The first game between the Braves and Red Sox was played at Sarasota, Florida, two hours after the announcement that the Braves were moving, and four days before the National League ratified the move. The Red Sox won, 2-1, with players on both teams reportedly shocked.

Within a matter of hours, the Red Sox had booked hotel rooms in Milwaukee to be able to play the Braves there on April 9 and 10.2  Boston’s radio station WHDH planned to broadcast the games, with Curt Gowdy at the mike. Opening Day tickets for County Stadium sold out almost immediately, and ticket sales were brisk at Fenway Park for the planned “return” of the Braves to Boston.

On April 8 the Braves team arrived in Milwaukee and got their first look at their new home, welcomed by “a surging crowd of baseball crazy fans.”3  It had been half a century since major-league baseball had left Milwaukee, and after the team arrived by rail at 10:05 A.M. an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 fans lined the five-mile parade route from the train station and through downtown. The club held its first workout at County Stadium that afternoon.

What was now an “inter-city series” began on April 9, though the weather was not hospitable at 53 degrees and rainy.  Gates opened at 11:30 A.M. and the first pitch, from the Braves’ Max Surkont, was at 1:30 P.M. Surkont got through the first inning fine, despite a leadoff walk to Billy Goodman, as did Red Sox pitcher Mel Parnell.  On Surkont’s sixth pitch of the game, the first foul-ball souvenir was secured when a fan “tumbled head first out of a front row box” and snagged it.4

Red Sox catcher Sammy White socked out the first base hit leading off the second. After an out, Tom Umphlett singled through the box and then Milt Bolling hit one through the hole into left field, scoring White; when the throw to the plate glanced off White’s shoulder, Bolling took second and Umphlett third, scoring after the ball was “purposely deflected” by a local photographer.5 Billy Goodman singled home Bolling, and it was 3-0 but Goodman was trapped in a rundown between first and second and the Red Sox rally was snuffed out. 

Parnell retired all six Braves batters he faced. But “the rain came teeming down”6 and play was halted. The tarp was rolled out, then rolled back up, then rolled out again as the rain settled in for good. After an hour and 21 minutes, the game was called, the field deemed too wet to continue. Lines formed immediately at the ticket windows as customers traded in their rain checks, good for any game in the regular season save for Opening Day.7

Though there were 20,000 expected, the weather had been too discouraging. It proved to be “a damp, dismal affair.”8 There were nonetheless 9,596 fans — nearly double the 5,814 who had taken in the city series game at Braves Field in 1952 and more than double the 4,507 in 1951.

The April 10 game was set to feature Warren Spahn against Mickey McDermott.  That game was called off before it began, due to “blustery, wintery blasts,”9 and both teams flew to Boston that evening for two games at Fenway Park set for the 11th and 12th.  The day was not a total washout, however. It was announced that the Red Sox would replace the Braves in Boston as co-sponsors of the Jimmy Fund, a very successful fund drive to fight cancer in children.10

The two teams split the set at Fenway Park, with identical scores. The Red Sox won the April 11 game, 4-1, and the Milwaukee Braves won the April 12 game, beating the Bosox, 4-1.

In 1954 the Red Sox and Braves squared off in the final five games of the exhibition season, at Bluefield, West Virginia; Louisville; and then three games at County Stadium on April 9 (Braves 3, Red Sox 1), April 10 (Red Sox 5, Braves 1), and April 11 (Red Sox 5, Braves 2).

The two teams played other spring-training games against each other, in Florida and in Arizona, in the years to come, but never again met in each other’s big-league ballpark, save for the four midseason Jimmy Fund games in 1957, 1959, 1961, and 1963..

Four years later, Milwaukeeans saw their Braves beat the Yankees in Games Four and Five of the 1957 World Series on the way to a world championship.

This article appears in “From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee’s County Stadium” (SABR, 2016), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

1 The Brewers moved to Toledo, Ohio.

2 Boston Traveler, March 16, 1953.

3 United Press story in, among other newspapers, Springfield’s Daily Illinois State Journal, April 9, 1953.

4 Associated Press story, in The Oregonian, April 10, 1953.

5 Boston Herald, April 10, 1953. The Milwaukee Sentinel had Umphlett still on third and one of two scoring on Goodman’s hit.

6 Boston Globe, April 10, 1953.

7 Milwaukee Sentinel, April 10, 1953.

8 Milwaukee Sentinel, April 10, 1953. The paper’s front-page headline read “RAIN-IN-THE-FACE HALTS BRAVES BOW.”

9 Springfield (Massachusetts) Union, April 11, 1953.

10 Though the “Boston City Series” was no more, in 1957 and 1959, the Braves came to Boston and played Jimmy Fund benefit games against the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

The Milwaukee Braves opened the 1953 season on April 13 with a 2-0 victory in Cincinnati at a time when the first game in the Queen City was a season-opening tradition for the major leagues. The founding of the first fully professional baseball team in Cincinnati during the 1869 season paved the way for baseball’s burgeoning popularity, so Milwaukee’s position as an Opening Day rival to one of baseball’s most storied franchises brought with it national-level attention.1

The Braves home opener, on April 14, attracted considerable publicity, too. They were playing the St. Louis Cardinals, at the time the only major-league city west of the Mississippi. The Redbirds were a storied franchise in their own right, earning World Series crowns in 1926, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1944, and 1946. They had entered the realm of champions by first defeating a New York Yankees lineup that included Ruth and Gehrig. The Cardinals were unable to bring home a pennant in the early 1950s, but they still had posted winning records every season since their most recent championship.

Despite consecutive losing seasons while in Boston, the newly transplanted Milwaukee Braves were trying to make a name for themselves, too, with high hopes for a pennant run in 1953. Even though the team was coming off a lackluster 64-89 record in 1952, Wisconsin fans hoped that a pitching staff that included Warren Spahn and an infield that featured a promising young Eddie Mathews and a sure-handed Joe Adcock could deliver a championship caliber team.

With Lou Perini’s franchise move from Boston to Milwaukee, enthusiasm for the team ran high throughout the Badger State. The sellout crowd for the home opener offered tangible evidence of that, as did the wild cheers of more than 2,000 fans who greeted the Braves at the Milwaukee airport just hours after the team’s victory over Cincinnati.2 For several days local newspapers ran exciting stories about the team, including coverage of more than 50,000 attending a welcome parade, while featuring prominent ads from the Milwaukee & Suburban Transport Corporation advising people of mass-transit options to the ballpark.3 

Elsewhere, newspapers throughout the nation offered cheery previews of the Milwaukee contest. The Chicago Tribune highlighted the “$5,000,000 stadium” in its opening paragraph, while focusing more prominently on the pitching matchups.4 A New York Times article placed the event in broader context, suggesting that a book entitled A Short History of Milwaukee, authored by William James Bruce, might have to be rewritten to include April 14, 1953, since “it was on that date that the first modern National League game was played in this city with one of the teams representing Milwaukee.”5 

Dignitaries appeared to understand the significance of the game, too. Milwaukee Mayor Frank Zeidler and Wisconsin Governor Walter Kohler offered pregame remarks, as did Commissioner Ford Frick and National League President Warren Giles. While the speeches unfolded, the home team stood on the field wearing jackets, keeping their hands “hidden in their pockets for warmth.” As the afternoon festivities concluded, Giles congratulated the citizens for their “progressiveness in building this magnificent stadium.”6 New York Times sportswriter Joseph Nichols described the fan response to the various speeches as “polite but mild,” suggesting that when the starting pitchers were finally announced, “the fans let out their first sincere cheer.”7

Spahn mixed up his pitches early, blanking the Cardinals for the first four innings.  In the bottom of the second, the Braves’ Joe Adcock hit a two-out single, the first regular-season hit in the shiny new ballpark. After that landmark was established, Del Crandall hit a slow roller down the third-base line; Cardinals third baseman Ray Jablonski scooped it up and threw wildly past first baseman Steve Bilko. Reacting quickly, Adcock rounded third and hustled home to score the ballpark’s first official run. 

The Cardinals struck back in the fifth inning. Spahn walked Enos Slaughter to open the inning, and then Slaughter headed to second after a low pickoff throw by Spahn got past first baseman Adcock. Jablonski’s single to right-center field scored Slaughter, tying the game. St. Louis held the Braves scoreless in the fifth. Spahn led off the sixth by again walking the leadoff batter, hard-hitting shortstop Solly Hemus. Red Schoendienst laid down a sacrifice bunt, putting Hemus in scoring position. However, Stan Musial’s grounder to Braves shortstop Johnny Logan caught Hemus in a rundown. Third baseman Eddie Mathews tagged Hemus out, then quickly fired to second to double up Musial, who was trying to sneak into scoring position.

After blanking the Braves once again in the sixth, the Cardinals threatened again in the seventh, with Slaughter reaching second after a throwing error by second baseman Jack Dittmer on a slow roller. Spahn, unrattled, struck out Jablonski before left fielder Sid Gordon caught a ball in foul territory for the inning’s final out. With the Milwaukee faithful on the edge of their seats again in the eighth, the Cardinals advanced runners to second and third with two outs and Musial due up. After battling Spahn to a full count, Musial hit the ball solidly, but to center field, where the fleet-footed Billy Bruton caught it for the final out.

