July 8, 1972: Red Sox narrowly miss going above .500 in 16-inning loss to Angels

To call the 1972 season unusual would be an understatement. It began with the first unionized players’ work stoppage in major-league history, which created a situation in which the teams played an unequal number of games. Instead of rescheduling the missed games – which turned out to be six or seven games for each team – baseball decided to pick up the season from where it would have been if the work stoppage had never happened.1

Once play started, the Boston Red Sox struggled, and fans blamed third-year manager Eddie Kasko for the team’s failures. In May the Boston Globe commissioned a poll that found that 68 percent of Red Sox fans said they wanted Kasko fired.2 By the summer, the local media was rife with speculation that his firing was imminent.3

The Red Sox fell to 27-34, eight games behind the American League East Division-leading Detroit Tigers, when the Tigers rallied for eight ninth-inning runs to beat Boston on June 29. But the Red Sox won their first seven games of July to get to .500 for the first time since April 22. They were 4½ games behind the division-leading Baltimore Orioles when they faced the California Angels in the second game of a three-game series in Anaheim on July 8.

The Red Sox had defeated the Angels, 5-3, the previous night in 10 innings after rookie right fielder Ben Oglivie, who was playing in place of the injured Reggie Smith, hit a tiebreaking two-out, two-run home run. Oglivie had been called out at the plate in the ninth after Angels manager Del Rice successfully challenged rookie home-plate umpire Hank Morgenweck’s initial safe call. After Morgenweck consulted with third-base umpire Marty Springstead, it was determined that Oglivie had run outside of the basepath when he took evasive action around catcher Jeff Torborg’s leg. Kasko declared that the Red Sox were playing the game under protest, a challenge rendered moot by Boston’s win.4

The loss left the Angels 33-42, 14 games behind the AL West-leading Oakland Athletics. California was led by ace Nolan Ryan, who had been acquired over the offseason in a trade from the New York Mets. Since the beginning of July, the Angels had won only two out of seven games, both of which were started by Ryan. (The last time they had won without Ryan was June 29.5)

Ryan’s turn in California’s rotation was not until Sunday afternoon’s series finale. On Saturday the Angels sent Lloyd Allen to the mound to face off against Boston’s Ray Culp. Allen, who had mainly been used in relief through his major-league career, had only recently been moved into the rotation to help bolster it.6 And this would be the second to last start in 1972 for Culp, who had struggled in his previous four starts and would soon be sidelined with a season-ending shoulder injury.

Allen started off the game by inducing three fly balls and allowing only a walk to Carl Yastrzemski. Culp gave up a line-drive single to Ken Berry with one out in the bottom of the first. The inning ended, however, when Vada Pinson popped up to Oglivie, who doubled off Berry at second base.

Oglivie led off the top of the second inning and walked. Carlton Fisk’s line-drive single to center put runners on first and second. Bob Burda’s line drive to left was the first out of the inning, but  Allen walked Juan Beníquez to load the bases. Tommy Harper hit a line-drive double to the center-field warning track to clear the bases and give the Red Sox a 3-0 lead.7

Culp set down mild threats in the third and fourth innings. In the third, Leo Cárdenas’s leadoff single and a two-out walk to Sandy Alomar put two runners on for Berry, whose infield fly ended the inning. Bob Oliver hit into a double play in the fourth to negate Pinson’s leadoff single.

The Angels rallied with a three-run inning of their own in the fifth. Ken McMullen walked, moved to second on Cárdenas’s infield single, and took third on Art Kusnyer’s fly out. Winston Llenas hit for Allen and drove in McMullen with a fly ball to right.

Alomar followed with his second walk of the game, and Berry’s pop-fly single to right field scored Cárdenas from second and Alomar from first. There was an apparent miscommunication between right fielder Oglivie and Red Sox second baseman Doug Griffin, and the ball hit off Oglivie’s glove.8 The game was tied, 3-3.

Rickey Clark replaced Allen in the sixth. From this point, the game turned into a stalemate. Clark retired Boston in order in the sixth and seventh. The Red Sox tried to use aggressive baserunning to move Rico Petrocelli into scoring position in the top of the eighth. With one out and Oglivie at the plate, Petrocelli attempted to steal second base but was thrown out after Oglivie struck out, giving the Angels a double play to end the inning.

