“Ah, young Denton,” they probably would say. “That boy is always throwing something.”

When combined with strength-building chores like crop-harvesting and wood-splitting, young Denton’s lunch-break throwing evolved into superb pitching, and stories of a Tuscarawas County farmer turned “Cyclone” pitcher caught the attention of major-league clubs as Cy Young took to the mound for semipro clubs in the region in the mid-1880s.1

A quarter-century later and just a few weeks shy of the 21st anniversary of Young’s debut appearance with the Cleveland Spiders of the National League, he reached a milestone that has never been matched and likely never will – a testament to the hard work and diligence he learned as a young farmhand. On July 19, 1910, the 43-year-old Young took the mound for the Cleveland Naps in the second game of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators. Though it took him 11 innings, he walked away from the mound at Washington’s American League Park with his 500th major-league victory.

Young was the oldest major leaguer with a regular playing role in 1910, his second season with Cleveland after a February 1909 trade from the Boston Red Sox, and he saw no reason he would not continue his success. He said splitting logs, making repairs, chopping wood, and looking after the stock on his Peoli, Ohio, farm kept him from growing “fat and soft” in the offseason,2 and despite a substandard record, he showed flashes of his old self in the first half of the season.3 Young had earned win number 499 in a two-hit, 5-0 shutout of the St. Louis Browns on June 30, but the Detroit Tigers, Red Sox, and New York Yankees foiled his first three tries at number 500.

Heavy rains in the nation’s capital had caused a postponement of the Naps-Senators series opener, necessitating the doubleheader on July 19. Knowing Young would try for history in the second game, 7,132 fans gathered on a Tuesday afternoon – a significant uptick at Washington’s turnstiles.4

The Senators treated those patrons to a dominant 7-0 victory in the afternoon’s opening game. Dolly Gray allowed only four hits in his first career shutout and supported his own cause with a career-high three hits at the plate.

Washington carried that momentum into Game Two, taking the lead with a run in the bottom of the first. Clyde Milan drew a leadoff walk and moved to second on Jack Lelivelt’s single. Milan went to third after Young hit him with a pickoff attempt, and he scored on a close play at the plate on Wid Conroy’s infield bouncer.

Meanwhile, Cleveland’s offense remained sluggish, failing to score against Doc Reisling over the first eight innings.5 Cleveland nearly scored in the fifth, but Washington catcher Gabby Street held onto the ball in a collision at the plate with George Stovall. Street left the game with an injury to his left wrist and did not return to action until August 1.

The Naps, however, were determined to bring Young his 500th victory, and Jack Graney drew an inning-opening walk in the ninth to spark a rally. Terry Turner laid a bunt up the first-base line and beat first baseman John Henry’s throw to the bag, and Nap Lajoie reached on a bunt of his own to load the bases. Ted Easterly and Stovall followed with back-to-back fly balls to give Cleveland a 2-1 lead.

Young trotted out to the mound to try to finish off the milestone victory with what would have become his fifth career two-hitter, but the Senators seemed intent on sweeping the doubleheader. After Milan drew a one-out walk, he advanced to third on Lelivelt’s single to right and scored the tying run on Conroy’s single to center. Young intentionally walked Doc Gessler to load the bases, and escaped the jam by retiring George McBride and Red Killefer, who went a combined 0-for-8 during the game.

After a scoreless 10th, the Naps broke through with another rally in the 11th. Harry Niles and Graney drew back-to-back walks, and Turner beat out a bunt up the third-base line to load the bases to open the inning. Bob Groom, who relieved Reisling in the 10th, walked Easterly on four pitches to let in the tiebreaking run, and Stovall followed with a two-run single to left.

Washington tried to respond in the bottom half, but after Milan’s leadoff single, Young retired the next three batters in order to secure his 500th victory and 731st complete game, crediting “the simple life” for his success in brief remarks after the game.6

“Denton T. Young, to my mind, is the greatest man who ever stepped upon the baseball diamond,” wrote longtime sportswriter Harry Neily. “He was a star in the days when catchers stood behind the plate bare-handed; he was a star when they used small finger gloves; he was a star when they developed the big mitt; and he is a star today.”7

“There is not a baseball fan nor a player in the country who does not rejoice today that Cy Young, the grand old man of the national game, has annexed his 500th victory in the big leagues,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer observed. “It is a mark that probably will never be equaled, for Cy is a freak in a way.”8

Young, who had won 20 or more games in 16 seasons, stood at 500-303 after the victory, well ahead of both Pud Galvin, second on the all-time wins list (365), and Christy Mathewson, second among active pitchers (252).9 By 1910, no pitcher had ever enjoyed a longer career than Young, and he had pitched 175 more games and thrown 1,173⅔ more innings than any other hurler in history after securing his 500th win. Cleveland sportswriter Henry P. Edwards used an estimation of 124 pitches per start to suggest that Young threw more than 100,000 pitches to compile his 500 victories.10

“It is a double pleasure to make this conspicuous mention of pitcher Young’s career – first, because of uniqueness; second, because of the personal worth of the performer,” said Sporting Life. “Throughout his long base ball career, he has been all that a good citizen and model ball player should be; a credit to himself, to his family and to the game; a striking illustration of the value of sobriety and right living; and shining example for the players of the past, present, and future generations. No greater, better, or more remarkable ball player than pitcher Young ever lived or lives now, and it is not likely that his professional record will ever be equalled; and it is still less likely that it will ever be excelled.”11

With the victory, Young’s season-long record stood at an uncharacteristic 3-7, but the milestone seemed to rejuvenate him. Young followed with four straight complete games to even his record at 7-7, though Cleveland continued to sit fifth in the American League at 34-40.12 The Naps closed the season with a 71-81 record, 32 games behind the eventual World Series champion Philadelphia Athletics. With the loss, Washington fell to 31-48, and the Senators closed the campaign in seventh place at 66-85 – the franchise’s 10th straight losing season.

Many within the baseball world rejoiced after Young’s milestone victory.

“Of all pitchers past and present, I admire Cy Young most,” Mathewson said. “He is the best example I know of the clean-living American athlete who is a model for the youth of the country. Young has lived the normal, natural out-of-door life. Never a teetotaler, he has been temperate in all things. As a result, he finds himself with his pitching arm unimpaired and his health perfect at 43. I can pay the veteran no greater compliment than to say that I have set my heart on being a second Cy Young [with 500 wins] pitching for New York in 1920. I heartily congratulate the Ohio farmer for winning 500 games in the big leagues, and my best wishes go with him in his determination to stay in the big show until he is 50 years old.”13

While Young did not play until age 50, he spent another season in the majors in 1911, splitting time with the Naps and the Boston Rustlers and adding seven more wins to his ledger to bring his career total to 511.14 Young earned his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937 as a member of the second induction class.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card DB.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent materials and the box scores. He also used information obtained from Reed Browning’s 2000 biography, Cy Young: A Baseball Life, and Ralph H. Romig’s 1964 biography, Cy Young: Baseball’s Legendary Giant, as well as news coverage by The Sporting News, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Washington Post, and the Washington Herald.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WS1/WS1191007192.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1910/B07192WS11910.htm

Notes

1 Young’s hometown of Gilmore sits about 100 miles south of Cleveland.

2 Tip Wright (United Press), “What Makes Cy Young Star Pitcher,” Montgomery (Alabama) Times, March 17, 1910: 8.

3 Young pitched 14 innings in his third start of the season – a game against the St. Louis Browns that ended in a 3-3 tie due to darkness – and he struck out nine Yankees in a loss on June 15.

4 Prior to the game, the biggest Tuesday afternoon home attendance for the Senators came on May 24, when 5,209 fans joined President William Howard Taft in watching Washington defeat the Detroit Tigers 3-2 in a six-inning, rain-shortened game. One week before Young’s historic start, only 480 fans attended a game against the St. Louis Browns, which was twice interrupted by rain and ended in a 4-4 tie after eight innings because of darkness. Washington did not host a larger Tuesday crowd until more than a year later, when 8,000 fans showed up to watch the Tigers on July 25, 1911.

5 Cleveland’s 17-inning scoreless streak seemed modest compared to a seven-game August series against the Senators August 9-12. The Naps failed to score in four of those games, including a 23-inning scoreless stretch over three games.

6 United Press, “Simple Life Did It for Cy,” Wilmington (Delaware) Evening Journal, July 21, 1910: 8.

7 Harry Neily, “Will Pitcher Ever Equal Mark of 500 Victories Set by Young?” Detroit Evening Times, July 20, 1910: 4.

8 “Cy Young Has to Work Twenty-One Years to Win Five Hundred Big League Games,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 20, 1910: 6.

9 Mathewson also won on July 19, pitching 11 innings in a win over the Cincinnati Reds. By the end of his career in 1916, he had compiled 373 victories.

