September 29, 1956: Dodgers take over NL lead after sweep of Pirates

The Brooklyn Dodgers and Milwaukee Braves were battling down to the wire for the National League crown in 1956 and both teams were having trouble winning on a consistent basis at the end of September. The St. Louis Cardinals gave Brooklyn an opening to move into the pennant lead when they defeated Milwaukee, 5-4, on September 28. The Dodgers seized the opportunity in a September 29 twin bill against the seventh-place Pittsburgh Pirates. Sal “The Barber” Maglie went the distance in the opener and spot-starter Clem Labine followed suit in the nightcap to hand Dem Bums a doubleheader sweep, by scores of 6-2 and 3-1, ensuring that the team would end the regular season in no worse position than a tie with the Braves.

Although the Pirates arrived at Ebbets Field with a record that was 19 games under .500, it was no foregone conclusion that they would be easy fodder for the Brooklynites. Only one week earlier, the Bucs had taken three of four from the Dodgers at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. A crowd of 34,022 was on hand to see if the Dodgers could respond in kind at their home venue.1 With the recent debacle in Pittsburgh fresh in their minds, Brooklyn fans “booed the Pirates when they took the field, booed each man when he was announced in the starting lineup but the biggest boo was saved for (Pirates Game One starter Bob) Friend, the Dodger killer.”2

Friend had beaten the Dodgers four times in 1956, most recently in a 6-5 triumph just five days earlier. There was irony in the fact that the Dodgers countered with Maglie since he also had been a “Dodger killer” as a member of the New York Giants for most of the 1950s. The Dodgers had purchased the 39-year-old Maglie’s contract from the Cleveland Indians on May 15, and he had paid dividends throughout the season, including spinning a no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies in his last start, on September 25. Now he planned to make the Pirates walk the plank in Game One as he tried to pitch the Dodgers to the pennant.

If any fans wished that Maglie could duplicate Johnny Vander Meer’s feat of tossing consecutive no-hitters, those hopes were dashed in the first inning. Dale Long hit a two-out single and Frank Thomas clouted his 25th homer for a quick 2-0 Pirates lead. According to one Pittsburgh reporter, “[E]very Dodger fan in the ball park turned pale” at Thomas’s blast as they likely thought that the lowly Bucs would dash their team’s title hopes.3

As it turned out, the denizens of Flatbush needed not worry. Jim Gilliam led off the Dodgers’ half of the inning with a single. After Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider struck out, Gilliam stole second as Jackie Robinson batted. Robinson then drove in Gilliam with a single to center field and Sandy Amorós followed with a two-run homer. Gil Hodges singled but was erased for the third out on Carl Furillo’s fielder’s choice grounder. Nonetheless, the Dodgers now had a 3-2 lead that they would not surrender.

Amorós’s homer not only gave Brooklyn the lead but also provided him with much-needed relief from criticism he had received over the previous three days. On September 26 Amorós had made an error that resulted in three unearned runs scoring as the Dodgers suffered a 7-3 setback to the Phillies, and his miscue had turned him into a scapegoat for both Brooklyn fans and some Dodgers players. Catcher Roy Campanella said, “He feels badly about all that’s been said and written about him. … I know his Cuban friends read it to him and I know it hurt him inside. But I try to pep him up. He sort of looks up to me. I’ll have a talk with him before the doubleheader.”4 Campy’s talk apparently worked wonders as Amorós not only hit the game-winning homer in the opener but also hustled on defense and made a fine play in the third inning of the nightcap when he “ran to the boxes in left field and speared Bill Virdon’s fly just as it was going into the seats.”5

After his first-inning hiccup, Maglie set the Pirates down in order from the second inning through the fifth and allowed only a two-out single to Bob Skinner in the sixth. Friend made it a duel and kept the Dodgers from scoring again until Furillo hit a solo homer in the bottom of the sixth to make it a 4-2 game.

