August 3, 1958: Ted Williams ‘promises’ home run to Pete Runnels and delivers

The Cleveland Indians hosted the Boston Red Sox for a doubleheader on the first Sunday in August 1958. The two teams were pretty much neck-and-neck in battling with four other teams for second place in the American League standings, with the Yankees far out in front of the tightly-bunched pack.

The Indians were 17 games behind New York and the Red Sox were half a game behind the Indians. Only a half-game behind the Red Sox were both the White Sox and the Orioles, and the Tigers were a half-game behind them. One game behind the Tigers were the Kansas City Athletics. Just 2½ games separated second place from seventh place.

The Indians came in riding a seven-game winning streak; the Red Sox were saddled with a five-game losing streak, which included two losses to the Indians on Friday and another on Saturday. They were wrapping up a road trip that had seen them go 2-10. The Red Sox had only four base hits in each of their last four games, three of the four against Cleveland.

The Indians started rookie right-hander Gary Bell (5-4, 3.41.) The Red Sox went with Ike Delock, who was 10-2 (2.64); Delock had been undefeated through July 20 but then lost his last two decisions.

Neither team scored for the first five innings. Bell had allowed a single and walked two in the top of the first but had been bailed out by a double play and by striking out right fielder Jackie Jensen.

Vic Power singled in the Cleveland first, Rocky Colavito walked in the second, and Bobby Avila walked in the third inning, but there was nothing of a threat. Neither team got a baserunner in the fourth.

In the bottom of the fifth, Delock faced his first rough spot. Back-to-back errors on grounders hit to Frank Malzone at third and Don Buddin at shortstop resulted in two men on base. Bell laid down a sacrifice bunt and moved them both up a base. Avila lifted a fly ball to right field, but Jensen caught it and threw a perfect strike to home plate to nip Colavito.

Through the first five innings, each starting pitcher had allowed but one base hit and both of those had been in the first inning.

The Red Sox scored first, in the top of the sixth, and it was Delock who set it up with a leadoff double between third baseman Power and the bag and into left field. It was only his second hit of the year. (Delock finished the season with three hits and an .063 batting average.1) Buddin sacrificed him to third. Pete Runnels hit a fly ball to center field, deep enough that Delock tagged and scored. Ted Williams grounded out to second base.

In their half of the inning, the Indians matched that one run and upped the ante with a second run. Center fielder Gary Geiger led off with a single to right field. Power grounded out, Geiger going to second base. Catcher Russ Nixon struck out but left fielder Minnie Miñoso doubled to center field on a ball that Gene Stephens misplayed; it went right over his head.2

“This apparently disturbed Delock,” wrote the Boston Globe’s Hy Hurwitz.3 The Red Sox pitcher then had trouble getting the ball over. He walked Mickey Vernon and Colavito, loading the bases. Indians manager Joe Gordon had Vic Wertz pinch-hit for shortstop Billy Hunter and Delock walked him, too, forcing in Miñoso. Pinky Higgins called on Bud Byerly to relieve Delock and pitch to Bell. Delock was so upset he “flung the resin bag away” and departed the mound before Byerly arrived.4

Vernon, on third base, hoped to catch the Boston battery napping and attempted a steal of home on a 2-and-2 count. It didn’t work. He was out by 10 feet. Not one to give up without a fight, third-base coach Eddie Stanky argued in vain that Delock had balked. The inning was over, but the Indians now led, 2-1.

Bell kept Boston off the basepaths in the top of the seventh. Byerly did the same against Cleveland in the bottom of the inning.

Ted Lepcio singled to lead off the Boston eighth but got no farther than first base. Sammy White hit a fly ball to the second baseman. Marty Keough pinch-hit for Byerly and fouled out to Power at third base.

Murray Wall was the new reliever for the Red Sox. He struck out Power, saw Buddin commit another error, and gave up a single to Miñoso, but Vernon lined out to first base and Colavito flied out to center field. 

Wall had begun his career with the Boston Braves, back in 1950, working four innings in one game. He’d then spent the next six seasons pitching in the minors for the Braves and Giants, and his contract had been purchased by the Red Sox on August 1, 1957. He was 3-0 in 11 Red Sox games that year, working all 11 in relief. He’d been used a lot in 1958. This was his 37th appearance. He was 5-7 (3.73).

Bell returned to the mound in the ninth. He had held the Red Sox to just three hits over the first eight innings. He’d walked three. The first batter up in the ninth was Pete Runnels. He conspired with Ted Williams to win the ballgame. Easier said than done, but it worked.

Williams reportedly told Runnels, “If you get on, Pete, I’ll hit a homer.” Runnels said, “I couldn’t let a promise like that go by.”5 He swung at the first pitch and singled over second base. Williams ran the count to 3-and-2, fouling off four pitches in the process, then hit one “high into the upper right field seats.”6  It was Williams’s 18th homer of the season and the 474th of his career.

The next three Red Sox went down quietly, but the pact between Runnels and Williams had produced two runs, and Boston had taken a slim 3-2 lead.

Murray Wall was no doubt pleased at the opportunity to add another victory to his record.7 Larry Doby pinch-hit leading off the bottom of the ninth. He walked. Billy Harrell then pinch-hit for Gary Bell. (Bell had executed the successful sacrifice in the fifth inning but had otherwise struck out twice.) Harrell hit a liner right back to Bell, who threw to Runnels at first base and doubled off Mudcat Grant, running for Doby. Avila flied out to left field for the third out, the ball caught by Jimmy Piersall, who had gone in to replace Williams for defensive purposes.

The Red Sox win snapped their five-game losing streak.

The Red Sox also won the second game, 4-2. The Indians scored single runs in the third and fourth off starter Ted Bowsfield. Ray Narleski started for Cleveland and pitched shutout ball for the first seven innings. In Boston’s eighth inning, a pair of singles, followed by a two-run double to left-center by Pete Runnels, tied the score. Hoyt Wilhelm replaced Narleski and gave up RBI singles to Marty Keough and Frank Malzone. They scored four runs on six base hits, more hits in this one inning than they had had in any of their five previous games, including the first game of this day’s doubleheader.

The resulting 4-2 score stood and the Red Sox had a sweep. They held second place and the Indians sank all the way to fifth, but still only three games separated second-place Boston from seventh-place Kansas City. Cleveland had a total of 10 hits over the two games, and five of them were by Minnie Miñoso. At season’s end, the White Sox were the team that placed second. Boston was third. Cleveland was fourth.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin.

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/CLE/CLE195808031.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1958/B08031CLE1958.htm

Notes

1 His career batting average was .086 in 425 plate appearances. He did hit one home run, in 1959.

2 “Stephens misjudged Miñoso’s line drive directly at him and it went for a double.” Henry McKenna, “Sox Sweep, 3-2, 4-2,” Boston Herald, August 4, 1958: 13, 14. See also Harry Jones, “Indians Halted at 7 in Row, 3-2, 4-2,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 4, 1958: 23.

3 Hy Hurwitz, “Hose Sweep Indians,” Boston Globe, August 4, 1958: 9. 

4 Hurwitz, 10.

5 “Monbouquette Faces Washington Tomorrow,” Boston Traveler, August 4, 1958: 10.

6 Jones.

7 In 1958, Wall finished appeared in 52 games with a 3.62 ERA, comparatively better than the team’s collective ERA of 3.92. His record was 8-9. Wall, who appeared in 89 games with the Red Sox, Boston Braves, and Washington Senators between 1950 and 1959, died by suicide at age 45 in 1971.