August 22, 1951: Jackie Robinson’s heroics help Dodgers pull out two walk-off wins in Cardinals sweep

Jackie Robinson debuted with the Dodgers at age 28 in 1947. Over the course of the next seven seasons, he was arguably the best player in baseball, batting .319 with a .414 on-base percentage. (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)

Jackie Robinson was in the heart of the prime of his career. His 1947 rookie season had marked his historic, arduous, and triumphant debut. The 1949 campaign, in which he batted a career-high .342, led the league in stolen bases with a career-high 37, and was named the MVP, stands out in retrospect. And yet, authorized biographer Arnold Rampersad wrote, Robinson “saw the 1951 season as his best yet in the majors.”1

Even though Robinson would finish a distant sixth in MVP voting that season (with his teammate Roy Campanella winning the honor), the benefit of advanced statistics bears out his perception. Robinson’s slash line of .342/.432/.528 and Wins Above Replacement (WAR) of 9.3 in 1949 are virtually identical to his 1951 output of .338/.429/.527 and WAR of 9.7. Beyond the individual stats, Robinson’s bat delivered some of the biggest swings of the season, in some of the Dodgers’ most desperate moments, to keep his team afloat in a surprisingly close pennant race.

In mid-August the Dodgers wrapped up a homestand at Ebbets Field as victors over Boston and the presumptive pennant winners over the rest of National League. Their lead over their rival Giants reached 13 games on the 11th and stood at 12½ games as they left town two days later.

“The bookies about town set the odds of a New York pennant at 100-1,” wrote Joshua Prager. “The season was surely over.”2

But then the Dodgers crossed boroughs to the Polo Grounds and were swept, and limped out of Boston after splitting a four-game series with the Braves. Just like that, as the Dodgers returned to Ebbets Field, their previously insurmountable lead was down to eight games.

If the Dodgers (74-41) could right the ship against any opponent, it might be the Cardinals (56-56), against whom they’d won their last 12 meetings. On the other hand, such a streak suggested that the Cardinals were overdue to give Brooklyn a battle. As it turned out, they gave them two.

The opening game of the teams’ series on August 21 was rained out, setting up a doubleheader the next day. Game one that Wednesday afternoon pitted Cardinals rookie starter Tom Poholsky (4-10) against Preacher Roe, who was enjoying a career year, entering the game with a 16-2 record (en route to a career-high 22 wins). The Dodgers rattled Poholsky quickly. With two outs in the first and no one on, Duke Snider reached on an error and Robinson hit an infield single, claiming second and Snider snatching third after Poholsky’s throwing error. It was up to Gil Hodges to deliver on the Dodgers’ good fortune, and he hit a line drive to center field to score both runners and put the home team ahead 2-0.

Roe cruised through the early stanzas for Brooklyn and Poholsky settled in for St. Louis for a couple of quiet innings. Then St. Louis struck back in the top of the fourth. After Solly Hemus grounded out to Robinson, Red Schoendienst sent a single to center. Stan Musial strode to the plate and belted a two-run home run to tie the game.

Both teams’ bats were quiet until the sixth inning, when the same Cardinals combination struck again. This time Schoendienst led off with a single to left, and Musial doubled him home, though he was thrown out trying to take third. The Cardinals led 3-2. “The Dodgers had a rough time of it beating … the graceful Cardinal batsman,” the Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote of Musial’s day at the plate.3

The Dodgers couldn’t return fire until the eighth inning. They pressured Poholsky with a leadoff single by Carl Furillo and a bunt single by Pee Wee Reese. After Snider lined out to left, Robinson came up and smacked a line drive to center to score Furillo and tie the game. Reese ended up at third and Robinson at second thanks to an errant throw from center field, but the Dodgers couldn’t capitalize and regain the lead. Hodges was intentionally passed to set up a potential double play, and Roy Campanella obliged to end the inning.

Each team managed a walk but nothing else in the ninth, and the game went to extra innings. Taking the mound in the top of the 10th for his third inning of relief was Clyde King, a righty riding high during a standout season. Originally pressed into service by the Dodgers at age 20 during World War II, King had struggled to keep a steady big-league job in Brooklyn ever since.4 But now he was red-hot, already tallying a career high 12 wins and enjoying a streak of 11⅔ scoreless innings.5

King extended his streak, setting down the top of the order with a groundout from Hemus, a line drive from Schoendienst that Furillo extinguished with a fine catch in right field, and a popup to short by Musial, to bring Brooklyn back to bat.6

With Poholsky still on the hill for the Cardinals, Furillo led off with a single and Reese sacrificed him to second. Snider, batting third in his second of seven straight All-Star seasons for the Dodgers, was intentionally walked with first base open, and Robinson was retired on a foul popup to the catcher. The batter was Hodges with two on and two outs. He struck a single to left field and Furillo scored from second to end the game. The Dodgers had won, 4-3.

* * *

The nightcap matched two starting pitchers, Gerry Staley (14-12) and Carl Erskine (14-8), with similar records at similar points in their careers; each was in the process of sealing a perennial place in their team’s starting rotation; each man’s recent 14th win was a career high. Erskine began with ease, making one hitless trip through the Cardinals lineup, before the Cardinals unleashed a rapid rally in the fourth inning to take command of the game. Hemus singled and, after Schoendienst flied out, Musial and Hal Rice walked to load the bases. Enos Slaughter hit a grounder to Reese at shortstop, but Reese erred on his throw to second, and both Hemus and Musial scored. The next batter, Nippy Jones, grounded one right back to Reese, who misplayed it again, and Rice came home to make it 3-0, Cardinals. Billy Johnson‘s single scored Slaughter and Del Rice‘s base hit brought home Jones. Erskine was charged with only one earned run because of the mess Reese had made, but with only one out in the fourth and the Dodgers in a gaping 5-0 hole, Dodgers manager Chuck Dressen relieved his starter, bringing in Bud Podbielan. The reliever retired the next two batters to get the Dodgers out of the inning.