10 Henry P. Edwards, “Cy Young Witnesses the Passing of Hosts of Famous Pitchers,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 24, 1910: 16.

11 “Stands Alone!” Sporting Life, July 30, 1910: 4.

12 From May 17 until the end of the season, Cleveland stood fifth in the standings, except for the 18 days the Naps spent in sixth place.

13 “Christy Mathewson Hopes to Be a Second Cy Young,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 21, 1910: 9.

14 In addition to the career wins record, Young also tops the major-league leaderboards with 315 losses, 815 starts, 749 complete games, and 7,356 innings pitched. No player will likely ever surpass any of those marks.

Geiser, waiting to board a bus to his home about 90 miles south of the city,1 was standing just beyond the tall right-field fence at Cleveland’s League Park. He most likely heard, too, the roar of the overflow ballpark crowd of more than 25,000 people 2 just as the Sultan of Swat cocked his bat over his left shoulder and swung fiercely, launching the baseball toward the street.

As Geiser was about to depart from Cleveland that Sunday afternoon after visiting relatives,3 Babe Ruth stepped to the plate in the top of the second inning with 499 career home runs tallied on his stat sheet. Ruth had been hitting homers at a torrid pace; he had four in his last five games. The Babe seemed to find League Park particularly accommodating, having slugged many moonshots there since he first deposited one into the center-field seats, just left of the scoreboard, in May of 1921.4 (The ballpark was known as Dunn Field in 1921.)

As the Bambino settled at the plate – it was his first at-bat of the game – Cleveland pitcher Willis Hudlin threw a high fastball “which left home plate much higher and ten times faster than it arrived,” reported New York Times writer William Brandt. “It soared over the right-field fence near the foul line, and was the first run of the afternoon.”

According to the front-page, above-the-fold article in the next day’s Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ruth called his shot before the game. In his story, Gordon Cobbledick wrote about an exchange the Yankees’ slugger had with the ballpark’s security chief, H. Clay Folger:

“Listen,” said the Babe, “I’m going to hit No. 500 today and I tell you what I wish you’d do. I wish you’d find the kid who gets the ball and bring him to me. I’d kinda like to save that one.”

Geiser was no kid. Brandt wrote in the Times that he was 46 years old. As for respecting the Babe’s wishes and returning the ball, the Times simply reported that he, the “ball retriever,” was brought back to the stadium and escorted to the Yankees’ dugout. The Plain Dealer, sticking with the kid theme, provided a more elaborate tale of how Geiser reached and met the Babe.

“Folger and his men immediately went into action,” the Plain Dealer reported. “This and that urchin they interviewed and at length they found one who said: ‘A fella got it. I think he went in to the ball park.’

The Cleveland newspaper claimed Folger rushed back to the ballpark, and soon “there entered a young man with a suspicious looking bulge at his right-hand coat pocket.”

There, the Plain Dealer reported, Folger offered to exchange a “brand new one [baseball] with the Babe’s autograph on it” for the 500th home-run ball.

We learn from the Plain Dealer’s side of the story that Geiser was accompanied by an unidentified friend, who may have been trying to score a better deal for his pal by piping up with, “Oh, yeah? Maybe my friend would like to save it, too.”

At that moment, everyone involved headed to the Yankees dugout to meet the Babe.

Once there, Ruth asked the ball retriever his name. His reply, according to the Plain Dealer: “I’m Jake Geiser. “I came up from New Philadelphia, O., to see the game.”

From that point, the Plain Dealer and New York Times stories mostly agree. Ruth hands an autographed ball – the Times reported it was two balls – to either a young or a 46-year-old Geiser, and an unautographed $20 bill. The Sporting News, perhaps gleaning information from the Cleveland reports, did not list Geiser’s name or age, but referend to him as “youngster” and “boy” in its August 15, 1929, edition.

The Times reported that Geiser delayed his bus trip back to New Philadelphia to stick around at League Park – often called Dunn Field, in honor of the Indians’ owner, James Dunn – in hopes of seeing Ruth hit another shot toward Lexington Avenue. After “watching Ruth miss the fence on three subsequent efforts, and asserting that Ruth’s 600th homer is not likely to happen here this week, he left for his home tonight, richer by $20 to say nothing of the two baseballs.”

So much had happened on and off the field, but so much more was yet to be played out. After Ruth hit his milestone home run in the second – it was his 30th of the season – Lou Gehrig came to bat in the fourth with the bases empty. As Cobbledick wrote in a separate story for the Plain Dealer the day after, the Yankees first baseman hit “another slow ball floating lazily up toward the plate, bashed into approximately the same spot where his more illustrious mate’s had landed.”

Gehrig’s 27th home run of the year gave the “terrible men of Gotham”5 a 2-0 lead.

Going into the game, Cleveland already had defeated the Yankees nine times in the season. But the Roger Peckinpaugh-managed team was 55-51 and sat in fourth place, a distant 22 games out of first place. They had lost three in a row, including the series opener to the Yankees, the defending World Series champions.

Down early in the contest, Peckinpaugh’s men rallied in the bottom of the fourth. The Indians up to this point had managed only a couple of harmless singles off Yankees lefty hurler Ed Wells.

Rookie left-handed hitter Earl Averill, who for the previous three seasons had played for the Pacific Coast League’s San Francisco Seals, sparked the Cleveland rally by squaring his bat, dropping a bunt toward first base, and running to the bag safely. It was one of three hits in the game for the center fielder. First baseman Lew Fonseca singled up the middle to put runners on first and second. Bibb Falk’s sacrifice advanced the runners 90 feet closer to home.

“This set the stage for Johnny Hodapp and he came through with a single that scored Averill and Fonseca. Then he moved up on Ray Gardner’s infield out and when Luke Sewell slid a single into left he disregarded Coach Howard Shanks’ instructions to stop at third and came tracing in ahead of Bob Meusel’s bad throw with the run that put the Tribe in the lead.”6

The Indians led 3-2 after four. The Yankees rebounded for a run in the top of the fifth to tie the game, but Cleveland got its own tally in the bottom half of the frame.

Bob Meusel’s bases-loaded, two-run double notched more Yankees runs on the League Park scoreboard, putting the New Yorkers ahead, 5-4 in the sixth.

The Indians donned their rally caps, figuratively speaking, once again in the bottom half of the sixth when Yankees second baseman Tony Lazzeri “muffed a throw which should have retired the side runless. The Indians scored two runs, and Wells retired to the seclusion of the showers.”7 He exited in the sixth, having been knocked around for 12 hits and six runs – four of those were earned. Righty Roy Sherid took Wells’s place on the mound and allowed only one hit.

Willis Hudlin recorded the win for Cleveland, his 12th of the season, “making him the first Indians flinger to accomplish a dozen wins.”8

The win moved Cleveland into sole possession of third place in the American League. The Yankees remained 10½ games behind the league-leading Philadelphia Athletics, who lost 9-8 in 11 innings that day in Detroit.

Ruth’s second-inning blast made him the first player in big-league history to hit 500 home runs. Cy Williams, star slugger for Philadelphia’s National League club, was the Bambino’s closest competitor. The veteran outfielder had collected 249 career homers as of August 11, 1929, the day Ruth paddled a Hudlin pitch over the 40-foot-high concrete and screen right-field wall that thumped off a doorstep on Lexington Avenue and rolled unsuspectedly toward the footsteps of a traveler from New Philadelphia, Ohio.

Notes

In his 15 years with the Yankees, Ruth had hit 659 home runs, with many milestones. He slugged 60 homers in 1927, the last one coming off Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators on September 30. The Babe hit his 500th career home run off Willis Hudlin of the Cleveland Indians on August 11, 1929, and his 600th off George Blaeholder of the St. Louis Browns on August 21, 1931.

Ruth mashed career home run No. 700 on July 13, 1934, off Tommy Bridges of the Detroit Tigers. On that notable day, the Yankees sent Red Ruffing to the mound to face Bridges. Both Bridges and Ruffing had identical 4-2 records in their last six games. Ruffing would finish the year with 19 wins and 11 losses; he also pitched in the All-Star Game. Bridges finished the year with a record of 22 wins and 11 losses and a league-leading 35 games started, and was an American League All-Star selection, though he didn’t get into the game.

In 1933, Ruth had batted .288, hit 22 home runs, and had 84 RBIs. Teammate Lou Gehrig outplayed the Babe, winning the AL Triple Crown with a .363 batting average, 49 home runs, and 166 RBIs. Yankee catcher Bill Dickey had a solid season as well, hitting 12 home runs, driving in 72 runs, and batting .322 with his second consecutive All-Star game selection.

