2023, “The Tall Tactician” also had more ties than any other big-league manager, 76. (Only three other managers have had more than 50.1)

While the smart fan never says never, Mack’s record number of ties seems unlikely to be threatened any time soon. For one thing, major-league managers don’t last 53 seasons anymore, the way Mack did.2 For another, changes to baseball rules, as well as the elimination of local curfews and blue laws, have made the tie a near-extinct species.3 Only six tie games were played between 2000 and 2022. Of the 30 major-league managers at the start of the 2023 season, just two had skippered as many as one tie.4

Mack’s 76th and final tie was played near the end of the 1947 season, in the second game of a Sunday, September 14, doubleheader between Lou Boudreau’s Cleveland Indians and Mack’s Philadelphia A’s at Shibe Park. At age 84, Mack was in his 47th season in the Philadelphia dugout. Entering the doubleheader, the teams sat in fourth and fifth place respectively, 14½ games and 18 games behind the eventual World Series champion New York Yankees.

The Indians’ performance heralded a team on the rise. After a 68-86 finish in 1946, Boudreau’s team closed 1947 at 80-74. The following season, they won 97 games and the World Series. The A’s record in 1947 also represented improvement, considering that they’d gone 49-105 the previous season and had lost at least 90 games in 11 of the previous 12 seasons. The A’s closed 1947 at 78-76 with two ties.5 They finished above .500 the next two seasons as well, before a 52-102 record in 1950 spelled the end of Mack’s career.6

The A’s claimed an exciting 11-9 win in the first game of the doubleheader. They entered the eighth inning trailing 6-2, then touched up three Cleveland pitchers – starter Red Embree and relievers Ed Klieman and Cal Dorsett – for nine runs.7 Philadelphia pitchers Bob Savage and Joe Coleman gave back three runs in the top of the ninth. But Coleman got Indians pinch-hitter Joe Frazier8 to ground into a game-ending force play with the tying runs on base.

Lefty Bob Kuzava started the nightcap for the Indians in only his fourth big-league game and his second of 1947. In his previous start, he allowed four runs in five innings against the Chicago White Sox in the second game of a September 3 doubleheader, getting no decision. Righty Carl Scheib started for the A’s, with a 4-6 record and a 5.01 ERA. Scheib, appearing in his fourth big-league season at age 20, had pitched against Cleveland once before in 1947. On June 6 he entered in relief in the third inning of a game the Indians were winning 5-0. He pitched the rest of the way in an eventual 7-4 Indians victory.

With 22,365 fans watching, each team squandered a single in the first inning. Player-manager Boudreau, starting at shortstop, ignited the game’s first rally by drawing a leadoff walk in the second. Les Fleming’s double to right field sent Boudreau to third base, and Ken Keltner’s single into center scored them both for a 2-0 Indians lead. Cleveland catcher Al López, at age 39 playing the next-to-last game of a 19-season major-league playing career, subsequently singled but was stranded.9

The Indians collected a pair of two-out walks in the third, but Fleming stranded the runners with a fly to center. Mack’s A’s mounted the game’s next run-scoring rally in the fourth, starting with a leadoff triple to left field by Sam Chapman. After a walk to Hank Majeski, Pete Suder’s fly to left scored Chapman, making the score 2-1, Indians.

Cleveland again received two walks in the sixth but could do nothing with them. The A’s rallied with two out in the seventh to tie the game: Eddie Joost10 and Dick Adams drew walks, and Mike Guerra’s single to left scored Joost. Guerra took second and Adams third on the throw-in, but Kuzava retired Scheib to end the inning.11

The Indians’ Hank Edwards hit a career-high 15 home runs in 1947. His 13th homer of the season, a “tremendous poke” to right field leading off the eighth, put Cleveland on top 3-2.12 The A’s clawed back into a tie in the bottom half. Elmer Valo led off with a drag-bunt single.13 Austin Knickerbocker sacrificed Valo to second, and he stole third. Chapman’s single to right field scored Valo to make the score 3-3. A single by Suder put runners on first and second with two out. Boudreau summoned righty reliever Al Gettel, who got Joost to fly out.

That set the stage for an action-packed ninth inning. With Scheib still pitching, Joe Gordon14 led off with a walk – the sixth and final base on balls handed out by the Philadelphia starter. One out later, Gettel bunted Gordon to second, and a wild pitch by Scheib handed him third base. Dale Mitchell grounded to second baseman Suder, who misplayed it;15 Gordon scored for a 4-3 Cleveland lead. Mitchell was thrown out trying to steal second, ending the frame.

The A’s began their last turn at bat by sending up three straight pinch-hitters. Gettel retired Barney McCosky and Don Richmond, sandwiched around a walk to Ferris Fain. With Cleveland one out from victory, Valo singled to right field. On the throw-in, Valo took second and Gene Handley, running for Fain, took third.

Boudreau called for righty Bob Lemon,16 who had converted to full-time pitching from the outfield about a year earlier.17 Lemon made 22 of his 37 appearances in 1947 in relief; not until 1948 did Lemon establish himself as a dominant starter.18 Lemon faced righty-swinging Knickerbocker, who hit .250 in 21 games in his only major-league season. Knickerbocker singled into center field, scoring Handley to tie the game 4-4. It was Knickerbocker’s second and last major-league RBI.

