September 10, 1961: Umpires’ call sparks Yankee Stadium unrest as streaking Yankees complete sweep of Indians

The first-place New York Yankees made it a sweep of the Cleveland Indians and 12 wins in a row with a 9-3 victory in the second game of their Sunday afternoon doubleheader at Yankee Stadium on September 10, 1961. Mickey Mantle hammered his 53rd home run to get him firmly back into the chase for Babe Ruth’s record, but the most memorable moment in the nightcap of an already contentious twin bill involved a home run that didn’t happen.

The Yankees had held off the Indians, 7-6, in the opener. Tensions elevated after New York’s Jim Coates hit Cleveland first baseman Vic Power with a pitch in the fifth inning, two innings after Power’s game-tying, three-run homer off Coates. Later, two teenagers ran onto the field and attacked Indians center fielder Jim Piersall, which led to players from both clubs joining the fray in Piersall’s defense. Bob Cerv’s eighth-inning, pinch-hit single had put the Yankees ahead to stay.

The second game matched Cleveland right-hander Jim Perry and New York lefty Bud Daley. Perry, whose 18 wins in 1960 had tied Chuck Estrada of the Baltimore Orioles for the AL lead, was struggling with a 10-13 record and 4.44 ERA in 1961. Daley, a former Indian, had come to the Yankees in a three-player deal with the Kansas City Athletics on June 14.1 His 10 wins in 1961 included a complete-game victory over the Washington Senators in his last outing, six days earlier on September 4.

Left fielder Tito Francona gave Cleveland an early 1-0 lead by pulling a two-out homer, his 16th of the season, over the right-field fence in the top of the first. In the bottom of the inning, the Yankees loaded the bases with one out on Tony Kubek’s single and walks to Roger Maris (who had hit his 56th home run of the season in the previous day’s game, against Cleveland’s Mudcat Grant) and Mickey Mantle (who had hit his 52nd homer on September 8, against the Indians’ Gary Bell).

Johnny Blanchard singled to tie the game, followed by another single by Elston Howard to put the Yankees ahead, 2-1. They never trailed after that.

 Batting with nobody on and one out in the third inning, Mantle launched a changeup from Perry into the right-field seats for his 53rd home run, his only hit in the game. “I didn’t really hit it good,” Mantle said.2

Yankees third baseman Clete Boyer led off the fourth inning with a drive into the left-field power alley. Rounding third, he ran through third base coach Frank Crosetti’s stop sign and tried to score. Boyer then collided with Power, who was covering home. Third base umpire Frank Umont ruled interference and gave Boyer the run, prompting an argument from Indians manager Jimmy Dykes3 and keying up the crowd of 57,824. It was scored a triple and an error on Power, and the Yankees’ lead was 4-1.

Daley followed Francona’s first-inning homer by retiring 11 Indians in a row, a streak snapped by Woodie Held’s one-out homer in the fifth.

It was still a 4-2 game when the Yankees faced Perry in the bottom of the sixth. Howard walked, and Moose Skowron singled. Up came Boyer, batting for the first time since his controversial run in the fourth – which already had riled up the sweltering crowd. 4

Boyer hammered Perry’s offering toward the 402-foot sign in left field, with Francona giving chase. The ball hit the railing, and second base umpire Charlie Berry, running into the outfield, appeared to signal a home run, as did Umont.

Boyer slowed up into a trot, but Tribe center fielder Chuck Essegian had caught up to the ball and threw it in. Shortstop Held cut it off and threw to third baseman Miguel de la Hoz, who tagged Boyer out. Umont waved Boyer home, and soon a summit formed at third base with Umont, Francona, Essegian, Dykes and Piersall, who wasn’t playing the second game, but was watching from the Indians’ bullpen in left field.5

Umont called Boyer out, prompting another discussion, this time with Yankees manager Ralph Houk and Crosetti. In the final accounting, Howard and Skowron scored on the play, but Boyer’s apparent run was taken off the board. That prompted an eruption from many of the fans, who booed, waved handkerchiefs, and threw things onto the field.

“I never heard anything like that in all my years,” said Crosetti, who’d played and coached with the Yankees for nearly 30 years to that point.6

The following week’s The Sporting News called the 17-minute demonstration “a tumultuous riot” and said it was the largest protest in the stadium’s history.7 Houk said the Yankees would play the rest of the game under protest, but fans likely couldn’t hear the announcement.