Detroit was also loaded with talent in 1934 and went on to its first American League pennant since 1909, although they lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. The Tiger lineup had hitters like Goose Goslin, Charlie Gehringer, Hank Greenberg, and player-manager Mickey Cochrane, all of whom were later elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.2

As Bridges and Ruffing got down to work that Friday the 13th afternoon in front of the crowd at Navin Field, the Tigers were a scant half-game ahead of New York in the American League standings.

There was no scoring in either the first or the second innings, although the Yankees came close in the top of the second. Gehrig and Ben Chapman singled to lead off the frame. Dickey’s line drive to right field was turned into a double play when Gehrig was caught off second. Chapman stole second and Frank Crosetti walked. Bridges threw a wild pitch that advanced Chapman to third and Crosetti to second. Bridges ended the threat when he got Don Heffner to fly out to center.

Gehrig left the game with one out in the bottom of the second, plagued by lumbago.3 Third baseman Jack Saltzgaver replaced Gehrig at first, Frankie Crosetti moved from shortstop to third and newcomer Red Rolfe went in to play shortstop, batting in Gehrig’s cleanup spot in the lineup. The Iron Horse’s lumbago created serious doubt as to whether his consecutive-game streak, now at 1,426, could continue.4

The Tigers got runners to second and third with one out in the bottom of the second on a double by Greenberg and a single and stolen base by Cochrane, but Marv Owen popped out to second and Bridges grounded to shortstop.

Ruffing struck out to begin the Yankees’ third. Earle Combs singled to center field and Saltzgaver struck out. Ruth hit next and drove a Bridges pitch well into the right-field bleachers for his 14th home run of the season, No. 700 of his career, giving the Yankees a 2-0 lead.5

(To put Ruth’s accomplishment in perspective, when he got his 700th, the next four career home-run leaders were his teammate Gehrig, with 323; Jimmie Foxx, with 248; Al Simmons, with 235; and Mel Ott, with 197.)

In the bottom of the third inning the Tigers made the score 2-1 when Jo-Jo White scored on a high fly to second base by Gehringer.6

The game remained 2-1 Yankees, despite scoring chances by the Yankees in the fourth inning and the Tigers in the sixth inning. In the Yankees’ fourth, Dickey led off with a single but was picked off first. Heffner singled to center with two outs and advanced to second on a wild pitch, but was left there when Ruffing flied out. As for Detroit in the sixth inning, Billy Rogell hit a one-out single. He advanced to second on a groundout and Cochrane walked. But both were left on base when Owen struck out.

New York came to bat in the bottom of the eighth inning still leading 2-1. Ruth walked with one out, and Rolfe’s single sent him to second base. Rolfe was picked off first base, but Chapman drew a two-out walk. Bill Dickey’s double to center scored Ruth and Chapman, and it was now 4-1 in favor of the Yankees.

Detroit made it 4-2 in the bottom of the eighth inning when Greenberg’s triple scored Rogell. Ruffing retired the Tigers in order in the ninth.

Ruth hit eight more home runs as a Yankee after this game, with his final pinstripes round-tripper run coming on September 29, 1934, against the Washington Senators’ Syd Cohen in an 8-5 Senators victory. His first home run in the National League came off the Giants’ Carl Hubbell on April 16, 1935; in a 4-2 Braves win on Opening Day. His final home run, one of three he hit that day, was off Guy Bush May 25, 1925, in an 11-7 Braves’ loss to the Pirates at Forbes Field.7

Gehrig, meanwhile, managed to preserve his consecutive games streak the next day with the help of some creative lineup-juggling. He was penciled in at shortstop and led off the game against the Tigers with a single to right. He was immediately replaced by pinch-runner Rolfe, who also took Gehrig’s place at shortstop. The following day, the Iron Horse returned to the lineup full-time. He bashed three doubles, but the Yankees fell to the Tigers, 8-3.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites, Robert Creamer’s Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), and Leigh Montville’s The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth (New York: Doubleday, 2006).

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET193407130.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1934/B07130DET1934.htm

Notes

In mid-August of 1940, Jimmie Foxx went on a homer-hitting spree, banging out four-base hits five games in a row, hitting seven home runs in a seven-day stretch from August 13 through 19. On August 16 he hit a home run in the first inning and another – a game-winner– in the bottom of the 10th. Those two homers pushed him past Lou Gehrig to second place on the all-time home-run list, second only to Babe Ruth. The run of seven homers in seven days increased his total to 497 homers in the course of his long career. Then he hit only one more in the rest of August (number 498) and another on September 4 (499). He’d hit in 30 games trying to get from 497 to 500, and after number 499 he’d gone 15 games with hitting one out. There were only eight games left on the schedule.

In the first 10 games of September, Foxx’s versatility in the field was evident. The team captain caught the first 10 games of the month, then played six games in succession at first base. On September 19 he played third base. On the 22nd he pinch-hit. There was no game on the 23rd. He was back at first base on September 24.

It was perhaps fitting that it was in Philly that Foxx finally hit number 500. He had, after all, begun his big-league career there in 1925. Had there not been a Depression, and had Connie Mack not found the team in desperate straits, he almost certainly would never have dealt one of his biggest stars to wealthy young Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey in December 1935.1 Foxx had already hit 302 homers and driven in 1,075 runs for the Athletics.

When he stepped into the Shibe Park batter’s box shortly after the 1:35 P.M. start on Tuesday afternoon, September 24, he was still stuck on 499. Right-hander Ed Heusser was on the mound for the Athletics. Foxx led off the top of the second inning with a single, then moved to third base on Bobby Doerr’s single. The Red Sox loaded the bases and he scored on a sacrifice fly by Johnny Peacock. His was the first of two Red Sox runs scored in the inning.

Next time up, Foxx flied out to the first baseman, but Boston had run its lead up to 5-0. Starting in the fourth, George Caster replaced Heusser on the mound, Heusser having been removed for a pinch-hitter. Even though the pinch-hitter struck out, the Athletics pushed three runs across in the third.

Against Caster, Ted Williams hit a two-out, two-run homer, making it 7-3. Foxx was up next but flied out to left.

Joe Cronin hit a leadoff homer in the fifth.

In the sixth inning, Caster seemed to start grooving them. Dom DiMaggio was up first; he tripled. Doc Cramer flied out to left, and Dom tagged up and scored. 9-3. With the bases empty, Ted Williams hit his second home run of the game, over the right-field fence. 10-3. Foxx, still longing for number 500, stepped up and hit it into the left-field pavilion. Home run 500. 11-3. He had joined Babe Ruth as the only two batters in history to reach the 500 mark, and he was still just 32 years old.

Joe Cronin was next; he homered, too, “bouncing the ball off the leftfield roof.”2 The three consecutive home runs tied the major-league mark at the time. 12-3. Cronin was 4-for-5 in the game.

It was Bobby Doerr’s turn next, and he rounded the bases, too – but he’d “only” tripled, off the left-field stands (he hadn’t missed another home run by much), coming all the way to score on an errant wild throw by Athletics first baseman Dick Siebert (because of the carom the ball had taken, the Associated Press noted, “observers thought he could have got an inside homer.”)3 13-3. Next up was Jim Tabor. He homered onto the roof on top of the left-field stands.4 And Dom DiMaggio doubled in another run. 15-3.

In the sixth inning, Caster had faced seven batters and given up two triples and four solo home runs. That was enough. It was 14-3. Les McCrabb relieved. He finished the game, giving up just one more run. The Athletics scored five times in the bottom of the eighth, off Red Sox starter Joe Heving, who was left in to go the distance, but the final score was 15-8.

Despite a total of 38 base hits (23 by the Red Sox, 6 of them home runs), two walks, and four errors, the game didn’t even take two hours to complete. The time of game was 1:55. Foxx was replaced by Tony Lupien, who played first base in the eighth and ninth.

Foxx played the second game of the day’s doubleheader, collecting one single in four at-bats and scoring one run. The Red Sox won, 4-3.

There were only an estimated 1,500 fans present.

Foxx played in six more games in 1940, with seven base hits, but none were home runs. He finished the season, satisfied with 36 homers for the season and 500 in his career. His total of 36 home runs in 1940 accomplished something no one had ever done before – including Ruth and Gehrig. Foxx had homered 30 or more times for 12 consecutive seasons.

The five doubles, three triples, and six homers gave the Red Sox 14 extra-base hits in the game, reported by the Boston Globe as having set a new major-league record.5 Their 52 total bases were one shy of the American League mark.

Foxx hit 19 more home runs in 1941, and five more for the 1942 Red Sox before he was placed on waivers and selected on June 1 by the Chicago Cubs. He hit three homers for the Cubs in 1942 and seven more during the war year of 1945 when he was signed as a free agent by the Philadelphia Phillies, for a career total of 534. The Phillies also played their home games at Shibe Park. Home run number 532 was the last one Foxx hit at Shibe, on August 20, 1945. It provided the Phillies their second run in a 4-3 win over the visiting Cincinnati Reds. In all, he hit 181 of his home runs at Shibe Park.