With two outs in the bottom of the eighth, Bruton smashed a low pitch to right field, over Slaughter’s head, and slid into third for a triple. Logan was hit by a pitch, Mathews walked, and with the bases loaded, the Braves broke the deadlock with Bruton heading home after Sid Gordon tapped a slow dribbler to pitcher Gerry Staley’s right side that he was unable to field cleanly.   

The Cardinals tied it up in the top of the ninth. With two strikes, two outs, and pinch-runner Harvey Haddix on first, former Cubs All-Star Peanuts Lowrey slammed a pinch-hit double to left center, easily scoring Haddix to make the score 2-2. Lowry was left stranded, however, and with the Braves unable to score in the bottom of the ninth, the game went into extra innings. Spahn held St. Louis scoreless in the 10th, setting up a dramatic bottom of the 10th for the home team. 

Spahn opened the bottom of the 10th with an unsuccessful bunt attempt. Then Bruton launched Staley’s next pitch deep to right field, where it bounced off of Slaughter’s glove and dropped over the chain-link fence as the local fans cheered wildly. First-base umpire Lon Warneke quickly ruled the play a ground-rule double, but the umpiring crew, which included Jocko Conlan, Augie Donatelli, and Tom Gorman, reversed the call, making it a home run, seconds after Braves manager Charlie Grimm had run onto the field to protest. Spahn earned the victory with an impressive 10-inning performance, while Staley took the loss despite going the distance.  Paid attendance was 34,357, but with numerous reporters and dignitaries on hand, at least 36,000 visitors were inside the stadium.8 

The storybook ending left the Braves in first place after just two games. They would finish with a solid 92-62 record, good enough for second place though they were 13 games behind the pennant-winning Brooklyn Dodgers (105-49). Decades later, Milwaukee journalists and fans were still excitedly describing this game. On the day Miller Park opened, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Tom Haudricourt asserted, “The Milwaukee Braves knew how to christen a new ballpark.” Johnny Logan recounted the “exciting start,” fondly remembering that “the fans went crazy that day.”9 

Milwaukee baseball historian Todd Mishler wrote that the memorable 1953 home opener capped “a whirlwind honeymoon” with area baseball fans that began on the day Lou Perini announced his team’s move from Boston.10 All evidence supports the assertion that the 1953 home opener on April 14 was a major moment in Milwaukee baseball history.

This article appears in “From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee’s County Stadium” (SABR, 2016), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

1 The season opener also gained strong attention outside the United States. For example, it was the lead sports story in a Montreal English-language newspaper. See: “Milwaukee Debuts with 2-0 Victory,” The Gazette (Montreal), April 14, 1953: 18.

2 Sam Levy, “Milwaukee Lifts Merry Mugs to the Braves,” The Sporting News, April 22, 1953: 13. 

3 Lou Chapman, “50,000 Welcome Our Braves Home,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 9, 1953: 1; Milwaukee and Suburban Transport Corporation, “Avoid Transit and Parking Worries! Ride Transit to Braves Games” [advertisement], Milwaukee Journal, April 6, 1953: 17. 

4 “Cards Open Season Today in Milwaukee,” Chicago Tribune, April 14, 1953: B2.

5 Joseph C. Nichols, “Proud Milwaukee Hails Team Today,” New York Times, April 14, 1953: 32.

6 “Speeches Mark Milwaukee Debut in National League,” Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1953: C3.

7 Joseph C. Nichols, “Braves Send 36,000 Home Happy by Sending the Cards Home in the Tenth, 3-2,” New York Times, April 15, 1953: 42.

8 Red Thisted, “Bill Bruton’s Homer Ends Great Day,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 15, 1953: 1; Edward Prell, “Bruton Blow in 10th Sinks Cards,” Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1953: C1.

9 Tom Haurdricourt, “Openers Have Been Magical, Dismal,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, April 6, 2001: 3C. 

10 Todd Mishler, Baseball in Beertown: America’s Pastime in Milwaukee (Black Earth, Wisconsin: Prairie Oaks Press, 2005), 13.

Mickey Welch of the New York Giants on August 28, 1884, did strike out nine straight batters, and Charlie Buffinton of Boston five days later struck out eight consecutive batters, as did Ed Cushman of the New York Metropolitans on September 16, 1885.2 However, these feats were accomplished before the pitching rubber was moved back to 60 feet 6 inches from home plate. Max broke the record of seven in a row set by Hooks Wiltse of the New York Giants on May 15, 1906, which was equaled by Dazzy Vance of Brooklyn on August 1, 1924 and Van Lingle Mungo of Brooklyn on June 25, 1936.3  

Max Surkont was a highly unlikely man to be a strikeout record setter. Originally signed by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1938, he did not make the majors until April 19, 1949, after the Chicago White Sox had drafted him from the Cardinals. He was available because St. Louis had optioned him out three times.4 Actually, the Cardinals sold Surkont with Ray Sanders to the Boston Braves on April 16, 1946, but he was returned by Boston and sent to Rochester May 4, 1946.5 After a lackluster 1949 season (3-5 record with a 4.78 ERA), Surkont was back in the minors until the White Sox traded him to the Boston Braves for minor leaguer Glenn Elliott.

Surkont’s seasonal strikeouts were not that impressive once he left the lower minor leagues. He did lead the Mid-Atlantic League (Class C) in 1939 with 193 strikeouts while pitching 218 innings and the Three-I League (Class B) in 1940 with 212 punchouts in 234 innings. But in Double-A and Triple-A ball, the best Surkont did was 159 strikeouts in 255 innings. In the majors, in 1952, he had a career-high 125 strikeouts in 215 innings.6 Only once besides this day did he ever have more than nine strikeouts in a game (11) and as it happened it also was against the Reds (June 2, 1952). 

 On May 25, 1953, the Reds and the Braves played a twi-night doubleheader at County Stadium in Milwaukee. Behind Don Liddle’s three-hitter, the Braves won the first game, 5-1. Surkont started the second game against Harry Perkowski, and it soon became one-sided. Cincinnati quickly went down 1-2-3 in the first as Rocky Bridges struck out, and both Bobby Adams and Gus Bell grounded out. The Braves started their half of the inning with back-to-back singles by Billy Bruton and Johnny Logan. Eddie Mathews followed with  a home run to give the Braves a quick 3-0 lead. Then Sid Gordon doubled, Andy Pafko walked, and Joe Adcock tripled, driving in two more runs. Herm Wehmeier relieved and got Jack Dittmer to strike out, and Walker Cooper to fly out, as Adcock scored the sixth run. Surkont then grounded out to end the inning.

In the second inning, former New York Giants all-star Willard Marshall singled and Bob Borkowski doubled him to third. Grady Hatton grounded to first, as Marshall scored and Borkowski advanced to third. Hobie Landrith walked but Roy McMillan popped out to second and Wehmeier struck out to end the inning. The pitcher striking out wouldn’t have seemed unusual; it’s safe to assume that no one in County Stadium realized the significance of that strikeout.

The Braves went down 1-2-3 in their half of the second. In the top of the third, Bridges was called out on strikes, Adams struck out, and then Bell was called out on strikes. Since Wehmeier had ended the second with a strikeout, Surkont had struck out four men in a row.

In the bottom of the third Gordon tripled and scored on Pafko’s fly to Bell, making the score 7-1. Although Adcock doubled, Dittmer and Cooper made easy outs. In the Reds’ top of the fourth, Marshall and Borkowski struck out. While Hatton was at bat, umpire Bob Engeln signaled that play was suspended due to rain, but he was overruled by Bill Stewart, umpire-in-chief.7 Play was halted after Hatton struck out for the seventh consecutive strikeout. Surkont had tied the modern major-league record. The rain delay lasted 40 minutes.8

When play was resumed, Milwaukee padded its lead in the bottom of the fourth. After Surkont struck out, Bruton doubled and scored on Logan’s single to make the score 8-1. Then Mathews hit another home run and increased the lead to 10-1.

In the Reds’ fifth, Andy Seminick, who had replace Landrith, was called out on strikes for Surkont’s eighth straight strikeout. Then plate umpire Engeln decided that a second downpour called for another rain delay. Milwaukee manager Charlie Grimm argued with him again, and again Bill Stewart overruled his colleague. Batting with two strikes, McMillan lined to Logan to end the streak. More importantly, pinch-hitter Bob Marquis then grounded to Adcock at first base. This ended the top of the fifth inning and made it an official game.9  At that point the game was delayed again for 30 minutes.10

After the second rain delay, the Braves were scoreless in the fifth although Walker Cooper had a single. Bridges led off the sixth with a strikeout (Surkont’s 10th of the game), but after an Adams walk, Bell and Marshall flied out. Milwaukee did not score in its half of the sixth. Borkowski fouled out for Cincinnati in their seventh, then Hatton struck out (number 11 for Surkont) and Seminick popped to second. The Braves went down 1-2-3 in their seventh.

In the top of the eighth, McMillan struck out, as did reliever Frank Smith, giving Surkont 13 strikeouts. Bridges grounded out to end the inning. In the Braves’ half of the eighth Dittmer singled but was erased when Cooper hit into a double play. Surkont struck out to end the inning.

