April 10, 1968: Yankees’ Mel Stottlemyre blanks Angels on Opening Day overshadowed by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

As the New York Yankees gathered for spring training in February 1968, manager Ralph Houk shared his take on the team’s outlook. “The strength of our club is the pitching staff,” he told New York Daily News columnist Gene Ward. Later in the interview he admitted that hitting was the club’s greatest weakness.1

As if to prove Houk’s point, when the season opened seven weeks later, the Yankees downed the visiting California Angels, 1-0, in a pitchers’ duel. Mel Stottlemyre threw a four-hit shutout, with the game’s lone score coming on a home run by his batterymate, rookie Frank Fernández. The victory gave Yankees fans something to celebrate just days after one of the darkest moments in American history.

After collecting 29 American League crowns and 20 World Series titles between 1921 and 1964, the Yankees fell on hard times over the next three years. Second-division finishers in 1965 for the first time in 40 years, New York brought up the AL rear in 1966 and was only one place better in 1967. With a roster that averaged under 25 years of age, the team entered the 1968 season younger than they’d ever been.2 Outfielder-turned-first baseman Mickey Mantle was back for his 18th and final season, but gone from active duty were fellow warhorses Whitey Ford, now the Yankees’ first base coach, and Elston Howard, who’d been dealt to the Boston Red Sox.

The Yankees closed out their Fort Lauderdale training camp on the afternoon of April 4 with a win over the Washington Senators to bring their Grapefruit League record to 11-11-1.3 Their roster finalized the day before, they headed north in anticipation of an Opening Day clash with the Angels at Yankee Stadium.4

Shortly after 6 PM that evening, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, shot as he stood on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. Devastated over Dr. King’s death, thousands of his supporters took to the streets. Over the next few days, violence rocked more than 125 cities, with 39 people killed and 3,500 injured, prompting the deployment of nearly 50,000 federal troops to urban areas.5

With the nation in turmoil, sports stood down. National League president Warren Giles announced that Cincinnati’s traditional major league opener would be postponed to April 10, the day after Dr. King’s funeral. AL officials also delayed the junior circuit’s openers—in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Washington D.C.—to be held on April 10 as well.6

The Opening Day postponement bought time for the calming of both community and labor unrest in the Big Apple.7 A threatened strike by groundskeepers and maintenance staff at New York City’s two big-league ballparks (Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium) was called off on April 8, after union members accepted a new contract.8

A crowd of 15,744, including Mrs. Babe Ruth—67-year-old Claire Ruth—was on hand for Opening Day in the House That Mr. Ruth Built, under fair skies and game-time temperatures forecast to be in the low 70s.9  Following a military color guard and the singing of the national anthem by Metropolitan Opera baritone Robert Merrill,10 a plaque was presented to Mantle commemorating his 500th home run, clubbed the previous May.11

For the ceremonial first pitch, the Yankees chose not a politician or former ballplayer, but 80-year-old poet Marianne Moore, a Pulitzer Prize winner and ardent baseball fan. After catching her toss from the stands, Fernández, “a handsome bachelor” six days shy of his 25th birthday, leaned over the railing and kissed Moore on the cheek.12 Leonard Koppett of the New York Times called the smooch “a Yankee Stadium first.” “I did it on the spur of the moment,” Fernández later admitted.13

On the mound for New York was Stottlemyre, a two-time All-Star and the Yankees’ undisputed ace, making his second consecutive Opening Day start. He opened the 1967 season with a two-hit shutout of the Senators, who like the Angels had joined the AL in 1961. Lifetime 8-3 against California entering the game, he was the Yankees hurler that Angels hitters least wanted to face.14

Opposite Stottlemyre was southpaw George Brunet, making his third consecutive Opening Day start for the Angels. Carrying a woeful career 4-10 record and 3.92 ERA against New York, Brunet had lost his last seven decisions in 1967 for the fifth-place Angels on the way to a major-league-leading 19 losses.

Stottlemyre’s day got off to a stumbling start when rookie third baseman Mike Ferraro airmailed a throw to first base on a ball hit by leadoff batter Paul Schaal. With Jim Fregosi batting, Schaal broke for second, but Fernández threw him out, maintaining his untarnished record at thwarting base stealers; he had gunned down three-time reigning AL stolen base champ Bert Campaneris in the only attempted stolen base against him during a callup the previous September.

