April 15, 1952: Eddie Mathews debuts in final Boston Braves home opener

Boston Braves fans had few reasons to be hopeful as the 1952 season opened at Braves Field on Tuesday, April 15. Only three seasons after winning the 1948 National League pennant, the Braves were coming off a 76-78 record and a fourth-place finish.

Also, the American League’s Red Sox were winning the battle of Boston at the gate. The Braves’ 1951 attendance fell to 487,475 – lowest in the NL, down by two-thirds from 1948, and almost two-thirds less than what the Red Sox drew at Fenway Park.1 A news report in July 1951 had claimed that a group in Milwaukee had designs on moving the Braves there.2

One ray of light for Boston’s NL entrant was a 20-year-old third baseman who made his big-league debut hitting seventh on Opening Day 1952. Eddie Mathews had logged three successful seasons in the minors, hitting .363 at Class D in 1949, collecting 32 home runs and 106 RBIs at Double A in 1950, and hitting .292 between Double A and Triple A in a 1951 season shortened by military obligations.3

Over time, Mathews blossomed into a Hall of Famer, hitting 512 homers across 17 seasons and making 12 All-Star teams. But on his first day, the young prospect went 0-for-3 with a walk as the visiting Brooklyn Dodgers claimed a 3-2 win. It was the first of 89 losses the Braves piled up in what proved to be their final season in Beantown.4

The Braves endured what the Boston Globe called “wretched” weather for their opener. With bitter 45-degree temperatures, cloudy skies, and strong winds, a scant 4,694 fans turned out in a ballpark with capacity for 37,106.5 (This paltry showing turned out to be an above-average crowd for the season, as the Braves drew only 281,278 fans all year, an average of 3,653 per home game.) “The weather was even too cold for football,” another Bay State newspaper opined.6

Perhaps fittingly, given the chill, the NL sent an umpiring crew three-quarters composed of New Englanders. Plate umpire Bill Stewart was a native of Fitchburg, Massachusetts; first base umpire Artie Gore of Cambridge, Massachusetts; and third-base ump Augie Guglielmo of Waterbury, Connecticut.7 Guglielmo was making his major-league debut, starting what turned out to be his only season in the big leagues.8

Three-quarters of the Braves’ infield were newcomers. In addition to Mathews, 29-year-old second baseman Billy Reed was playing his first major-league game,9 while shortstop Jack Cusick had hit .177 the previous season in 65 games with the Chicago Cubs. More established members of the lineup included center fielder Sam Jethroe, the NL’s two-time reigning stolen-base champ; left fielder Sid Gordon, who’d contributed 29 homers and 109 RBIs in 1951; and first baseman Earl Torgeson, who’d added 24 homers and 92 RBIs.

Boston manager Tommy Holmes tapped 30-year-old staff ace Warren Spahn for the start. Spahn was coming off a 22-14, 2.98 season, and had won 20 or more games in four of the previous five seasons. Spahn led the majors or tied for the lead in 1951 with 26 complete games, seven shutouts, and 164 strikeouts – the third of four straight seasons he led NL pitchers in whiffs.10 Spahn also hadn’t lost to the Dodgers in Boston since September 29, 1949. In six starts since then, all complete games, he’d won five and tied one.11

Chuck Dressen’s Dodgers had suffered their own frustrations in 1951, losing an NL pennant playoff to the New York Giants on Bobby Thomson’s walk-off home run off Ralph Branca on October 3. The Dodgers had led the NL in many offensive categories in ’51 – including hits, doubles, home runs, RBIs, batting average, and slugging average – and returned many of their big guns, such as catcher Roy Campanella, first baseman Gil Hodges, second baseman Jackie Robinson, and outfielders Duke Snider and Carl Furillo. Robinson played Opening Day with a toe injury but said after the game that it hadn’t bothered him.12

Left-hander Preacher Roe and righty Don Newcombe had given Brooklyn a powerful one-two starting punch in 1951, with Roe winning 22 games and Newcombe 20. Newcombe missed the 1952 and ’53 seasons in military service, and the 36-year-old Roe got the Opening Day start. A crafty veteran skilled at changing speeds, Roe was often accused of throwing a spitball and confessed to it after his retirement.13

After Massachusetts Governor Paul Dever threw out the ceremonial first ball, Roe struggled with control trouble. Reed led off the first inning with a single on the first pitch he saw. One out later, after hitting a ferocious drive to right that the wind carried just foul, Torgeson walked.14 Gordon’s groundout to third moved the runners to second and third base, but another groundout to third by Willard Marshall ended the rally.

