August 17, 1947: Red Sox score three in top of 11th, shut out the Yankees in New York

Though the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox ranked one-two atop the American League standings in August 1947, there wnas a considerable distance between them. The visiting Red Sox were 13½ games behind New York before their Sunday afternoon game at Yankee Stadium on August 17.

The Red Sox had been shut out on Saturday, 1-0, with the Yankees scoring the lone run of the game in the bottom of the ninth when Boston starter Earl Johnson ran out of steam and surrendered two singles, a walk, and then a walk-off single by center fielder Johnny Lindell. .440-hitting Allie Clark, who had four hits in his seventh big-league game, scored the winning run. Winning pitcher Bobo Newsom had also gone the distance, allowing just six scattered hits.1

The Sunday game drew 45,840 fans. Though most were Yankees fans, and their team was shut out, they saw what the New York Times called “as sparkling a ballgame as the Stadium, or any other arena, has seen in many campaigns … a game that had all the thrill and excitement of World Series combat.”2

Yankees manager Bucky Harris started 28-year-old right-hander Vic Raschi, who was 6-0 with a 2.98 ERA coming into the game.3 Boston center fielder Dom DiMaggio singled with two outs in the top of the first, which turned out to be the only hit against Raschi in the first seven innings.

Veteran righty Denny Galehouse had started his second stint with the Red Sox, coming over from the St. Louis Browns in June.4 The 35-year-old Galehouse was 6-3 with the Red Sox, 7-6 overall with a season ERA of 3.99.

After a one-two-three bottom of the first, Joe DiMaggio – hitting .327, and along with Boston’s .330-hitting Ted Williams one of several players chasing .335-batting Lou Boudreau of the Cleveland Indians for the AL batting crown – doubled to lead off the second. A groundout pushed DiMaggio to third base, but he got no farther. He was the only Yankee to reach third at any point in the game.

Galehouse didn’t give up his second hit until the sixth, when second baseman Snuffy Stirnweiss singled, but a double play ended that inning. The Red Sox finally got their second hit on catcher Birdie Tebbetts’s single to center with one out in the top of the eighth, but third baseman Sam Dente hit into a 5-4-3 double play.

In the bottom of the eighth, New York had a scoring opportunity when Lindell doubled down the left-field line with one out. Catcher Aaron Robinson was walked intentionally, and Galehouse induced Raschi to pop out to first base. Stirnweiss hit a ball to left-center that looked sure to drop in for a run-producing hit but Dom DiMaggio “flying at top speed, reached low and captured the ball off his toe-tops.”5 The Times’s Dawson called it “an almost-impossible shoe-string catch.”6 The inning was over.

After eight innings, the game was still scoreless, the Yankees with three hits and the Red Sox with two.

Three infield popups and the Red Sox were retired in the top of the ninth. Joe DiMaggio singled with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but first baseman George McQuinn grounded out, second to first.

The Red Sox almost scored in the top of the 10th. With one out, Ted Williams lined an opposite-field double into the left-field corner.7 Next up was second baseman Bobby Doerr, who singled, a one-hopper to center. Williams tried to score from second but Joe DiMaggio “charging the ball like an infielder, grabbed it and cut loose a dazzling throw to the plate.”8 Williams was out, the tag applied by catcher Robinson, out by at least five feet, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.9

Boston manager Joe Cronin stuck with Galehouse in the bottom of the inning. Lindell singled with one out, but Robinson grounded out to first base unassisted and Raschi – batting for himself in the still-scoreless game – hit a popup to Johnny Pesky at shortstop.

Tebbetts led off the top of the 11th with a double inches fair down the third-base line and into left field. With a man in scoring position and nobody out, Cronin had “speedy Don Gutteridge” pinch-run for Tebbetts.10 Dente bunted to the left of Raschi, who had no play; the Red Sox had runners on first and third.

Cronin had Galehouse lay down a sacrifice. It was fielded by Raschi, who looked back at Gutteridge and then threw to second baseman Stirnweiss, covering first base, retiring Galehouse. Dente advanced on the play. Boston now had runners on second and third and just one out.