A two-out single to center field by Don Mincher, sandwiched between called third strikes to Fregosi and off-season acquisition Chuck Hinton,15 proved to be the Angels’ last hit until the seventh inning. In between, Stottlemyre retired 18 consecutive batters: five via strikeout, six on the ground and seven in the air.

Brunet worked around Mantle’s single in the first but wasn’t so lucky in the second. With two out, the bases empty and two strikes on Fernández, he threw a high-and-inside fastball that the Yankees’ backstop deposited into the left-field bleachers.16

“I thought it was gone,” the former Staten Island high school star said of his second career home run.17 “But when I saw Whitey waving at me to run, I wondered where it had gone. How sweet it was to see the ball in the seats.”18

Brunet retired the next Yankees batter, shortstop Gene Michael on an infield popup, then didn’t allow a baserunner for the next three innings.

With two out in the seventh, Hinton singled for California’s second hit of the game, but was left stranded when Rick Reichardt flied out to center field. Mantle led off the bottom of the frame with his second single of the game, but was thrown out by catcher Buck Rodgers as Bill Robinson struck out on a botched hit-and-run play that ended the inning.19

Former Yankee Roger Repoz singled to lead off the Angels’ eighth but had to stay put when Rodgers popped up on a sacrifice attempt. Coach Bob Lemon, filling in for manager Bill Rigney while he was recovering from the flu, then sent up left-handed pinch hitter Jay Johnstone.20

After throwing his first pitch, Stottlemyre stepped off the mound to moisten his fingers. First base umpire Al Salerno, enforcing a rule recently introduced to eliminate spitballs, ruled that Stottlemyre had failed to reach the infield grass before going to his mouth and gave Johnstone an “automatic ball.”21 Insistent that Stottlemyre had done nothing wrong, Houk protested the game. Momentarily flustered, Stottlemyre threw two more pitches out of the strike zone before retiring Johnstone and a second lefty pinch-hitter that followed him, Jimmie Hall.22

Brunet was done for the day, giving way to rookie southpaw Tom Burgmeier for his major-league debut.23 Burgmeier retired the side in order on three groundouts to send the game into the ninth.

Stottlemyre retired Schaal on a popup to short, then watched as Fregosi mashed a changeup into the left-field corner for a double.24 Undaunted, Stottlemyre threw another to Mincher, who bounced it to second baseman Horace Clarke for an easy out, with Fregosi moving to third. Next up was Hinton, who had seven hits in his last 12 at-bats against Stottlemyre. Number 13 proved unlucky for the Angels’ cleanup hitter as he grounded out to Michael at short, ending the game 1 hour and 43 minutes after it began.25

With his 95-pitch effort (including the automatic ball),26 Stottlemyre became the first hurler in franchise history to toss back-to-back Opening Day shutouts.27 “He’s the best pitcher in the major leagues,” said Brunet of Stottlemyre afterwards.28 Satisfied with what his troops had accomplished, Houk “just purred.” Wrote Newsday’s Steve Jacobson, “Opening day was a kiss to build a dream on.”29

The quick game allowed the Angels to reach LaGuardia Airport early for a chartered flight to Cleveland, but not without some excitement. After everyone had boarded the plane, a mobile generator powering the engines caught fire, forcing a chaotic evacuation. Two hours later they were off, in another plane.30

Proving that Houk’s preseason assessment was spot on, the Yankees ended the season with the lowest team batting average in the majors (.214) yet finished 83-79 and in fifth place. Stottlemyre registered a career-high 21 wins, six shutouts, the lowest qualifying ERA of his career (2.45), and his third All-Star selection. The balance of the season was largely sour for Fernández, who lost significant playing time to repeated Army Reserve obligations and a .170 batting average. Brunet finished the season 13-17 for eighth-place California and became the last AL pitcher (through 2025) to lead the league in losses in successive years.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Madison McEntire and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Sources

In addition to the Sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted his SABR Biography of Frank Fernández as well as the Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org and Stathead.com websites, including box scores and play-by-play at these links:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA196804100.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1968/B04100NYA1968.htm

Notes

1 Gene Ward, “Ralph Still Counting His Yankee Blessings,” New York Daily News, February 20, 1968: 83.

2 Jim Ogle, “Yank Age Averages Mere 24.87, But Vet Monbo Vows to Stay,” The Sporting News, March 9, 1968: 23. Average age was based on the 47-man roster that the team carried in early March.

