August 14, 2000: Childhood dream comes true as Rico Brogna hits walk-off grand slam for Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox battled throughout the 2000 season, seeking their third straight berth in the playoffs. They’d been first in the American League East Division for a few days in the latter half of June but had slipped to second place. They were four games behind the first-place New York Yankees when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays arrived for a three-game visit on Monday evening, August 14. It was a game the Red Sox won in a walk-off – their first of three walk-off wins in eight days, all in the first games of consecutive series against the Devil Rays, Texas Rangers, and Anaheim Angels.

The winning blow in the August 14 game came from veteran first baseman Rico Brogna, who had entered the game as a pinch-runner the inning before and was appearing in just his 10th game with the Red Sox.

Starting pitchers were Pedro Martínez for manager Jimy Williams and the Red Sox and Dave Eiland for Larry Rothschild and the Devil Rays. Martínez had won his second Cy Young Award in 1999 and went on to win his third in ’00 with a historically dominant performance.1 He was 13-4, including three shutouts, with a 1.46 ERA when the game began. His last start had resulted in a 2-1 loss to the Angels on August 8.

This was Eiland’s 10th season in the big leagues, but he hadn’t been used all that much. Up and down from the minors to the majors, this was his 87th career appearance. His record for the season was 1-1 (6.55 ERA) for the Devil Rays, who were tied for last place in the five-team AL East. He held his own against Pedro Martínez in this game, though.

The game had started with Martínez striking out the side in the top of the first, and then the first batter in the second. After one out in the third, over the span of six pitches, ninth-place hitter Ozzie Guillén singled, Gerald Williams singled, and Miguel Cairo hit a three-run homer into the screen atop the left-field wall. It was the first time all season that Martínez had allowed three runs in an inning.

Through the first four innings, Eiland gave up just two hits: a single to Lou Merloni – who was playing in his first major-league game of 2000 after stints with Nippon Professional Baseball’s Yokohama BayStars and Boston’s Triple-A Pawtucket affiliate – and a leadoff double in the fourth to Carl Everett.

Martínez had pitched at least six innings in all 20 of his previous starts in 2000, but he was done after four innings in this game. Hipolito Pichardo took over in the fifth, the Red Sox ace departing with what was reported as “stiffness in his pitching shoulder.”2 Pichardo worked two innings, giving up two hits. Rod Beck replaced him and pitched the seventh and eighth, giving up one hit.  

In the meantime, the Red Sox had tied it up, scoring three times in the bottom of the sixth, aided by three Tampa Bay errors. Everett singled into right field, then stole second and took third on a throwing error by catcher John Flaherty. Nomar Garciaparra scored Everett with a sacrifice fly to center field – and wound up on second base when Williams dropped the routine fly ball. First baseman Brian Daubach doubled into the right-field corner and drove in Garciaparra. Esteban Yan relieved Eiland. Merloni bunted for a sacrifice, Daubach taking third. Scott Hatteberg – the DH – hit a fly ball to center and Daubach tagged and scored. There was another error and a single later in the inning, but no more scoring. It was 3-3 after six innings.

Neither team got a man on in the seventh. Tampa Bay put two on in the top of the eighth, but a fly out to right and a 5-4-3 double play ended that threat. Yan induced a foul popup to Flaherty, then struck out the next two batters.

When Daubach singled to lead off the Red Sox eighth, Brogna, claimed on waivers from the Philadelphia Phillies 11 days earlier, ran for him. It was Brogna’s 743rd career major-league game – and his first big-league pinch-running appearance. Merloni’s sacrifice pushed Brogna to second, but the next two Red Sox stranded him there.

In the ninth, Derek Lowe came on to pitch for Boston. He got two outs but then gave up back-to-back singles to Ozzie Guillén and Williams. Cairo grounded out, short to first to end the inning.

Billy Taylor took over from Yan to work the bottom of the ninth. The 6-foot-8, 38-year-old right-hander was making his 310th career appearance, all in relief. The first pitch he threw hit Darren Lewis. With Trot Nixon batting, Lewis stole second; the potential winning run was now in scoring position with nobody out. Nixon flied out to right field; Lewis tagged up and took third base.

To increase the possibilities of getting the third out, and since any runs additional baserunners might score would be meaningless in terms of wins and losses, the Devil Rays intentionally walked both .307-hitting Everett and .381-hitting Garciaparra. This set Taylor up to pitch to Brogna, who’d stayed in the game playing first base.

