April 20, 1939: Ted Williams makes major-league debut in Opening Day loss at Yankee Stadium

“The kid is a natural.”1 So said San Diego Padres skipper Frank Shellenback about 19-year-old Ted Williams after the Boston Red Sox acquired the 6-foot-3, 175-pound “beanpole” from his Pacific Coast League club in December 1937.2Williams’ “Ruthian sock” and ability to hit for a high average also had pundits and opposing managers comparing him to New York Yankees star (and future rival) Joe DiMaggio.3

Williams spent 1938 playing right field for the Red Sox’ top farm team, the Double-A Minneapolis Millers.4 He put up staggering numbers there in winning the American Association Triple Crown with 43 homers, 142 RBIs, and a .366 batting average. Runners-up to New York in the AL pennant race, the Red Sox traded away right fielder Ben Chapman in the offseason, convinced that Williams could provide balance to a lineup headlined by AL MVP Jimmie Foxx, major-league doubles leader Joe Cronin, and AL hits leader Joe Vosmik, all of whom hit right-handed.5

During spring training, J. Taylor Spink of The Sporting News labeled Williams one of five “outstanding [major league] newcomers.”6 Gayle Talbot of the Associated Press went a step further. He named Williams “the rookie of the year, the one most likely to bring new color to the game.” Williams, Talbot wrote, “has more than mechanical ability. He is a rare young bird, destined to become a character around the ball lots. There’s an aura of greatness about him, tinged slightly with goofiness, and the fans are going to love him.”7

Less enamored with Williams was Boston player-manager Cronin, who reportedly found the rookie’s brashness irritating.8 Cronin picked third baseman Jim Tabor as the club’s most impressive newcomer, but had high praise for Williams’ abilities at the plate.9 “I know Ted will hit. He stands up there against left-handers better than any left-handed batter I know, and that goes for the [Lou] Gehrigs, [Charlie] Gehringers, [Cecil] Travises, [Buddy] Lewises and the rest of the standout left-handed hitters.”10

The Red Sox’ quest for their first pennant in 21 years was to begin with a three-game series in New York, but rain shrank their encounter with the three-time defending World Series champions to a single game at Yankee Stadium on the afternoon of Thursday, April 20.

Yankee manager Joe McCarthy gave the Opening Day start to former Red Sox pitcher Red Ruffing. A three-time 20-game-winner, Ruffing had lost the 1938 opener against Boston, but was 22-11 lifetime against the team that had traded him to New York nine years earlier.11

Supporting the Yankees right-hander was a lineup little changed from the one that led the major leagues in most offensive categories the year before. Among them were four future Hall of Famers: DiMaggio in center field, backstop Bill Dickey, second baseman Joe Gordon, and Gehrig at first base. DiMaggio was making his first Opening Day appearance and Gehrig, unbeknownst to all, his last. Williams, a sharp-eyed observer, noticed that Gehrig was already showing signs of fatigue from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the yet-to-be-diagnosed disease that soon ended both Gehrig’s consecutive games played streak and his life.12

A crowd of 30,000-plus filed into The House That Ruth Built, a number kept down by “a leaden sky [that] had blotted out a hopeful morning sun.”13 The day’s festivities got underway shortly before 3 PM, with both teams parading out to meet New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia at the center-field flagpole. As the Seventh Regiment Band played The Star-Spangled Banner, the US flag and the Yankees’ 1938 World Series pennant were raised. LaGuardia led the delegation back to his flag-draped field-level box, from where he delivered a ceremonial first pitch.14

Boston’s Doc Cramer led off the game with a single in the direction of the aforementioned staff, but could only watch as Ruffing retired Vosmik, Foxx, and Cronin in turn. Out to the mound came 39-year-old Lefty Grove. A dead arm had limited the veteran southpaw to 24 appearances in 1938, but a solid spring had put him in position to recapture some of the glory he had earned while compiling a 271-124 lifetime record. Thirty-one of those wins had come at the Yankees’ expense.