Roe “made a lot of pitches in the first two innings, far above his normal average,” noted the New York Times, and in the second inning he landed in trouble again.15 With one out, Mathews drew a walk in his first plate appearance and took second on a single by Cusick. After Spahn struck out, Reed drove a single into left field. Manager Holmes, coaching at third base, waved Mathews around. But Brooklyn’s Andy Pafko, playing shallow, fielded the ball cleanly and made a strong throw to Campanella to retire Mathews.16 The New York Daily News’ Dick Young labeled Mathews’ attempt to score “suicidal.”17

Holmes’ decision loomed large when Jethroe led off the third with a solo home run over the left-field fence for a 1-0 Boston lead.18 Torgeson followed by working Roe for the Braves’ third walk – uncharacteristic for a pitcher who’d averaged fewer than 2 1/2 walks per nine innings the previous season.19 Gordon’s fly out and Marshall’s double-play grounder ended the frame.

Spahn, who pitched 11 shutout innings against Brooklyn during spring training,20 had scattered a single and a walk over the first three innings. Brooklyn stirred in the fourth, as one-out singles by Robinson and Campanella put runners on first and third. Spahn struck out Pafko and Snider on seven pitches to hold the Dodgers scoreless.21 Boston also wasted a runner in scoring position in the bottom half, as Walker Cooper led off with a single and took second on Mathews’ groundout, but stuck there.

The Dodgers came alive in the fifth, starting with singles by Hodges and Furillo. Roe fluffed three bunt attempts and struck out, and Pee Wee Reese lined to right field, where Marshall made a shoestring catch for the second out.22 Billy Cox singled past shortstop Cusick to score Hodges and tie the game. Robinson worked a walk, Spahn’s second and last of the game, to reload the bases. Campanella’s first-pitch single into right field scored Furillo and Cox for a 3-1 Brooklyn lead.23

With two outs in the bottom half, the Braves clawed back a run. Torgeson laced a double off the right-center-field wall “against one of the strongest winds Braves Field will have all year,” the Boston Globe reported.24 Gordon lined a single just over Robinson’s glove at second base to score Torgeson, making the score 3-2.25

From there, the Dodgers were responsible for the afternoon’s few remaining scoring threats. In the sixth, Spahn picked Snider off first after the Dodger center fielder’s leadoff single. Hodges then crushed a ball to deep center field, where Jethroe made a leaping catch at the wall.26 Furillo’s fly to left ended the inning.

In the top of the seventh, one-out singles by Reese and Cox put runners at first and second. Robinson’s and Campanella’s popups to Cusick left them there.27 And in the ninth, Reese’s two-out double – the Dodgers’ only extra-base hit of 11 knocks against Spahn – went for nought as Cox grounded to Cusick.28

While Spahn was fighting out of jams, Roe was retiring the final 13 Braves in a row to seal the win. In the ninth, Cooper flied to Pafko in left, Mathews flied to Snider in center, and Cusick struck out to end the game in 2 hours and 7 minutes.

Holmes said he was not second-guessing his decision to send Mathews: “I thought Pafko would get the ball on a short hop and have a tough play to make. Instead, he got it on the big hop.”29 Holmes, who’d taken over as manager in June 1951, didn’t make those decisions for much longer. On May 31, with the Braves in seventh place with a 13-22 record, Holmes was replaced by Charlie Grimm.30 Dressen’s Dodgers reclaimed the NL pennant with a 96-57 record,31 4½ games ahead of the Giants, before dropping a seven-game World Series to the New York Yankees.

Rookie Mathews picked up his first two hits the next day in a 14-8 loss to the Dodgers. He closed the season with a .242 average, 25 homers, and 58 RBIs in 145 games, earning Most Valuable Player votes and tying for third in NL Rookie of the Year voting.32 He played on two World Series-winning teams, including the 1957 Milwaukee Braves, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1978, a quarter-century after the team left Boston.33

Acknowledgments and photo credit

This story was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Eddie Mathews, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team, and season data and the box scores for this game:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BSN/BSN195204150.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1952/B04150BSN1952.htm

Notes

1 The 1948 Braves drew 1,455,439. The 1951 Red Sox drew 1,312,282.

2 Bob Holbrook, “Perini Disappointed, but Braves Owner Has No Thought of Giving Up,” Boston Globe, July 6, 1951: 4. Braves majority owner Lou Perini denied the rumor at the time. However, Perini – who owned territorial rights to Milwaukee in Organized Baseball – moved the Braves to that city during spring training of 1953.