The Pirates tried to mount a rally in the top of the eighth, but the attempt was short-lived. After Virdon hit a two-out single, Skinner hit a long shot to center but was robbed of a hit by Snider who made a “fantastic back-handed catch of [the] low liner” to end Pittsburgh’s aspirations of drawing closer or even tying the game.6

The Dodgers added the final two runs of the ballgame in the bottom of the inning against Nellie King, Pittsburgh’s third pitcher of the day, who had replaced Luis Arroyo with Snider on second and one out in the inning. Randy Jackson, pinch-hitting for Amorós, flied out, but Hodges drove in Snider with the third Dodgers homer of the game for the final 6-2 margin of victory.

Maglie worked around ninth-inning singles by Thomas and Dick Groat and struck out Hank Foiles to end the game. The complete-game victory was The Barber’s 13th win in 1956 and gave the Dodgers momentum as they headed into the nightcap of the doubleheader.

Labine’s effort in the second game seemed more labored in comparison to Maglie, who had hurled a masterpiece from the second inning onward. However, while Labine retired the side in order only once (in the fifth inning), he did manage to accomplish the more important feat of keeping the Bucs off the scoreboard in all but one inning. When the game was over, Labine had surrendered seven hits, compared with the six Maglie had given up, and had allowed half the number of runs as his fellow moundsman.

Labine was normally a reliever, but he was making his third start in 62 appearances over the course of the 1956 season and had a 9-6 record. His mound opponent for Game Two was Ron Kline, who entered the contest with a 14-17 season ledger.

On this day, Labine wrestled with his control and gave up five walks, which resulted in far more traffic on the bases than Maglie, who had surrendered only one walk, had had to negotiate. The control problems reared their head in the top of the first inning as Labine put himself in a precarious position via walks to Skinner and Thomas. The ever-dangerous Roberto Clemente came up with the two runners on base, but Labine induced a fly out to Furillo in right to end the threat.

Labine and Kline settled into a pitchers’ duel in which the only run scored over the first 5½ innings came on Campanella’s leadoff home run in the bottom of the third inning. This is not to say that there were no exciting moments over the first half of the game. Indeed, the most important events occurred in the Dodgers’ half of the fifth inning “with an amazing crowd demonstration that for a time threatened to cause forfeiture of the game.”7

Campanella, whose homer had provided the lone thrill to this point, also led off the fateful fifth for Brooklyn. According to the New York Times, “Campanella, no Olympic sprint champion by any stretch of the imagination, topped a ball down the third base line and outgalloped it for a hit.”8 Labine then attempted a sacrifice bunt that Foiles, the Pirates catcher, grabbed and rifled to second in an attempt to force Campanella. Foiles’s throw was high and Groat, the shortstop, had to leap off the bag to keep it from sailing into the outfield. Campanella slid into second and appeared to be safe, but umpire Vic Delmore called him out.

As expected, Dodgers manager Walter Alston ran out of the dugout and argued Campy’s case vociferously but to no avail. Although the Dodgers finally quit yelling at Delmore, the Flatbush faithful refused to be silent. The crowd “sent up a deafening roar as play was resumed and there was just no let up to it. To add to the confusion, most everyone in the park pulled out a handkerchief and started waving it.”9 Home-plate umpire Stan Landes called time to confer with his fellow arbiters, and crew chief Jocko Conlon had the public-address announcer warn the crowd to cease its demonstration lest the game be called a forfeit.

The Times seemed stunned that the umpires threatened the Dodgers with a forfeit, since they purportedly were only raising a loud ruckus and waving handkerchiefs. It reported that “[a] couple of beer cans rolled on the field back of home plate, but otherwise nothing appeared to be thrown on the field except scraps of paper.”10 The Pittsburgh Press provided a somewhat different account, asserting, “Then the fans started booing and threw objects on the field, including vegetables, beer cans, etc.”11 A neutral-city news account stated, “The Brooklynite crowd protested … both vocally and by throwing refuse on the field,” thus corroborating the Press’s account and shedding light on the reason why the umpires resorted to such an extreme threat.12

When the Pirates came to bat in the top of the sixth, Clemente stroked a one-out triple to right field and Groat walked. Had Pittsburgh tied the game or taken the lead, it boggles the imagination to wonder how the Brooklyn fans might have reacted. But Labine struck out Lee Walls and induced a popout from Foiles to prevent a potential riot and maintain the Dodgers’ 1-0 lead.

