June 13, 1968: Ken Harrelson’s grand slam for Red Sox wins game started 52 days earlier

Though Ken Harrelson of the Boston Red Sox got the game-winning grand slam in the bottom of the ninth and Bill Harrelson of the California Angels was the losing pitcher, there was no Harrelson vs. Harrelson last-minute drama at Fenway Park in August 1968.

As the Red Sox and Angels resumed the suspended second game of their June 13 doubleheader on August 4, California reliever Bill Harrelson had loaded the bases with nobody out and Boston first baseman Ken Harrelson, no relation to Bill, was on deck. Bill Harrelson was appearing in just his second major-league game, following a July 31 start against the Oakland A’s; the 22-year-old right-hander was with the Angels’ Triple-A Seattle team when the Boston-California game began in June.

The score was tied, 1-1, just as it had been since the top of the third. Angels manager Bill Rigney decided to bring in a new pitcher, so he summoned another rookie, Andy Messersmith, from the bullpen.

Like Bill Harrelson, Messersmith was in Triple A and made his major-league debut in July. Facing Ken Harrelson, the 23-year-old righty threw four pitches – a ball, a foul, and two more balls – and the count was 3-and-1. As the Boston Herald reported, “Another ball and the game would be over so he fired it right down the middle and [Ken] Harrelson hoisted a smash to left that found the nets to the left of the light tower.”1

Fifty-two days after the game’s first pitch, the Red Sox had a 5-1 win. It was a long time to wait, but for Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, it was worth it.

“All I can say is that was a great feeling and that doesn’t really describe it. Not only was it great to hit the ‘slam,’ but the fact that it won the game made it even better,” Harrelson said afterward.2 It was his first career grand slam, but it was already his 10th game-winning homer of the 1968 season.3

The game began on a Thursday afternoon. It was itself a makeup game, on the final day of the Angels’ scheduled four-day visit to Boston. Night games were rained out on both June 10 and 11. A twilight-night doubleheader was scheduled for June 12, starting at 5:30. That got rained out, too.4

They planned to play two, starting at 11:00 A.M. on June 13, hoping to wrap up the second game in time for the Angels to catch a 6:00 P.M. flight to Los Angeles for a weekend series. The Angels won the opener, 4-2, rallying for three runs in the eighth against Jim Lonborg and Sparky Lyle to erase a one-run Red Sox lead. California starter Tom Murphy started, making his big-league debut; reliever Minnie Rojas was credited with the win.

In the fourth inning of the first game, Angels third baseman Paul Schaal was beaned by Red Sox starter José Santiago, hit in back of his left ear. Schaal was diagnosed with a hairline fracture, but fortunately was OK. He did, however, miss most of the rest of the season.

When the second game began, the entire Red Sox team wore batting helmets with plastic earflaps, which had been provided for them between games. Before this time, some had resisted wearing them. Though not mandated, now they all began to wear the protective gear.5

Manager Dick Williams had Gary Bell start the second game for the Red Sox. The first pitch was at 3:08 P.M. Bell walked one Angel in the first inning. In the second, he gave up two singles and a walk, but Rick Reichardt was thrown out on the first single, trying to stretch it to a double. Jimmie Hall then singled, and soon stole second. Tom Satriano walked. Bobby Knoop hit into a 4-3 double play.

Red Sox batters faced Rigney’s starter Jim McGlothlin. After two infield groundouts, McGlothlin walked Carl Yastrzemski, but then picked him off first base for the third out. In the second inning, he wasn’t as fortunate. Center fielder Reggie Smith hit a one-out double to left. Right fielder Joe Lahoud singled, Smith holding at third. Shortstop Rico Petrocelli hit a sacrifice fly to right and Boston had a 1-0 lead.

The Angels tied it right back up on a sacrifice fly of their own, by center fielder Roger Repoz. McGlothlin had singled to left, leading off. Woodie Held walked. Jim Fregosi grounded into a force play at second, which moved McGlothlin into position to score from third on Repoz’s fly ball. The score was tied, 1-1, and it stayed that way for more than seven weeks. In fact, for the next six half-innings, neither team had a baserunner.

By pre-agreement, the second game was to end at 4:30 so the Angels could make their plane. When it was called, it was the middle of the sixth inning.

The Angels returned to Boston in early August. Because of the June postponements, what was supposed to be a three-game series turned into doubleheaders on Friday and Saturday, with the resumption of the makeup game before Sunday’s scheduled game.