In 1951 Jimmie Foxx was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Before the 1953 season, the ballpark he’d called home for most of his career was renamed Connie Mack Stadium.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Mark R. Milliken, Jimmie Foxx: The Pride of Sudlersville (Lanham, Maryland & London: Scarecrow Press, 1998), Baseball-Reference.com, and Retrosheet.org.

NOTES

1 The trade netted Mack $150,000 in cash.

2 “Red Sox Tie Major Home Run Record,” Boston Globe, September 25, 1940: 25.

3 “Red Sox Wallop A’S Twice,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 25, 1940: 22.

4 John Drohan, “Foxx Crashes No. 500, Sox Equal Homer Mark,” Boston Herald, September 25, 1940: 28.

5 Boston Globe.

At the plate, the Red Sox were the equal of the first-place Tigers, tied with Detroit for the lead with a .286 team batting average, scoring an average of 5.66 runs per game – barely behind the Tigers – and out-homering all but the Yankees. Boston’s lineup featured four future Hall of Famers: shortstop-manager Joe Cronin,1 second baseman Bobby Doerr, first baseman Jimmie Foxx, and left fielder Ted Williams. Rookie Dom DiMaggio, who would hit .301, had taken over center field from veteran All-Star Doc Cramer, another .300 hitter, who started in right.

The Red Sox’ downfall was pitching. Lefty Grove was about to turn 40 and was a season past his final good one. The top starter, Jim Bagby Jr., was not yet the All-Star he would become with Cleveland. The staff’s 4.89 earned-run average was sixth in the league, better only than those of the sixth-place Browns and last-place Athletics.

Still, Boston left Philadelphia on September 25 having beaten the Athletics twice. Those victories pulled the team out of a stretch of 11 losses in 14 games that had dashed any hope of a late charge. The 16-8 victory on September 24 had been one for the books. The Red Sox had scored seven runs in the sixth inning with a major-league-record seven extra-base hits: four homers, two triples, and a double. A single gave the Red Sox 25 total bases in the inning, an American League record.2 One of the four home runs was by Foxx, the 500th of his career. He became the second player to reach that milestone.

The seventh-place Washington Senators, playing out the string, arrived in Boston from New York for two late-afternoon games on Thursday and Friday at Fenway Park. Washington had lost both games at Yankee Stadium as New York tried to make a run at a fifth straight title. With two runs in the ninth, the Nats3 beat the Red Sox, 6-5, on Thursday. The next day, as Detroit clinched the pennant, beating Bob Feller in Cleveland, and with the Yankees losing to the A’s, Red Sox batters took out their frustrations on three Washington pitchers.4

Veteran lefty Fritz Ostermueller, in his seventh season with the Red Sox, started for Boston. He had won just four games all season, moving between the rotation and the bullpen. Rene Monteagudo, a 5-foot-7 Cuban left-hander, started for Washington. This would be his only full season as a pitcher in the majors, although he resurfaced during the war as an outfielder and pinch-hitter.5

Other than the pitcher, the Red Sox started the same lineup that had taken the field on Opening Day. The Ladies Day crowd, reported as “1,110 paid, 1,100 ladies”6 for the 3 P.M. game, saw Washington take the lead with two runs in the first. Nats shortstop Cecil Travis, given new life when his foul pop was dropped by catcher Gene Desautels, singled in the first run.7 First baseman Jack Sanford doubled Travis home.

A walk and a single put runners at the corners for the Red Sox with no outs in the first, but Williams hit into a 3-6-3 double play. DiMaggio scored to make it 2-1. Neither team scored in the second. The Nats still led by a run when the Red Sox came up in the bottom of the third.

Three singles leading off the inning loaded the bases for Williams. Again, he grounded to first. This time Washington couldn’t turn a double play, and Williams was credited with an RBI. Foxx’s single drove in Cramer and DiMaggio. Cronin’s 24th homer brought in two more, putting the Red Sox up 6-2 after three.

The Senators pinch-hit for Monteagudo in the fourth. Right-hander Lou Thuman, a September call-up, took the mound in bottom of the inning. He walked the number-eight hitter, Desautels, and then the pitcher. Washington second baseman Jimmy Bloodworth booted DiMaggio’s grounder to load the bases. Cramer’s single drove in two. Williams’s single drove in another.

Thuman, who had pitched five innings in his only other 1940 appearance, left the mound for the final time in the majors after walking Foxx. Canadian lefty Joe Krakauskas relieved Thuman with the score 9-2 and the bases loaded. Krakauskas had been a serviceable starter for the Senators in 1939, throwing 217⅓ innings and winning 11 games, but 1940 found him relegated mostly to the bullpen. On this day, he was about to take one for the team.

With Cronin up, a passed ball brought in Cramer with the 10th Red Sox run. Cronin then walked to load the bases again. Doerr walked, forcing in another run. Third baseman Jim Tabor singled, driving in Foxx and Cronin.

After a fly out and a fielder’s-choice grounder, DiMaggio’s single brought in another run. Cramer’s walk loaded the bases again. Williams’s single brought in the final two runs of the inning before Foxx struck out. The totals: five walks, five singles and 10 runs. Six of the runs, five earned, were charged to Thuman. The Red Sox led 16-2 after four. Cronin and Foxx were given the rest of the day off, but the scoring barrage continued.

Krakauskas gave up a solo homer to Doerr, his 22nd, in the fifth, but held the Red Sox scoreless in the sixth and seventh. Left in to bat, the Nats pitcher singled and scored in the seventh. A single by Bloodworth scored George Case with the Senators’ fourth run.

Washington manager Bucky Harris understandably saw no need to waste another pitcher, so Krakauskas stayed in for a fifth inning. It got ugly fast.

Charlie Gelbert, who had replaced Tabor at third base in the sixth, led off with a double. He moved to third on catcher Desautels’ single. Ostermueller, the pitcher, raised his average to .315 with an RBI single. A wild pitch scored Desautels. DiMaggio doubled home Ostermueller, who scored four runs himself, a Red Sox record for a pitcher (at least since 1908).8

After a strikeout, Williams walked. Tony Lupien, who had replaced Foxx, tripled. A fly ball by Tom Carey scored him.9Doerr doubled and scored the final run on Gelbert’s single.

Mercifully, the Red Sox didn’t need to bat again in the bottom of the ninth. Thanks to nine walks, Boston scored a season-high 24 times on 22 hits, 17 of them singles, and 34 total bases. The 24 runs were the most scored in the majors by any team in a 1940 game. The game lasted 2:19.

The Red Sox were not done, however. In doubleheaders the next two days, Boston pummeled the Athletics again, 16-4 and 8-1 on Saturday and 9-4 and 4-1 on Sunday.10 In winning the last five games of the season, the Red Sox scored 61 runs, allowed just 14, and pulled into a fourth-place tie with the White Sox at 82-72.

Sources

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

Notes

1 Cronin led Washington to its third (and last) pennant in 1933 as player-manager. In the depth of the Depression, team owner Clark Griffith traded Cronin, by then married to his adopted daughter, after the 1934 season to the Red Sox for $250,000 and Lyn Lary, a far lesser shortstop.

2 RedSoxDieHard.com: redsoxdiehard.com/stats/record.html#csgbat, accessed September 14, 2018.

3 Always popularly known as the Senators, Washington was officially the Nationals until the 1957 season; thus the headline-friendly nickname the Nats.

4 Three September 28 newspaper accounts of this game, “Red Sox Win, 24-4, New Season Mark” by James C. O’Leary in the Boston Globe; “Boston’s 24-4 Win Over Nats Is Most Lopsided of Year” in the Washington Evening Star; and “Red Sox Rout Nats, 24 to 4, With Nonstop Hit Parade” in the Washington Post (both “Special Dispatches”) include nothing beyond the game summaries of Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

5 After being sent to the minors, Monteagudo began to play regularly in the outfield. In 1943 he hit .326 in the Southern Association. He got into 10 games with Washington at the end of 1944 and appeared in 114 games with the Phillies in 1945, hitting .301 and pitching 45⅔ innings in 14 games.

6 James O’Leary, Boston Globe.

7 Travis, 3-for-5 in this game, would finish the season at .322, the sixth time in his seven full seasons that he had hit .317 or better. His .359 average in 1941 was second only to Ted Williams’s .406 and his 218 hits led the league. He missed nearly all of the next four seasons in the Army in World War II. He saw combat near the end of the Battle of the Bulge, where he suffered frostbite in two toes. When he returned, he was not the same player and retired after the 1947 season.

8 The Joy of Sox website (second comment), joyofsox.blogspot.com/2018/08/g118-red-sox-at-orioles-1-pm.html, accessed September 14, 2018.

