April 16, 1957: Gino Cimoli homers in 12th inning, Dodgers edge Phillies on Opening Day

“Was just telling you that boy could hit that long ball this year and he just did it.” – Al Helfer1

The baseball season is about to burst into bloom. Examine the Opening Day starting lineups closely. You may recall stories of favorite players or the memories of visits to the ballpark. Perhaps a rivalry is being renewed on the mound. Baseball’s history captures it all. There may even be a few surprises with clues as to what the new season has in store for the baseball fan. Who’s playing and whose name is missing?

Opening Day 1957. Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Philadelphia Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium, in front of 37,667 fans, the largest crowd ever to see a season opener in Philadelphia and a first night-game opener there as well.2 For the first time since his historic debut in 1947,3 Jackie Robinson’s name is not in the Dodgers’ season-opening lineup, or even on their roster. After the 1956 season, Robinson was traded to the New York Giants but retired instead of reporting, ending his celebrated playing career.

Now, a decade after Robinson’s debut in Brooklyn, the Phillies are at last integrating their lineup, making them the final National League club to do so. Cuban shortstop Chico Fernández, acquired less than two weeks earlier from the Dodgers, is batting second.4 John Kennedy, a 30-year-old former Birmingham Black Baron and Kansas City Monarch, is on Philadelphia’s bench, waiting for his own debut. Fernández joins three other Phillies – Ed Bouchee, Bob Bowman, and Rip Repulski – as newcomers in 1957 to the Phillies Opening Day lineup.5

Who’s playing shortstop for the Dodgers on this Opening Day? Don Zimmer, with 38-year-old Pee Wee Reese sidelined with a back injury. Surely the irony was not lost on Dodgers fans. For several years, the speculation around Brooklyn was rampant as to who would eventually replace the captain at shortstop.6 Was Zimmer the heir apparent or was Fernández poised to eventually replace Reese? In four seasons with the Montreal Royals (1953-1956), the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate, Fernández, at age 25 a year younger than Zimmer as the 1957 season dawned, had good grades for speed and defense and a .277 batting average in Montreal as well. Now, Fernandez was the starting shortstop for the Phillies.

Some fans were surely surprised that Gino Cimoli was starting in left field and batting second in the Dodgers’ lineup. After all, Cimoli batted only .111 in limited playing time in his rookie 1956 season. In fact, Cimoli was the 13th different Dodgers’ Opening Day left fielder in 14 seasons since Joe Medwick roamed that position in the early 1940s. But more surprises are in store as the story of this game unfolds.

If the Dodgers were playing the Phillies to open the season, it was always a good bet that the pitching matchup would pit Don Newcombe (number 36) against Robin Roberts (36), a well-deserved honor for both. Newcombe (27-7, 3.06 ERA) won the major leagues’ first Cy Young Award in 1956 and was also named the National League MVP. Roberts (19-18, 4.45 ERA, 3-4 vs. Dodgers) just missed being a 20-game winner for the seventh consecutive season. Unfortunately, he had also yielded a major-league record 46 home runs for the season.7

In fact, Roberts started on Opening Day for the Phillies in every year in the 1950s no matter the opponent.8 Just one year earlier when the two faced each other at Ebbets Field to open the 1956 season, Roberts prevailed against the World Series champion Dodgers, 8-6.9 Newcombe was also the opposing pitcher when Roberts made his first Opening Day start, in 1950. In that start, Roberts was in control from the outset and Newcombe didn’t survive the second inning as the Phillies won, 9-1.10 What would today have in store?

The Phillies struck in the bottom of the second when Repulski singled for their first hit. Repulski reached second when Jim Gilliam dropped Roy Campanella’s throw on an attempted steal and scored the first run on Willie Jones’s pop-fly double down the right-field line. Zimmer answered quickly for the Dodgers in the third with the first hit off Roberts, a home run to the lower stands in left field.