In the ninth Adams grounded out to Logan, but Bell singled. An out later Borkowski homered. Hatton singled but Seminick flied out to end the game. Until the ninth, Surkont had given the Reds only two hits (both in the second inning). This 10-3 victory gave him a 6-0 start.

Surkont attributed the strikeouts to the fact that “‘My fast ball really was jumping,’ I got tired in the eighth inning. After all, it was my first start in ten days.’”11

Surkont said surprisingly that this was not his biggest thrill in baseball. He felt that came in 1949, with the White Sox. “I relieved Billy Pierce in the first inning in Yankee Stadium,” he recalled, “and held the Yanks to four hits in beating them. You know — that’s almost every youngster’s ambition — to pitch and win there.”12

This article appears in “From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee’s County Stadium” (SABR, 2016), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Retrosheet.org

SABR.org

Notes

1 Surkont’s record was tied by Johnny Podres (July 2, 1962), Don Wilson (July 14, 1968), and Jim Maloney (May 31, 1963).

2 Edward Prell, Chicago Tribune, May 26, 1953, C1.

3  J.G. Taylor Spink, Baseball Guide & Record Book 1954 (St. Louis: C.C. Spink & Son, Publishers 1954), 75.

4 Ray Gillespie, The Sporting News, November 17, 1948, 14.

5 Al C. Weber, The Sporting News, November 24, 1948, 15.

6 J.G. Taylor Spink , Baseball Register (St. Louis: C.C. Spink & Son, Publishers 1956), 232.

7 Prell, Chicago Tribune.

8 Edward Prell, The Sporting News, June 3, 1953, 11.

9 Ibid.

10 Prell, Chicago Tribune.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid. Surkont’s memory was slightly off. The game was on June 16, 1949, and he had given up six hits, not four).

Fifty-two years after the Milwaukee Brewers, a charter team of the American League, relocated to St. Louis in 1901 after their first and only season in the upstart league, big-league baseball was back in “Beer City.” Lured by newly built County Stadium and the prospect of big money in the untapped market of the upper Midwest, the perennial second-division Boston Braves were the first major-league franchise to shift since the Baltimore Orioles moved to New York and became the Highlanders in 1903. While the Braves struggled to attract just over 281,000 spectators in Boston in 1952, baseball-hungry fans in Milwaukee enthusiastically embraced the team and had surpassed that mark by the end of May.

While the Braves finished in seventh place in 1952, they were the surprise team in baseball in 1953. They moved into first place in late May and occupied the top spot for much of June, led by a core of young players, including third baseman Eddie Mathews, catcher Del Crandall, and first sacker Joe Adcock. Milwaukee was the hottest team in baseball as it prepared to play the second game of a four-game series against the Cubs on August 22. The Braves had won 14 of their last 16 games; however, manager Charlie Grimm’s squad was in second place (74-47), a distant eight games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Cubs, piloted by their longtime former first baseman Phil Cavarretta, were in their usual territory, firmly ensconced in the second division, in seventh place (45-73).

A good crowd of 31,854, including 1,392 in the knothole gang, was treated to a pitchers’ duel on a pleasant Saturday afternoon in “Cream City.” Making just his 12th start among his 23 big-league games was hard-throwing rookie Bob Buhl, a former paratrooper who had missed the previous two seasons while serving in the military. Unimpressive in his last year of Organized Ball, going 8-14 with a 3.47 ERA with the Dallas Eagles in the Double-A Texas League in 1950, the 24-year-old entered the game on a roll. In his previous five starts he was 3-1 with an outstanding 1.70 ERA in 42⅓ innings.

Over the first nine innings, Buhl dominated Cubs hitters, surrendering just one hit. The hit occurred in the fourth inning when Frank Baumholtz led off with a walk and moved to second on shortstop Eddie Miksis’s infield out.3 Dee Fondy rapped what Thisted described as a “solid swipe” to right field to drive in Baumholtz.4 Crandall threw out Fondy attempting to steal second and Buhl retired Ralph Kiner to end the Cubs’ only threat in the first nine innings. The game’s defensive highlight, according to Thisted, occurred in the ninth when 21-year-old Mathews made a “back-handed stab of Dee Fondy’s sizzling hopper” for the first out of the frame.5

For most of the afternoon the Braves had no answer for 32-year-old Howie Pollet, who was acquired by the Cubs  earlier that summer. Once among baseball’s best southpaws, Pollet twice won 20 or more games with the St. Louis Cardinals (1946 and 1949) and owned a 114-101 record over 11 seasons but had been plagued by arm problems the previous four years.  Pollet “mesmerized the Braves with his southpaw ‘junk,’” wrote Thisted, as he held the Braves to just four hits in eight innings.6 Adcock led off the ninth with a single; he was replaced by pinch-runner Harry Hanebrink who moved to second on Crandall’s sacrifice. After Sid Gordon was retired, Walker Cooper pinch-hit for Sibby Sisti.  Cooper, an eight-time All-Star and Pollet’s batterymate with the Redbirds in the early 1940s, hit what Lou Chapman described as a “routine hopper” to the shortstop, but the ball took a “giant hop over the surprised Miksis’ head and sped into center field,” driving in Hanebrink to tie the score, 1-1. “[The ball] rolled end over end just like a pigskin,” said Cooper.7

Energized by Cooper’s “fluke hit,” Buhl’s only demon was wildness, with which he contended for most of his career.8 “He got himself into several troublesome spots but also had something in reserve to snap out of it,” wrote Chapman.9 In the 12th inning Buhl squelched a Cubs rally whose sequence of events differs in the Milwaukee Sentinel and on Retrosheet.10 According to Thisted, Buhl issued leadoff walks to Randy Jackson and Bill Serena. Clyde McCullough forced Jackson at third and Hal Jeffcoat flied to Jim Pendleton, playing center field since pinch-hitting for starter Bill Bruton in the seventh inning. Pitcher Warren Hacker, who had taken over to start the 10th, singled off Hanebrink’s glove to load the bases. But then Buhl, who recorded seven strikeouts to go along with his six walks and two hit batters, threw a heater that George Metkovich “gazed at [for] a third strike.”11

In the bottom of the 14th, Milwaukee first baseman George Crowe rapped his second hit in as many at-bats since taking over for Adcock by “rolling a ground ball single into center” off the “side-wheeler” Hacker.12 The Cubs sported a major-league worst .967 fielding percentage, and fittingly they were doomed by two fielding miscues. Fondy threw Buhl’s bunt into center field; Hacker fumbled Pendleton’s bunt and did not attempt a throw, thus loading the bases. With the Cubs’ outfielders playing shallow to prepare for a play at the plate, 27-year-old shortstop Johnny “Yatcha” Logan, whom Chapman described as an “unsung hero … with his unassuming play,” collected the Braves’ 12th and final hit by smashing a single over Kiner’s head in left field. The seven-time NL home-run champion acquired from the Pirates with Pollet in June “didn’t even bother to chase it,” wrote Chapman.13  Crowe jogged to home plate to give the Braves a dramatic 2-1 victory in Milwaukee’s longest game of the year, 3 hours and 29 minutes.

Buhl was uniformly praised for his route-going effort, which improved his record to 10-6, while Hacker lost for the 16th time on his way to leading the NL with 19 defeats. Buhl “speed-balled” all afternoon, wrote Irving Vaughan of the Chicago Tribune.14 “Bob was still throwing them pretty hard right down to the finish,” said his batterymate Crandall, who had earned the first of his eight All-Star berths in 10 years the previous month.15 Logan’s leadership throughout the team’s first season in Milwaukee was not lost on manager Grimm: “Logan is making great plays out there all the time, but he is so unobtrusive about it that he is pretty much taken for granted,” said the skipper. “He means a great deal to the Braves.”16 But the final word was reserved for Buhl. “With a display of ‘ironman’ guts” [Buhl] forged his victory,” wrote an excited Chapman.17

Throughout his 10 years with the Braves (1953-1962), Buhl formed the “Big Three” with lefty Warren Spahn and righty Lew Burdette, winning 109 games and posting a 3.27 ERA. He concluded his 15-year career with a 166-132 record and logged 2,587 innings, but never again hurled an extra-inning complete game in 369 starts.

This article appears in “From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee’s County Stadium” (SABR, 2016), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.org

SABR.org

Notes

1 Lou Chapman, “Buhl Shows ‘Iron Man’ Guts in Forging 10th masterpiece,” Milwaukee Sentinel, August 23, 1953, 1-B.

2 Red Thisted, “Braves’ Buhl Beats Cubs in 14-Inning Duel, 2-1,” Milwaukee Sentinel, August 23, 1953, 1-B.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Red Thisted, “Sorry to See Charming Cubs Leave,” Milwaukee Sentinel, August 23, 1953, 2-B.

6 Red Thisted, “Braves’ Buhl Beats Cubs in 14-Inning Duel, 2-1.”

7 Chapman.

8 Red Thisted, “Braves’ Buhl Beats Cubs in 14-Inning Duel, 2-1.”

9 Chapman.

10 Retrosheet.org reports incomplete data for this game. The ninth inning is described as follows: Jackson out on an unknown play; Serena out on an unknown play; McCullough singled; Jeffcoat walked [McCullough to second]; Hacker singled [McCullough to third, Jeffcoat to second]; Metkovich out on an unknown play.

