April 7, 1974: Angels, White Sox tie amid snow flurries

Entering the 2024 season, the Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels had tied only three games in their 63 seasons of play and had gone 50 years without a deadlock. The team’s most recent tie game to that point took place on the chilly, snowy fourth day of the 1974 season.1

Changes to major-league rules, as well as the elimination of curfews and local blue laws, have made tie games rare. As of 2024, ties are allowed only if the game is the last scheduled meeting between the teams that season and if a tie outcome will not affect a pennant race. In other circumstances, the game will be suspended and resumed another day.2 In a measure of how infrequent ties have become, none of the major leagues’ 30 managers entering the 2024 season had ever managed a major-league tie game.3

Angels fans had to look back to Sunday, April 7, 1974, to remember their team’s most recent deadlock – though the 8,383 people who saw the game at Chicago’s White Sox Park might prefer to forget it. The Angels faced the Chicago White Sox on a miserable day with a game-time temperature of 39 degrees and 22-MPH winds.4 The home team rallied with three runs in the eighth and ninth innings to knot the game at 4-4. A snowstorm stopped the contest after 10 innings.

Bobby Winkles’ Angels and Chuck Tanner’s White Sox had kicked off the season two days earlier in an unruly Opening Day game marked by windy 37-degree weather, brawling in the stands, streakers on the field, and glass bottles and other objects thrown at players. The Angels triumphed, 8-2, though it was a game more to be survived than won. The next day, California took the season’s second game, 3-2, piecing together the decisive ninth-inning run on a walk, an errant pickoff throw, a wild pitch, and a single by Mickey Rivers.5

Preseason prognosticators gave the Angels and White Sox little chance of reaching the playoffs. The teams shared the American League West Division with, among others, the Oakland Athletics, who had won two straight World Series and retained their core of stars in 1974.6 The 1973 Angels had finished fourth at 79-83, 15 games behind the Athletics, while the White Sox closed in fifth at 77-85, 17 games back.

Both teams’ pitching aces were coming off remarkable years. Chicago knuckleballer Wilbur Wood had gone 24-20 in 48 starts in 1973, while California fireballer Nolan Ryan had gone 21-16, struck out 383 batters to break Sandy Koufax’s single-season major-league record, and pitched a pair of no-hitters. Ryan and Wood went head-to-head in the anarchic Opening Day game.

On April 7, the Angels’ Bill Singer opposed Jim Kaat of the White Sox. Singer, a righty, was a few weeks shy of his 30th birthday and was beginning his second season with the Angels after nine with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He’d posted a record of 20-14 with a 3.22 ERA in 1973, his second 20-win season, and had also pitched in his second and last All-Star Game.7 Singer went 3-2 against the White Sox in 1973, and also took a no-decision in a May 10 start in which he surrendered three hits and three runs in 11 innings.8

Kaat, a 35-year-old lefty, had been in the big leagues since 1959; the White Sox had picked him up on waivers from the Minnesota Twins in August 1973. He’d gone a combined 15-13 with a 4.37 ERA in 36 games that season, all but one of them starts.9 Kaat pitched against California four times in 1973, going 2-1. While pitching for the Twins, Kaat had faced off against Singer on June 23. Kaat pitched all 11 innings but yielded the winning runs on Mike Epstein’s two-run homer as the Angels won, 3-1.10 In addition to his pitching skill, Kaat was also known as a sure-handed fielder who had won a Gold Glove Award every year since 1962.11

Each team failed to capitalize on runners in scoring position in the first inning. The Angels wasted two-out singles by Bobby Valentine and Frank Robinson, while the White Sox stranded Dick Allen and Bill Melton after a two-out double and a walk.

The scoreboard operators got busy in the third inning. For the Angels, Dave Chalk reached first when third baseman Melton threw wildly on his grounder.12 The speedy Rivers bunted for a single, and Denny Doyle’s sacrifice moved Chalk to third and Rivers to second. Valentine’s fly to right field scored Chalk for a 1-0 Angels lead.

In the bottom of the inning, Pat Kelly drew a leadoff walk. Two outs later, Melton’s double moved him to third base. (One of those outs, Allen’s drive to left into the wind, “would have landed on the roof on a normal day,” Wilbur Wood said.13) Carlos May, who led the 1973 White Sox with 96 RBIs, singled to left to score Kelly and tie the game, 1-1.14 With Melton on third, Ron Santo – a new White Sox acquisition for 1974 after 14 seasons with the crosstown Cubs – flied to center field to end the inning.15

The fourth and fifth innings passed relatively quietly before the Angels regained their scoring touch. In the top of the sixth, Leroy Stanton singled to left field. Ellie Rodríguez, an offseason trade pickup from the Milwaukee Brewers,16 drove him in with a double to left field for a 2-1 California lead.

