July 26, 1971: Phillies’ Mike Ryan shows ‘great courage’ by playing 15 innings after freak injury

“I’ve played in pain before, but this hurt me just to blink.”1

That was how Philadelphia Phillies backup catcher Mike Ryan characterized the experience of playing through 15 innings with a severe back spasm he sustained while pulling on his sanitary socks before the July 26, 1971, game against the Houston Astros.

But as Philadelphia’s only healthy and experienced catcher that night, the 29-year-old Ryan brushed aside searing pain and crouched behind home plate to receive 194 pitches – and more than 100 warm-up pitches – in the opener of a four-game series. While he played admirably, a controversial umpiring decision, several clutch hits by 20-year-old Houston outfielder César Cedeño, and a brilliant relief outing by hobbled Astros’ pitcher Jim Ray spoiled Ryan’s gritty performance. Behind four perfect innings from Ray, who pitched with a sprained ankle, and a three-run rally in the 15th, Houston surged to a 7-4 victory in the longest game at Veterans Stadium by innings to that point.2

About 90 minutes before the first pitch, Ryan began to dress for his seventh straight start in place of the injured Tim McCarver and suffered the freak injury.3 “I was putting on my socks before the game, and my back just blew out on me. I couldn’t get up out of the chair,” Ryan said. “But I had to play. As long as I can move around out there and do something well, there’s no use forcing Timmy McCarver in there and getting him hurt worse.”4

“It’s some kind of back spasm. It’s happened before and usually lasts three days,” Ryan added. “I can usually feel it coming and have heat put on it to stop it before it gets me down. But this time there wasn’t any warning. When I lean forward, it feels like my whole trunk is going to cave in.”5

McCarver, a two-time All-Star who came to Philadelphia before the 1970 season as part of the trade that began Curt Flood’s crusade against baseball’s reserve clause, suffered a bruised knee a week earlier after colliding with Astros shortstop Roger Metzger while breaking up a double play at the Astrodome.6

So, with McCarver unavailable and Ryan ailing, Phillies manager Frank Lucchesi had a decision to make: Let Ryan tough it out or start emergency backup catcher Bobby Pfeil – a utilityman who had caught in only eight games in his 11-season professional career.7 Because Houston deployed one of the speediest lineups in the NL,8 Lucchesi believed trying to “fool” the Astros with an injured but strong-armed Ryan would work best.9

The ruse did not hold up long. It quickly became apparent that Ryan was not at 100 percent health – some of the 10,848 fans in attendance, who would have had no way to know specifics about his injury, booed him in the fifth inning after he weakly struck out.10 But the threat from Ryan’s throwing arm kept Astros manager Harry “The Hat” Walker from pressing his luck on the basepaths more than usual.11

“We tried to run on him a couple of times, but the ball was fouled off,” Walker said. “Even on the one steal, he made a pretty good throw. We weren’t going to run on him just because of [the injury]. He gets rid of the ball so damn quick.”12

Had Houston’s players been able to take advantage of Ryan’s ailment while running the bases, it might have made a difference in the length of a tight game that took 4 hours, 12 minutes to complete.

The Phillies picked up an early 2-0 lead when Denny Doyle poked a leadoff single and rookie Willie Montañez slugged a two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning.

For a while, it looked as if those runs would be enough for a win, as Phillies starter Barry Lersch retired 12 of the first 13 hitters before running into trouble in the fifth. Doug Rader and Denis Menke led off with back-to-back singles, and Jesús Alou roped an RBI double into right-center to cut the deficit in half.

The Astros tried to extend the rally on starting pitcher Jack Billingham’s suicide squeeze bunt, but he missed the attempt and Menke was trapped in a rundown between third and home plate. Billingham reached safely on a weak infield single that Ryan struggled to field cleanly. Metzger’s groundout ended the inning. Three innings later, Metzger was hit by a pitch, stole second, and scored on Cedeño’s two-out, game-tying double to center.

The Phillies had eight baserunners from the second inning to the ninth, but none of them reached third against Billingham or reliever George Culver, who entered in the seventh.13

Houston seemed poised to win in 10 innings after Cedeño keyed another two-out rally. Following Joe Morgan’s bunt single, Cedeño brought him home on a double to center.14 Cedeño scored on Rader’s broken-bat single to left for a 4-2 lead.