Brogna, now 30, had been the Phillies’ Opening Day first baseman in 2000, following offseason shoulder and knee surgery. He was batting .248 with just one home run and 12 RBIs on May 10 when Matt Blank of the Montreal Expos hit him with a pitch, which fractured a bone in his left arm. Brogna returned to action in July, but by then rookie Pat Burrell had replaced him at first base in Philadelphia.3

The Phillies attempted to trade Brogna to the Red Sox by the July 31 trade deadline.4 Brogna was a son of New England, having been born in Western Massachusetts. As a boy, he used to fantasize about hitting a game-winning homer at Fenway Park and often enjoyed television replays of the home run that Carlton Fisk had hit to win Game Six of the 1975 World Series.

But Philadelphia and Boston were unable to agree on a Brogna deal. Instead, the Phillies put him on waivers shortly after the deadline, and the Red Sox claimed him.5 This was Brogna’s 10th game with the Red Sox; he was 3-for-16 with one run batted in.

The morning of this game, he thought his time with the Red Sox was over. As recounted in his SABR biography, “less than 30 minutes before [game time], the Red Sox asked Brogna to go on the DL [to clear a roster spot.]”6 Because he did not wish to consent, “Brogna called his wife twice before the game that day, telling her to pack up the car in anticipation of his being released.”7

Taylor’s first pitch to Brogna was a ball. The second was fouled off. The third was a called strike, and then there was another ball. On a 2-and-2 count, Brogna swung and hit Taylor’s pitch into the visitors bullpen in right field. He’d won the game with a grand slam.8

Talking about the Fisk homer, just barely fair down the left-field line, Brogna said, “This one wasn’t near the foul pole. [As a kid], I was waving a lot fair like Pudge [Fisk] in ’75. I didn’t have to wave this fair. I was maybe waving it to get over [right fielder José Guillén’s] head.”9 He added, “It’s more than a dream come true to do this in a Red Sox uniform.”10

As mentioned, there were indeed two walk-offs in the week that followed. Against the Rangers on August 17, the final blow was a two-run double by second baseman Mike Lansing. He had come into the game in the eighth as a pinch-hitter and doubled then, too, driving in four runs in Boston’s 8-7 win. Four days later, the Red Sox overcame a 5-3 deficit against the Angels with Daubach’s two-out, two-run homer in the ninth, then rallied from one run down in the 11th when Daubach (again with two outs) singled in the tying and winning runs.

Brogna’s walk-off against the Devil Rays was his only homer with the Red Sox, who missed the postseason in 2000, finishing 2½ games behind the Yankees. He batted .196 in 43 games. Signing with the Atlanta Braves for 2001, Brogna was hitting .248 when he ended his nine-season career by announcing his retirement in July.11

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Larry DeFillipo and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Rico Brogna, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, video of the game on YouTube, and David Bilmes’ SABR biography of Rico Brogna.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200008140.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2000/B08140BOS2000.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BtsmXke1QE

Notes

1 Martínez’s ERA+ of 291 in 2000 – a measurement taking into account a pitcher’s ballpark and the league ERA – topped all qualified American or National League pitchers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 

2 Dan Shaughnessy, “It Could Be the Season’s Best Night – or Worst,” Boston Globe, August 15, 2000: D1. Five days later, Martínez made his next start, at Fenway, and threw seven innings of shutout ball against the Texas Rangers, striking out 10. The Red Sox won, 9-0.

3 Bob Brookover (Knight Ridder News Service), “Phillies Get Nothing After Red Sox Claim Brogna,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) New Era, August 4, 2000: C-1.

4 “Phillies Get Nothing After Red Sox Claim Brogna.”

5 “Phillies Get Nothing After Red Sox Claim Brogna.”

6 Brian Schactman and John Senecal, “Rico Brogna: Part One,” Fanbase: A Deep Dive Into the Greatest Rivalry in Sports (podcast), October 1, 2020, https://omny.fm/shows/fanbase-a-deep-dive-into-the-greatest-rivalry-in-s/14-rico-brogna-part-one, accessed June 17, 2023.

7 David Bilmes interview with Rico Brogna, June 28, 2023.

8 Thanks for to Larry DeFillipo for noting that this was Brogna’s third career grand slam and second career walk-off home run. His first came off five-time All-Star Doug Jones in May 1995, when Brogna was a member of the New York Mets.

9 Michael Smith, “It Was Child’s Play,” Boston Globe, August 15, 2000: D6. There were indeed two Guilléns in the Tampa Bay lineup – José Guillén from the Dominican Republic and Ozzie Guillén from Venezuela.

10 Bob Hohler, “In Grand Style,” Boston Globe, August 15, 2000: D1, D6.

11 Jack Wilkinson, “As Expected, Brogna Calls It Quits,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 18, 2001: E5.