What finally quelled any potential fan uprising was the fact that the umpires ran afoul of the Pirates with a call in the bottom of the sixth. Robinson was aboard first after a one-out single, and Amorós was at bat. Landes ruled catcher’s interference on Foiles and pointed Amorós to first. Now, it was Pirates manager Bobby Bragan and Foiles who argued long and loud about the latest questionable call to the point that Landes threw them out of the game. Immediately after the Bucs’ skipper and catcher were tossed, Hodges shot a triple down the right-field line that drove in Robinson and Amorós. Although Hodges ended up stranded at third, he had extended the lead to 3-0, and his hit provided the winning run in the ballgame.

Just as had been the case in the first game, the Pirates tried to rally in the eighth inning of Game Two. Clemente and Groat led off the frame with singles, with Clemente advancing to third on Groat’s hit. Johnny O’Brien grounded into a double play that allowed Clemente to score but that also thwarted any thoughts of a Pittsburgh comeback. Jack Shepard lofted a fly ball to Snider in center for the third out of the inning, and the Dodgers maintained a 3-1 lead.

Friend, who had pitched seven innings in the opener, had entered this game in relief of Kline in the bottom of the seventh inning. Although he kept the Dodgers from adding to their lead, he was no help on the offensive side for Pittsburgh. Thus, after Friend retired the side in order in the bottom of the eighth, he was replaced by pinch-hitter John Powers, who led off the top of the ninth. Powers provided no lift for the Pirates either as he struck out. Skinner gave the Bucs one last hope with a two-out double, but Long grounded out to second base to end the game.

Labine had earned his 10th win of the year with a stellar effort in which he overcame five walks, allowed only one run, and struck out 10 Pittsburgh batters. It was his first complete game since a 6-3 triumph over the Phillies in the second game of a doubleheader on July 4, 1955, and his biggest clutch victory since his 10-0 shutout of the New York Giants in the second game of the 1951 tiebreaker series to determine that season’s National League champion.

After St. Louis again beat Milwaukee, 2-1 in 12 innings, on the same evening, the Dodgers were one game in front of the Braves. The next day, Don Newcombe pitched 7⅓ innings of a hard-fought 8-6 victory over the Pirates for his 27th win that clinched the pennant for the Dodgers, who finished the year with a 93-61 record.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com, and SABR.org.

NOTES

1 John Drebinger, “Brooks Are First: Clinch at Least a Tie for Flag with Final Game Slated Today,” New York Times, September 30, 1956: S1. The official, paid attendance was 26,340; however, according to the Times, “it also was Ladies Day, and the fair sex, plus some 3,000 Knothole youngsters, brought the over-all count to 34,022.”

2 Les Biederman, “The Scoreboard,” Pittsburgh Press, September 30, 1956: 70.

3 Kaspar Monahan, “Dem Brooklyn Fans Has a Lot of Noise,” Pittsburgh Press, September 30, 1956: 2.

4 Biederman.

5 Biederman.

6 Biederman.

7 Drebinger, S1.

8 Drebinger, S1.

9 Drebinger, S1.

10 Drebinger, S3.

11 Lester J. Biederman, “Brooklyn Game Ahead/Braves Lose,” Pittsburgh Press, September 30, 1956: 69.

12 Fred DeLuca, “Dodgers Rip Pirates, 6-2, 3-1 in Crucial Doublebill,” Atlanta Daily World, September 30, 1956: 8.