April 29, 1951: Determined to prevail: Red Sox players hit extra-inning homers in the 11th, 12th, and 13th innings

Which team was more determined to win? During the Philadelphia Athletics-Boston Red Sox game at Shibe Park on April 29, 1951, the Athletics came back five times to either take the lead or tie the game. It took three different Red Sox hitting home runs in extra innings to outlast the relentless Athletics in 13 innings, 12-8.

The Philadelphia Inquirer described it as “a ball game as fantastic as anything that ever occurred in delirium.”1

The Athletics came into the game with a record of 1-11, in the franchise’s first season after the end of Connie Mack’s 50-year tenure as manager. Their only win was on April 20, over the Red Sox in Boston, breaking a 3-3 tie with three runs in the eighth inning and handing a loss on Mel Parnell. They had then lost nine in a row.

At Shibe Park on April 29, Philadelphia manager Jimmy Dykes hoped that 26-year-old left-hander Alex Kellner could win another game. Kellner had gone the distance on April 20, allowing just four base hits. He had led the majors with 20 losses in 1950 after winning 20 a season earlier.

Boston manager Steve O’Neill named Ray Scarborough as his starter. This was Scarborough’s eighth major-league season, but his first for the Red Sox. He was 1-0, having beaten the Athletics on April 22.

Neither side scored in the first. Keltner retired the Red Sox in order, while Scarborough loaded the bases with a leadoff double, a walk, and a hit-by-pitch before closing out the inning.

Boston jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the second. Ted Williams walked but was retired on a force play at second. Right fielder Tom Wright tripled for the first run and second baseman Bobby Doerr followed with a two-run homer to left.

The Athletics wasted no time in coming back – and taking a 4-3 lead. In the bottom of the second, catcher Joe Tipton followed a leadoff walk with a two-run homer into the lower left-field grandstand. After two fly-ball outs, Scarborough walked the next two batters. First baseman Ferris Fain singled to right, driving in the third run, and right fielder Elmer Valo singled to drive in the fourth.

Boston retook the lead in the third. Third baseman Johnny Pesky hit a one-out double to center. Two bases on balls followed – as did a third, to shortstop Lou Boudreau, which forced in Pesky. Hank Wyse relieved Kellner and walked Wright to score another run.

Left-hander Mickey McDermott, celebrating his 22nd birthday, took over from Scarborough in the bottom of the third. Philadelphia loaded the bases with nobody out on an error, a single, another error on a pickoff, and a walk. Tod Davis pinch-hit for Wyse and hit into a 6-4-3 double play while the tying run scored. It was a 5-5 game.

The scoring settled down in the middle innings. Both McDermott and Philadelphia’s Morrie Martin pitched scoreless innings in the fourth and fifth.

Bobby Doerr led off the Boston sixth with a home run off Martin, his second homer of the game. Both were hit into the upper deck in left field. The Red Sox held the 6-5 lead until the bottom of the eighth. McDermott had pitched four straight scoreless innings, but Eddie Joost hit a one-out triple, over Dom DiMaggio’s head in center field. After left fielder Barney McCosky walked, third baseman Kermit Wahl lined out to center and Joost tagged and scored. The game was tied, 6-6.

Joe Coleman took over the pitching for the Athletics and retired the Red Sox in order in the top of the ninth. McDermott walked Valo, putting the potential winning run on base, but center fielder Sam Chapman hit into a double play and second baseman Pete Suder flied out.

Both teams had two baserunners in the 10th inning, but neither team got a run.

DiMaggio hit a leadoff homer off Coleman to kick off the 11th, close to the line in left field. It bounded back on the field, but umpire John Stevens said it had hit above the line and was thus a home run. It was one of several plays the A’s disputed.2 After two outs, Williams walked, but Boudreau hit into a force play at second base.