Chapman, who had delivered a grand slam in the first game, hit a deep liner19 to center field to end the bottom of the ninth. Pennsylvania’s Sunday baseball curfew ended the game at that point after 2 hours and 3 minutes of play.20 At the time, Sunday games in the A’s home state were not allowed to continue past 6 P.M. The curfew was repealed in July 1959 – too late to help the A’s, who moved to Kansas City after the 1954 season.21

Saves did not become an official major-league statistic until 1969. When they were calculated for previous seasons, Lemon was retroactively assessed with a blown save, his second of 1947. Lemon was credited with 22 saves and charged with eight blown saves over his 13-season pitching career. Scheib, meanwhile, achieved the unusual but not unprecedented feat of receiving credit for a complete game, but no decision.

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Joseph Wancho and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks Vince Guerrieri for research assistance.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team, and season data and the box scores for this game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHA/PHA194709142.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1947/B09142PHA1947.htm

Notes

1 They were Clark Griffith with 59, John McGraw with 58, and Ned Hanlon with 53. All three, like Mack, are Hall of Famers. Baseball-Reference “Managers” page, accessed April 13, 2023.

2 Today’s managers also don’t own a majority share of the teams that employ them, as Mack did in Philadelphia.

3 As of the time this story was written in spring 2023, a major-league game can end in a tie only if it is the last scheduled meeting of the teams that season and its outcome will not affect a pennant race. In other circumstances, the game will be suspended and completed at a later date. These rules were last updated in 2007. “Tie,” Baseball-Reference B-R Bullpen, accessed April 13, 2023, https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Tie.

4 The two were Dusty Baker of the Houston Astros and Buck Showalter of the New York Mets. Baker managed his tie game in 2002, Showalter his in 1995. Tony La Russa, who left major-league managing after the 2022 season, skippered only four ties in his 35 seasons as a manager.

5 The A’s first tie in 1947 was a 6-6 deadlock with the Boston Red Sox on April 27 in Boston. The game, tied 6-6 after nine innings, was called for rain, and a scheduled second game was not played.

6 Numerous sources, including Mack’s SABR Biography Project article, have reported that Mack had diminished mental capacities in his last years, and his coaches often made managerial decisions on his behalf. The September 14, 1947, doubleheader is credited to Mack’s managerial record, and this article assumes that Mack made the key strategic decisions in the game, while acknowledging that that might not be the case.

7 Klieman and Dorsett, combined, allowed all five runners they inherited to score. It was the last of Dorsett’s eight major-league appearances.

8 Frazier managed the New York Mets in 1976 and part of 1977. His career big-league managerial record: 101 wins, 106 losses, and no ties.

9 López, a future Hall of Famer, managed parts of 17 major-league seasons with the Indians and White Sox. His lifetime record: 1,410 wins, 1,004 losses, and 11 ties.

10 Joost managed the A’s in 1954. It was their last season in Philadelphia, and his only season as a big-league skipper. His lifetime major-league managing record: 51 wins, 103 losses, and two ties.

11 The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s game story criticized Kuzava for walking opposing hitters “with abandon.” In fact, Kuzava issued only three walks in 7⅔ innings. Harry Jones, “Indians Are Upset, 11-9, and Tie, 4-4,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 15, 1947: 1.

12 Jones.

13 Associated Press, “A’s Take First, 11-9, from Indians; 2nd Tied,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Intelligencer Journal, September 15, 1947: 11.

14 Gordon, a future Hall of Famer, managed parts of five seasons in the majors with four teams. His career managing record: 305 wins, 308 losses, and two ties.

15 Associated Press, “A’s Take First, 11-9, from Indians; 2nd Tied.”

16 Lemon, a future Hall of Famer, later managed parts of eight seasons in the majors with the Kansas City Royals, Chicago White Sox, and New York Yankees. His career major-league managing record: 430 wins, 403 losses, and no ties.

17 With the Indians in 1946, Lemon appeared in 32 games as a pitcher and 12 in center field. The following season he appeared in 37 games as a pitcher and just two in the outfield. He did not play another big-league game in the outfield after 1947. According to Jon Barnes’s SABR Biography Project article about Lemon, the Indians put him on waivers early in the 1947 season; after the Washington Senators claimed him, the Indians decided to keep Lemon on the team and work with him to improve his control.

18 In 1948 Lemon won 20 games – the first of six 20-win seasons – and led the AL in complete games (20) and shutouts (10).

19 Art Morrow, “A’s Win, 11-9, Tie, 4-4; Phils Triumph, 7-3, 9-7,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 15, 1947: 20.

20 The first game of the doubleheader took 2 hours and 39 minutes.

21 Jones, “Indians Are Upset, 11-9, and Tie, 4-4”; Associated Press, “Bill to Kill Sunday Baseball Curfew Wins House Approval,” Greenville (Pennsylvania) Record-Argus, April 13, 1959: 11; Associated Press, “Sunday Baseball Curfew Is Now a Thing of the Past,” Warren (Pennsylvania) Times Mirror, July 31, 1959: 13.