The Angels added to their lead in the seventh, driving Kaat from the game. Valentine, back from a gruesome injury that ended his 1973 season on May 17,17 hit his third single of the day and Robinson doubled him home. Cy Acosta replaced Kaat and got the third out. In the bottom half, the White Sox were perhaps overeager to make up the 3-1 deficit. Kelly singled to left with one out, but was cut down by right fielder Stanton when he tried to go to third on Ken Henderson’s single.

The eighth brought more scoring for both teams. In the visitors’ half, Epstein drew a leadoff walk and Tom McCraw ran for him. Stanton’s single to left moved McCraw to second. Rodríguez bunted to Allen at first, who bobbled the ball; catcher Ed Herrmann then picked it up and threw it away.18 McCraw scored for a 4-1 lead, with Stanton moving to third and Rodríguez to second. The Angels did not further capitalize, as Chalk, Rivers, and Doyle were retired.

The White Sox riposted in the bottom half, starting with Carlos May’s one-out double. One out later, Jorge Orta’s single scored May to bring the White Sox within two runs. Herrmann followed with a double that sent Orta to third. Winkles called in lefty Rudy May to replace Singer. On ball four to Buddy Bradford, May threw a wild pitch; Orta scored and Luis Alvarado, running for Herrmann, took third. Kelly’s fly to center stranded the tying run on third.

With snow starting in the ninth inning,19 the Angels’ bats stayed quiet, setting the stage for an eventful turn at bat by Chicago. Henderson led off with a double to center, and Winkles called in Dick Selma, who had won the previous day’s game in relief. Allen’s groundout moved Henderson to third. Selma hit Melton with a pitch.20 Carlos May then singled off Selma for his third hit of the day, scoring Henderson and tying the game 4-4.21

Santo singled to left for his first hit with the White Sox, but Joe Lahoud, who had replaced Valentine, threw out Melton at home trying to score the winning run.22 Selma intentionally walked Orta to load the bases for Alvarado, a .215 lifetime hitter entering the season. Alvarado grounded to shortstop Chalk on a 3-and-2 pitch to send the game into extra innings.23

Both teams went down in order in the 10th amid increasingly heavy snow. The decision to call the game rested with crew chief Larry Napp, working at second base. (Home-plate umpire Jim McKean was working his third major-league game and first behind the plate.24)

Napp called off the game after 2 hours and 55 minutes of play, explaining: “I had to do it. The batters were complaining they couldn’t see the ball and the wind gusts and snow was [sic] making it difficult for the outfielders to pick up the ball.”25 California general manager Harry Dalton concurred, saying, “There was no sense playing on,”26 while Chicago Tribune writer George Langford called the conditions “ludicrous.”27

As expected, neither team impeded Oakland’s rush to another title. The White Sox held second place as late as July 30, but were 9 games back at the time. They closed in fourth place with an 80-80 record and three ties, 9 games behind the Athletics. The Angels slumped all the way to last place with a 68-94 record (and one tie), 22 games back. Winkles was fired on June 27.28

Author’s note and acknowledgments

Entering the 2024 season, the White Sox’ most recent tie game took place on October 3, 1999 – the last day of the regular season – when rain forced a game against the Minnesota Twins to be stopped in the seventh inning with the score tied 1-1.

This story was fact-checked by Thomas J. Brown Jr. and copyedited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team, and season data and the box scores for this game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA197404070.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1974/B04070CHA1974.htm

Image of 1974 Kellogg’s 3-D card #12 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Los Angeles Angels Team History & Encyclopedia,” Baseball-Reference, accessed January 2024. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/ANA/. The Angels’ two earlier ties were a 4-4 deadlock against the Boston Red Sox in the second game of a doubleheader on June 8, 1961, and a 1-1 tie against the Seattle Pilots in the second game of a doubleheader on September 12, 1969. All three of the Angels’ ties as of 2024 were played on the road. Also, the Angels did not play on the first day of the 1974 regular season, April 4; thus, they were playing their third game on the season’s fourth day.

2 As of 2024, the rules regarding suspended, postponed, and tie games were detailed in Section 7.02 of the major-league rulebook. “Official Baseball Rules, 2023 Edition,” accessed via MLBStatic.com in January 2024, https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/upload/mlb/wqn5ah4c3qtivwx3jatm.pdf.