The Red Sox were a clean inning from a 7-6 win, but McDermott issued back-to-back walks to Valo and Chapman with one out in the bottom of the 11th. At this point he’d worked 8 1/3 innings of relief, and O’Neill brought in Ellis Kinder. Suder singled to center, scoring Valo, and the game was tied once more, 7-7. Kinder walked Tipton, then Paul Lehner, batting for Coleman, hit a ball that seemed to strike in front of the plate. Boston catcher Mike Guerra pounced on it and started what was deemed a 2-4-3 double play.3

In the 12th Johnny Kucab took over the pitching for Philadelphia, the Athletics’ sixth pitcher of the day. The first batter he pitched to was Wright, who homered over the wall in right-center field and the Red Sox had taken the lead once again. It was Wright’s first big-league home run. Kucab retired the next three Red Sox.

Once again, the Red Sox were three outs from victory, but the first batter Kinder faced in the bottom of the 12th was Joost and he too homered into the lower left-center-field stands – and the Athletics had come from behind to tie up the game. Now it was 8-8. Mel Parnell relieved Kinder. McCosky greeted him with a single to left. Wahl’s attempt to bunt McCosky to second base failed, as Parnell fielded the ball quickly enough to get the force at second. A strikeout and a groundout closed out the 12th.

In the top of the 13th, Kucab walked Dom DiMaggio. Johnny Pesky tripled down the right-field line, and – once again – the Red Sox had a one-run lead. This time, though, they didn’t stop at one. First baseman Billy Goodman singled to center field and drove in Pesky. Goodman’s ball “skipped past Sam Chapman,” reported the Boston Herald, and Goodman ended up on third base.4

Ted Williams then homered to right field and suddenly the Red Sox lead had grown to 12-8. The Williams homer was described as a “sky-rocket home run … that soared 30 feet above the high right-field wall at Shibe Park and bounced on the flat top roof of an apartment house across the street.”5 It was Williams’s fourth home run of the season and the 297th of his career.6 Williams had been 0-for-2 to that point but had drawn four bases on balls.

Moe Burtschy relieved Kucab, but the damage had been done. He gave up singles to Boudreau and Wright, but three fly balls followed – the third by Parnell, batting for himself.

In the Athletics’ 13th, Parnell got two groundouts, gave up a single, and then pinch-hitter Joe Astroth popped up to first base. Having done so five times already in this one game, the Athletics were finally out of comebacks.

There was supposed to be a second game that day, but it was called after just two innings due to a Pennsylvania law that prohibited Sunday baseball after 7:00 P.M.7 The Red Sox were leading in that game, 6-0, aided by four Philadelphia errors.8

When the 1951 season came to its conclusion, the Athletics finished sixth in the eight-team league with a record of 70-84, 28 games behind the first-place New York Yankees. The 87-67 Red Sox finished third, 11 games back.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Victoria Monte and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Ted Williams, 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/PHA/PHA195104290.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1951/B04290PHA1951.htm

Thanks to Mike Huber for providing access to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Notes

1 Art Morrow, “BoSox Get 4 in 13th, Top A’s, 12-8,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 30, 1951: 31.

2 Clif Keane, “A’s Blame Umpires as Sox Win in 13 Innings, 12-8,” Boston Globe, April 30, 1951: 7.

3 Lehner didn’t even run, insisting it had been a foul ball, hit off his foot, but the call that it was fair belonged to plate umpire Jim Duffy. Associated Press, “Red Sox Tally Four in 13th to Whip A’s, 12-8,” Uniontown (Pennsylvania) Morning Herald, April 30, 1951: 7. The Boston Globe account described it as a 3-2-4 double play. Lehner displayed a bruised foot after the game. The Globe quoted Dykes postgame: “I hear Duffy is a basketball referee. That’s where he belongs after that lousy decision.”

4 Arthur Sampson, “Red Sox Conquer A’s in 13th, 12-8,” Boston Herald, April 30, 1951: 10. An error was assigned to shortstop Joost for allowing Goodman to advance to third base.

5 Sampson.

6 Williams hit his 300th career home run on May 15, against Howie Judson of the Chicago White Sox.

7 No inning was to start after 6:45. Associated Press, “Red Sox Beat A’s 12 to 8 in 13th; Curfew Halts Nightcap in Second,” York (Pennsylvania) Gazette and Daily, April 30, 1951: 22.

8 Morrow.