Culver, trying to get his season back on track after allowing at least one run in four of his six previous appearances, got two quick outs before Montañez socked another home run for his second career two-homer game.15 His 20th homer of the campaign set a franchise record for left-handed-batting rookies.16 By season’s end, the runner-up in Rookie of the Year voting17 had crushed 30 home runs to beat Dick Allen’s 1964 franchise rookie record by one18 and made good on Lucchesi’s preseason assessment that the 23-year-old could be the team’s “sleeper” hitter.19

Philadelphia’s threat continued as Deron Johnson singled and Oscar Gamble walked to end Culver’s outing. Don Money narrowly beat out an infield single to load the bases and welcome Astros closer Fred Gladding to the game. The Phillies evened the score at 4-4 when pinch-hitter Ron Stone drew a walk to bring home pinch-runner Terry Harmon, but Lucchesi believed the winning run should have scored after Ryan hit an infield shot that ended the inning.

Metzger fielded Ryan’s grounder at shortstop, but instead of throwing to first to force out the ailing catcher, Metzger tossed the ball to second base. Morgan and Stone arrived around the same time, and umpire Bob Engel declared Stone out, prompting a heated exchange with Lucchesi, who was not ejected. If Engel had called Stone safe, Gamble would have scored to end the game.

“It makes me so mad I don’t want to talk about it,” Lucchesi said.20 “We should have been in the clubhouse. [Engel] was asleep … he didn’t hustle on the play.”21

Added Stone: “It wasn’t even close. I was in [safely], and Morgan was still coming. I didn’t believe the call.”22

Philadelphia relievers Joe Hoerner and Darrell “Bucky” Brandon retired 14 of the next 15 Houston batters, but the Astros broke out of their offensive funk with a two-out rally in the top of the 15th – and once again, Cedeño was in the middle of the action.

He beat out a high chopper aimed at Harmon, Philadelphia’s backup third baseman, and advanced two bases after Brandon’s third pickoff throw got past Stone, the reserve first baseman. Cedeño scored on Rader’s double to right, which took a high bounce over Gamble’s head, and after Menke walked, Alou picked up two more RBIs with his second double of the night for a 7-4 lead.

Houston’s Ray, who had not pitched since he twisted his ankle on July 20, was not supposed to be available but had his ankle taped up and finished his perfect four-inning relief appearance by inducing two fly outs and a strikeout on 12 pitches. Ray earned his seventh win of the season and the Astros moved back to .500 at 50-50 by beating the Phillies (44-58) in extra innings for the third time.23 After an 8:08 P.M. start, the game ended in the early morning hours on July 27.24

After the game, Ryan indicated that he planned to start the next day’s doubleheader, though the assignment ultimately went to Pfeil, who handled all 18 innings and also clobbered the only two home runs of his career in game one. Ryan missed 16 games with his back injury and did not play again until August 13.

“I’ll tell you one thing, though, that’s the greatest bit of courage I’ve seen in two years from any ballplayer, what I saw Ryan do tonight,” said Lucchesi, who was hired to his first major-league managing role before the 1970 season.25 “He’s been a real bulldog. … I’ve got to give him a lot of credit. He hung in there just great and refused to leave the game.”

That “tough-as-nails” attitude helped “Irish Mike” become a popular member of Philadelphia’s baseball scene. He served as a Phillies catcher from 1968 to ’73 and returned to the team as bullpen coach from 1980 to ’95, helping Philadelphia reach the World Series three times. He caught the “first ball” when Veterans Stadium opened in 1970 by catching a baseball dropped from a helicopter, and he repeated the act in 1981, ’91, and ’95. Upon his death in 2020, he was remembered as “loyal” and an “underrated” figure in Philadelphia baseball history.26

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin. Special thanks to John Fredland for research assistance.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent statistics and the box scores noted below. He also used information obtained from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Houston Post, Houston Chronicle, and Camden Courier-Post.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI197107260.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1971/B07260PHI1971.htm

Photo credit: Mike Ryan, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Bill Conlin, “15 Innings, Phils Choke on Cesar Salad,” Philadelphia Daily News, July 27, 1971: 60.

2 Previously, the longest game at Veterans Stadium, which opened in 1971, was an 11-inning affair on April 26. On July 31, however, the record was broken again when the Phillies and Cardinals played 16 innings. Overall, the longest games at Veterans Stadium went 20 innings (May 4, 1973, and July 7, 1993). The Phillies played in the ballpark from 1971 through 2003.

3 On May 2, 1970, McCarver and Ryan also had unusual injuries cross paths. In the sixth inning, McCarver broke his right hand when he was struck by foul tip off the bat of Willie Mays. Later in the inning, Ryan suffered a broken left hand while tagging out Willie McCovey at home plate, forcing emergency catcher Jim Hutto into the game.

4 Paul Giordano, “Ryan’s Courageous Effort Wasted as Astros Nip Phils, 7-4, in 15,” Delaware County Daily Times (Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania), July 27, 1971: 16.

