July 11, 1959: Don Buddin’s grand slam in bottom of the 10th lifts Red Sox over Yankees

Shortstop Don Buddin was often the butt of disdain and derision during his five seasons with the Boston Red Sox (1956-61, with a year off for military service). He picked up the nickname “Bootin Buddin” while leading the American League in fielding errors twice, and Buddin’s misadventures made such an impression that a Boston Globe columnist wrote, more than three decades after Buddin’s final game for Boston, that “‘E-6’ … should have been Buddin’s license plate.”1

Buddin averaged 128 games in his years with the Red Sox, including 151 in 1959. He led the league in shortstop errors in both 1958 (31) and 1959 (35). On July 13, 1958, two Buddin errors led to seven unearned runs for the Cleveland Indians. Fans got on his back. In both of those years, though, he also led the league in double plays turned, and – to be fair – he ranked fifth in the league in fielding percentage as a shortstop both years. His career fielding percentage was .954.

Retrospectively, we can see that he was also better on offense than might have been appreciated at the time. In 1958 he led all AL shortstops in OPS (on-base average plus slugging), and in 1959 he was second only to Cleveland’s Woodie Held.

Buddin’s most dramatic offensive contribution came at Fenway Park on July 11, 1959. The Red Sox were in the cellar – last place in the eight-team AL, 11 games behind first-place Cleveland. They could boast one three-game winning streak, back in June, but that was tops for the season to date. Two days earlier, on July 9, though, they had drawn more than 30,000 to Fenway Park for Thursday night’s series opener and beaten the fourth-place New York Yankees, 14-3. Friday’s crowd was about 5,000 smaller, and Boston won again, 8-5. Buddin had one RBI in each game.

The Saturday afternoon game drew 24,232. New Boston manager Billy Jurges had rookie Jerry Casale (6-6, 4.00) start. The Yankees’ Casey Stengel selected Duke Maas, in his fifth season and with similar stats to date in 1959 (6-5, 4.59). The game was the seventh played under Jurges, who had replaced the fired Pinky Higgins on July 3.2

Casale had trouble finding the plate in the first. Though Hank Bauer led off by striking out, Casale hit Héctor López in the elbow with a pitch, saw him take second on a wild pitch, and then walked Mickey Mantle, who began the day with a .306 average and 18 home runs. First baseman Bill Skowron singled to center, driving in López. Yogi Berra drew another walk, loading the bases. A two-run single to left by left fielder Elston Howard made it 3-0.

Buddin, batting leadoff, grounded out to begin a one-two-three bottom of the first.

Maas singled to start the Yankees second, but Casale was bailed out by a double play. A triple by Tony Kubek – pinch-hitting for López, whose elbow had swollen due to the pitch that had hit him – proved harmless when Mantle struck out.

The Red Sox got one run in the second when it was Maas who struggled. Singles by Vic Wertz and Jackie Jensen were followed by a walk to Ted Williams, loading the bases with nobody out. The 40-year-old Williams was batting sixth in the order, reflective of his .238 batting average, but he had gone 5-for-8 with 5 RBIs and his 488th career homer in the series’ first two games. Frank Malzone hit a productive fly ball to left, and the score became 3-1.

Neither team scored again until the bottom of the eighth. After the fifth inning, reliever Eli Grba took over from Maas. With the bases loaded and two outs in the top the seventh, Leo Kiely took over for Casale and struck out Berra.

Murray Wall pitched for the Red Sox in the top of the eighth, giving up a single but no more.

In the bottom of the eighth, the Red Sox rallied. Wertz hit a one-out single off Grba, then took second on a groundout. Ted Williams singled off second baseman Bobby Richardson’s glove and into right field, and Wertz scored; Gene Stephens replaced Williams as a pinch-runner.

After Malzone walked, Stengel called on Ryne Duren to replace Grba. Pete Daley, who had replaced starting catcher Sammy White in the eighth, grounded to third, and Kubek threw the ball to Marv Throneberry at first base.3 Throw and runner arrived at about the same time, and the ball caromed off Daley, so far into right field that Malzone scored all the way from first base on the play, following Stephens across the plate.4 Wall was due up next and Duren struck him out.

Kubek was charged with an error on the play that put Boston ahead in the eighth, but he redeemed himself somewhat with a one-out solo home run into the Red Sox bullpen in right-center field, tying the game, 4-4, in the top of the ninth.

Though Duren walked two, the Red Sox failed to score in the ninth, and the game went into extra innings.

Wall retired the three Yankees batters he faced in the top of the 10th.