11 Red Thisted, “Braves’ Buhl Beats Cubs in 14-Innings Duel, 2-1.”

12 Ibid.

13 Chapman.

14 Irving Vaughan, “Braves Beat Cubs, 2-1; Sox Lose, 2-1,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1953, A1

15 Chapman.

16 Red Thisted, “Braves See Hope in Bums’ Rough Schedule,” Milwaukee Sentinel, August 23, 1953, 2-B.

17 Chapman.

The Braves, with a first-place record of 22-14, had a nine-game win streak on the line. The Cardinals entered the contest in fourth place with a 21-19 record. Milwaukee handed the ball to Lew Burdette (4-3); he was in his first full season as a starter in the major leagues. Vic Raschi (5-0) took the mound for St. Louis. He had come to the Cardinals before the season in a cash deal after spending eight seasons with the New York Yankees. Raschi’s record with New York was an amazing 120-50 (a .706 winning percentage), and he was continuing his winning ways early in the 1954 season. The meat of the Cardinals’ order had Wally Moon batting .336, Red Schoendienst at .324, Stan Musial batting .365, and Ray Jablonski hitting a league-leading .376. Joe Adcock (.343) and Andy Pafko (.331) were the only Milwaukee batters hitting above .300.

Mother Nature delayed the start of the game for 45 minutes with rainshowers. Another 24-minute rain delay stopped play with two outs in the bottom of the first. Once play resumed, the Braves were retired and then St. Louis touched up Burdette for a run in the top of the second. With two outs, Tom Alston stroked a ball to right field. Pafko tried to make a shoestring catch and missed, and the ball skipped past him for a double. Alston scored when Alex Grammas blooped a single to right.

Burdette gave up only two more hits until the 12th inning. As expected, Raschi was equally impressive. Through the first six innings, only Eddie Mathews had produced a safety for Milwaukee, a groundball through the right side in the first inning. Then in the seventh, Adcock led off with a walk for the Braves. Johnny Logan sacrificed him to second. Hank Aaron hit a fly-ball double to deep right, and Adcock sped home with the tying run. Del Crandall followed with an infield single to the left side, but Aaron stayed at second and was stranded when Raschi retired the next two batters.

The Braves and Cardinals continued to send batters to the plate each inning, and the pitchers continued to send them back to the dugout. Musial led off the seventh for St. Louis with a single but was eliminated on a double play. Grammas led off the Cardinals’ eighth with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt, but Burdette retired the next two batters. Logan led off the Braves’ ninth with a single, but Raschi retired Aaron on a fly ball and got the next two batters to ground into force outs. Raschi gave way to Joe Presko after the ninth inning, but Burdette continued to pitch for Milwaukee. The 10th and 11th innings ended without incident, and then came the excitement.

Moon drew a leadoff walk for St. Louis in the top of the 12th. Schoendienst bunted Moon to second. Musial was “purposely passed,”3 putting runners on first and second. Jablonski slapped a groundball past Burdette and into center field, and Moon came around to score the go-ahead run, with Musial motoring to third. Then Alston hit a hard grounder to third baseman Mathews who fired home to his catcher. Crandall tagged out Musial in a bang-bang play for the second out of the inning. “Musial, who rarely complains, beefed at the call,” reported the St. Louis Post Dispatch.4 Cardinals skipper Eddie Stanky raced to the plate from his third-base coaching box, apparently to argue the call with home-plate umpire Larry Goetz, but instead “he did an about face after a second or two pause and then returned to third in a hurry.”5  Grammas popped to short to end the inning, but the Cardinals had grabbed a 2-1 lead.

It appeared the contest was finished for the Braves, as both Bill Bruton and Danny O’Connell flied out to start the bottom of the 12th. Mathews was the last hope, and he kept the inning alive by drawing a walk off Cards reliever Joe Presko. Pafko followed with a single, and the crowd started to roar. Stanky came to the mound and signaled for Gerry Staley to shut down the Braves. Braves skipper Charlie Grimm sent Jim Pendleton in to run for Pafko. Adcock worked Staley to a full count before sending the next offering into center field for a single. Mathews raced home with the tying run and Pendleton scampered to third base. Pandemonium was breaking loose in the stands as Logan stepped into the batter’s box. Johnny lined the first pitch from Staley into left-center. Pendleton crossed home plate, and “the hoarse fans yelled themselves hoarser.”6  The Braves had won in a walk-off, 3-2

Thanks to the extra frames, Joe Adcock extended his hitting streak to nine games with his single in the 12th inning. Johnny Logan, the batting hero for the Braves, was 3-for-5 with a sacrifice. Alex Grammas collected two of the five St. Louis hits; he also had reached when hit by a pitch in the fifth inning. Vic Raschi pitched well enough to win for St. Louis, scattering five hits in nine innings, with only one earned run.

Burdette’s performance was more than memorable. In collecting his fifth win of the season, he had allowed only five hits in pitching a 12-inning complete game, had struck out eight, and had issued only two walks, both in the dramatic final frame. He pitched 13 complete games in 32 starts in 1954, but finished the season with a disappointing record of 15-14 despite an earned-run average of 2.76. Lew was visibly upset when teammates congratulated him after the Braves’ victory. He told reporters, “I stood in the dugout tunnel and didn’t see Adcock’s hit score Mathews with the tying run. I didn’t see Pendleton score on Logan’s hit, either. I was still peeved because I failed to grab Jablonski’s bounder for the third out in the 12th. … I should have had Jablonski’s bounder.” 7 

The walk-off victory brought the Braves’ winning streak to 10 games, and they led the National League by 1½ games over the New York Giants. But St. Louis beat Milwaukee the next day, and the Braves would lose 10 of their next 12 games. However, they did put together two more 10-game winning streaks in the 1954 campaign, both after the All-Star break.

Lew Burdette seemed destined to excel while pitching in extra-inning games. On May 26, 1959, five years minus one day after this exciting game, Burdette won the famous 13-inning contest against Harvey Haddix and the Pittsburgh Pirates, which many consider one of the greatest games ever pitched. Haddix pitched 12 perfect innings before losing to Burdette and the Braves. Lew had given up 12 hits without a walk in 13 innings, and won the game, 1-0, again in walk-off fashion.

This article appears in “From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee’s County Stadium” (SABR, 2016), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources 

In addition to the sources mentioned in the notes, the author consulted baseball-almanac.com, baseball-reference.com, retrosheet.org, and sabr.org.

“Raschi Given Job of Stopping Braves in Milwaukee Tonight,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 28, 1954.

“Braves Nip Cards in 12 Innings, 3-2,” New York Times, May 29, 1954.

“Players From The Past: Lew Burdette,” http://bleacherreport.com/articles/285844-players-from-the-past-lew-burdette.

Goldstein, Richard. “Lew Burdette, Masterful Pitcher, Dies at 80,” http://nytimes.com/2007/02/07/sports/baseball/07burdette.html?fta=y&_r=0.

Notes

1 “Pafko, Adcock, Logan Hit in 12th to Win for Braves,” Milwaukee Journal, May 29, 1954.

2 “Braves Top Cards in 12th for Tenth Straight,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 29, 1954.

3 “Pafko, Adcock, Logan.”

4 “Braves Top Cards.”

5 “Even in Victory, Lew Burdette Is Annoyed Over Failure to Handle That Easy Grounder,” Milwaukee Journal, May 29, 1954.

6 “Pafko, Adcock, Logan.”

7 “Even in Victory.”

About 20 minutes after the first pitch on the night of June 2, the rain started falling. The paid attendance was 37,044 despite the dreary forecast of chilly and wet weather. Workhorse Lew Burdette started for Milwaukee, entering the contest with a 5-3 record and an ERA of 2.25.

The Dodgers struck quickly as Pee Wee Reese’s RBI single in the top of the first made it 1-0. A struggling Don Newcombe (3-3 with a 4.85 ERA) took the mound for the Dodgers. Newcombe faced only 11 hitters, walking three, allowing two hits, and hitting Burdette with a pitch. Reliever Bob Milliken came in with two outs in the second inning and worked out of a bases-loaded jam although the Braves scored one run to tie it, 1-1.

The rain kept falling, and Brooklyn took a 2-1 lead in the top of the third on a bases-loaded walk to Carl Furillo issued by Burdette, who typically was a good control pitcher. At the end of the half-inning, the umpires suspended action. The delay lasted 91 minutes and about half the fans were in the stands when play resumed. It was still raining.  

The rain picked up in the fourth frame. Milwaukee scored five runs off Milliken in bottom of the inning to take a 6-2 lead. During the rally, Milliken hit Burdette with a pitch, Lew’s second HBP in as many plate appearances. Later, with men at first and second and Johnny Logan at the plate, umpire Lee Ballanfant lost track of the count. According to the Allan Roth, who tracked each pitch as official statistician for the Dodgers, Milliken’s first pitch to Logan was a called strike and Logan fouled off the second pitch. After a ball was called, Logan fouled off another pitch. After another ball was called, Logan hit another foul ball. Then Ballanfant called another ball. Logan walked away from the plate, thinking it was a strike. After he stepped back into the batter’s box, Ballanfant ordered Logan to take first base for the three-ball walk. Logan seemed surprised.