5 Giordano.

6 On that play, McCarver was ruled out of the baseline on his way to break up a double play by sliding into Metzger. Philadelphia manager Frank Lucchesi and Phillies coach George Myatt were ejected for arguing rookie umpire Bruce Froemming’s interference call. McCarver, who played only 44 games in his first season with the Phillies because of a broken hand, missed nine games after the collision with Metzger, a play that earned the veteran catcher praise from Astros manager Harry Walker, who said: “The only other player in the league who plays as hard to beat you is Pete Rose.” Bill Conlin, “Umpire Throws the Book at Furious Phillies,” Philadelphia Daily News, July 20, 1971: 64.

7 Pfeil, a member of the 1969 “Miracle Mets,” caught six games for Triple-A Eugene in 1970 and had caught four innings for the Phillies in 1971. Because of McCarver’s and Ryan’s injuries, Pfeil caught both games of a doubleheader on July 27, marking his last professional catching appearances.

8 By season’s end, Houston was one of four teams in the majors with at least 100 stolen bases, finishing with 101. That trailed the Kansas City Royals (130) and St. Louis Cardinals (124) and matched the San Francisco Giants. (The New York Mets finished fifth with 89 steals.) Both Houston’s Joe Morgan (40) and César Cedeño (20) finished inside the top 10 among NL players.

9 Conlin, “15 Innings, Phils Choke on Cesar Salad.”

10 Ralph Bernstein (Associated Press), “Phils Catcher Played on Sheer Guts,” Corpus Christi (Texas) Times, July 27, 1971: 6-B.

11 Ryan led the NL by throwing out 57.6 percent of baserunners in 1968 and did so again in 1971 by gunning down 61.8 percent of would-be basestealers – the league’s highest mark between Roy Campanella’s NL-leading mark in 1952 (64.7 percent) and Yadier Molina’s benchmark in 2005 (64.1)

12 Bernstein.

13 In the first game of a doubleheader on July 29, 1968, Culver, then a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, fired a no-hitter against the Phillies.

14 Cedeño led the National League with 40 doubles in 1971 and repeated the feat in ’72 by ending the season in a tie with Montañez with 39 two-baggers. Cedeño became the first player to lead the NL in consecutive years since Vada Pinson did so in 1959 and ’60. By 1977, Cedeño had become Houston’s all-time leader in doubles, passing Jim Wynn (228) with a three-double performance on June 29. Cedeño’s final tally of 343 doubles remained the franchise record until Craig Biggio surpassed him on May 4, 1999.

15 Montañez’s first two-homer game came earlier in the season, on May 16 at Atlanta, and he added another two home runs as part of his first career five-hit effort on September 13 at St. Louis.

16 Don Hurst held the old mark with 19 home runs in 1928.

17 Atlanta’s Earl Williams beat Montañez in the voting after slugging 33 home runs and hitting .260 in 13 fewer games than Montañez played. According to Baseball-Reference’s formula, Williams – who appeared as a catcher (72 games), first baseman (31), and third baseman (42) – had a 3.3 Wins Above Replacement value, while Montañez accumulated only a 1.9 WAR.

18 Through the 2023 season, Montañez remained Philadelphia’s franchise leader for home runs by a rookie.

19 Hal Bodley, “Phils’ Pfeil Thought He Made Club,” Wilmington (Delaware) Evening Journal, April 6, 1971: 32.

20 The struggles continued for the Phillies, who finished a fourth straight losing season at 67-95 and last in the NL East Division. The only NL team that fared worse in 1971 was the San Diego Padres (61-100).

21 Bob Kenney, “Umpire Falls Asleep as Phillies Lose in 15,” Camden (New Jersey) Courier-Post, July 27, 1971: 21.

22 Kenney.

23 Houston toiled near the .500 mark for most of the season, finishing the schedule at 79-83 for a second straight season and tied for fourth in the NL West Division. The Astros had previously defeated the Phillies in 10 innings on April 28 and in 11 innings on July 19.

24 Philadelphia had also been involved in the longest NL game of the 1971 season by time so far. The Phillies and Mets needed 4 hours, 40 minutes to complete a 15-inning game on June 15. Later in the season, the Astros and San Diego Padres needed 21 innings and 5 hours, 25 minutes, to complete their game on September 24. The longest game in the majors in 1971 came between the Cleveland Indians and Washington Senators, who needed 6 hours, 15 minutes to play 20 innings on September 14. There was also a 21-inning game between the Senators and Oakland Athletics on June 4, which required 5 hours, 19 minutes.

25 Lucchesi, who had managed in Philadelphia’s minor-league system since 1956, replaced interim manager George Myatt, who returned to his job as third-base coach. Lucchesi managed the Phillies for two full seasons and part of a third, compiling a 166-233 record. He later managed the Texas Rangers from 1975 to ’77 and held the interim title for the Chicago Cubs in 1987.

26 Matt Breen, “Phils’ ‘Irish’ Mike Ryan Dies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 11, 2020: C4.