Grove was “a bit unsteady” in the bottom of the inning, walking DiMaggio after he had surrendered a two-out single to nettlesome Jake Powell.15 (Powell’s 31-for-74 (.419) resume against Grove had earned him the start over left-handed hitting “super-rookie” Charlie Keller.16) Nobody drove in more runs against Grove during his career than the next batter, Gehrig (45), but the Iron Horse failed to do so this time, hitting a liner to right field that became Williams’ first major-league putout.17

With one out in the second, Williams first stepped into the batter’s box. In his 1969 autobiography, My Turn At Bat, Williams recalled studying the Yankees as they took pre-game batting practice, saying to himself “I know I can hit as good as these guys.”18 He certainly proved that he could—and more—but in his first major-league at-bat, Williams struck out on three pitches. Thirty years later, Williams recalled Ruffing’s sequence. “I … fouled one off, then he threw me a little curve and I fouled that off too, then he struck me out on a high fastball.”19

Heading into the game, Dickey had never recorded anything more than a double off Grove in 81 plate appearances. He finally got to him in the second inning, pulling a 2-and-0 pitch into the short porch in right field for a leadoff homer.20Once the cheering subsided, Joe Gallagher reached on a Cronin error. (Like Williams, Gallagher was making his major-league debut in right field in this game.) Gallagher advanced to second on a Gordon single, but then Grove regained his footing. The wily lefty, formerly the AL’s perennial strikeout leader, struck out Ruffing and Frankie Crosetti, then retired Red Rolfe on a fly ball to Williams.21

One out into the fourth inning, Williams was on deck when DiMaggio robbed Tabor of a sure base hit, “picking it off the grass with a shoe-string stab.”22 Before coming to the plate, Williams later recalled telling teammates, “if [Ruffing] puts it in the same place [as he did in the second inning,] I’m riding it out of here.”23 He almost did, turning on Ruffing’s first pitch for a 400-foot double off the right-center field fence.24 Gordon greeted Williams at second base and asked if he was nervous. “Boy am I,” Williams replied, “Nervous as hell.”25 Williams’ journey around the bases ended there, as Bobby Doerr made the third out on a comebacker to Ruffing.

The Yankees pushed their lead to two runs in the fifth inning thanks to a one-out error on a ball hit to Foxx at first base and a shot by Powell into the right-field corner that Williams misplayed into a triple.26 Grove reacted by walking DiMaggio intentionally and pitching to Gehrig instead. The strategy worked. as Gehrig lined out to Doerr at second, who doubled up DiMaggio.27 The double play was the second of two that Gehrig hit into during the game.

Williams came to bat again in the sixth, with two outs and Tabor on second base after doubling off the third base bag.28Unable to put the ball in play, he went down on strikes.

Grove tried to help his own cause with a two-out single in the seventh but was left stranded. An inning later, Vosmik led off with a double to right-center field but died on the bases as the next three batters flied out. Powell delivered a leadoff single in the Yankees’ half of the inning, but was gunned down trying to swipe second by Red Sox backstop Gene Desautels.29

Williams popped out to Gordon leading off the ninth. Doerr had better luck, making it to first when Gehrig muffed a throw from Rolfe. Cronin sent up a pinch-hitter for Desautels, Red Nonnenkamp, a journeyman outfielder who, Washington Post columnist Shirley Povich somehow speculated during the offseason, might win the right-field job over Williams.30 Nonnenkamp grounded into a force out, bringing up Johnny Peacock as the team’s last hope, batting for Grove.

Peacock had clubbed a triple in his first career at-bat against Ruffing two seasons earlier but had no luck on this day. He grounded to Gordon for the game’s final out.

With that, Ruffing earned the first of five league-leading shutouts that he spun in 1939, working around exactly one Boston baserunner in each of nine innings. Grove went seven more starts before suffering another loss in what proved to be a splendid 15-4, 2.54 ERA season.