The Dodgers protested and rushed Ballanfant. Others threw towels from the dugout. Ballanfant chased all but three Dodgers. Manager Walt Alston was allowed to recall players from the clubhouse as needed. Eddie Mathews then clouted a grand slam to cap the big inning.

There was more freakish comedy in the fifth. The rain did not let up. When Jackie Robinson came up to lead off, he argued with Ballanfant about the walk to Logan. Robinson was tossed and, as he returned to the dugout, he flipped his bat. It skidded off the top of the dugout and bounced into a box, striking an usher and a fan. Robinson immediately walked over to the stands and apologized to the fan, Peter Wolinsky, who was holding his head. Several fans rushed to the scene and some jumped on top of the dugout. Police officers quickly cleared the dugout roof. Robinson was roundly jeered as he exited, and Wolinsky kept the bat as a souvenir. Play resumed, even as white towels continued to fly out of the Brooklyn dugout.

Dick Williams pinch-hit for Robinson and briefly continued the argument with Ballanfant, but finally got in the batter’s box. Williams lifted a foul popup, which was misjudged by Charley White, one of the catchers in Grimm’s new platoon. Getting a second chance, Williams hit a fly ball to rookie left fielder Hank Aaron, who dropped it as Williams scampered into second base. Later in the inning, Furillo bounced a grounder to second sacker Jack Dittmer, who was starting for the first time in two weeks in place of the slumping Danny O’Connell. Dittmer booted the ball and a run scored.  

Two hitters later, Wayne Belardi pinch-hit for Milliken. Belardi had two strikes on him when he hit a foul tip. White failed to snare the ball and it lodged under his mask. With Belardi getting new life, Burdette walked him to force in a run and cut the lead to 6-4. It was Burdette’s second bases-loaded walk of the night, and Grimm summoned reliever Dave Jolly. After a run-scoring groundout by Junior Gilliam, Pee Wee Reese put the Dodgers in front, 7-6, with a two-run double to right field. All five runs were unearned.

Milwaukee had the tying run on second base with two outs in the bottom of the fifth when reliever Ben Wade retired pinch-hitter Catfish Metkovich on a fly ball.

As the rain poured down, the umpires signaled for another delay. After 35 minutes of a continuous soaking, they called the game at 12:20 A.M. on Thursday, June 3. It took 2 hours and 24 minutes to complete the five-inning game, and the two delays totaled a combined 2:06. A few hearty fans were still on hand when the ludicrous exhibition came to an end. The Dodgers were in first place by one game.

Robinson addressed the bat-throwing incident with reporters. He said, “All I did was tell Ballanfant he was wrong on the count. He told me to get in and hit or he’d throw me out — and he did! Then I tossed the bat underhanded towards the dugout, but I held onto it too long. I went over and apologized which was about all I could do. After all, I wouldn’t throw a bat into the grandstand.”2

Ten policemen escorted the Dodgers to their bus in the early-morning rain, apparently fearing an outbreak of trouble from bitter Braves fans who lingered near the ballpark. There were no incidents. Grimm sulked and grumbled in the Braves clubhouse. “Everything happened to us,” he moaned as he left for home.3

Milwaukee Journal sports editor R.G. Lynch wrote a scathing column in the next day’s paper, as described in this excerpt:

Were You at the ‘Ball Game’? Hello, Sucker!

“Somebody should be arrested for obtaining money under false pretenses as a result of that performance at the Stadium Wednesday night. The umpires saved the ball club about $50,000 by letting the farce continue for the necessary five innings, but if that was baseball we’ll eat Lou Perini’s Borsalino fried in axle grease! Continuing play in a drizzle is one thing, but this was no drizzle. The fourth inning was completed in a downpour. Although it seemed obvious that an all-night rain had set in, the customers were made to wait an hour and one-half (or lose their money by going home) and then all they got was one more inning of play in a hard rain with a ball which was too slippery for pitchers or players to handle well.”4

The rain continued on Thursday morning and the Braves postponed the third game of the series. Later in the day, Robinson was notified that Mr. and Mrs. Wolinsky had retained an attorney. A few days later, National League president Warren Giles levied a $50 fine against Robinson.

Florence Wolinsky claimed that the bat thrown by Robinson struck her husband in the forehead and hit her above the left eye. She said, “I was stunned and shocked. I didn’t know what hit me.”5 The attorney was James Stern, a family friend who happened to be sitting behind the Wolinskys at the game. Early on, the couple was undecided about a possible damage suit and claimed that they had no interest in money. But on May 10, 1955, Stern filed a $40,000 lawsuit against Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Mrs. Wolinsky sought $25,000 and her husband asked for $15,000.

A federal judge dismissed the suit on February 4, 1957, after learning that the principals had settled out of court. Nearly three years after the bat-throwing incident, Peter Wolinsky and his wife settled for $300 each, and their attorney stated that they were pleased with the settlement amounts.

This article appears in “From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee’s County Stadium” (SABR, 2016), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

1 Kenosha (Wisconsin) Evening News, June 2, 1954: 14.

2 Stevens Point (Wisconsin) Journal, June 3, 1954: 6.

3 Milwaukee Journal, June 3, 1954: Part 2, 17.

4 Ibid.

5 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 4, 1954: 22.

The Braves were reeling when they arrived at County Stadium on a sunny, warm Saturday afternoon in Beer City. Lew Burdette’s five-hit shutout the previous night in the first game of a three-game set with the Phillies had ended the club’s five-game losing streak and marked just their third victory in 13 games, all at home. In first place on May 30, skipper Charlie Grimm’s squad had fallen to fourth (26-24), five games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers. Manager Steve O’Neill’s Phillies, on the other hand, were playing their best ball of the season and had won 11 of their last 15 games before Burdette’s gem. They were in third place (28-22).

As a rookie with the Boston Red Sox in August 1945, Wilson, an affable, sandy-blond-haired “pipe-smoking right-hander,” was struck in the head by a line drive off the bat of the Detroit Tigers’ Hank Greenberg.3 He was “carried unconscious off the field” and rushed to Ford Hospital in Detroit, where he underwent surgery for a skull fracture.4 Some sportswriters and teammates predicted he would never return to the mound; “He’ll be gun shy from now on” was an oft-heard refrain.5 It appeared as if the pitcher had used all of his luck to survive the scare. In 1947, as a member of the Triple-A Louisville Colonels, he suffered a broken leg when hit by another line drive and missed most of that year’s campaign. Traded to the St. Louis Browns in the offseason, he crushed his hand in a “trailer accident” prior to the 1948 season.6 Wilson bounced around in several organizations (Red Sox, St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia A’s, and Detroit Tigers) before reviving his career by going 24-11 with the unaffiliated Seattle Rainiers in the Pacific Coast League in 1950. After being acquired by the Braves in a trade with the Rainiers, Wilson won seven games in 1951, his first big-league victories since his rookie year. Wilson had “brilliant promise,” wrote Lou Chapman, but “never quite realized his potential.”7 He went 12-14 and logged 234 innings in 1952, but was seldom used in 1953, the Braves’ first season in Milwaukee; he lost his post in the rotation and won just four times. He was described by Chris Edmonds of the Associated Press as the “forgotten man on the Milwaukee Braves mound staff.”

Wilson’s spot on the team was in jeopardy in 1954.8 He had made only six mostly ineffective relief appearances, surrendering 14 hits and 7 runs in 8⅔ innings before making an unexpected start on June 6, replacing Gene Conley, who was sidelined with a back injury. Wilson responded by tossing his first shutout in nine years, blanking the Pittsburgh Pirates on four hits at County Stadium, earning himself another start on June 12.

Wilson got the crowd of 28,218 in a good mood by setting down the side in order in the first inning, aided by third baseman Eddie Mathews’ “neat stab” of leadoff hitter Willie Jones’s “sizzler.”9 Braves fans who followed baseball closely might not have been smiling when they saw Robin Roberts take the mound. The 27-year-old right-hander had led the NL in victories the previous two seasons and was en route to his fifth of sixth consecutive seasons with at least 20 victories and 300 innings. He had feasted on the Braves of late, defeating them nine straight times. But the Braves drew first blood when Johnny Logan clubbed a one-out homer 380 feet into the left-field bleachers for a 1-0 lead in the first inning.10

Wilson, a quick worker on the mound, methodically mowed down the Phillies. He permitted only two baserunners the entire game. In the second inning, he issued a two-out walk to Smoky Burgess, who batted .368 in 1954 and earned the first of his six All-Star berths. The stocky catcher drew his second walk in the fifth inning, but was caught stealing in what was probably a hit-and-run when Johnny Wyrostek whiffed in an inning-ending double play.

Roberts “hurled his usual cagey, deliberate contest,” wrote Red Thisted of the Milwaukee Sentinel.11 In the bottom of the fifth inning, Del Crandall belted a two-out solo shot to left field to give the Braves a 2-0 lead. Roberts surrendered just seven hits and did not issue a walk in a tough-luck complete-game loss.