The middle innings became a see-saw battle for the lead. In the fourth, Duke Snider doubled into the right-field corner and Carl Furillo doubled off the scoreboard in right-center to give the Dodgers a short-lived one-run lead. With two outs in the Phillies’ half of the fourth, Newcombe walked Stan Lopata on four pitches. Singles by Bowman and Ted Kazanski sandwiching a Campanella passed ball tied the score, 2-2. Roberts, a career .163 hitter going into the season, proceeded to double off Newcombe and the right-field wall to score two runs for the Phillies’ lead.

In the fifth, the Dodgers wasted little time after Zimmer opened with a walk. Successive singles by Newcombe, Gilliam, and Cimoli tied the score at 4-4. Roberts intentionally walked Snider to load the bases – Gilliam at third, Cimoli at second, Snider at first. When Furillo flied out to Richie Ashburn in center, all the runners tried to advance. Gilliam scored the go-ahead run before Snider was thrown out at second.

The Phillies responded quickly in their half of the fifth. Fernández beat out a slow roller toward third and scored when Bouchee tripled into the right-field corner. When Jones singled to left, the Phillies had the lead again, 6-5.

While both Newcombe and Roberts remained in control through the sixth and seventh, the Dodgers tied the score in the eighth when Gil Hodges homered into the upper deck in left field. Phillies manager Mayo Smith stayed with Roberts while Dodgers manager Walter Alston turned to Clem Labine to pitch in the eighth. One, two, three, all groundouts.

Both teams had their chance to win in the ninth. For the Dodgers, Zimmer opened with a single to left. With one out, Gilliam singled to right, but Bowman’s throw to Jones caught Zimmer trying for the extra base. Cimoli’s second hit, a single to center, proved meaningless when Roberts ended the threat by striking out Snider.

The Phillies’ threat in the ninth started with two outs. Ashburn beat out a hit to short, Fernández singled to center, and Bouchee walked to load the bases. Labine coaxed Repulski to pop up to Zimmer, sending the game into extra innings.

Roberts escaped serious injury in the 10th. With one out, Hodges hit a hard liner back to the mound, striking Roberts in the chest. He recovered to throw Hodges out at first before collapsing to the ground.11 After Roberts regrouped, Randy Jackson followed with another liner back to the mound – leading to another assist for Roberts, one of six for the game.

As the game moved through a scoreless 11th inning, Alston’s eighth-inning pitching move looked like a good one and Smith’s lack of one didn’t. After all, Labine finished 47 games and saved more (19) in 1956 than anyone else in the major leagues.12

Roberts was obviously tired in the 12th inning.13 No surprise. With one out in the 12th, Cimoli hit Roberts’ 161st pitch to the distant left-center stands for the go-ahead home run, his third hit of the game.

Credit Labine with five innings of two-hit ball and the Opening Day victory. As for Cimoli, he was named a National League All-Star and finished the season batting .293 in 142 games. His batting average was third best on the Dodgers to Furillo (.306) and Hodges (.299). But his 1957 season might never have gotten to this Opening Day if it hadn’t been for Roy Campanella.

Ever since Cimoli was signed by the Dodgers before the 1949 season for a $15,000 bonus, his minor-league career had been marked by a “bad attitude” label.14 Fast-forward to a conversation between Campy, the wise veteran, and Cimoli in the lobby of a Japanese hotel during the Dodgers’ exhibition tour after the 1956 season. Later, as the 1957 season entered its final month, New York Times columnist Arthur Daley shared Campy’s words with us.

“Listen, son,” said the cheerful Campy, giving Gino one of his warming smiles. “If you want to make this ball club, you’ve got to change your attitude. You get mad too easy. You got to stop thinking you ain’t getting a chance and you got to make your chance. You got to stop grousing and griping and grumbling. Make up your mind to hustle your way on to this ball club.”15

Cimoli listened and acknowledged that Campy was right about earning a place in the season-opening lineup during spring training.16 Indeed, examine the Opening Day starting lineups closely. You may be surprised by what the season has in store.