Brooklyn put a dent in the St. Louis lead right away. After Snider and Robinson hit singles and Hodges was out on a fly ball to center field in the bottom of the fourth, Campanella and Pafko belted consecutive base hits, each scoring a runner, to make the score a more manageable 5-2.

The Cardinals instantly resumed their attack in the fifth. New Dodgers hurler Johnny Schmitz was greeted with leadoff triples off the bats of Schoendienst and Musial. The latter ran home on Hal Rice’s fly ball, and the St. Louis lead was back to five runs, at 7-2.

Again, the Dodgers responded in the bottom half of the inning. After Reese and Snider walked and Dick Bokelmann relieved Staley, Robinson rapped his third straight hit of the game, a single to right that scored Reese and moved Snider to third base. A double-play ball by Hodges ended the inning, with the score 7-3.

Clem Labine was next out of the Brooklyn bullpen, and pitched around a leadoff walk in the top of the sixth inning. Andy Pafko took Bokelmann deep in the bottom of the inning to make it 7-4.

Following three volatile innings, Labine and Bokelmann both hurled two scoreless stanzas, until the Dodgers reached their point of desperation in the bottom of the ninth. Pinch-hitter Don Thompson led off with a hit and snatched second on a wild pitch to Furillo. After Furillo walked and Reese grounded out to second, a single by Snider scored Thompson and moved Furillo to third.

With runners at the corners, one away, and Bokelmann still on the hill for the visitors, up came Jackie Robinson, seeking his fourth hit of the night at the game’s most crucial moment. To the exultation of the Ebbets Field faithful, he belted a double over the head of Slaughter in right field to score Furillo and bring the Dodgers within one, at 7-6. Hodges received another free pass to set up a force out, just as in the eighth inning of the first game, but this time Campanella launched a fly ball to center field. He was out, but Snider tagged up to complete the comeback and tie the game. When Cox grounded out to second, the game headed to extra innings for a second time that day.

Dressen brought back Clyde King, the winner of the opener after three scoreless innings of relief, to start the 10th inning for Brooklyn. King suffered only a two-out single by Slaughter before getting Jones to fly out to third. It gave Brooklyn a chance to close it out in the bottom of the 10th for the second time that day.

With the pitcher’s spot due up to lead off the 10th, Dressen decided to let King bat. King didn’t make contact, but he “cutely let himself get hit by a pitched ball,” the Brooklyn Daily Eagle commented, to give the Dodgers a baserunner.7

Up next, Furillo was nearly the hero of the night, sending a fly ball soaring to deep right-center, but the wind held it up and Musial made the catch at the wall for the first out.8

But after that loud out, followed by a single by Reese, Bokelmann’s day was done. “It would seem that acting manager Terry Moore kept … Bokelmann … in too long,” commented the Daily Eagle. “But the Red Birds are up against a pitching shortage with three of their stars out of action.”9

Reliever Al Brazle came in and struck out Snider. With two outs and his pitcher standing on second base, bound to either return to the mound or make it home, Jackie Robinson came to the plate. Robinson was 4-for-5 in the game and his clutch RBI double the previous inning was a big reason the game was still going. He took a ball and a strike from Brazle, then connected one more glorious time on a “slashing … single down the left field line,” as the New York Times described it.10 King rounded third and came home amid a scene of jubilation. To the fans’ delirious disbelief, the Dodgers had won it again on another 10th-inning two-out walk-off hit.

Robinson’s clutch hits had batted Brooklyn to the doubleheader sweep, while King’s pitching and improbable baserunning had earned him two wins for the day. “He bears the name today of young reliable in the hearts of a million Dodger fans,” said the Daily Eagle.11

“The Dodgers looked like a great ball club again in sweeping the Cardinals aside twice to make it 14 in a row over the Missourians,” the Daily Eagle commented. “They picked up half a length on the streaking Giants and now lead the New Yorkers by eight lengths,” after “a long day and night of baseball.”12

The Times agreed the Dodgers had regained their stride, and speculated that the Giants’ recent resurgence couldn’t last.

“Coming from behind in both contests,” the Times said, “the Brooks showed that they are too solid an aggregation to remain in a long slump.”13

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, SABR.org, and The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record.

NOTES

1 Arnold Rampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), 241.

2 Joshua Prager, The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca, and the Shot Heard Round the World (New York: Pantheon Books, 2006), 86.

3 Harold C. Burr, “King for a Day – and a Night – and a Season,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 23, 1951: 16.

4 James Lincoln Ray, “Clyde King.” SABR BioProject. Accessed at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/4f4481b9.

5 Burr, “King for a Day.”

6 “King for a Day.”

7 “King for a Day.”

8 “King for a Day.”

9 “King for a Day.”

10 Louis Effrat, “Dodgers Trip Cards 4-3 and 8-7, Taking Both Games in 10 Innings,” New York Times, August 23, 1951: 35.

11 “King for a Day.”

12 “King for a Day.”

13 Effrat, “Dodgers Trip Cards.” Robinson’s clutch performance prefigured one on the last day of the season in Philadelphia, when he hit an RBI triple, made a game-saving diving catch in the ninth inning, and hit a home run in the 14th inning to give the Dodgers a 9-8 victory and force a playoff series with the Giants. The Giants, of course, would go on to win that series in one of the most memorable moments in baseball history, perhaps overshadowing some of Robinson’s heroics that season.