“Ted Williams looked like the best hitter on the field,” wrote Jimmy Powers of the New York Daily News in his next day’s game summary. Williams’ two-bagger, he felt, “was more impressive than Dickey’s homer.” 31

Three days later, Williams went 4-for-5 and clubbed his first home run, at Fenway Park. He finished the season hitting .327 for the second-place Red Sox, with 44 doubles, 11 triples, 31 HRs, and a major-league-leading 145 RBIs.32 He presumably would have earned a Rookie of the Year Award, had it existed at that time.33 Williams finished fourth to DiMaggio in balloting for AL Most Valuable Player, the first of nine times that “The Kid” was a top-five vote getter for that award, winning it twice.34

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Harrison Golden and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Ted Williams, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the Notes, the author consulted Bill Nowlin’s SABR biography of Ted Williams, Jim Kaplan’s SABR biography of Lefty Grove, and the Baseball Reference, Retrosheet, and Stathead websites, including box scores and play-by-play at these links:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA193904200.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1939/B04200NYA1939.htm

Notes

1 Bob Ray, “Ted Williams Next Coast Loop Sensation,” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1938: II-11.

2 Dillon Graham, “Another DiMaggio?” Charlotte (North Carolina) News, March 21, 1938: 11; Hy Hurwitz, “Sox Get Coast Star for Money, Players,” Boston Globe, December 8, 1937: 22; Victor O. Jones, “What About It?” Boston Globe, January 24, 1938: 8. Boston acquired Williams for outfielder Dom Dallessandro, infielder Al Niemec, and $30,000.

3 Irvin Rudick, “Red Birds Trim Millers, 7 to 1,” Minneapolis Tribune, May 12, 1938: 17; Ray, “Ted Williams Next Coast Loop Sensation.” Manager Lefty O’Doul, who had DiMaggio in his PCL San Francisco Seals lineup for two seasons, called Williams “another Joe DiMaggio in the making.” Sportsman, “Live Tips and Topics,” Boston Globe, December 10, 1937: 29.

4 Hy Hurwitz, “Red Sox Look Smart Afield,” Boston Globe, March 10, 1938: 9. “Sox Send Ted Williams to Minneapolis Club,” Boston Globe, March 21, 1938: 19.

5 Foxx led the AL in RBIs (175) and batting average (.349), but his 50 HRs were second to Hank Greenberg’s 58.

6 “Breadon, Dewitt KWK Guests,” The Sporting News, April 13, 1939: 9. The others were Boston Bees shortstop Eddie Miller, Yankee outfielders Joe Gallagher and Charlie Keller, and Red Sox pitcher Woodrow Rich.

7 Gayle Talbot, Associated Press, “Career of Greatness Seen for Ted Williams of Sox,” Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun, March 18, 1939: 11.

8 Williams spent a few weeks with the big-league club during Boston’s 1938 training camp. During that time, he annoyed Cronin by challenging his authority and repeatedly calling him “Sport.” Several sportswriters suspected that Williams’ behavior towards Cronin triggered his assignment to Minneapolis. Jimmy Powers, “The Power-House,” New York Daily News, March 10, 1939: 50; W.R. Dozier, Jr., “Spilling the Dope,” Sarasota(Florida) Herald, April 9, 1938: 10.

9 Harry Grayson, “Cronin Thinks Tabor Top Rookie in Sox Setup,” Lowell Sun, April 17, 1939: 15; Maurice Bouchard, “Jim Tabor,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/jim-tabor/, accessed October 12, 2026.

10 Gerry Moore, “McKechnie Happy; Cronin Worried, After Sox-Cinci Series,” Boston Globe, April 13, 1939: 21.

11 Ruffing retired with a .644 winning percentage against Boston, higher than any other opponent.

12 Ted Williams, as told to John Underwood, My Turn At Bat: The Story of My Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969), 58. Gehrig’s streak of 2,130 consecutive games played ended on May 2, 1939. Never to play another regular season game in Yankee pinstripes, Gehrig in June 1941 lost his battle with the disease that now bears his name.