“One could feel the tension,” wrote Larson, as Wilson continued his mastery of the Phillies.12 With two outs in the eighth, Wyrostok “lashed a hard straight drive” back to the mound and through Wilson’s legs.13 It looked as though it would be a seeing-eye single that would signal the end of the no-no, but shortstop Logan made a “pretty play back of second” to scoop up the ball and throw to first baseman Joe Adcock for the out.14

The crowd was “roaring itself hoarse as the epic contest rolled through the late innings,” reported Thisted.15 In the final, history-making frame, Wilson induced Bobby Morgan to pop up to Adcock and dispatched pinch-hitter Mel Clark with his sixth punch-out of the game. Just one out away from pitching immortality, Wilson had to endure one final, stomach-churning moment. On a 3-and-2 count, Wilson tossed an “inside curve” to Willie Jones, who sent a screaming liner over Mathews’ head at third base.16  As it hooked, the ball “missed being fair only by inches.”17 Said Wilson after the game, “I kept trying to push that ball foul with body English.”18 Jones fouled off the next pitch, too, before hitting an “easy roller” to second baseman Danny O’Connell, who fired to Adcock for a routine, game-ending out that sent the crowd into a “thunderous ovation.”19

Wilson, who needed just 1 hour and 40 minutes to complete the game, was swarmed on the mound by his teammates. The celebration continued in the clubhouse, where Wilson was besieged by sportswriters. “No, I wasn’t nervous,” said the hurler. “I didn’t think it could happen to me.” The no-hitter was his second in Organized Baseball (the first was with the Buffalo Bisons in 1949) and extended his scoreless inning streak to 21⅔ innings (eventually reaching 25 innings). “My slider was really working out there and I had a good slow curve to go with it,” added Wilson.20 

Wilson continued his remarkable turnaround over the next month by winning a career-high six consecutive starts and earning a berth on the NL All-Star team. He pushed his record to 8-0 on August 10 by tossing his fourth shutout of the season to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals in Sportsman’s Park. Thereafter he struggled and did not win another game, finishing the season 8-2. In the offseason, the Philadelphia chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) named Wilson the “most courageous athlete in 1954.”21

This article appears in “From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee’s County Stadium” (SABR, 2016), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.org

SABR.org

Notes

1 Lou Chapman, “Jim Adds Bright Chapter To His ‘Hard Luck’ Story,” Milwaukee Sentinel, June 13, 1954, 2-B.

2 Lloyd Larson, “No-Hitter Tops All Sports Thrills,” Milwaukee Sentinel, June 13, 1954, 2-B.

3 Lou Chapman, “‘Never Thought It Could Happen,’ Says Wilson; “Just Obeying Wife’s Orders,’ ” Milwaukee Sentinel, June 13, 1954, 1-B.

4 Associated Press, “Beaned Boston Hurler Improves In Hospital,” Fresno Bee The Republican (Fresno, California), August 9, 1945, 12.

5 Chapman, “Jim Adds Bright Chapter To His ‘Hard Luck’ Story.”

6 Chapman, “Braves’ Wilson Named ‘Most Courageous,’ ”Milwaukee Sentinel, February 1, 1955, 9.

7 Chapman, “Jim Adds Bright Chapter To His ‘Hard Luck’ Story.”

8 Chris Edmonds, Associated Press, “Braves’ Wilson Pitches No Hitter Against Phils,” The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois), June 13, 1954, 12.

9 Red Thisted, “Wilson’s No-Hitter Beats Phils, 2-0,” Milwaukee Sentinel, June 13, 1954, 1-B.

10 Edmonds.

11 Thisted.

12 Larson.

13 Edmonds.

14 Thisted.

15 Ibid.

16 Larson.

17 Thisted.

18 Chapman, “‘Never Thought It Could Happen,’ Says Wilson; “Just Obeying Wife’s Orders.’ ”

19 Thisted.

20 Chapman, “‘Never Thought It Could Happen,’ Says Wilson; “Just Obeying Wife’s Orders.’ ”

21 Chapman, “Braves’ Wilson Named ‘Most Courageous.’ ”

But this was a night that served as a dramatic reminder that baseball has no clock, and those nearly 20,000 fans who left County Stadium before the game ended surely blamed themselves for missing one of the most remarkable comebacks in Milwaukee baseball history.1

Thursday, July 15, 1954, saw a stadium-record attendance, with fans drawn by the allure of two games for the price of one against the two-time defending National League champion Brooklyn Dodgers, the fabled “Boys of Summer,” featuring Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, and Gil Hodges. The crowd of 43,633 for the twi-night twin bill actually exceeded the stadium’s seating capacity; 1,315 had to stand to watch the games (and team officials said they could have crammed in another 785 standees, so they refused to call it a sellout).2 It was actually too crowded for the stadium vendors to do their work efficiently. “We’ve done more business with a crowd of 35,000 on hand,” chief concessionaire Earl Yerxa said. “Tonight the crowds were so unwieldy, our vendors couldn’t get through fast enough to meet demand.”3

The first game got under way at 6 P.M. and moved crisply. Neither team scored in the first six innings, as Brooklyn’s Bob Milliken matched zeroes with the Braves’ Bob Buhl. Then in the bottom of the seventh, a two-out homer by Eddie Mathews with Bill Bruton on first base put the Braves in front, and Buhl held the Dodgers scoreless the rest of the way in a 2-0 Milwaukee victory. Buhl allowed just three hits, all singles, to earn his first win of the season after seven losses.

The Dodgers opened the second game by pouncing on Jim Wilson, who had won all six of his previous starts for the Braves that season, including a no-hitter against the Phillies on June 12. Sandy Amoros’ bases-loaded single in the first inning drove in two runs, and when right fielder Andy Pafko’s throw home was wild, a third run scored. The Braves cut the deficit in the bottom of the inning on another two-run homer by Mathews, but Brooklyn scored four more in the fifth without the aid of an extra-base hit. (Another wild throw by Pafko made one of the runs unearned.)

With the Braves still trailing 7-2 after seven innings, Milwaukee manager Charlie Grimm felt safe calling on his 18-year-old relief pitcher, Joey Jay. Jay was on the Braves roster only because the club had signed him for a $40,000 bonus the previous summer, and under the rules of the day he had to be on the major-league roster for two years. He had pitched a three-hit shutout in one of his two appearances in 1953, but to this point in 1954 he had worked in just six games and had allowed 10 runs in 8⅔ innings.

Johnny Logan singled in a run for the Braves in the bottom of the eighth, but Snider’s RBI single off Jay in the top of the ninth put the Dodgers back on top by five runs, 8-3. Fans headed to their cars as the game headed into the bottom of the ninth.

Starter Billy Loes had done a fine job pitching for the Dodgers, but he came out of the game when he injured the little finger of his pitching hand trying to grab Logan’s line drive up the middle in the eighth.4 Jim Hughes, who had held the Braves hitless in four shutout innings of relief to earn the victory in a 12-inning game the night before, relieved Loes and took the mound in the bottom of the ninth to try to give Brooklyn a split of the doubleheader.

George “Catfish” Metkovich batted for Jay to lead off the inning and drew a walk. Bruton lined a single to right, and Metkovich stopped at second base.

Then Braves second baseman Danny O’Connell laid down a bunt. Was he really trying a sacrifice with the Braves trailing by five runs? Milwaukee Journal sportswriter Bob Wolf wrote that O’Connell was trying for a hit, hoping to catch the Dodgers infield napping, but for O’Connell got credit for a sacrifice, when Brooklyn third baseman Don Hoak threw to Hodges at first to retire him, the runners advancing to second and third.5

Mathews then walked to load the bases for Hank Aaron, the Braves’ 20-year-old rookie, who was batting in the cleanup spot that night for the first time in his major-league career. But Aaron was retired on a foul popup to Hodges, completing a frustrating 0-for-9 night at the plate, and the Braves were down to their last out — still trailing by five runs.

Joe Adcock kept the game going with a line-drive single to left, scoring Metkovich and Bruton and moving Mathews to second. That brought Pafko to the plate as the tying run, and Walter Alston, the Dodgers’ first-year manager, responded by bringing in Erv Palica, who had pitched an inning of the evening’s first game.

Pafko hit a ball that bounced off the third-base bag and went into left field for a double, bringing home Mathews and Adcock and making up for two runs his errant throws had cost the Braves earlier in the game. Jim Pendleton went in to run for Pafko. Logan then lined a single to left-center; Pendleton beat Amoros’ throw home to tie the game, and Logan took advantage of the throw to advance to second base with the potential winning run.

That brought Charlie White, the Braves’ rookie backup catcher, to the plate. In the sixth inning, with the Braves behind by five runs, Grimm opted to give starting catcher Del Crandall the rest of the night off by using White to bat for him.

Now White had a chance to be the hero. Palica’s first pitch was a ball. Then White hit a ball that bounced over second base; shortstop Reese couldn’t get it, and by the time second baseman Jim Gilliam grabbed it, it was too late to throw out Logan, who “rounded third so fast that he almost skidded into the Brooks’ dugout before he recovered his stride and reached home,” according to Milwaukee Journal sportswriter Doyle Getter.6

And finally the rest of the crowd could go home.

