August 11, 1954: Ted Williams’s two-homer game ties Johnny Mize for sixth place all-time

The Boston Red Sox and Washington Nationals were jockeying for fifth place in the 1954 American League standings. Washington was 29 games behind the first-place Cleveland Indians. Boston was 30 games behind. The two teams played two at Fenway Park on Wednesday, August 11, a day game and a night game, the second game being a makeup of a rained-out game from May 8.

Red Sox manager Lou Boudreau selected rookie right-hander Tom Brewer to pitch the first game. The 22-year-old South Carolina native was 7-6 with a 4.28 earned-run average. Brewer had lost his last start but won three straight decisions before that.

The first batter Brewer faced swung at his first pitch and hit a home run. Third baseman Eddie Yost hit it into the left-field screen, his 11th homer of the season.1 Next up was shortstop Pete Runnels. He singled to left field. But Mickey Vernon lined to Boston first baseman Harry Agganis, who stepped on the bag to retire Runnels and complete an unassisted double play. Left fielder Roy Sievers grounded out, third base to first.

Pitching for Bucky Harris and the Nationals was 43-year-old righty Connie Marrero, in his fifth season in the majors after Washington signed him from his native Cuba. He was 3-4 (4.31 ERA). Like Brewer, Marrero gave up hits to the first two batters he faced. On his third pitch, leadoff-hitting right fielder Jimmy Piersall hit a double that landed behind the in-ground flagpole in center field.

Batting second was left fielder Ted Williams, who hit Marrero’s pitch into the right-field stands, into the lower seats of Section 2. The Boston Herald said it landed about 10 rows up.2 It was 2-1, Red Sox. Williams had his 19th homer of the season and the 358th of his career, putting him one behind Johnny Mize for sixth on the all-time list.

Second baseman Billy Goodman popped up to short. Jackie Jensen, playing center, struck out. Agganis singled to right. Third baseman Grady Hatton grounded out to Vernon at first base, unassisted.

In the second inning, Brewer got three grounders for outs, with right fielder Tommy Umphlett the only National to reach, on a single. Marrero got outs from the three Red Sox he faced in the bottom of the inning.

Brewer likewise retired the side in order in the top of the third. The Red Sox then expanded their lead with the same batters who put them ahead in the first inning. Piersall singled (to left in this case) and Williams hit a two-run homer (this time into the center-field bleachers in the triangular section behind the Red Sox bullpen.) Williams’s 359th home run tied him with Mize, who had retired a season earlier. The score was 4-1, Boston. With one out, Jensen doubled but did not score.

Brewer induced three more groundouts in the fourth. He walked Sievers after the first one and consecutive force outs at second base followed. Marrero retired the Red Sox in order in the bottom of the inning.

After Brewer retired the first two Nationals in the fifth, Mickey McDermott pinch-hit for Marrero.3 Brewer walked him, and then walked the next two batters. But Vernon again lined out to Agganis.

Bunky Stewart was the Washington pitcher in the bottom of the fifth. The first batter he faced was Piersall, who homered to deep center field, into the screen to the left of the flagpole. It was Piersall’s fifth home run of the season. Williams singled to left field, the ball striking his bat as he was ducking from a pitch.4 There were no other hits in the inning, nor in the top of the sixth for the Nationals.

The Red Sox made it a rout with four more runs in the bottom of the sixth. Hatton led off with a single. Catcher Del Wilber singled, too. Shortstop Billy Consolo walked and the bases were loaded. Brewer singled to right, driving in Hatton, everyone moving up one base.

Piersall hit a fly ball to second that counted as a sacrifice fly. Wilber scored. Other runners moved up on a throwing error to the plate by second baseman Johnny Pesky, who’d played for the Detroit Tigers and then Nationals after being traded from Boston in June 1952. With first base open, Williams was walked intentionally. Goodman grounded to shortstop Runnels. Pesky took the throw for a force at second, but then picked up his second error of the inning on yet another errant throw – this one to first base – and both Consolo and Brewer scored. The Red Sox held a 9-1 lead.

No one reached base for the Nationals in the top of the seventh. Tom Wright made the third out, pinch-hitting for Stewart.

The new Washington pitcher in the seventh was Gus Keriazakos. He struck out Agganis and got two groundballs by Hatton and Wilber, both handled cleanly by Pesky, who threw to Vernon.

Consolo hit a leadoff home run off Keriazakos in the bottom of the eighth, “about eight rows up in the distant center field seats.”5 Coming seven days before his 20th birthday, it was Consolo’s only homer of the season. Brewer singled, his second hit of the game. Piersall grounded into a 5-4-3 double play. Williams grounded to Vernon, who threw to the pitcher covering first.

In the top of the ninth, Karl Olson replaced Williams in left field to give the Red Sox slugger just a bit more of a breather between games. Sievers popped up to short. Center fielder Jim Busby reached on an infield single. Umphlett grounded out, third to first. Pesky grounded out, second to first.

Brewer had given up only three hits after Yost’s game-opening home run. As the Washington Evening Star put it, “Washington’s first-game run production started and ended with the first pitch, which Eddie Yost belted for a home run.”6 The final score was a dominant 10-1 win for Brewer and the Red Sox.

There was another game to play, that evening. The Nationals scored one in the third inning. Jensen hit a solo home run to tie it in the fourth. After six, it was still 1-1. Each team scored once in the seventh. Piersall homered to lead off the eighth and the Red Sox got another run when Jensen hit into a double play. Neither Sid Hudson nor Ellis Kinder could stop the Senators in the top of the ninth, though. A single, a walk, and a Pete Runnels double tied the game. After a couple of outs, Busby doubled in Runnels, giving Washington a 5-4 lead, which rookie Camilo Pascual preserved in the bottom of the ninth. Williams was 0-for-4 in the game, and his batting average stood at .359.

Late in August, the Red Sox climbed into the first division and finished the season in fourth place. The Nationals sank to sixth, though they were only three games behind the Red Sox in the tightly-bunched middle of the pack.

On August 22, Williams passed Mize by hitting his 360th career home run, against Harry Byrd of the New York Yankees. He retired after the 1960 season with 521 homers, which ranked him third behind Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx.7

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber 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/BOS195408111.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1954/B08111BOS1954.htm

Notes

1 Joe Cashman, “Sox Slam Nats, 10-1; Two Homers for Ted,” Boston Daily Record, August 12, 1954: 40.

2 Ed Costello, “Sox Beat Nats, 10-1, Then Lose 5-4,” Boston Herald, August 12, 1954: 21.

3 Marrero pitched in four more games for the 1954 Nationals. He spent the next three seasons with the Triple-A International League’s Havana Sugar Kings, throwing his final professional pitch at age 46.

4 Cashman.

5 Clif Keane, “Nats Score Three in 9th to Score Split with Red Sox,” Boston Globe, August 12, 1954: 18.

6 Burton Hawkins, “Senators’ Hopes Fall s Sievers Slumps Again,” Washington Evening Star, August 12,1954: C1.

7 Through the 2024 season Williams’s 521 home runs tie him for 20th all-time with Willie McCovey and Frank Thomas.