3 David Fleitz, “Eddie Mathews,” SABR Biography Project, accessed December 2024, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/eddie-mathews/.

4 The team’s 1952 record was 64-89, with two ties.

5 “Little Too Early Yet to Give Up on Braves” and Hy Hurwitz, “Roe Edges Spahn 3-2; Jethroe Hits Homer,” both Boston Globe, April 16, 1952: 10. Braves Field capacity as per “Braves Field,” Seamheads Ballpark Database, accessed December 2024, https://seamheads.com/ballparks/ballpark.php?parkID=BOS08.

6 Vic Wall, “Brooklyn Bunches Hits to Beat Boston Braves,” Springfield (Massachusetts) Union, April 16, 1952: 1.

7 The odd man out was second-base ump Jocko Conlan, a Chicago native.

8 Guglielmo was sent back to the minor leagues in April 1953, reportedly because NL President Warren Giles considered him “too short and too fidgety.” Guglielmo’s stepson, Terry Tata, served as an NL ump from 1973 to 1999, working four World Series and three All-Star Games. Fred Russell, “How Engel Gets His Players,” Nashville Banner, April 22, 1953: 20.

9 He played only 15, all with the 1952 Braves.

10 Spahn also led NL pitchers in walks in 1951 with 109. Spahn led the majors in strikeouts each season from 1950 through 1952, and also led the NL in 1949. Vic Raschi of the Yankees and Don Newcombe of the Dodgers also had 164 strikeouts in 1951, while Allie Reynolds of the Yankees also had seven shutouts.

11 Roscoe McGowen, “Roe Beats Spahn at Boston, 3 to 2,” New York Times, April 16, 1952: 34.

12 Harold C. Burr, “Neither Cold, Nor Fever, Nor Braves Can Stop Roe,” Brooklyn Eagle, April 16, 1952: 19.

13 Russell Bergtold, “Don Newcombe,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/don-newcombe/; Warren Corbett, “Preacher Roe,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/preacher-roe/; both accessed December 2024.

14 Hurwitz, “Roe Edges Spahn 3-2; Jethroe Hits Homer”; Burr, “Neither Cold, Nor Fever, Nor Braves Can Stop Roe.”

15 McGowen, “Roe Beats Spahn at Boston, 3 to 2.”

16 Hurwitz, “Roe Edges Spahn 3-2; Jethroe Hits Homer.”

17 Dick Young, “Flock’s Campy, Roe ‘Chill’ Braves, 3-2,” New York Daily News, April 16, 1952: 78.

18 Hurwitz.

19 Roe walked 64 batters in 257 2/3 innings in 1951, including six intentional walks.

20 Young, “Flock’s Campy, Roe ‘Chill’ Braves, 3-2.”

21 Wall, “Brooklyn Bunches Hits to Beat Boston Braves.”

22 Wall; Hurwitz, “Roe Edges Spahn 3-2; Jethroe Hits Homer.”

23 Hurwitz, “Roe Edges Spahn 3-2; Jethroe Hits Homer”; Young, “Flock’s Campy, Roe ‘Chill’ Braves, 3-2.”

24 Hurwitz.

25 McGowen, “Roe Beats Spahn at Boston, 3 to 2.”

26 McGowen.

27 McGowen.

28 Every Dodger except Pafko and Roe collected at least one hit; Campanella led the team with three.

29 Harold Kaese, “Holmes Makes It Official, Second Guessers at Bat,” Boston Globe, April 16, 1952: 1.

30 Bob Holbrook, “Holmes Breaks Down After Getting Call from Perini,” Boston Globe, June 1, 1952: 62.

31 And two ties.

32 Brooklyn pitcher Joe Black was the overwhelming victor in Rookie of the Year voting.

33 Mathews remained with the Braves until December 31, 1966, when he was traded to the Houston Astros in a five-player deal. He was the only person to play for the Braves in Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta.