April 25, 1954: Henry Aaron goes 5-for-6 in breakout game for Braves

Hank Aaron was batting just .242 when he enjoyed his breakout 5-for-6 game as a Braves rookie. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

It was less than two weeks into the 1954 season and 20-year-old Milwaukee Braves rookie Henry Aaron was in danger of being relegated to the bench. Aaron wasn’t even supposed to be on the Braves roster in the first place. Those who saw him play in spring training were impressed but thought he was too young and would probably need at least another year of seasoning in the minor leagues.

He made the team after veteran outfielder Bobby Thompson fractured his ankle during spring training. After he started the season with five hits in 26 plate appearances, the Braves were prepared to bench Aaron.1 The only thing keeping him in the lineup was that regular center fielder Billy Bruton had been out sick with a virus infection. (Bruton would miss the last two weeks of April.) Braves manager Charlie Grimm was even ready to move Eddie Mathews from third base to fill the gap in the outfield if Aaron couldn’t. Aaron had three hits, including his first career home run, during the Braves’ April 23 game, but after a hitless game the next day, his batting average sat at .242. That rate wouldn’t cut it for a team looking to compete for a National League pennant, so the Braves were ready to bench Aaron, and maybe even send him back to the minors. His breakout game on April 25 reversed that inclination.

The Sunday game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis (formerly Sportsman’s Park) was the rubber match of a three-game series between the Braves and the Cardinals. Warren Spahn, who already had two victories in the short season and six straight wins dating back to 1953, started for Milwaukee. Cardinals skipper Eddie Stanky countered with Stu Miller, who was making his first official start of the season.2 With their ace on the mound, Milwaukee must have felt good about their chances as the game got underway at 1:50 P.M. But the 16,684 St. Louis fans in attendance were surely pleased when the home team struck first. After both teams went hitless in the first inning, Stan Musial singled to start the bottom half of the second. He advanced to third on a single by third baseman Ray Jablonski, and later came around to score when Alex Grammas singled with the bases loaded.

The Braves did not score their first run of the game until the fifth inning. After grounding out in the second inning, Aaron led off the fifth by driving a pitch off Miller into the left-field bleachers to tie the game at one run each. It was the second home run for both Aaron’s season and his career. Johnny Logan batted after Aaron and singled, then stole second base.3 The Braves took the lead when Danny O’Connell hit a bloop single to drive in Logan. Milwaukee scored again in the sixth frame to take a 3-1 lead. The lead was short-lived; St. Louis came back in the bottom of that inning with four runs, knocking Spahn out of the game and ending his streak of complete games at seven. Ray Crone replaced him and allowed one more run to score before the inning ended.

The Braves were in the hole 5-3 headed into the seventh inning and fell behind further in the bottom of the inning when Musial homered off Crone to make the score 6-3.4 But the Braves began to chip away at the lead in the eighth inning. After Andy Pafko led off the inning with a single, Aaron hit his second single of the game to advance him to third. (He also singled in the sixth inning to put Pafko in scoring position.) Pafko marched home when Logan hit a sacrifice fly. After the Cardinals failed to score in their half of the eighth inning, the Braves started the ninth frame down 6-4. With one out, O’Connell tripled to put himself in scoring position. Mathews didn’t take a chance of leaving O’Connell stranded; he hit a game-tying home run off reliever Al Brazle that left the ballpark and landed on Grand Boulevard. The Cardinals again went scoreless in the ninth and the game was sent into extra innings. St. Louis already had two extra-inning losses against Milwaukee and now the Cardinals feared another one might be eminent.

Neither team could plate any runs in the 10th or 11th despite having runners on base in each inning. Aaron started the 10th inning with a single for his fourth hit of the game, surpassing his career high of three hits from two days earlier. Logan attempted to move Aaron to second base with a sacrifice bunt, but in one of those odd plays of baseball, his bunt bounced off the ground, came straight back up and hit his bat in fair territory. Logan was called out for batter’s interference, and Aaron was sent back to first base. Crandall followed him and was even less effective; he hit into a 1-4-3 double play to end the inning. The Braves tried the same game plan in the 12th inning. Aaron again singled, his fifth hit of the game, and this time Logan was able to successfully lay down a bunt single that advanced Aaron to second base. Crandall, however, again hit into an inning-ending double play.

If the Cardinals were going to win this game, they needed to do it soon. By the 12th inning, the team had used nearly everyone on its roster. Stanky ultimately used 20 out his 25 players in the game, including sending out pitcher Harvey Haddix to pinch-run back in the 10th inning. After Alex Grammas was nicked by a pitch by Braves reliever Chet Nichols, Stanky exhausted the bench, outside of pitchers, and called on Tom Burgess to pinch-hit for pitcher Joe Presko with one out. Burgess flied out for the second out of the inning, but he at least avoided hitting into a double play, which allowed the Cardinals to get back to the top of the lineup. Rip Repulski hit a grounder to Mathews, who booted the ball, and Repulski reached first on the error. Mathews had started the game in left field, but when Jim Pendleton pinch-hit for second baseman Jack Dittmer in the sixth inning, it set off a domino effect of position shifting that placed Mathews at third and Pendleton in left field.

With Grammas on second and Repulski on first, Cardinals rookie Wally Moon chopped a swinging bunt single and loaded the bases. Veteran Red Schoendienst followed with a two-out fly ball. St. Louis sportswriter Bob Broeg detailed the play that came next: “There was a groan [from the crowd] when Red’s best was a high fly to left-center, a ball either Pendleton or [center fielder] Pafko … could have caught.”5 There was a moment of hesitation as both players tried to determine who should make the play. Each advanced toward the fly before Pendleton ultimately called off Pafko and made the catch. The ball fell into Pendleton’s mitt for the third out, but as Broeg witnessed, “As [Pendleton] took a second stride, the ball trickled back through his glove and down onto the grass.”6 The Braves considered the ball to be caught and began walking off the field for their turn to bat in the 13th inning. The Cardinals runners momentarily froze on the basepaths and looked for umpire Al Barlick to signal the official call on the catch. Barlick signaled that the ball was still in play, and Grammas dashed home with the winning run.

Anyone wearing a Braves jersey rushed to Barlick or the nearest umpire they could find and “beefed”7 that Pendleton had held the ball long enough for it to be considered caught. But the umpiring crew could not be swayed, and the Cardinals won the game, 7-6. Barlick later explained the call. “There is no such thing as a momentary catch or momentary possession of the ball,” he declared.8 Joe Presko was awarded his first win of the season after pitching the final two innings. The Braves’ record dropped to 4-5, and Chet Nichols had been saddled with three of those losses.

The game may have ended with a dark cloud for Braves fans, but there was a bright silver lining to it. With his 5-for-6 performance that day, Aaron answered any questions the Braves may have had about him being ready for the major leagues. The focus in the next day’s newspapers was Pendleton’s muffed catch to end the game, but the Milwaukee Journal also noted that “[a]lmost unnoticed in the light of other happenings was an impressive batting show by Henry Aaron.”9 The rookie was said to have a new lease on life after boosting his average almost 100 points – from .242 to .333. “Hammerin’ Hank,” as he came to be known, earned his spot in the Braves starting lineup during that April 25 game, and he held onto it for over 20 years.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted newspapers.com, baseball-reference.com, genealogybank.com, and the SABR biography of Henry Aaron by Bill Johnson.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN195404250.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1954/B04250SLN1954.htm

NOTES

1  “Error for Logan After 52 Chances,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 25, 1954: 19.

2  Miller had started the second game of a doubleheader on April 19 in Chicago, but the game was called on account of darkness after two innings.

3  It had no impact on the game, but after Logan’s stolen base there was an amusing event when home-plate umpire Augie Donatelli ruled that a pitch by Miller grazed Crandall’s cap. The Cardinals argued that the pitch missed him. They may have had a case; as Crandall made his way to first base he was rubbing his right hand.

4  Musial could be considered the hitting star of the game. He went 4-for-6 with a double and home run, scored three runs, and had one RBI. The game started a stretch in which he raised his batting average from .250 to .400 at one point, and it did not sink below .350 until June 23.

5  Bob Broeg, “Birds Nip Braves in 12th With Bit O’Luck,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 26, 1954: 30.

6  Broeg

7  Broeg

8  Lou Chapman, “Pendleton Insists Catch Legal, But Grimm Agrees with Ump,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 26, 1954: 17.

9  Bob Wolf, “Braves’ Two Errors in 12th Give Cardinals 7-6 Victory,” Milwaukee Journal, April 26, 1954: 35.