Rookie right fielder Sam Mele swung at the first pitch and lined a single into left field, driving both runners in. He took second base on “Lindell’s frantic throw” home.11 Pesky singled through Raschi’s legs and Mele scored from second. It was 3-0, Red Sox. The three runs followed 23 innings in which the Red Sox had been held scoreless by Yankees pitching.

Dom DiMaggio came up to bat. After Raschi picked Pesky off first, DiMaggio drew a base on balls himself, but was stranded when Ted Williams struck out for the third out.

Stirnweiss led off the bottom of the 11th with a single, but Galehouse struck out Phil Rizzuto looking and then got both Clark and Joe DiMaggio to hit fly balls to center field, where Dom DiMaggio snared them for the second and final out of the inning, and the game.12

Boston had won the game, 3-0, on the road in 11 innings. After winning his first eight decisions, it was Raschi’s first career loss.13

Galehouse’s 11-inning outing was the longest of his 15-year career. He won two more games against the Yankees in 1947, a 6-3 win at Fenway Park on September 1 and a 3-2 win in New York on September 26.14  The season series saw the Yankees prevail, 13-9.

New York won the pennant, by 12 games over the second-place Detroit Tigers. The Red Sox finished two games behind the Tigers.

The Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in a World Series that ran the full seven games.

The Red Sox played nine extra-inning games in 1947 and won seven of the nine, including four games won on the road.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Victoria Monte and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Denny Galehouse, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA194708170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1947/B08170NYA1947.htm

Notes

1 The Yankees had won the Friday night game, too, 10-6.

2 James P. Dawson, “Galehouse Victor over Raschi, 3-0,” New York Times, August 18, 1947: 20.

3 Raschi had been born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts. 1947 was Raschi’s rookie season; he had appeared in two late September games in 1946 and won them both.

4 The 35-year-old Galehouse had started his big-league career with one game for Cleveland in 1934. He had pitched for the Red Sox in 1939 and 1940, a combined 15-16. He returned to Boston in 1947, his contract having been purchased from St. Louis on June 20.

5 Roger Birtwell, “Galehouse Tops Raschi in 11-Inning Shutout Duel; Red Sox Win, 3 to 0,” Boston Globe, August 18, 1947: 6.

6 Dawson.

7 It was his first hit of the game, the Yankees effectively employing the shift. “Twice second baseman Stirnweiss stood from 20 to 25 feet out on the right-field grass and fielded Williams’ line-wallops on the first hop.” Birtwell. The placement of Williams’s double was described by Dawson in the New York Times. 

8 There were numerous fielding gems in the game. Of a play in the eighth, Roger Birtwell wrote, “Even Yankee fans rose and applauded as [Dominic DiMaggio] came in to the Boston dugout.” The Globe writer also credited Ted Williams with “perhaps the best catch of his entire career” when he “raced deep and to his own left to make a one-handed stab off Joe DiMaggio’s bid for a triple in the fourth. Williams caught it 405 feet from the plate.”

9 William F. Goodrich, “MacPhail Hails Raschi as ‘Great,’” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 18, 1947: 10.

10 The characterization of Gutteridge is courtesy of Ed Cunningham, “Sox Blank Yanks, 3-0,” Boston Herald, August 18, 1947: 15.

11 Birtwell.

12 Clark played right field in place of Tommy Henrich, who had unaccountably not shown up for the game. Yogi Berra was out with a sore throat.

13 Regarding Raschi, despite faltering in the 11th, Yankees team President Larry MacPhail told the Brooklyn newspaper, “I wasn’t so sure about him until today. Now I know we have a first-rate pitcher. I’ve heard more fans talk about him leaving the ball park than any other ball player in a long time.” Goodrich. Raschi played through 1955 and finished his career with a record of 132-66 (3.72). His 11-inning outing in this game was tied for the second longest in his career; he went 12 innings in a loss to the Chicago White Sox in June 1950.

14 Galehouse became best known in Red Sox history for being selected by manager Joe McCarthy to start the single-game playoff for the American League pennant against the Cleveland Indians on October 4, 1948. He lasted but three innings, losing the game – and the pennant.