9 This was not a sacrifice fly because the sacrifice fly rule was not in effect in the year 1940.

10 The 40 runs in back-to-back games on the 27th and 28th were not a record even then, and were topped by the Red Sox in beating the St. Louis Browns 20-4 and 29-4 in the two games of June 7-8, 1950.

Ott’s output made him a Giants mainstay and a fan favorite over 22 seasons. A quiet manner belied menacing power at the plate.  He was also the player-manager of the Giants from 1942 to 1948.

For the paid crowd of 19,318 plus 2,780 servicemen at the Polo Grounds on August 1, 1945, the Giants-Braves game was an opportunity to watch one of the game’s finest reach rarefied territory. Only two players to date had crossed the 500 mark in homers — Babe Ruth with 714 and Jimmie Foxx with 531. (The latter, then in his final major-league season, added three more in his career.)

Ott’s 2-for-4 performance was just part of a Giants offense that resulted in 14 hits against the Beantown visitors. The barrage began by tagging Braves righty Nate Andrews for four consecutive singles to start the bottom of the first.

Leadoff hitter Whitey Lockman — a rookie with 32 games and a .341 batting average in ’45 — and George Hausmann occupied first and second bases when Ott entered his first hit on the scorecard. His single sent Lockman home and Hausmann to third base; Danny Gardella knocked the fourth consecutive single, a hit to right field that scored Hausmann and gave Ott enough time to get to third base.

Andrews’s journey ended; Braves manager Del Bissonette called on right-hander Johnny Hutchings to hush the Giants, but the two-run lead expanded to three.

Gardella stole second; Ott scored the third run of the inning on Phil Weintraub’s fly ball to right fielder Tommy Holmes. Hutchings gave Boston a breather when he retired Ernie Lombardi and Buddy Kerr on groundouts.

It appeared that the Braves would develop their own threat in the top of the second with leadoff singles by Butch Nieman and Carden Gillenwater. But Nieman’s attempt to score from first failed; Gillenwater dashed to third base and scored on Chuck Workman’s fly out to Ott in right field. Whitey Wietelmann continued to worry Giants fans with a single. But New York right-hander Van Lingle Mungo dismissed Hutchings with a strikeout.

The run gap closed to one in the top of the third inning. Boston’s leadoff hitter, Dick Culler, banged a single and reached second base on Phil Masi’s sacrifice bunt to Billy Jurges at third base. Culler moved up a base on a passed ball and scored on Holmes’s single. New York’s lead was down to 3-2.

Slim Emmerich took over from Mungo, but the righty didn’t do much immediate good — Joe Medwick’s single and Nieman’s walk loaded the bases. Gillenwater’s double-play grounder to shortstop relieved Giants rooters of any further concern.

Ott’s 500th career homer, a solo shot, started the bottom of the third and put the home team up 4-2. Louis Effrat of the New York Times described the pause in the game as a “boisterous ovation” after the stadium announcer let the crowd know about the milestone.1 The blast was not tape-measure, though. Dick Young of the Daily News wrote, “It was a sort of fair-to-middlin’ bargain, marked down to 319 feet.”2

Lockman followed suit with a leadoff homer in the bottom of the fourth, increasing the lead to 5-2.

In the Giants’ half of the fifth, the score escalated to 7-2. Hutchings retired Kerr and Jurges on grounders to Kerr’s shortstop counterpart Culler. But Emmerich’s single and Hutchings’ plunking of Lockman gave the Giants first and second bases. Hausmann then knocked in both runners with one of his eight triples in ’45.

Braves reliever Ed Wright, another right-hander, came in to face the hero of the moment; Ott failed to get his third hit of the day. A grounder to Wietelmann ended the menace of a higher run deficit for the Braves.

But their reprieve was temporary.

The Giants added a couple of runs in the sixth to make the score 9-2. Gardella’s grounder to first baseman Medwick and Weintraub striking out looking portended a quick end to the inning. But Lombardi and Kerr banged a pair of singles off Wright; Jurges’ double scored both.

Ott’s teammates had splendid afternoons that were overshadowed by his 500th home run. Aside from the walk and HBP, Lockman went 2-for-3 with three runs scored and an RBI. It was indicative of his first year in the majors — Lockman played in 32 games and batted .341 in 1945.

Hausmann had two RBIs, a run scored, and a 2-for-5 game. Kerr went 2-for-5, Jurges, 2-for-4.

Witnessing history and celebrating the seven-run victory margin was an emotional boon for Giants fans, who had followed the team’s 9-11 road trip between July 12 and July 28. Their team split the previous day’s doubleheader against the Braves at the Polo Grounds.

New York’s authoritative victory ignited a 14-6 run in the first 20 games of August. They ended the season with a fifth-place finish at 78-74-2. Boston lagged in sixth place with a 67-85-2 record.

Ott played in 135 games in 1945 and swatted 10 more home runs. Although aging—Ott turned 36 before the season—he could inspire alarm among National League pitchers. The slugger ended 1945 with a .308 average, seventh among his NL brethren. He tied for fourth place in home runs with the Cardinals’ Whitey Kurowski. They both had 21 round-trippers. Ott was also a magnet for the baseball, leading the league in hit-by-pitch.

The Louisiana native’s presence was a cornerstone of New York’s lineup with at least 120 games a season since 1928, his third year in the major leagues. It declined with a total of 35 games before retirement — 31 in 1946 and 4 in 1947. His 511th and last career home run was on Opening Day 1946. As with his first major-league home run, in July 1927, and his 500th homer 18 years later, it happened at the Polo Grounds. The Sporting News noted that the right fielder smacked 63 percent of his home runs in the Upper Manhattan ballyard (313 vs. 187 in other NL parks).3

Ott played in his final major-league game on July 11, 1947. He continued managing in 1948, but moved to a front-office job in the middle of the season when owner Horace Stoneham replaced him with Leo Durocher, a longtime Giants rival as both a player and manager. In 1951 Ott was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Sources 

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1945/B08010NY11945.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NY1/NY1194508010.shtml

Notes

1 Louis Effrat, “Ott Drives No. 500 as Giants Win, 9-2,” New York Times, August 2, 1945: 23.

2 Dick Young, “Giants Batter Braves, 9-2; Ott Cheered for 500th HR,” New York Daily News, August 2, 1945: 186.

3 “Ott Clouts 500th Home Run, 313 in Own Polo Grounds,” The Sporting News, August 9, 1945: 4.

The 1960 season was the end of an era in the major leagues. It was the last year that both the American and National Leagues would be eight-team leagues. Expansion bolstered each circuit to 10 teams in 1961 and 1962. At the end of the decade, each league added two more cities to its burgeoning landscape. Each league was formed into two divisions, East and West. The term “pennant race” would eventually be replaced with “division race.”

But the AL standings had an odd look about them in 1960. Many fans may have been surprised to see that the Boston Red Sox were scuttling at the bottom of the league. It was an odd sight, to be sure, for the Red Sox were as consistent a contender for the AL flag as there was. After finishing in the top half of the league for much of the previous decade, the team slipped to fifth place in 1959 with a 75-79 record. Its descent into the bowels of the league standings continued in 1960; the Red Sox finished in foreign territory with a 65-89 record, and a drop to seventh place.

Ted Williams was still the marquee player for Boston. But, hobbled by injuries, he started off slow and, coupled with the team’s losing ways, was considering hanging up his spikes. As Boston arrived in Cleveland for a four-game series in mid-June, Teddy Ballgame explained his rationale: “Two weeks ago, I was awfully close to quitting,” Williams said. “I had a bad cold, was feeling bad and wasn’t hitting good. I told Billy Jurges (then the Boston manager), if I can’t help the club, I’m going to quit. Then I hit a couple against the wind and decided to stay with it.”1

His decision to stick around proved to have merit. Williams had connected on home runs 498 and 499 in a series at Detroit before heading to Cleveland.  

Jurges was shown the door in early June after compiling a record of 15-27. He was replaced initially by one of his coaches, Del Baker, on an interim basis, and then Pinky Higgins. But the change of skippers did not right the ship.      

For the Cleveland Indians, their 1960 season was shrouded in controversy. General manager Frank Lane traded fan favorite Rocky Colavito to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn on April 17. In the prime of his career, Colavito slugged 139 home runs in four seasons for the Tigers. Kuenn was sent to San Francisco after the 1960 season. Although many pointed to this trade as the one that sent the Indians on a downward spiral, it was a deal made five days earlier that really hurt. The Indians sent Norm Cash to the Tigers for infielder Steve Demeter. Cash went on to hit 373 home runs in a spectacular career in Detroit. Demeter played a grand total of four games for the Indians.