3 Joe Trimble, “Yanks Bolt Fla. On 8-2 Win,” New York Daily News, April 5, 1968: 101.

4 “Yanks Ship Barber, Hegan to Syracuse,” New York Daily News, April 4, 1968: 81.

5 “Mourning the Death of Martin Luther King Jr,” National Museum of African American History and Culture, https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/mourning-death-martin-luther-king-jr, accessed December 24, 2025.

6 “Sports Almost At Standstill For 3 Days,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 7, 1968: 1-E.

7 Officially, the Yankees’ April 8 game was rescheduled to August 26 as the first game of a doubleheader.

8 Joe O’Day, “Stadium Workers Accept Contracts,” New York Daily News, April 9, 1968: 67.

9 Leonard Koppett, “Yankees Beat Angels, 1-0, on Homer by Fernández in Season Opener Here,” New York Times, April 11, 1968: 54.

10 Merrill’s rendition can be heard at “Baseball,” Robert Merrill, https://www.robertmerrill.org/baseball, accessed December 26, 2025.

11 Joe Trimble, “Stot to Pitch Yanks’ 45th Stadium Opener,” New York Daily News, April 10, 1968: 89. The plaque was later installed on a pillar in right field near where the milestone home run landed.

12 Koppett, “Yankees Beat Angels, 1-0, on Homer by Fernández in Season Opener Here.” Fernández was mistakenly thought to be approaching his 24th birthday in the New York Times game summary.

13 “Yankees Beat Angels, 1-0, on Homer by Fernández in Season Opener Here.” Koppett suggested that the  inspiration for Fernández’s kiss may have been Jill Spavin, Miss World Airline Stewardess of 1968, who was sitting nearby.

14 Stottlemyre over his 11-year career dominated the Angels like no other team, registering career best marks against them in winning percentage (.826, from a 19-4 record), ERA (1.49), WHIP (1.000) and strikeouts-per-walk (2.24). He also surrendered only three home runs to Angels batters over 218 innings. Between 1961 and 2025, no pitcher who has thrown at least 200 innings against a major league team has a lower HR/IP ratio (0.01376). Next closest is Jim Maloney who allowed the Houston Astros three home runs in 217⅓ innings (0.01380).

15 The Angels acquired Hinton in November 1967 from the Cleveland Indians in exchange for José Cardenal.

16 “Yankees Kiss the Season Hello.”

17 Fernández’s first career home run came off 21-year-old Catfish Hunter of the Kansas City Athletics in the Yankees’ final game of the 1967 season.

18 Jim Ogle, “An Unlikely Yankee Hero: Catcher Frank Fernández,” The Sporting News, April 27, 1968: 20.

19 Joe Trimble, “Yanks Stot Right on Rookie’s HR, 1-0,” New York Daily News, April 11, 1968: 76.

20 Trimble, “Yanks Stot Right on Rookie’s HR, 1-0.”

21 “Yankees Kiss the Season Hello.”

22 “Yanks Stot Right on Rookie’s HR, 1-0.”

23 Manager Rigney spent the game in his hotel, leaving his coaches to run the game by committee. It’s unclear who made the decision to replace Brunet with Burgmeier. “Yankees Kiss the Season Hello.”

24 “Yanks Stot Right on Rookie’s HR, 1-0.”

25 In its game summary, the Long Beach (California) Press Telegram called the game the fastest of any road game in Angels history. Ross Newhan, “B-r-r-r … It’s Zero for Dodgers, Angels,” Long Beach (California) Press Telegram, April 11, 1968: C1.

26 “Yanks Stot Right on Rookie’s HR, 1-0.”

27 Stottlemyre also became New York’s first hurler since Jack Chesbro to earn back-to-back complete game victories in season-openers. Chesbro did so by defeating Casey Patten of the Washington Nationals in the 1905 opener and Cy Young of the Boston Americans in 1906.

28 “Yankees Kiss the Season Hello.”

29 Steve Jacobson, “Yankees Kiss the Season Hello,” Newsday (Melville, New York), April 11, 1968: 40A.

30 Newhan, “B-r-r-r … It’s Zero for Dodgers, Angels.”