Maris said fans were throwing whiskey bottles. Blanchard said they were throwing apples. Bell, sitting in the left field bullpen, said, “Some of the people acted like animals. They were breaking their seats and throwing them at us.”8

“The trouble Jim Piersall went through in the opener was minute in comparison,” Bob Dolgan wrote in the next day’s Cleveland Plain Dealer.9

Houk told his Yankees players to wear batting helmets in the field.10

Berry admitted after the game that he had messed up. “I gave a lousy signal and Umont misinterpreted it. The ball hit the top of the bullpen railing and I tried to signal that the ball had bounced back onto the field and was in play. But Umont and (home plate umpire) Joe (Linsalata) thought I gave the home run call.”11

New York did get its third home run of the game an inning after Boyer’s lost long ball. Rookie lefty Bob Allen replaced Perry and gave up singles to Kubek and Maris. Mantle hit into a double play to slow the Yankees’ attack temporarily, but Blanchard doubled home Maris, and Howard followed with a two-run home run.12 That made the score 9-2 and brought the Yankees up to 219 home runs for the season, just two shy of what was then the major-league mark.13 (The Yankees ended up obliterating the record by hitting 240 home runs that season,14 with Mantle and Maris accounting for nearly half of that.)

Cleveland’s Bob Nieman accounted for the day’s final run in the top of the eighth, the Indians’ third solo homer of the game. Daley gave up just two other hits, singles to Francona and Held in the seventh. That inning, the Indians loaded the bases with one out, but Daley got de la Hoz to fly out to second, and Valmy Thomas popped up to Daley to end the inning.

Following the game, a special police detail was ordered to keep spectators from the Indians’ bus. “It was the most frightening experience I have ever had at a sports event,” said Dykes, who had been in professional baseball since 1917.15

It was the Yankees’ 12th straight win and the 18th straight against the Indians at Yankee Stadium. The doubleheader sweep gave them 99 wins for the season – surpassing the previous year’s 97 wins. They were up 11½ games on the second-place Detroit Tigers, and their magic number was down to eight.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Elston Howard, 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/NYA/NYA196109102.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1961/B09102NYA1961.htm

Notes

1 The Yankees had traded Art Ditmar and Deron Johnson for Daley.

2 Bob Kurland, “Fans Run Wild at Stadium as Yankees Win Twin Bill,” Bergen (New Jersey) Record, September 11, 1961: 28.

3 The next day’s story in the Bergen Record said Dykes was out “arguing so often with the umps that he looked like the tenth man.” Kurland, “Fans Run Wild at Stadium as Yankees Win Twin Bill.”

4 The Sporting News recap said game-time temperature was near 90 degrees. Dan Daniel, “Shower Field with Rubbish After Ump Umont’s Decision,” The Sporting News, September 20, 1961, 11.

5 Piersall had been involved in an altercation with a pair of fans in the first game.

6 Kurland, “Fans Run Wild At Stadium As Yankees Win Twin Bill.”

7 Daniel, “Shower Field with Rubbish After Ump Umont’s Decision.”

8 United Press International, “Piersall Thanks Mantle for Help In Stadium’s Most Riotous Day,” Passaic (New Jersey) Herald News, September 11, 1961: 19.

9 Bob Dolgan, “Indians lose wild pair, 7-6, 9-3,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 11, 1961: 33.

10 Regis McAuley, “Rioting Yankee Fans Toss Bottles, Seats,” Cleveland Press, September 11, 1961: D1.

11 Don Williams, “Piersall, Boyer Rhubarbs Jolt Yankee Stadium,” Jersey Journal, September 11, 1961, 16. As it turned out, Linsalata had a series of disputed calls against the Yankees that season, which could have contributed to his major-league career lasting just one season.

12 The hit raised Howard’s average to .363, which would have led the league had he had more plate appearances.

13 John Drebinger, “Mantle Hits No. 53 as Yanks Extend Streak to 12 by Beating Indians Twice,” New York Times, September 11, 1961: 30.

14 The record stood for 35 years before it, too, was obliterated. It’s now 37th overall, well behind the 307 home runs hit by the 2019 Minnesota Twins and 2023 Atlanta Braves.

15 McAuley, “Rioting Yankee Fans Toss Bottles, Seats.”