After running for Williams, Stephens had taken over in left, and he led off the bottom of the 10th. When plate umpire Bill Summers called Duren’s 2-and-1 pitch a ball, Berra was ejected for complained too vociferously about the call. Duren charged in “with language not suited for the ears of an umpire and, after a slow burn, Summers waved him out too.”5

Jim Bronstad became New York’s fourth pitcher of the game. It was the 23-year-old Texan’s 12th appearance in the big leagues. He had a record of 0-2, two starts in which the Yankees scored only a combined four runs for him. His ERA was 2.84.

Elston Howard was called in from left field to take over as catcher, while Enos Slaughter came off the bench to play left field.

Stephens hit Bronstad’s first pitch for a single to right field, and Malzone walked. Stengel summoned Bob Turley from the bullpen. He was the reigning major-league Cy Young Award winner from 1958, when he led the league with a 21-7 mark; his 19 complete games also led the league. He was having a rough year in 1959 and was 7-9 (4.58). He had lost to the Red Sox in the series opener, on July 9, tagged for seven runs (six earned) and removed from the game after just 2⅓ innings.  

Pete Daley predictably tried to move both runners up with a sacrifice, but he popped it up to new catcher Howard.6 Turley and Howard collided, but Howard held onto the ball.7

Pete Runnels pinch-hit for Wall and dribbled a “slow roller” single to Richardson at second base.8 The bases were loaded.

That brought up Don Buddin. He’d not fared well on the day – He was 0-for-5 with two strikeouts, two groundouts, and a pop fly to third base. Even a sacrifice fly or an infield squibber could win the game, though. Jurges stuck with Buddin as his batter.

Buddin swung at Turley’s first pitch and hit a grand slam, just fair and over the left-field wall, what the Boston Globe called “a high parabola that fell into the nets.”9 It apparently just made it, though had it grazed the wall or been caught it still would have produced the winning run. Jurges, who was coaching third base, had to slow the excited Buddin down so he didn’t pass Runnels on the basepaths.10

“It was about time I got a hit,” Buddin said in the clubhouse.11

The Red Sox, perhaps riding some momentum, beat the Yankees on Sunday, 7-3, and in a makeup game on Monday, 13-3, both times scoring four runs in the first inning. In both first innings, Jackie Jensen contributed three-run homers.12 It was a five-game winning streak against the Yankees, only the second time this happened in the 1950s.13 Only five other times in the decade had they won as many as three games from New York in a given homestand. The last time they had won five in a row was back in 1939.

This win pulled the Red Sox out of last place.

The Chicago White Sox won the pennant and the Yankees finished third, 15 games behind Chicago. The Red Sox finished fifth, four games behind the Yankees.  

Don Buddin hit .241 for the season, with a total of 10 home runs and 53 RBIs, fourth on the team. His homer against Turley was his only career walk-off home run and his first of two major-league grand slams.14

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Madison McEntire and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Don Buddin, 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/BOS/BOS195907110.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1959/B07110BOS1959.htm

Notes

1 Michael Madden, “These Bumblers Are Stirring Some Lasting Memories,” Boston Globe, August 17, 1992: 39, 41.

2 Rudy York served as interim manager for the game on July 3.

3 Yankees first baseman Bill Skowron had also had to leave the game earlier, due to an ongoing back ailment, and Throneberry was his replacement.

4 Joe Cashman, “Sox Win Third Over Yanks 8-4,” Boston Sunday Advertiser, July 12, 1959: 1, 18.

5 Duren had to be dragged back to the dugout by his teammates. Bob Holbrook, “Buddin’s Slam Tops Yanks in 10th,” Boston Globe, July 12, 1959: 61. The altercation was described in detail, including Summers’ response to the question of whether Duren tried to punch him: “If he had. He’d have been hit back.” Herb Ralby, “Why Ump Gave Yanks Heave-Ho,” Boston Globe, July 12, 1959: 62.

6 The Boston Herald said Howard caught it in front of the plate. Henry McKenna, “Buddin Crushes Yanks,” Boston Sunday Herald, July12, 1959: 39.

7 F.C. Matzek, “Buddin Grand Slam in 10th Beats N.Y., 8-4,” Providence Sunday Journal, July 12, 1959: S-1.

8 John Drebinger, “Red Sox Top Yanks in 10th, 8-4,” New York Times, July 12, 1959: S1.

9 Holbrook.

10 McKenna.

11 Cashman.

12 Buddin was 0-for-4 in the Sunday game, but 3-for-5 in Monday’s game, with one RBI.

13 There had been a five-game winning streak from April 26 through May 30, 1951.

14 As a member of the Houston Colt .45s in 1962, Buddin hit a grand slam against Joe Moeller of the Los Angeles Dodgers.