September 2, 1965: Ernie Banks hits 400th career home run in Cubs’ win over Cardinals

The Chicago Cubs were scoreless for their entire three-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals until the third inning of the series finale at Wrigley Field on September 2, 1965. Bob Gibson had blanked them on two hits in the opener on August 31, and Tracy Stallard added a three-hit gem a day later. Now, veteran Curt Simmons began the third game with two more scoreless innings.

That all changed when Ernie Banks’ 400th career home run keyed a four-run third inning that carried the Cubs to a 5-3 win over their archrivals from St. Louis. Banks became the 11th player in major-league history to hit at least 400 homers in his career.1 In addition, the Cubs took the season series from the Cardinals, 10 games to eight losses with one tie, for the first time since 1957. An 11-inning tie on April 12 was called due to darkness because Wrigley Field did not have lights.

The Cubs came into the game in eighth place in the National League with a 63-73 record under Bob Kennedy and Lou Klein, who replaced Kennedy as manager on June 14. The defending World Series champion Cardinals, winners of seven of their last nine games, entered the contest in seventh place with a 67-67 mark under first-year manager Red Schoendienst, even after Gibson’s 3-0 win over the Cubs on August 31 and Stallard’s 9-0 triumph a day later.

Still, St. Louis was only eight games behind the first-place Cincinnati Reds, who led the Los Angeles Dodgers by percentage points, and the Cardinals had overcome an 8½-game deficit to overtake the Philadelphia Phillies for the 1964 pennant.

“If we’d won this one, you’d have to say our chances were great,” Schoendienst said afterwards. “We’ve still got a chance [for first place], but if we’d swept the three in Chicago …”2 A sweep would have put St. Louis one game over .500 going into the next night’s series opener against the last-place New York Mets at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

Cubs starting pitcher Bob Hendley and the Cardinals’ Simmons started off the Thursday afternoon game by exchanging scoreless innings. In Hendley’s first trip through St. Louis’s lineup, the only baserunner was Mike Shannon on shortstop Don Kessinger’s one-out fielding error in the third, but Hendley struck out Simmons and rookie catcher Chris Krug threw out Shannon stealing to end the inning.

Simmons stranded two baserunners in the first two innings, and the Cubs’ third inning began without a ball leaving the infield. Hendley was called out on strikes, and leadoff batter Don Landrum grounded out to first with Simmons making the putout.

But Glenn Beckert singled to right and scored on Billy Williams’ double to center for the first run of the game. The next hitter, Ron Santo, walked to set up first baseman Banks, who had hit his 398th and 399th career home runs five days earlier, on August 29, against the Milwaukee Braves.

What followed was a memorable blast over the left-field catwalk against Simmons, the Philadelphia Phillies’ starting pitcher in Banks’ Cubs debut 12 seasons earlier.

“Banks took a strike, then uncoiled from his timid-looking stance into the lethal home-run punch that the National League knows so well,” wrote the Chicago Tribune’s Richard Dozer. “He drove a curve ball high and deep to left. It sailed out onto the street [Waveland Avenue] for the 400th homer of his career and the biggest part of a 5-3 victory of St. Louis.”3

Fourteen-year-old Bruce Ronnbeck of Chicago was outside the ballpark when he caught the ball and traded it for another ball and bat at a post-game exchange at home plate.4 “The boy just happened to be going by outside [the ballpark] and saw the ball coming,” Banks recounted. “He said he caught it on the fly.”5

St. Louis scored once in the fourth on former Cub Lou Brock’s home run, his 14th of the season. Hendley recovered quickly, inducing Curt Flood to ground out, Dick Groat to line out, and Ken Boyer to ground out. In the bottom of the inning, Krug walked and took third on Kessinger’s single. The Cubs led 5-1 when Krug scored on Landrum’s sacrifice fly.

Two Cubs errors contributed to the Cardinals’ unearned run in the fifth. The first batter, Bill White, made it to second on Banks’ error. After Julian Javier grounded out, Tim McCarver reached on an infield single to third, and White scored on Santo’s throwing error. The next batter, Shannon, flied out; Phil Gagliano, pinch-hitting for Simmons, grounded out to end the inning.

The Cardinals scored again in the seventh on McCarver’s single that scored Boyer with one out. Hendley then got Shannon to fly out and Brock to hit into a forceout at third after Ted Savage, batting for reliever Don Dennis, walked.

