August 31, 1950: Dodgers’ Gil Hodges hits four home runs at Ebbets Field

Returning from a road trip on which they won 8 of 11 games, the Dodgers still trailed the league-leading Philadelphia Phillies by 6½ games. Back at Ebbets Field, they hoped to continue their solid playing and gain some ground on Philadelphia. If they could beat the Boston Braves, their first opponent, they could put some distance between themselves and the Braves, who were just 1½ games behind them.

Carl Erskine took the mound for the Dodgers. The right-hander had not pitched well early in the season. After being sent down to the Montreal Royals, he changed his arm motion and won 10 games before he was recalled in August. Erskine entered the game with a 1-3 record. He had struggled in his last outing, surrendering five earned runs in 3⅓ innings.

Erskine started out strong, striking out the first two Boston batters he faced and retiring the first five Boston hitters without allowing a ball out of the infield. But with two out in the second inning, the Braves’ Sid Gordon hit a solo blast into the left-field bleachers for his 24th home run of the season. The New York Times called Gordon’s smash the “most lonesome home run” of the game in light of the barrage that followed over the next eight innings.1

Braves starter Warren Spahn had 16 wins and was 2-3 against the Dodgers so far in 1950. After an easy first inning, the left-hander was tagged for a leadoff single by Carl Furillo. The next batter was Gil Hodges, who sent a fastball into the left-field stands for a home run. Hodges’ blast gave the Dodgers a 2-1 lead and they would not look back for the rest of the evening.

Spahn got Roy Campanella on a fly ball, but allowed singles to Billy Cox and Erskine. After Spahn struck out Tommy Brown, Pee Wee Reese doubled to bring Cox across the plate for the Dodgers’ third run.

Spahn fared no better in the third. The first two Dodgers he faced singled and Braves manager Billy Southworth pulled his southpaw for Normie Roy. The first batter Roy faced was Hodges, who hit his first pitch, a curveball, into the left-field bleachers. After Roy surrendered hits to Campanella and Erskine, Southworth replaced him with Mickey Haefner.

Haefner walked Brown, loading the bases. Reese grounded into a force play at second, but when second baseman Roy Hartsfield, threw wild to first, two runs scored. Then Duke Snider hit his 24th home run of the season, bringing the Dodgers’ total for the inning to seven runs. It was the fourth time in the season that the Dodgers had scored that many runs in one inning.2 The home run, Snider’s only hit of the game, extended his hitting streak to 18 games.

The Dodgers struck again in the sixth. Bob Hall was now on the mound for the Braves, having replaced Haefner in the fifth. He walked Furillo to lead off the inning. Then Hodges hit a fastball over the left-field fence, his third round-tripper of the game.

Hall gave up three more singles before he could record the first out. One of the singles was by Erskine, his fourth of the game. With the bases loaded, Reese singled in another run and Snider’s grounder plated one more. By the time Johnny Antonelli got Robinson to fly out for the third out, the Dodgers led 14-1.

Antonelli, the Braves’ fifth pitcher, stayed on the mound for the rest of the game. He gave up three runs in the seventh. Hodges, hoping to hit a fourth home run, had to be content with an infield single. After the game, Hodges said, “I was really gunning for that fourth one. I knew it would tie the record. I got my chance in the seventh but I guess I was too anxious. I swung too soon on a change-of-pace and just beat out a slow roller for a single.”3

Trailing 17-1, the Braves picked up two runs in the eighth. Earl Torgeson hit a one-out single off Erskine and Bob Elliott walked. Del Crandall‘s force-play grounder left runners at first and third. A single by Gordon sent Torgeson home and a double by Willard Marshall scored Crandall.

The Dodgers – and Hodges – responded immediately. With Bobby Morgan on base after a walk, Hodges strode to the plate for the sixth time. With the count 2-and-2, he hit one over 400 feet into the upper left-field stands. Later he said: “I knew it was going for a homer as soon as I hit it. It felt better than the first three and I figured it would be longer. It sure was a great feeling – and what a night to do it with my wife here watching!”4

Hodges’ final home run gave him 23 for the season. Hodges set a major-league record for total bases (17) in a game.5

The final home run put Hodges in the record books as the fourth player to hit four home runs in a nine-inning game. Lou Gehrig was the last player to do it, on June 3, 1932. The other two players to achieve the feat were Bobby Lowe in 1894 and Ed Delahanty in 1896.6

When the press caught up with him in the locker room after the game, Hodges was asked about his accomplishment. “Did I think that I was going to hit the fourth one? I didn’t think I’d even hit three, and when I did, I didn’t figure to come up a sixth time.”7

John Griffin, the Dodgers clubhouse custodian, presented Hodges with the ball that he hit for homer number four. “A boy from the Bronx who told me his name was O’Dell Johnson just brought it to the door,” Griffin told Hodges. “He was sitting out in Section 33 and retrieved your fourth home run. He thought you might like it. I gave him two new baseballs in exchange.” Hodges put the ball on the shelf in his locker and noted, “I’ll find a spot for that.”8

In the clubhouse after the game, Reese shouted to Hodges, “You know you keep all of us late with all of your monkey business?” His teammate Bruce Edwards also called out to the reporters crowded around Hodges, “What about that double I hit in the eighth? Doesn’t anyone want to put my name in the paper? Boy, that ball was hit!”9

But this was Hodges’ night. The 14,226 paying customers got their money’s worth while the “thousands of Brooklynites who didn’t venture out in the August heat regret it today. They missed one of the best one-man shows of the year.”10

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for box-score, player, team, and season pages, pitching and batting game logs, and other material.

NOTES

1 Roscoe McGowen, “Brooklyn Slugger Ties Major Record,” New York Times, September 1, 1950: 24.

2 Harold Burr, “Gil Only Living Player to Hit 4 Homers in Game,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 1, 1950: 16.

3 Norman Miller (United Press), “Hodges Joins 3 Greats With 4 Homers in Game,” Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin, September 1, 1950: 23.

4 Miller.

5 Another Dodger – Shawn Green of the Los Angeles Dodgers – set the record at 19 total bases in 2002.

6 McGowen.

7 Burr.

8 Burr.

9 Burr.

10 Burr.