Culp kept the Angels off the scoreboard in the seventh and eighth. In the top of the ninth, Reggie Smith batted for Culp with Beníquez at first and two out. Smith ended the inning with a fly ball to right field. Rookie Don Newhauser replaced Culp and sent the game into extra innings. Newhauser was just a month into his career, having been called up on June 12, and was making his ninth major-league appearance.

Eddie Fisher replaced Clark in the 10th inning and the game progressed quietly until the top of the 12th. With one out, the Red Sox sent Bob Montgomery up to pinch-hit for Newhauser. Montgomery hit a comebacker that knocked Fisher off his feet and reached second on Fisher’s errant throw to first.9 Pitcher John Curtis ran for Montgomery, but advanced no further, as Harper and Griffin were retired to end the inning.

Bill Lee replaced Newhauser in the bottom of the inning.10 Pinson singled with two outs and stopped at second on Oliver’s single to left. The inning ended when Leroy Stanton struck out.

The next big opportunity to end the deadlock came in the top of the 15th, when Steve Barber replaced Fisher for the Angels. Harper and Griffin hit back-to-back singles and Yastrzemski walked to load the bases with nobody out. Petrocelli lined to Pinson in left field. Harper attempted to score on the play, but Pinson – who had moved from right when Stanton entered the game in the seventh inning – threw him out at the plate.11 Oglivie grounded out to end the inning and keep it tied.

The next baserunners came in the bottom of the 16th, when Lee gave up a leadoff single to Syd O’Brien.12 Cárdenas sacrificed O’Brien into scoring position. Lee intentionally walked Kusnyer, who was hitting just .205 coming into the game. With runners on first and second, the Angels sent Andy Kosco to pinch-hit for pitcher Barber.13 Kosco flied out for the second out of the inning.

Lee just needed one more out to send it to the 17th inning, but Alomar ended the game with a hit under the glove of shortstop Beníquez, scoring O’Brien from second.14 California’s 4-3 victory ended the Red Sox’ win streak and moved them below .500. In the next afternoon’s game, the Angels made it two of three when Ryan struck out 16 and held the Red Sox without a baserunner after Harper’s walk and Yastrzemski’s single in the first inning.

The weekend in Anaheim represented a missed opportunity for the Red Sox, who ended the season a half-game behind the Detroit Tigers. The squandering of the opportunity in the 15th inning on July 8 could have represented the win that put them over the top and won the American League East.

For the Red Sox, the 1972 season boiled down to needing just one more win.

What about Eddie Kasko? Despite the predictions of the local media, Kasko finished out the 1972 season and was brought back in 1973. While the team improved, it still finished a distant second to the Baltimore Orioles. With one game to go in the 1973 season, Kasko was replaced. But it was not quite a firing. Kasko was reassigned to the scouting department, where he remained until he retired in 1994. For his contributions to the franchise, he was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2010.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Sandy Alomar, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CAL/CAL197207080.shtml   

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B07080CAL1972.htm

Notes

1 Clif Keane, “Tomorrow: Baseball,” Boston Globe, April 14, 1972: 51.

2 Ray Fitzgerald, “One Finster Survey Shows Kasko a Very Nice Man But…,” Boston Globe, May 12, 1972: 34.

3 Neil Singelais, “Eddie Kasko, the Man and the Manager,” Boston Globe, June 1, 1972: 51.

4 “Sox Lose Tempers, a Run, but Win Game,” Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, July 8, 1972: 9.

5 Phil Fuhrer, “Ryan Goes for No. 11,” San Bernardino County (California) Sun, July 9, 1972: E1.

6 Ross Newhan, “Angels Slam 14 Hits, Lose, 7-6,” Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1972: 3.

7 Ross Newhan, “O’Brien Scores Winning Run as BoSox Bow, 4-3,” Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1972: 47

8 “O’Brien Scores Winning Run as BoSox Bow, 4-3.”

9 Don Merry, “Angels Nip Red Sox in 16th, 4-3,” Long Beach (California) Press-Telegram, July 9, 1972: S-2.

10 This is the last year that the Red Sox used Lee primarily as a reliever. He moved into a starter role in 1973.

11 Merry, “Angels Nip Red Sox in 16th, 4-3.”

12 O’Brien had begun his major-league career with the Red Sox in 1969.

13 On August 15 Kosco was traded to the Red Sox.

14 Merry, “Angels Nip Red Sox in 16th, 4-3.”