Right-handed submariner Ted Abernathy earned his retroactively credited 28th save of the season by retiring all five batters he faced in the eighth and ninth innings.6 He ended the season with a league-high 31 saves and a then-major-league record 84 appearances.7 Abernathy received the “Fireman of the Year” award from The Sporting News after the season.8

Winning pitcher Hendley had just returned from a one-month stay with the Cubs’ Triple-A farm club in Salt Lake City. He evened his record at 2-2, scattering six hits in 7⅓ innings. It was the left-hander’s 12th career win over the Cardinals in 18 decisions. Despite having success against St. Louis, Hendley had a 37-42 record as a member of the Milwaukee Braves, San Francisco Giants, and Cubs up to that point.9 Simmons, whose record fell to 9-13, allowed six hits and five runs in four innings.

Reacting to joining the 400-home run club, Banks said, “What a tremendous thrill. It could only happen in America.”10 He added his most memorable homer was his first on September 20, 1953, off the Cardinals’ Gerry Staley in St. Louis.11 His other notable accomplishments over his major-league career included his fifth grand slam of 1955 off the Cardinals’ Lindy McDaniel and his homer off Jack Sanford at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 1961, the first by a right-handed hitter at the Giants’ new ballpark, he said.12

When asked what goals he had left to accomplish, he cited winning the Triple Crown and playing in the World Series with the Cubs.13 Despite playing 19 seasons and 2,528 games with the Cubs, Banks never won the Triple Crown or played in the postseason. He came close to winning the Triple Crown in 1958 when he collected a league-leading 47 homers and 129 RBIs while hitting .313. The closest the Cubs came to reaching the postseason during his career was in 1969 and 1970 when the Cubs finished second in the National League East. He hit his 500th career home run in 1970 and retired with 512 homers.

After the 1965 season, Banks received the first Ken Hubbs Memorial Award, named after the Cubs’ second baseman who died in a private plane crash near Provo, Utah, on February 12, 1964. The award was given to the player “whose conduct is exemplary both on and off the field.”14 The award’s presenter, Willie Mays, said, “Nobody has done as many great things on and off the field as Ernie, and he’s never got the recognition he deserves.”15

The ’65 Cubs finished in the second division for the 19th straight season with a 72-90-2 record.16 Nevertheless, the eighth-place club had three players with more than 100 RBIs apiece: Williams (108), Banks (106), and Santo (101).

Even though Klein was optimistic he would lead the Cubs in 1966, owner Philip Wrigley took a different direction. On October 25, 1965, Leo Durocher was introduced. “I’m the manager,” Durocher exclaimed. “I’m not the head coach. I’m the manager.”17

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Victoria Monte and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Ernie Banks, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the Notes below, the author used Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, newspapers.com and proquest.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN196509020.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1965/B09020CHN1965.htm

Notes

1 The other players with at least 400 homers in their careers at the time were Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Mel Ott, Willie Mays, Lou Gehrig, Eddie Mathews, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider. Three were still active besides Banks—Mays, Mathews, and Mantle.

2 Ed Wilks, “Cards Get Choice Page In Ernie’s Memory Book,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 3, 1965: 30.

3 Richard Dozer, “Sox Win 2; Banks’ 400th Homer Jolts Cards,” Chicago Tribune, September 3, 1965: 51.

4 Associated Press wirephoto, “One of the 400,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 3, 1965: 30.

5 “Cubs Ernie Banks Reaches Home Run Milestone On 400th Blast,” DeKalb (Illinois) Daily Chronicle, September 3, 1965, 20.

6 Saves were not an official major-league statistic until 1969.

7 Mike Marshall of the Dodgers holds the record as of 2026 for most appearances by a pitcher in a season with 106 in 1974.

8 Spring edition, Chicago Cubs 1966 Official Press, TV, Radio Roster Book, 6.

9 Wilks, “Cards Get Choice Page In Ernie’s Memory Book.”

10 Associated Press, “Banks Lashes 400th Home Run Of Career,” Mount Vernon (Illinois) Register-News, September 3, 1965: 8.

11 Associated Press, “Banks Lashes 400th Home Run Of Career.”

12 “Banks Lists 400th Among His Souvenirs,” Chicago Tribune, September 3, 1965, 52.

13 “Banks Lists 400th Among His Souvenirs,” Chicago Tribune.

14 Doug Wilson, Let’s Play Two: The Life and Times of Ernie Banks (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2019), 146.

15 Wilson, Let’s Play Two: The Life and Times of Ernie Banks.

16 The Cardinals finished seventh at 80-81-1 under Schoendienst.

17 George Castle and Jim Rygelski, The I-55 Series: Cubs vs. Cardinals (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing Inc., 1999), 193.