In spite of these moves, Cleveland was tied with New York for second place. Each club had identical 29-22 records, 1 ½ games behind front-running Baltimore. Boston came to town for a four-game set on June 17 in last place with a record of 18-34.

The pitching matchup featured a couple of right-handers. Boston went with Frank Sullivan (2-6, 5.25 ERA) and Cleveland tapped Wynn Hawkins (4-3, 4.31 ERA). Sullivan was a dependable pitcher who had strung together five straight winning seasons from 1954 to 1958. His record slipped to 9-11 in 1959. Hawkins was a rookie on the Cleveland pitching staff whose role was that of a spot starter and sometimes reliever.

Cleveland drew first blood in the bottom of the first inning. Kuenn led off with a walk. After Ken Aspromonte struck out, Kuenn stole second base. Sullivan then struck out Marty Keough for the second out. But John Romano followed with a bloop single to center field to plate Kuenn and gave Cleveland a 1-0 advantage.

Boston came back in the top of the second inning. Frank Malzone led off and hit a ball in the hole at short. Malzone just beat the throw to first by Indians shortstop Woodie Held for an infield single. He stole second base and moved to third when Russ Nixon singled to left field. Gary Geiger hit a pitch that glanced off Hawkins’ glove. Geiger was credited with a hit and an RBI as Malzone scored. But Hawkins escaped his predicament when Don Buddin hit into a double play and Sullivan struck out.

The score remained tied at 1-1 until the top of the third inning. Boston’s Willie Tasby led off with a base hit to center field. After Pete Runnels fouled out to the third baseman, Williams stepped to the plate and smashed a 1-and-2 offering from Hawkins to left field. Cleveland left fielder Tito Francona eased back to the fence, but watched helplessly as the baseball soared over the fence for the 500th home run of his illustrious career.

The minuscule crowd of 9,765 fans at cavernous Cleveland Stadium cheered Williams as he made his way around the bases. Williams showed no outward emotion as he followed Tasby to home plate. The Splendid Splinter accepted congratulations all around before taking his place in the dugout next to Higgins. “Ted didn’t say anything much after he hit it,” said Higgins, “but you could tell he was overjoyed.”2  

“I didn’t think I’d be able to get loose tonight,” said Williams. “These kinds of nights the cold jars your hands when you hit a ball. But I got that one just right. It felt wonderful.”3

The baseball landed in the Red Sox bullpen and was retrieved from a security guard by relief pitcher Dave Hillman. “Well, I’ve never made a habit of collecting baseballs, but I might like to keep this one,” Hillman said. “I have a ball autographed by Babe Ruth. I have another autographed by five .400 hitters and the first one I hit off Bob Feller. Yes, I’d maybe like to keep this last one, but if someone came along and offered me some real money for it, I’d be tempted to accept and turn it over to the Jimmy Fund.”4

Williams’s historic blast was the end of the scoring as the final was Boston 3, Cleveland 1. Sullivan scattered four hits for his third victory of the season. He also struck out 12, a career high. Hawkins was tagged with the loss, evening his record at 4-4.

Boston won three of four games in the series, but it did little to help the Red Sox’ fortunes.

Williams became the fourth major-league player to get more than 500 home runs in a career, joining Ruth (714), Jimmie Foxx (534), and Met Ott (511). Williams ended the season with 29 home runs to give him 521 round-trippers in his career, surpassing Ott and moving into third place.

The 1960 season was the last in Williams’s tremendous career. He hit .316 for the season with 29 home runs and 72 RBIs. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966.

Sources

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE196006170.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1960/B06170CLE1960.htm

Notes                           

1 Hal Lebovitz, “Ted Almost Quit Two Weeks Ago, Hopes to Finish Year,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 18, 1960.  

2 Bill Nowlin, 521: The Story of Ted Williams’ Home Runs (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2013), 290.

3 Henry McKenna, “’I’m Shooting for 512 Now, Says Ted After 500 Wallop,” Boston Herald, June 18, 1960: 13.

4 Nowlin. The Jimmy Fund was a Boston-based charity that treated and sought a cure for cancer in children.

The Say Hey Kid was not slowing down at the age of 34. After walloping 47 home runs in 1964 to capture his second NL home-run crown in three years and the third of his career, Mays got off to a hot start in 1965, belting 17 homers and driving in 35 runs in his first 37 games. Described by Giants beat writer Jack McDonald as a “scourge at the plate,” Mays was coming off one of the most productive stretches of his storied career.3 In August he set an NL record with 17 home runs in a month (one more than Ralph Kiner in September 1949, and since broken by Sammy Sosa’s 20 in 1998); knocked in 29 runs in 31 games; batted .363; and was named unanimously the league’s Player of the Month.

The Giants were hitting on all cylinders as they arrived in Houston to play a four-game set with the Astros to start a 10-game road swing. Under first-year skipper Herman Franks, the Giants (83-59) had won their previous 10 games to tie the 1962 team for the longest winning streak since the franchise relocated from New York to the Bay City in 1958, and moved into first place, two games in front of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Houston changed its name from the Colt .45s to the Astros in 1965 to inaugurate a new era in professional sports in the first domed stadium, the Astrodome. Manager Lum Harris, who had taken over for the last 13 games of the previous season, had inherited an offensively challenged squad. The league’s lowest-scoring team in 1964, Houston (61-83) was in ninth place at this point in ’65 and seemed primed to equal the 96 losses the team suffered in each of its first three seasons since entering the league as an expansion club in 1962.

Getting the start for the Astros was Don Nottebart, a 29-year-old right-hander with a career record of 30-42 in parts of six seasons. The Massachusetts native had struggled thus far in ’65, winning only four of 18 decisions. Toeing the rubber for the Giants was 27-year-old Dominican right-hander Juan Marichal, with a mark of 21-10 and a career record of 104-49 in parts of six seasons. Marichal had been involved in one of the ugliest scenes in baseball history three weeks earlier. While batting against Sandy Koufax in a game against archrival Los Angeles at Candlestick Park, Marichal clubbed Dodgers catcher John Roseboro with a bat in what Leonard Koppett of the New York Times called a “burst of uncontrollable temper.”4 Marichal drew a nine-day suspension from Commissioner William Eckert, and was making his fourth start since that horrific moment.

The crowd of 19,827, well off the season average of 26,561, showed up in the Astrodome on a Monday evening to catch a glimpse of history, whether they knew it or not. The Giants squandered a golden opportunity in first inning when Mays and Willie McCovey came up empty with one out and Dick Schofield on third. In the bottom of the frame, fan favorite Jimmy Wynn, affectionately known as the Toy Cannon because of his 5-foot-10, 160-pound muscular frame, belted a towering home run to give the Astros a 1-0 lead.

As Mays, with 499 career home runs, stepped to the plate to lead off the fourth inning, a smattering of applause gradually gave way to silence. The Alabama native took three straight balls and then dropped his bat after what appeared to be the fourth, and headed to first. But the home-plate umpire, veteran Augie Donatelli, called Mays back to the box on a delayed strike call. On Nottebart’s next pitch Mays hit what Bob Stevens of the San Francisco Chronicle described as a “monstrous, 440-foot blast into the centerfield bleachers.”5 The clout “ate its way beneath the dome and into the stands so quickly,” continued Stevens, that “Wynn in centerfield didn’t have time to do any more than turn a shoulder.” While the Astros’ faithful gave the 12-time All-Star a standing ovation, his teammates mobbed him in the dugout.

Nottebart, perhaps shaken by surrendering Mays’s historic homer, loaded the bases by issuing walks to McCovey and Len Gabrielson bookending a double by slugger Jim Ray Hart, who had burst on the scene by clouting 31 home runs as a rookie the previous season. Tom Haller hit an “infield roller” to first baseman Walt Bond for the first out, as Stretch McCovey scored and Hart and Gabrielson advanced.6 The Astros played for a double play by intentionally walking light-hitting Hal Lanier to face Marichal. No slouch at the plate, Marichal singled to center to drive in Hart and end Nottebart’s day. Schofield greeted reliever Dave Giusti with a long fly ball to Wynn to send Gabrielson across the plate and give the Giants a 4-1 lead.

In the top of the sixth, the Giants scored their fifth and final run. Haller hit a one-out single to center field and scored on Marichal’s first career triple, deep in the right-center-field gap.

Marichal, noted Bob Stevens, was “not as sharp as normal” and seemed to be bothered by the softness around the mound after a college football game two days earlier.7 The Astrodome crowd voiced their displeasure with Marichal by booing him throughout the game.