Joey Jay got credit for the Braves’ 9-8 win. It would be his only win of 1954, and he wouldn’t win a game in the majors again until 1958. Jay went on to be a 20-game winner twice for Cincinnati and helped the Reds win the National League pennant in 1961 when he went 21-10. He was also a member of the Braves’ 1958 NL championship team but was not on the roster for the World Series that fall after breaking a finger on his glove hand when he fielded a hard-hit groundball in a September relief appearance.7

The double defeats on July 15 dropped the Dodgers to 6½ games behind the first-place Giants. Brooklyn was in second place, but second wasn’t good enough for fans of the team that had won the pennant the previous two years. The 42-year-old Alston had been a controversial choice to take over the team after Chuck Dressen resigned the previous winter, and the losses in Milwaukee put him on the hot seat.

But team captain Reese supported his rookie manager. “None of this is his fault,” Reese said after the doubleheader losses. “He can’t pitch for the pitchers or hit for the hitters. It’s the team that hasn’t come through. What’s fair about criticizing him?”8

The Dodgers wound up second to the Giants in 1954, but Alston led the team to six National League pennants and four World Series triumphs over the next 12 seasons.

This article appears in “From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee’s County Stadium” (SABR, 2016), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

1 The estimate of 20,000 fans leaving early is from Doyle K. Getter, “Record Crowd Cheers Record Braves Rally,” Milwaukee Journal, July 16, 1954, 1.

2 Lou Chapman, “43,633 Fans Smash Record at Stadium,” Milwaukee Sentinel, July 16, 1954, 1.

3 Ibid.

4 Bob Wolf, “Braves Turn Back Dodgers Twice Before Record Crowd for Stadium,” Milwaukee Journal, July 16, 1954, 11, part 2.

5 Ibid.

6 Doyle K. Getter, “Record Crowd Cheers Record Braves Rally,” Milwaukee Journal, July 16, 1954, 1.

7 Joseph Wancho, “Joey Jay,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/9f043e5c.

8 Roscoe McGowen, “Does Smokey Lack Fire as Pilot? Opinions of Older Dodgers Differ,” The Sporting News, July 28, 1954, 7.

Skipper Charlie Grimm’s Braves had been playing inconsistently over the first four weeks of their third season in the Cream City since their relocation from Boston. Following losses in nine of 12 games, they had won four of their last five to improve to 13-12, good for third place, but already nine games behind streaking (and eventual pennant-winning) Brooklyn. The Dodgers had rolled over opposition thus far in the season. Catapulted by an 11-game winning streak that had ended the night before, Walter Alston’s squad was 22-3 and enjoyed an 8½-game lead over the second-place New York Giants.

The pitching matchup featured two members of the 1954 NL All-Star team. Gene Conley, a towering 24-year-old, 6-foot-8 right-hander, seemed like an emerging star. He had won 14 games the previous campaign and was 3-1 so far in ’55, just his second full season in the big leagues. The Dodgers’ 28-year-old righty Carl Erskine, considered among the best hurlers in the NL, had posted a 68-39 record from 1951 through 1954, including a career-high 20 wins in 1953. With a 5-0 record and 1.43 ERA in ’55, he was off to the best start in his career.

Just 10 days earlier, on May 2, Conley and Erskine were locked in a tense pitching duel at Ebbets Field. Both hurlers had held the opposition scoreless for 11 innings. After Erskine escaped a second-and-third, one-out jam in the 12th, Carl Furillo collected just the fourth hit of the game off Conley, but it was a game-winning two-run homer.

An overflowing crowd of 39,155 packed County Stadium on Thursday, May 12, hoping to see the Braves collect their first win of the season against the “Bums.” Conley didn’t seem quite as sharp as he had been on May 2 as he yielded a leadoff single to Jim Gilliam, who was promptly erased when Pee Wee Reese grounded into a double play. After Duke Snider singled, Conley whiffed Roy Campanella to end the frame. Following Erskine’s 1-2-3 inning, 5-foot-7 Cuban-born Sandy Amoros led off the Brooklyn second with a single and then beat third baseman Eddie Mathews’ throw on a force attempt at second base on Gil Hodges’ grounder. After a failed bunt and a groundout, Conley ended the Dodgers’ threat by fanning Erskine.

Henry Aaron, only 21 years old and emerging as an offensive threat in his second season, led off the bottom of the second with a solo blast (Braves beat writer Bob Wolf estimated that it traveled 450 feet) to begin what appeared to be a big inning.3 Andy Pafko singled, Joe Adcock walked, and both advanced a station on Erskine’s wild pitch. But after Danny O’Connell grounded out , Crandall hit into what Wolf described as a “freak” double play when second baseman Junior Gilliam tagged Adcock and then fired a bullet to Campanella to nail Pafko at the plate.4

Erskine seemed on the “verge of being routed” in the third inning, wrote New York Times correspondent Roscoe McGowen.5 The Braves loaded the bases with one out, but Aaron lifted a pop fly to third baseman Jackie Robinson and Pakfo flied to left field to squander another excellent scoring opportunity. The Dodgers tied the score in the fourth when Amoros hit a 330-foot line-drive home run into the bleachers just inside the right-field foul pole.6

After Amoros’s homer, Conley and Erskine kept the game scoreless until Crandall’s decisive blast. The Braves managed only five singles from the fourth inning through the 11th, and no runner advanced beyond first base. After surrendering two singles in the sixth, Conley escaped a jam when Adcock leaped to pull down what McGowen described as a “hot liner” from Amoros and then doubled off Campanella to end the threat.7

Conley did not allow a hit in the final 6⅓ innings of the game. Feisty shortstop Johnny Logan made hitting even more difficult by occasionally waving his arms in an attempt to distract batters. McGowen, noting an especially egregious episode in the eighth inning with Snider at bat, reported that Logan’s actions were in direct violation of rule 4.06 (b); however, the Dodgers players and coaching staff seemed unfazed and did not lodge a formal protest.8

The Dodgers best scoring opportunity came in the 11th inning. After Reese flied out to center fielder Billy Bruton for the first out, Snider hit a sharp grounder to the right of second baseman O’Connell, who made what Wolf described as a “miraculous fielding play.”9 According to Thisted, O’Connell dove “headlong” toward Snider’s grounder, “flagged the ball on the grass, rolled over and while on his back flipped it” to Adcock at first.10 “Danny’s play on Snider in the 11th was the greatest I’ve ever seen,” said Crandall ecstatically after the game.11 Conley issued walks to the next two batters and then Eddie Mathews booted Hodges’ grounder to third, loading the bases. But Jackie Robinson, mired in a 4-for-29 slump, popped up to O’Connell for the third out.

After Conley set down the side in order in the 12th, Crandall led off the bottom of the frame against 23-year-old rookie reliever Ed Roebuck. Crandall belted the righty’s second pitch over the 394-foot sign in left-center for a dramatic walk-off homer. “I didn’t know how far the ball would go when I hit it,” said the catcher. “When I rounded first I saw Snider running at top speed for the center-field fence. When I saw him place both hands on the wire fence I finally knew I had it.”12

“[S]omething akin to delirium swept through the stands” as Crandall circled the bases, wrote Thisted.13 Wolf reported that Crandall “waved his arms in a hysterical salute to the equally hysterical crowd” and doffed his cap as he touched home plate to give the Braves a 2-1 victory in 3 hours and 3 minutes.14

In his “12 innings of heroics,” Conley yielded only six hits, whiffed eight, and walked four in the longest outing of his eventual 11-year career.15 Conley earned his second of three All-Star berths in 1955; however, shoulder pain ended his season prematurely, in mid-August, with an 11-7 record. Erskine gave up nine hits and walked two in an 11-inning no-decision. After his hot start, he cooled down to finish 11-8 for the eventual World Series champs. Roebuck was collared with the first loss of his career.

Reporters gathered around the good-natured Crandall in the dressing room after the game. “Well, somebody had to give Conley a helping hand,” he said jokingly between puffs on a celebratory cigar. “The old battery pulled this one out of the fire.”16 Arguably the NL’s best catcher, Crandall had gotten off to an alarmingly slow start, and entered the game batting .145. His game-winner was his first round-tripper since April 16 and his first RBI since April 20. “My big trouble has been taking my eye off the ball on the swing,” Crandall said honestly. “I haven’t been able to do anything about it until tonight.”17

“[Roebuck] threw me a fastball low and outside,” explained Crandall. “I must have done everything right.”18 Crandall turned his season around and earned his third consecutive berth on the NL All-Star squad (he was named to eight All-Star teams from 1953 to 1962), and despite his early-season power outage finished with a career-high 26 homers.

This article appears in “From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee’s County Stadium” (SABR, 2016), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

1 Bob Wolf, “Braves Nose Out Dodgers, 2-1, on Crandall’s Homer in 12th. Conley Wins Mound Duel,” Milwaukee Journal, May 13, 1955: 15.

2 Red Thisted, “Crandall Raps Homer in 12th; Braves Win, 2-1,” Milwaukee Sentinel,” May 13, 1955: Part 2, 2.

3 Wolf.

4 Ibid.

5 Roscoe McGowen, “Braves Down Dodgers: 39,155 See Brooks Bow in 12th on Home Run by Crandall, 2-1,” New York Times, May 13, 1955: 28.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Wolf.