Author’s note

From beginning to end, a shadow was cast on the Dodgers’ 1957 season by their impending departure from Brooklyn for Los Angeles. In one way, the season ended just as it had begun in April – at Connie Mack Stadium. Inconsequentially, they lost that last game to the Phillies on September 29, 2-1, on Bouchee’s two-run home run off Roger Craig. Shortly thereafter, their move was made official, joining the New York Giants on the major leagues’ trek to California for the 1958 season.17  

There was a sadness in Brooklyn, but years later, Roger Kahn shared a different perspective in his book The Era 1947-1957. “The Era ended when it was time for the Era to end: Stengel defeated in the World Series, the Dodgers and the Giants moving West … and that, I believe, is everlasting part of its beauty and its glory.”18

Acknowledgments

This essay was fact-checked by Evan Katz and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

The author accessed Baseball-Reference.com for box scores/play-by-play information (baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI195704160.shtml) and other data, as well as Retrosheet.org (retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1957/B04160PHI1957.htm). The Gino Cimoli baseball card (#319) is from the 1957 Topps series and was obtained from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Classic Baseball on the Radio,” YouTube.com, youtube.com/watch?v=IGSl-WQH37U. “April 16, 1957, Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Philadelphia Phillies,” YouTube.com, youtube.com/watch?v=7ukNFtmJ9kE.

2 Roscoe McGowen, “Dodgers Beat Phils in 12th Inning,” New York Times, April 17, 1957: 51.

3 Lyle Spatz, “April 15, 1947: Jackie Robinson’s major league debut,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

4 “After Jackie: Integration Pioneers in 1947 and Beyond,” SABR.org. On April 5, 1957, the Dodgers traded Chico Fernández to the Phillies for Melvin Geho, Tim Harkness, Ron Negray, Elmer Valo, $75,000, and a player to be named later (Ben Flowers).

5 Allen Lewis, “Roberts Seeks Fourth Inaugural Win Over Brooks in Phils’ 1st Night Debut,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 16, 1957: 28.

6 Russ Walsh, “Chico Fernández,” SABR Baseball Biography Project. Bob Hurte, “Don Zimmer,” SABR Baseball Biography Project.

7 “Games of Tuesday, April 16,” The Sporting News, April 24, 1957: 21.

8 Over his entire career, Robin Roberts (1948-1966) started 13 Opening Day games. His last such appearance was for the Houston Astros, losing to the Dodgers 3-2 in Los Angeles on April 12, 1966. The career marks of Roberts against the Dodgers (29-45) and Newcombe against the Phillies (23-19) reveals that both lost more games against those foes than against any other team.

9 Steven C. Weiner, “April 17, 1956: Phillies, Robin Roberts beat World Series champion Dodgers on Opening Day,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

10 Bob LeMoine, “April 18, 1950: Robin Roberts wins first Opening Day start for Phillies,” in C. Paul Rogers III and Bill Nowlin, eds., The Whiz Kids Take the Pennant: The 1950 Philadelphia Phillies (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 278. Roberts also beat the Dodgers at Ebbets Field in his second Opening Day start, on April 17, 1951. Carl Erskine was his mound opponent in Roberts’ 5-2 complete-game victory.

11 McGowen.

12 The save statistic was created through the efforts of Chicago Sun-Times sportswriter Jerome Holtzman during the 1960s, but was not officially recognized by MLB until 1969. Earlier save statistics data reported by various baseball references was developed manually using other game statistics data.

13 Allen Lewis, “37,667 See Cimoli’s Homer Top Phils’ Roberts in 12th,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 17, 1957: 38.

14 Michael Gaven, “Brooklyn’s Best Left Fielder since Medwick,” Baseball Digest, September 1957: 37.

15 Arthur Daley, “Campy Was Right,” New York Times, September 1, 1957: 5-2.

16 Gaven, 39.

17 David J. Halberstam, “The Brooklyn Dodgers Played Their Last Game in ’57,” SportsBroadcastJournal.com, August 18, 2020, sportsbroadcastjournal.com/the-brooklyn-dodgers-played-their-last-game-in-57-vin-scully-called-it-nothing-official-was-said-about-la/.

18 Roger Kahn, The Era 1947-1957, When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers ruled the World (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 338.