The Astros threatened in the middle innings, but came up empty each time. In the fourth Houston had men on first and third with two outs; and on second and third with two outs in the fifth. The Astros’ best scoring chance was in the sixth, when Bond and Rusty Staub occupied first and second via singles with one out, but Marichal squelched that opportunity as well. “Juan reached somewhere into the centerfield seats,” wrote Stevens, “kicked his leg toward the top of the dome” and retired Ron Brand and Eddie Kasko on three pitches to get out of the jam.8

While Giusti and Ron Taylor retired all nine Giants batters they faced in the final three frames, Marichal, the “Dominican Dandy,” also faced the minimum. With his 118th pitch of the game, he induced Kasko to pop up meekly to keystone sacker Lanier to complete his league-leading 24th game in 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Even on a day without his best stuff, Marichal was superb, yielding only eight hits and no walks while striking out three to tie Koufax with his 22nd victory of the year. He lowered his ERA to 1.79, well in front of Koufax’s 2.14. Nottebart, collared with his 15th loss of the season, was charged with four runs (all earned) and surrendered five of the Giants’ eight hits.

Notwithstanding Marichal’s workmanlike effort, the man of the hour was Willie Mays, who became the youngest slugger in NL history to reach the 500-home-run plateau. Though Mays was often considered flamboyant on the field, he was soft-spoken and reserved off it. Jack Gallagher of the Houston Post described Mays reverently as “simplicity itself … a plain man, not given to flowery statement.”9 Mays was not one to toot his own horn or call attention to his statistical accomplishments. “I wasn’t even looking to get 500 this year, to tell the truth,” said Mays, whose 52 homers easily led the NL (and the big leagues), followed by teammate McCovey’s 39.10 Mays downplayed any notion that he’d be able to break the Sultan of Swat’s record for homers. “I’ll have to average 40 a year to catch up with that guy,” he said. “I don’t think I can do it.”11

Mays got some good ribbing from 44-year-old teammate Warren Spahn, the longtime Boston/Milwaukee Braves hurler whom the Giants had signed on July 19 after his release from the New York Mets. “I saw your first one,” said Spahn, in his last of 21 seasons, “and now your 500th. You’re a wonder.”12 Indeed, on May 28, 1951, Mays collected his first hit off Spahn, a home run in his fourth big-league game, in the Giants’ 4-1 loss to the Boston Braves at the Polo Grounds in New York.

The Giants won 10 of their final 18 games but finished runner-up to the streaking Dodgers, who went 15-3 down the stretch to capture their second pennant in three years. Mays continued his torrid hitting. In addition to his league-leading home-run totals, he also paced the majors in on-base percentage (.398) and slugging percentage (.645) and was named the NL MVP for the second time.

This article appears in “Dome Sweet Dome: History and Highlights from 35 Years of the Houston Astrodome” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more articles from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, the SABR Minor Leagues Database, accessed online at Baseball-Reference.com, SABR.org, and The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record.

Notes

1 Jack Gallagher, “Mays Makes It Simple. Don Threw, Willie Hit,” Houston Post, September 14, 1965: Section 4, 2.

2 Clark Nealon, “Mays Lashes 500th Homer. Willie, Juan Win 11th in a Row,” Houston Post, September 14, 1965: Section 4, 1.

3 The Sporting News, September 25, 1965: 2.

4 Leonard Koppett, “Marichal Clubs Roseboro With a Bat,” New York Times, August 22, 1966. https://nytimes.com/packages/html/sports/year_in_sports/08.22.html.

5 Bob Stevens, “Giants Win; Mays Hits 500th,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 1965: 45.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Gallagher.

10 Ibid

11 Murray Chass (Associated Press), “Mays’ 500th, Marichal’s 22nd Boost Giants Lead,” Daily Telegram (Eau Claire, Wisconsin), September 14, 1965: 13.

12 The Sporting News, September 25, 1965: 11.

After winning five straight pennants, and two world championships in the first half of the decade, the New York Yankees were certainly getting a different view of the American League standings. After decades of being rulers of the roost, the Bronx Bombers were now, well, part of the roost.

After the Yankees won the pennant in 1964, they sank to sixth place, 25 games behind the first-place Minnesota Twins. Perhaps the only consolation for Yankee fans was that their hated rivals, the Boston Red Sox, finished even lower, landing in ninth place. But in 1966, while Boston remained in ninth place at season’s end, the Yankees finished in the basement. New York had not finished in the second division in consecutive years since 1914-15. No doubt the rest of the junior circuit was enjoying their plight.

Through it all, or the last two decades anyway, there was Mickey Mantle. By now the Commerce Comet was a shadow of himself, and was a parallel comparison to the Yankees. Once a powerful slugger who was the envy of young boys and old men alike for his precision and power on the baseball field, Mantle had been slowed in recent seasons by a changing cast of teammates, injuries, and age – much like the club that employed him. Yankees fans who were used to seeing Mantle patrol the outfield would now have to get used to seeing him with a first baseman’s glove. Injuries and age curtailed his defensive abilities as well.    

When the 1966 season came to a close, Mantle had hit 496 major-league home runs. As the saying goes, “he was close, but yet so far” to accomplishing a goal that only a handful of other players reached in the history of the major leagues. And with the fans not expecting much on the diamond, Mantle’s pursuit of the magical 500thh homer was something to rally around. “Everywhere you’d see, ‘When is Mantle going to hit 500?’ instead of about the team winning or losing,” noted the New York Times.1

The Baltimore Orioles, winner of the 1966 World Series, came to Gotham for a three-game series beginning on May 12. The Orioles may have had a World Series hangover; they were sitting in the cellar with a 9-14 record, but only 6½ games behind league-leader Detroit. New York was in fifth place with an 11-11 record, four games back of the Tigers.  

Baltimore took the first two games of the series. Jim Palmer beat Whitey Ford in the series opener. Palmer threw a complete-game victory as the score (14-0) resembled more of a Jets-Colts NFL game. Game Two went to the Orioles as well, as the Yankees blew a 3-0 first inning lead and lost 5-3.

Steve Barber (2-3, 2.20 ERA) started for Baltimore in Game Three, looking for a sweep. Mel Stottlemyre (3-2, 2.08) took the ball for New York. Stottlemyre was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pitcher thus far in his career. He won 20 games in 1965, but led the league with 20 losses in 1966. Barber, who spent his first 7½ years in an Orioles uniform, would spend his last 7½ with six different teams.

A Mother’s Day crowd of 18,872 took in the day game at Yankee Stadium. No doubt they were hoping to see something historic. And of course, a Yankees win would always be a welcome sight.

After Stottlemyre set down the Orioles in order in the top of the first, the Yankees broke through in their half with three runs, as in the previous game. New York loaded the bases when Horace Clarke led off with a walk and went to second on Dick Howser’s single to center field. Mantle stepped in and smashed a grounder to third. Orioles third baseman Brooks Robinson booted the baseball, loading the bases. For the spectators to see the seven-time Gold Glove winner make an error was a historic play all in itself. Barber shook it off and whiffed Elston Howard, but hit Tom Tresh and forced in a run as Clark scored the game’s first run. Steve Whitaker followed with a single to right field, plating Howser and Mantle. Baltimore manager Hank Bauer brought in reliever Wally Bunker to replace Barber. Bunker shut the door on the Yankees, keeping the score at 3-0.

The score remained 3-0 until the top of the sixth inning. Stottlemyre retired the Orioles in order in four of the first five innings, but that changed when the Orioles batters finally started making contact. With one out in the sixth, Mark Belanger connected for his first major-league home run when he hit a liner down the left-field line and it struck the foul pole. Russ Snyder grounded out to second base for the second out. But the Orioles were just getting started as Curt Blefary walked and Frank Robinson followed with an infield single to third base to put runners on first and second base. Boog Powell followed with a double to center field, scoring Blefary and moving Robinson to third. Brooks Robinson was intentionally walked to load the bases. Bauer went to his bench, and sent up Charlie Lau to hit for Woodie Held. Lau came through, doubling to left field. Frank Robinson and Powell both scored and the Orioles pulled in front, 4-3.

New York manager Ralph Houk went to his bullpen, and summoned Dooley Womack, who got the final out of the inning.

Bauer also made a pitching move in the bottom of the sixth, bringing in Stu Miller. The Orioles’ slim lead was short-lived. With one down, Tresh reached base on a boot by Powell at first base. Houk, continuing to make use of his bench, tabbed Joe Pepitone to hit for Bill Robinson. Pepitone made Houk look like a genius, homering to right field, and the Yankees recaptured the lead, 5-4.  

The Yankees extended their lead to 6-4 in the bottom of the seventh inning, when Mantle slugged his 500th home run. Mickey deposited a 3-and-2 changeup from Miller into the right-field stands. The crowd got to their feet, serenading Mantle with cheers, and kept at it even after Mantle entered the dugout. Fans were hoping for a curtain call from their hero, but none was forthcoming. Howard was the next batter. “I couldn’t understand why those people kept cheering me,” said Howard after the game.2

The Orioles inched closer in the top of the eighth. With runners on first and second, Brooks Robinson hit a groundball to short. The Yankees got the force at second for one out. But Mantle dropped the relay from second baseman Clarke. Frank Robinson scored to slice the deficit to one, 6-5.