3 Based on a review in January 2024 of the 30 then-current major-league managers’ Baseball-Reference pages. Two managers active in 2023 – Dusty Baker of the Houston Astros and Buck Showalter of the New York Mets – had each managed a single tie, but neither manager returned for the 2024 season.

4 Associated Press, “Angels, White Sox Halted in 10th Inning By … Snow,” Monrovia (California) Daily News-Post, April 8, 1974: 13.

5 The game-time temperature for the April 6 game is listed in Baseball-Reference as a relatively balmy 51 degrees.

6 For instance, Sports Illustrated’s unbylined AL West Division preview said the White Sox had “hitting in surplus” but would need support for “overburdened” starters Wilbur Wood and Stan Bahnsen. SI credited California with having “the finest pitching staff outside Oakland” but rapped the Angels’ “fragile offense.” The Athletics won both the AL West and the World Series in 1974. “AL West: Crotchety Kings Go for Another Crown,” Sports Illustrated, April 8, 1974: 54.

7 Singer made his first All-Star Game appearance in 1969.

8 Reliever Ron Perranoski, who took over in the 12th inning for California, yielded the winning run as Chicago won 4-3.

9 The move to Chicago reinvigorated Kaat’s career. The pitcher, who had one 20-win season to his credit in Minnesota, won 21 games in 1974 and 20 in 1975, making the All-Star team the latter season. The White Sox traded Kaat to the Philadelphia Phillies in December 1975; he never won more than 12 games in a season after that and was converted to a reliever in 1979.

10 Singer pitched 8⅓ innings and was succeeded by three relievers, the last of whom, Rich Hand, got the win.

11 Kaat won the Gold Glove again in 1974 and continued to win it every season through 1977.

12 Inning-by-inning summary of game scoring, Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1974: III, 4.

13 George Langford, “Snow Stops Sox-Angels After 10, 4-4,” Chicago Tribune, April 8, 1974: 3, 1.

14 May fell to 58 RBIs in 1974. Ken Henderson led the ’74 White Sox with 95 RBIs.

15 The 1974 season was Santo’s only one with the White Sox and the last of his career; he hit only .221 with 5 homers and 41 RBIs in 117 games. Santo, a stalwart at third base for the Cubs, played only 28 games at third in 1974. He played 47 games as designated hitter and 39 at second base, a position he had played only three times in the majors before that season.

16 Full terms of the October 1973 trade: Rodríguez, Skip Lockwood, Gary Ryerson, Ollie Brown, and Joe Lahoud to California; Clyde Wright, Steve Barber, Art Kusnyer, and Ken Berry to Milwaukee.

17 Valentine broke the tibia and fibula in his right leg colliding with a fence while chasing a home run by Oakland’s Dick Green. Wire-service photos of his leg bending at an unnatural angle appeared the next day in newspapers including the Binghamton (New York) Sun-Bulletin, May 18, 1973: 10B.

18 Inning-by-inning summary of game scoring, Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1974: III, 4.

19 Langford, “Snow Stops Sox-Angels After 10, 4-4.”

20 Langford reported that Selma had rented a home in California from Melton for use during the season, which meant Selma had hit his landlord with a pitch.

21 News reports agree that the hit struck Selma, but details differ. One wire-service report said May’s hit bounced off Selma’s pitching hand. United Press International, “Snow Stops Angels, Sox,” Pomona (California) Progress-Bulletin, April 8, 1974: B5. The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune reported that it hit Selma’s glove hand: “Angels, White Sox Frolic in the Snow to 10-Inning Tie,” Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1974: III, 1; Langford.

22 The third-base coach for the 1974 White Sox, whose judgment presumably contributed to Kelly’s and Melton’s outs at third and home, was Joe Lonnett. Steve Katich, “ES Lions Night Very Successful,” The Daily Calumet (Chicago), April 9, 1974: 4.

23 “Angels, White Sox Frolic in the Snow to 10-Inning Tie.”

24 McKean went on to work 28 seasons in the majors, including 3,514 regular-season games, three World Series, and three All-Star Games.

25 “Angels, White Sox Halted in 10th Inning By … Snow.”

26 “Snow Stops Angels, Sox.”

27 Langford, “Snow Stops Sox-Angels After 10, 4-4.”

28 United Press International, “Angels Fire Bobby Winkles,” San Clemente (California) Daily Sun-Post, June 28, 1974: 4.