July 3, 1940: Athletics’ lead goes for naught as Red Sox come from behind with a storybook ninth

Sandwiched between home doubleheaders on July 2 and Independence Day for the Boston Red Sox in 1940 was a Wednesday afternoon game against the Philadelphia Athletics. The 37-28 Red Sox were in third place in the American League but only three games behind the league-leading Detroit Tigers. Philadelphia (26-39) was in seventh place, already far off the pace, 14 games out of first.

The July 2 twin bill had drawn 9,200, who had seen Philadelphia win the first game, 4-3, and the Red Sox win the second, 15-9. The New York Yankees were coming to town for July 4, and 29,000 showed up for a Yankees’ doubleheader sweep. The 3:00 P.M. game on July 3, however, drew only 2,400.

Boston manager Joe Cronin started Broadway Charlie Wagner. The 27-year-old Wagner was a righty, in this third year with Boston. He had been used sparingly and had mirror-image records of 1-3 and then 3-1 in his first two seasons. Before this start, he’d appeared in seven games in 1940 and won his only decision, in relief on June 30. This was his first (and as it turned out, only) start of the 1940 season.

Wally Moses singled off Wagner in the first, but the next batter, Benny McCoy, grounded into an inning-ending double play.

Longtime Athletics leader Connie Mack, in his 40th season at the helm in Philadelphia, had Herman Besse start. The 28-year-old Besse was a left-hander in his first year in the majors. He’d appeared in 12 games and had a record of 0-3.

Right fielder Lou Finney singled to lead off for the Red Sox. Center fielder Doc Cramer grounded out, Finney taking second, but then left fielder Ted Williams lined to shortstop Al Brancato, who executed an unassisted double play.

The Athletics went ahead with three runs in the top of the second. Left fielder Al Simmons singled and first baseman Dick Siebert homered, his second of the season. Frankie Hayes, the catcher, grounded out, but then center fielder Sam Chapman homered, too. It was Chapman’s eighth home run of 1940. Wagner walked a couple of batters – Besse and Brancato – but got out of the inning otherwise unscathed.

After recording three infield outs, the Athletics came to bat again. Wagner began the inning with two fly outs, but Siebert’s single, Hayes’ double, and a walk to Chapman loaded the bases. Cronin called for a reliever, and Joe Heving took over. He walked the first batter he faced, third baseman Al Rubeling. Pitcher Besse came to bat having gone 1-for-10 to start his career. He helped himself with a double, clearing the bases. It was 7-0, Athletics.

The Red Sox sent up only three batters in the third, and the Athletics added an eighth run in the top of the fourth. Moses singled and stole second. Heving struck out the next two batters, but Siebert singled in Moses.

Finney, Cramer, and Williams all made outs for the Red Sox in the fourth. One imagines some of the sparse crowd (the park was more than 90 percent empty) wished they’d picked another day to come to a game.

In the bottom of the fifth, though, the Red Sox showed some life. First baseman Jimmie Foxx led off with a double. One out later, Bobby Doerr singled and drove in Foxx. Joe Cronin homered, his ninth of the season. It was 8-3, still a fairly comfortable lead for Philadelphia.

The Athletics weren’t going to stand pat, though. They scored twice more in the top of the sixth, making it 10-3. A walk and a single, and then an RBI single by McCoy produced one, and the other came while Al Simmons grounded into a double play.

Neither team scored again until the bottom of the eighth. After two outs, Ted Williams singled. Foxx singled, and Jim Tabor hit a three-run homer, giving him 12 for the season. Doerr singled but was thrown out trying to stretch it to a double. The score was 10-6.

In the top of the ninth, Sam Chapman connected on his second home run of the game, a solo shot off Heving, and it was 11-6.

The Red Sox were down to their last ups. Cronin walked, but catcher Joe Glenn flied out to second base. Dom DiMaggio pinch-hit for Heving and singled to left field, while Cronin got to third base on a misplay in left field. Finney hit a freak single and drove in Cronin; the Boston Herald said of Finney, “he ducked a high, close pitch and the ball hit his bat and arched into no-man’s land in short left.”1

Connie Mack made a move at this point. Besse had worked 8 1/3 innings, but it seemed like a good time to bring in a reliever. Left-hander Chubby Dean came in from the Athletics bullpen. Dean had closed out Philadelphia’s win in the first game of the previous day’s doubleheader with three scoreless innings of relief.

Cramer, who was 0-for-4 to this point, singled into center field, scoring DiMaggio. Ted Williams, 21 years old, was batting .336 entering the game and six days from appearing in his first of 19 career All-Star Games. “The Kid” swung at the first pitch and hit a three-run home run off the back wall of the A’s bullpen, tying the game, 11-11.2 Williams had his 10th homer of the season.

Mack summoned right-hander Nels Potter from that bullpen to pitch to Foxx. On a 0-and-1 count, Foxx hit the ball into the net atop Fenway’s left-field wall, “not many feet from the yellow-painted foul pole,” observed the Boston Herald.3

Foxx homered, and won the game, with his 19th homer of the season and the 483rd of his career.4 The Red Sox had scored six runs in the bottom of the ninth. Those Boston fans who had stuck it out had been rewarded. The Globe reported that they “went slightly mad, rushing down to rip covers off box seats, firing hats onto the field and leaving the Fens in a slightly disordered state.”5

The 39-year-old Heving, in the eighth season of a 13-year big-league career, had given up four runs in the 6 1/3 innings he had worked; he got the win. Potter – who had thrown all of two pitches – bore the loss.

Philadelphia outhit the Red Sox, 16 to 14. Nine of Boston’s dozen runs came on their four home runs. Four Athletics runs had come on homers.

The Athletics lost an even 100 games in 1940, finishing 54-100. The Red Sox finished in a tie for fourth place with the Chicago White Sox, both teams with records of 82-72.

 

Acknowledgments

This article was vetted by John Fredland, fact-checked by Andrew Harner, and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Jimmie Foxx, Trading Card Database.

 

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/BOS194007030.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1940/B07030BOS1940.htm

 

Notes 

1 Burt Whitman, “Sox Pull Story Book 9th for 6 Runs to Win, 12-11,” Boston Herald, July 4, 1940: 7.

2 Gerry Moore, “Foxx Socks Homer to Edge A’s in Ninth, 12-11,” Boston Globe, July 4, 1940: 4.

3 Whitman.

4 Foxx finished the 1940 season with 36 home runs and 119 RBIs. Cronin hit 24. Williams was third with 23, but his 113 RBIs were second only to Foxx. Before the game, Capt. Israel Baker of Orr’s Island, Maine, presented Foxx with 18 lobsters, one for each of the 18 homers he’d hit to date. He told Foxx, “Make another today for me and I’ll give you 18 more.” It was the first major-league game Baker had attended. See Whitman, Herald. A photo of Baker and Foxx ran in the Globe, which reported that the captain had been a Red Sox fan for 45 years and listened to games on the radio he had on his lobster boat.

5 Moore.