The teams split a doubleheader on August 2, and the Red Sox swept the next day’s doubleheader. Since July 1, Boston had won 21 of 33 games to advance from sixth place to fourth in the 10-team AL. A 2-10 stretch since July 23 had dropped California from fifth to eighth.

When Sunday, August 4, came around, right-hander Gary Bell had a shot to win (or lose) two games in one day. He could have pitched the final three innings of the suspended game, and then pitch the second game as well. But Dick Williams called on Lee Stange to pitch for Boston in the first game (the resumption of the June 13 game).

The game resumed in the bottom of the sixth inning, with Bill Harrelson pitching for the Angels. Bell was the first batter due to face him, but José Tartabull pinch-hit and lined out. Mike Andrews walked but was caught stealing. Joe Foy flied out. After Yastrzemski grounded out in the seventh, Ken Harrelson faced Bill Harrelson and walked, but Reggie Smith hit into a 1-6-3 double play.

Stange set the Angels down in order in both the seventh and eighth. He walked a batter in the ninth, but nothing came of it. He didn’t allow even one base hit in his outing. Bill Harrelson had kept the Red Sox both hitless and scoreless in his three innings of work, too.

In the bottom of the ninth, though, Andrews singled to left, and Bill Harrelson walked both Joe Foy and Yastrzemski and suddenly the bases were loaded and nobody out, in a 1-1 game when any number of things could bring home the tiebreaking run. Ken Harrelson was due up, and Rigney decided to bring in Messersmith.6 It was Harrelson’s 27th home run of the season – though officially his 10th since it was part of the June 13 game.

Succumbing to the grand slam, the Angels had now lost 10 of their last 13 games (and the resumption of the June 13 game) and the day’s second game made it three days in succession that they played two. But they “rallied from two weeks of misfortune and ineptitude to batter the Red Sox, 12-6, on 19 hits” in the regularly scheduled game.7 Gary Bell had started the game, but it was not a blowout until the very end. Indeed, California had “squandered leads of 3-0, 4-2 and 6-4 and began the eighth inning in a 6-6 deadlock.”8 The Angels scored twice in the eighth and a flurry of five singles in the top of the ninth gave them four more.9

Ken Harrelson drove in two more runs in the second game, giving him 90 for the season. Some 54 of those 90 RBIs had come on homers. Fifteen times he had driven in the winning run. Harrelson went on to hit .274 with a career-high 35 home runs and an AL-best 109 RBIs in 1968. He came in third in the AL MVP voting, behind Denny McLain and Bill Freehan of the Detroit Tigers.10

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Stew Thornley and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS196806132.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1968/B06132BOS1968.htm

Photo credit: Ken Harrelson, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Henry McKenna, “Red Sox Soar, 5-1; Fall, 12-6,” Boston Herald, August 5, 1968: 19.

2 Jack Clary, “First Slam Elates Hawk,” Boston Herald, August 5, 1968: 19.

3 Harold Kaese, “Hawk Homers Win 10 Games,” Boston Globe, August 5, 1968: 21. A “game-winning home run” is defined here as a home run that provides a game’s final margin of victory, giving the winning team at least one more run than the opposing team scored. For example, if a two-run homer increased a team’s lead from 2-1 to 4-1, and it went on to win 4-3, it qualifies as a game-winning home run. (This is different from the definition of “game-winning RBI” in baseball’s official statistics from 1980 through 1988, which counted as “game-winning” the RBI that provided a winning team the lead that it never relinquished.)

4 Even the game on the preceding Sunday – June 10 – had been postponed, because of a Day of Mourning that had been declared  in honor of the recently-assassinated US Senator Robert Kennedy. 

5 Neil Singelais, “Schaal Beaning Clincher – Sox Don Flaps,” Boston Globe, June 14, 1968: 25. Schaal had been knocked unconscious and was kept in the hospital for a while, only returning to California after a few weeks. He played in two games later in 1968, both against the Red Sox, on August 2 and 3. He played in the majors for six more seasons, through 1974.

6 Bill Harrelson’s major-league career consisted of 10 games for the 1968 Angels. Messersmith went on to pitch for five big-league teams in 12 seasons, winning 130 games, making four All-Star teams, and being awarded two Gold Gloves.

7 John Wiebusch, “Angels at Low Ebb, Then Explode for Split With Red Sox,” Los Angeles Times, August 5, 1968: E-1.

8 Wiebusch.

9 Juan Pizarro was responsible for all six runs, and the loss. George Brunet was the winning pitcher.

10 The Red Sox were fourth in the AL at 86-76, giving them back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since 1957 and 1958. The Angels were tied with the Chicago White Sox for eighth at 67-95.