13 John Drebinger, “Yanks Blank Red Sox Before 30,278 at Stadium Opener,” New York Times, April 21, 1939: 29. Attendance numbers varied in newspaper accounts of the game, the Boston Globe reporting 30,728 paying customers, with the New York Times putting the number at 30,278. Hy Hurwitz, “Grove Stages Real Comeback,” Boston Globe, April 21, 1939: 1.

14 Drebinger, “Yanks Blank Red Sox Before 30,278 at Stadium Opener”; John Kieran, “Sports of the Times,” New York Times, April 21, 1939: 29. Dickey was the receiver of LaGuardia’s toss, which had to clear a gaggle of photographers gathered in front of the box to capture the event. According to New York Times sportswriter John Drebinger, the unofficial start came a few minutes earlier when retired Yankees great Babe Ruthappeared in the stands. Drebinger called Ruth “baseball’s No. 1 Forgotten Man,” pointing out how Ruth had been denied his dream of someday managing a big-league club.

15 Hurwitz, “Grove Stages Real Comeback.”

16 Among the 63 batters that Grove faced at least 75 times in his career, only Harry Heilmann had a higher batting average (.425). Associated Press, “Opinion Is Yankees Will Use Charlie Keller as a Regular,” Kingston (New York) Freeman, March 8, 1939: 15.

17 Jack Smith, “Ruffing Blanks Sox And Grove, 2-0, as Dickey Hits Homer,” New York Daily News, April 21, 1939: 58.

18 Williams, as told to John Underwood, My Turn At Bat: The Story of My Life, 58.

19 My Turn At Bat: The Story of My Life, 59.

20 “Grove Stages Real Comeback.”

21 Grove led the AL in punchouts for seven consecutive seasons, beginning in 1925.

22 Smith, “Ruffing Blanks Sox And Grove, 2-0, as Dickey Hits Homer.”

23 My Turn At Bat: The Story of My Life, 59.

24 “Grove Stages Real Comeback.”

25 My Turn At Bat: The Story of My Life, 59.

26 “Grove Stages Real Comeback”; “Grove Loses Mound Duel to Ruffing; Bosox Drop Opener,” Worcester (Massachusetts) Telegram, April 21, 1939: 35.

27 “Yanks Blank Red Sox Before 30,278 at Stadium Opener.”; “Grove Stages Real Comeback.” Baseball-Reference lists Gehrig as grounding into this double play, but game summaries in both the New York Times and Boston Globe describe Gehrig as lining into the twin-killing.

28 “Grove Stages Real Comeback.”

29 A defensive-minded career .233 hitter, Desautels was one-half of what syndicated sportswriter Harry Ferguson called Boston’s “adequate but not brilliant catching staff.” Harry Ferguson, United Press, “Bombers Cinch,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 22, 1939: 16.

30 Bill Nowlin, “Red Nonnenkamp,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/red-nonnenkamp/, accessed October 12, 2026. Nonnenkamp spent the 1939 season as a rarely-used utility outfielder and pinch-hitter. By the summer of 1940 his major-league career was over.

31 Jimmy Powers, “The Power House,” New York Daily News, April 21, 1939: 60.

32 The Red Sox finished a distant 17 games behind the pennant-winning Yankees, who went on to win their fourth consecutive World Series.

33 Organized Baseball established the Rookie of the Year Award in 1947 to recognize one ballplayer across the American and National Leagues. Jackie Robinson was the first recipient. In 1939, Williams compiled a Wins Above Replacement (WAR) of 6.6. The next highest WAR for a rookie in either league was 4.8 by Charlie Keller, who finished the year with 11 HRs, 83 RBIs, and a .334 batting average.

34 Williams credited a clubhouse boy, Johnny Orlando, with dubbing him “The Kid” upon arrival at his first Red Sox training camp, in March 1938. My Turn At Bat: The Story of My Life, 44.