10 Thisted.

11 Sam Levy, “Crandall Celebrates Home Run With Cigar but Spurns Beer, Credit for Win,” Milwaukee Journal, May 13, 1955: 1.

12 Ibid.

13 Thisted

14 Wolf.

15 Ibid.

16 Lou Chapman, “Didn’t Think It’d Go Over – Del,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 13, 1955: Part 2, 3.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

Stan Musial approaches home plate after hitting the game-winning home run in the 1955 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at County Stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

From the day in 1953 when the National League’s Braves arrived in Milwaukee and took up residence in County Stadium, until the early 1960s, there was never a shortage of crowds. Indeed, for six consecutive seasons the Braves led the league in attendance. So when in the summer of 1954 baseball awarded the 1955 All-Star Game to Milwaukee, there was little doubt that the fans would turn out in droves for Milwaukee’s first experience with the national pastime’s annual spectacle.

As the day of the game arrived, excitement in Milwaukee was palpable. The following day, one reporter vividly recounted the city’s festive atmosphere, writing, “All-Star fever settled on downtown shoppers. … Traffic dwindled at game time and pedestrians settled in front of TV sets in department stores, shops, hotel lobbies and bars.”1 So caught up in the event were some Milwaukeeans that newspapers reported of an elderly shopper, standing at a bus stop and listening to the game on her portable radio. “After a long wait at the bus stop, she became engrossed in the game and, when the bus arrived, she missed it.”2 A highly anticipated exhibition, the All-Star Game was “a new high in Milwaukee’s short but fabulous big league history.”3 

Game day, July 12, dawned bright and clear, and it remained that way throughout the afternoon, creating a perfect day for baseball: warm sun, low humidity, and clear skies. On the field, the pregame gathering resembled little more than a mob scene, as “[n]ewspapermen, photographers and baseball dignitaries by the hundreds, plus the inevitable gate crashers, swarm[ed] over the premises.”4 In the stands, not a seat was empty. The previous year, the stadium’s seating capacity had been increased from 36,011 to 43,091;5 yet somehow, on this day a crowd announced at 45,3146 jammed into every nook and cranny of the sparkling, two-year-old facility.

In the crowd on the field, Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, standing with Braves president Lou Perini, gazed at the packed stands and inquired, “How do you explain the phenomenal attendance of this town? What’s the secret?”6

To which Perini responded, “There’s no secret formula. It’s just terrific enthusiasm. All the people here have something in common in the team. The priest talks about the Braves to the rabbi; the mechanic to the industrialist, the housekeeper to the butcher.”7

It was undoubtedly that sentiment that compelled 75-year-old Calvin Smith, from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, to stick around after he collapsed in the grandstand before the game. As medical personnel sought to place Smith in an ambulance and take him to the hospital, he refused to go, insisting simply, “I don’t want to leave.”8 In the end, Smith stayed.

Such was the enthusiasm that afternoon in Milwaukee. 

As was customary, the two managers, Al Lopez for the American League and the National League’s Leo Durocher, joined the umpires at home plate for a pregame conference, and then called their respective teams from the dugouts to stand at attention along the first- and third-base lines. This was the 22nd meeting of the two leagues’ stars, but this edition was especially poignant. Twenty-two years before, Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward had launched the first All-Star Game, in Chicago. Three days before this game, Ward had died, so everyone in attendance observed a moment of silence in his memory. When the respectful silence was ended, home-plate umpire Al Barlick hollered, “Play ball!”

Perhaps there was some degree of foreshadowing when before the game the scoreboard on the upper third-base stands displayed “American 7, National 6.” For a while, it seemed that the hint of an American League victory in this National League ballpark might prove prescient. Robin Roberts took the mound as starter for the senior circuit, and the American League offense immediately struck. After singles by the game’s first two batters, Harvey Kuenn and Nellie Fox, a wild pitch by Roberts allowed Kuenn to score from third. Ted Williams walked and cleanup hitter Mickey Mantle blasted a home run to straightaway center field. The American League led, 4-0. Roberts stiffened over the next two innings and escaped any further damage. He left the game after the third inning.

Meanwhile, American League starter Billy Pierce was brilliant. After the White Sox’ star surrendered a leadoff single to Red Schoendienst in the bottom of the first, Schoendienst was thrown out trying to steal, and Pierce set down the next eight batters he faced, including three on strikeouts. When he, too, left the game after three innings, the American League’s 4-0 lead remained intact.

Over the next two innings, Early Wynn of the American League and the National League’s Harvey Haddix matched zeroes. In the top of the sixth, however, the AL struck again. After Wynn stranded runners at the corners in the bottom of the fifth to preserve the 4-0 lead, Haddix got the first out in the sixth and then allowed a single to Yogi Berra and a double to Al Kaline (whose drive caromed off third baseman Eddie Mathews’ wrist), with Berra stopping at third on Kaline’s hit. When the next batter, Mickey Vernon, pulled a sharp grounder to first, Berra trotted home with the AL’s fifth run. Haddix struck out the next batter, Jim Finigan, to end the inning and bring his afternoon to a close.

If a 5-0 deficit with nine outs remaining was daunting for the NL, it certainly wasn’t insurmountable given their explosive offense. As things turned out, though, Willie Mays’ defense may have played the most pivotal role in the game’s outcome. In the top of the seventh, Don Newcombe took over on the mound for the NL. With two outs and a runner on first, Ted Williams blistered a drive deep to the wall in right-center field. With impeccable timing, Mays leaped, caught the ball over the wall, and brought it back in for the final out. The two runs he saved would be crucial to the final score.

As luck would have it, Mays led off the bottom of the seventh inning; the appreciative fans gave him a round of applause for his defensive gem. Whitey Ford now took the mound for the AL. With just four hits over six innings off Pierce and Wynn, the NL was undoubtedly glad to face a new hurler, and Ford took the brunt of their renewed attack. After Mays singled, Ford retired the next two batters, but then walked Henry Aaron. When Milwaukee’s own Johnny Logan singled, Mays scored the NL’s first run, and then Stan Lopata reached on a throwing error by shortstop Chico Carrasquel, which scored Aaron. After seven, the score was 5-2.

In the top of the eighth, the AL loaded the bases with two outs against new hurler Sam Jones, who walked two and hit a man, but Joe Nuxhall struck out Ford to end the threat.

The bottom of the eighth brought more of the same against Ford. After the first two men grounded out, Mays, Ted Kluszewski, and Randy Jackson each singled to pull the NL within 5-3. So with Aaron due up and runners at first and second, Frank Sullivan was summoned in relief. Yet, the onslaught continued.

When Aaron singled to right field, Kluszewski scored. However, as Jackson ran to third, Kaline’s throw nicked him, and the ball caromed past third baseman Al Rosen. When Jackson scored, the game was tied, 5-5. It stayed that way until the bottom of the 12th inning.

Nuxhall had been fabulous in relief for the NL. After bailing out Jones in the eighth, he pitched the next three innings, allowing just two hits and striking out five. In the top of the 12th the Reds’ left-hander gave way to the Braves’ Gene Conley, who entered to a raucous greeting from the home crowd. Conley struck out Kaline, Vernon, and Rosen in succession. So the game went to the bottom of the 12th.

For the AL, Sullivan returned to the mound. Despite allowing the NL’s tying runs in the eighth, which had been charged to Ford, the 6-foot-7 Sullivan had pitched well, stranding baserunners in the 9th and 10th and setting the side down in order in the 11th. Now, Stan Musial led off for the NL. As he arrived in the batter’s box, Musial told catcher Berra, “Boy, that ball is tough to see out there. You can’t pick it up in all those shadows.” Also, he said, “I’m tired.”9 

“You’re tired!” responded Berra, who’d caught the whole game. “What about me? We’re all tired.”10

On Sullivan’s first offering, which he later recalled as “a lousy pitch, a fastball, high and a little inside.”11 (Musial said the pitch was belt-high.) Musial swung and drove the ball into the right-field bleachers. Immediately, the NL players erupted on their bench, yelling and dancing in celebration of the NL’s fifth win in six years.

Here in Milwaukee, it was probably appropriate that Conley, the Braves pitcher, got the win.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1  “Shoppers Hug TV Sets During All-Star Game,” Milwaukee Sentinel, July 13, 1955: part 1: 2.

2  “Shoppers Hug TV Sets During All-Star Game.”

3 Lloyd Larson, “Every Second Brings Thrill as All-Star Story Unfolds,” Milwaukee Sentinel, July 13, 1955: part 2; 4.

4 Larson.

5 Philip J. Lowry, Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of Major League and Negro League Ballparks (New York: Walker Publishing, 2006), 131.

6 Lou Chapman and Tony Ingrassia, “Scoreboard Was No Prophet,” Milwaukee Sentinel, July 13, 1955: part 2: 6.

7 Chapman and Ingrassia, “Scoreboard Was No Prophet.”

8 “Refuses to Miss Game,” Milwaukee Sentinel, July 13, 1955: part 2: 6.

9 Lou Chapman, “Stan the (Old) Man Tired – So Ends game With Homer,” Milwaukee Sentinel, July 13, 1955: part 2: 4.

10 Chapman.

11 Tony Ingrassia, “‘Lousy’ Pitch Beat AL,” Milwaukee Sentinel, July 13, 1955: part 2: 4.