But neither team scored again, and the game ended with the Yankees as 6-5 winners. Womack (3-2) was the winner in relief, while Miller (0-4) took the loss.  

“It felt like when you win a World Series,” said Mantle of his 500th home run, “a big load off your back. I wasn’t really tense about hitting it, but about everybody writing about it. Now maybe we can bet back to getting straightened out.”3

“I don’t care whether it was his first or his 500th,” said Miller, “that means nothing to me. All I know, I was doing my damnedest to get him out, as I always try to do. He hit a good pitch.”4

“I called my wife last night and told her I’d try to hit her a homer for Mother’s Day,” said Mantle.5

Mantle joined an elite group of players who had hit 500 or more career home runs: Babe Ruth (714), Willie Mays (546), Jimmie Foxx (534), Ted Williams (521), and Mel Ott (511). Mantle retired after the 1968 season, with 536 home runs.

Despite his hope, the Yankees floundered for the rest of the 1967 season, finishing in ninth place with a 72-90 record. Baltimore (76-85) was not much better, finishing in sixth place.

Sources

Video of Mantle’s 500th home run: youtube.com/watch?v=1Orw6YsDn2o.

In addition to the sources cited in the notes, the author used these websites:

retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1967/B05140NYA1967.htm.

baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA196705140.shtml.

Notes

1 “No. 500 Felt Like When You Win a World Series,” New York Times, July 15, 1967: 79.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Dana Mozley, “Mantle’s No. 500 Stu’s Birds, 6-5,” New York Daily News, May 15, 1967: 54.

5 Norm Miller, “Like Winning Last Game in WS: Mick,” New York Daily News, May 15, 1967: 54.

On July 14, 1967, Eddie Mathews smacked the 500th home run of his career — a three-run shot off fellow future Hall of Famer Juan Marichal. The Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Mathews in 1978, Marichal five years later.

Wearing a Houston Astros uniform after a storied 15-year tenure with the Boston-Milwaukee-Atlanta Braves, Mathews entered rarefied territory when he homered over the right-field fence at Candlestick Park. Only six major leaguers were in the 500 club before him: Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Mel Ott, Babe Ruth, and Ted Williams.

Mathews’ highly significant contribution to the 8-6 victory over the Giants provided a moment of glory for the Astros — formerly the Colt .45s (1962 to 1964) — who hadn’t yet completed a season above .500. It was no different in 1967: a ninth-place finish and 69-93 record in the National League.

The left-handed slugger and two-time season leader in home runs had come to Houston in a five-player trade with the Atlanta Braves on December 31, 1966. His tenure with the Braves organization dated back to 1952, the team’s last year in Boston.

Any goodwill between Mathews and the Braves front office evaporated quicker than boiling water turning into steam when he learned about the trade from the press instead of the executive suite. “I’m not only surprised — I’m shocked,” declared the Braves icon, who hit 493 round-trippers playing with Cooperstown-bound teammates including Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn, and Phil Niekro. “It isn’t the trade that shocked me. It’s the way the whole thing was handled.”1

There was a six-day gap between homers 499 and 500.

On July 8, Mathews and Jimmy Wynn each hit a home run in the sixth inning off right-hander Ray Culp; it was the third game of a four-game homestand sweep of the Chicago Cubs. The Astros followed their 3-1 victory with a 6-0 shutout the following day. They were 33-50 going into the All-Star break.

When the second half of the season began, Mathews sat out the first game of the Astros’ 13-game road trip, a 5-4 loss to the San Francisco Giants in 10 innings. The July 14 game was the next one; Astros skipper Grady Hatton placed Mathews batting in the number five slot.

San Francisco led 1-0 on Willie McCovey’s first-inning RBI groundout when Mathews got his first opportunity at number 500 in the top of the second inning. His single off Marichal (whose record to date was 12-7) began the second inning; Norm Miller’s double-play grounder to second baseman Tito Fuentes followed. Bob Aspromonte singled, but Houston’s prospects faded when Dave Adlesh fouled out to McCovey at first.

Fuentes added to the Giants’ margin in the bottom of the third. He led off with a single and a steal, then advanced on an error by Houston right-hander Dave Giusti during a pickoff attempt. Giusti retired Marichal on a groundout to second baseman Joe Morgan and struck out Mays, but gave up a triple to Jim Davenport; Fuentes scored.

Houston responded with three runs in the top of the fourth. Wynn and Staub began with back-to-back singles. Mathews stepped into the batter’s box for the second time in the game. But his strikeout delayed the home-run achievement. Miller’s three-run homer put the Astros ahead 3-2.

The Giants regained the lead in the bottom of the fifth when Davenport’s two-run bash scored himself and Fuentes, who had begun with a single followed by Marichal’s sacrifice and Wille Mays’s strikeout. McCovey’s popout to Sonny Jackson at shortstop ended the brief rally.

Houston’s offense shone like a full moon on a clear Texas night in the top of the sixth inning. Wynn and Staub repeated their fourth-inning feat of consecutive singles to lead off; Mathews joined the 500 club with his three-run round-tripper off the first pitch to him by Marichal, a fastball.2 The blast vaulted the Houston squad to a 6-4 lead. After Mathews, Miller walked and Aspromonte singled. The Dominican Dandy then left the game. Joe Gibbon relieved him and got two outs quickly on Dave Adlesh’s double-play grounder; Miller went to third and scored on Giusti’s triple. Jackson’s groundout to Fuentes ended Houston’s half of the inning.

The Giants added a run in the bottom of the sixth to make the score 7-5. Jim Ray Hart led off with a single and moved to second when Mathews, playing first base, made an unassisted out on Tom Haller’s grounder. Ollie Brown followed with a fly out; Hal Lanier singled home Hart.

Houston added the eighth and final run to the tally in the top of the seventh; Wynn walked and Staub’s double to right scored him from first base.

San Francisco notched its last run when Hart led off the bottom of the eighth with a solo home run.

Mathews’ historic blast overshadowed several outstanding performances on both teams. Staub went 3-for-5 and scored two runs; Wynn scored three times. Fuentes had a 3-for-4 night; Davenport’s 2-for-4 output resulted in three RBIs.

Though Mathews’ achievement was cause for celebration, there was a tinge of vengeance after the game. “I wish it would have come against the Braves,” said the 35-year-old slugger.3

Things got a little bleaker after the victory. Houston went 5-8 in its next 13 games. But the Astros ended July with a seven-game winning streak, which the Mets broke on August 1 in a 5-1 victory against Mathews et al.

Nearing the end of his career, Mathews hit 10 home runs in an Astros uniform. He had hit .238 in 101 games when Houston traded him to Detroit on August 17. Mathews was self-deprecating: “I wish I had done a better job, that’s all. I wasn’t doing anything here for the guys.”4

Though his tenure with Houston didn’t even last till Labor Day, Mathews apparently found the respect with the Astros front office that he couldn’t find in Atlanta.

With the last-place Astros, Mathews was a marquee draw. But GM Spec Richardson felt that the slugger had earned the opportunity for better possibilities. “We wouldn’t have traded him to any club except a club in contention. I think he is a great guy and did a great job for us. I’d like to see him on a pennant-winning club before the season is over. I think he deserves it.”5

Mathews added five home runs to his tally and batted .231 over 36 games for the ’67 Tigers, who finished a game behind the Boston Red Sox. He slipped to .212 in 31 games in 1968; three more home runs augmented his résumé. Detroit went to the World Series and defeated the Cardinals in seven games. Mathews retired with a .271 career batting average and an impressive legacy of achievements: two NL championships, one AL championship, and a pair of World Series rings. His 512 home runs indicated an automatic pathway to Cooperstown, but it took 10 years to get there.

Astros fans didn’t have much cause for cheer in their first 10 years. Until 1972, the team didn’t break .500. But in 1967, a July game — which didn’t affect the team’s overall station in the National League — gave fans in Houston area an opportunity to be a part of baseball history when Mathews hit number 500.

Sources

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN196707140.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1967/B07140SFN1967.htm

Notes

1 Associated Press, “Astros Get Eddie Mathews for Bruce and Nicholson,” Victoria (Texas) Advocate, January 1, 1967: 8.

2 Harry Jupiter, “Mathews: Can’t Think of Homers,” San Francisco Examiner, July 15, 1967: 27.

3 Dick Couch (Associated Press), “Mathews’ 500th Home Run Downs Giants, 8-6,” Poughkeepsie Journal, July 15, 1967: 6.

4 Associated Press, “Mathews Takes Great Jump,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, August 18, 1967: 27.

5 “Mathews Takes Great Jump.”