July 14, 1968:  Billy Williams’ grand slam sends Pirates to ninth straight loss

The Pittsburgh Pirates had lost eight in a row when they hosted the Chicago Cubs at Forbes Field on July 14, 1968. It was a pitchers duel between Pittsburgh’s Al McBean and Chicago’s Joe Niekro until the Cubs’ Billy Williams lined a tiebreaking two-out grand slam in the seventh inning, sending the Pirates to their ninth consecutive loss, 6-2.

The Pirates entered the Sunday afternoon game – the opener of a two-game series – in seventh place in the National League, 15 games behind the first-place St. Louis Cardinals. Less than 24 hours earlier, Pittsburgh had lost a 4-hour, 44-minute, 16-inning marathon to the Philadelphia Phillies. An error by two-time Gold Glove shortstop Gene Alley had led to the deciding run, and the fourth-place Phillies overcame Roberto Clemente’s five-hit game to cap their four-game sweep at Forbes Field.

The Cubs began the day tied for eighth place with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but they were just half a game behind the Pirates and had won six of their last eight. The six victories included four in a five-game series with Pittsburgh the prior weekend at Wrigley Field, which began the Bucs’ losing streak.

A crowd of 19,335 came out on a hot, humid Ball Day. 1 The out-of-town scoreboard in left field chronicled two games with historic accomplishments: Henry Aaron’s 500th career homer in the Atlanta Braves-San Francisco Giants game,2 and Don Wilson’s National and American League record-tying 18 strikeouts in a nine-inning game as his Houston Astros defeated the Cincinnati Reds.3

McBean started for first-year Pirates manager Larry Shepard. McBean, a lanky right-hander from the Virgin Islands, was used primarily in relief early in his career. In 1964 he was The Sporting News’ Fireman of the Year, with 21 retroactively-credited saves and a 1.91 ERA. By 1968 he was firmly entrenched in the Pirates’ four-man rotation, coming into the game with a 7-8 record and a 2.76 ERA. His 12-3 lifetime mark versus the Cubs included a six-hit shutout at Forbes Field on May 1.4

Don Kessinger led off the first with a groundout to second baseman Bill Mazeroski. Pittsburgh native Glenn Beckert walked but was erased when Williams – appearing in his 745th consecutive game5  – grounded to Mazeroski, who started a 4-6-3 double play.

Cubs skipper Leo Durocher countered McBean with the 23-year-old Niekro. A native of Bridgeport, Ohio, about 60 miles from Pittsburgh, Niekro likely had revenge on his mind – perhaps because the Pirates had declined to sign his older brother Phil Niekro as an amateur free agent, or because they had not selected Joe himself in the amateur draft. As he remarked postgame, “Every time I face the Pirates, I really get myself psyched up because they never gave me a shot at making the team.”6

Niekro’s 7-6 record so far in 1968 included one win in two decisions against the Pirates. He had followed McBean’s May gem with a six-hit shutout of his own a day later.

In the Pirates’ first, Niekro retired Maury Wills on a groundout to first baseman Dick Nen, who was giving 37-year-old Ernie Banks a day off from the grinding 162-game schedule. Niekro then struck out Alley and induced Clemente to tap to Beckert at second.

Ron Santo got Chicago rolling in the second inning with a leadoff double. He took third on Nen’s groundout to Donn Clendenon and scored on Willie Smith’s infield hit. McBean avoided further trouble when Randy Hundley bounced into a double play, but the Cubs had a 1-0 lead.

To begin the Pirates’ second, Niekro walked Willie Stargell. Two outs later, Mazeroski doubled to right, moving Stargell to third. After an intentional walk to Jerry May, McBean grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the threat.

The score remained Cubs 1, Pirates 0, until the bottom of the sixth. Wills led off with a single. Alley tried to move the speedy Wills into scoring position but instead bunted to Niekro, who threw to second to retire Wills, with Alley now on first.

Clemente was the next batter. Despite the big day against the Phillies, 1968 was in many ways a disappointment for the four-time batting champion, coming off an offseason shoulder injury. The 5-for-7 performance a day earlier had lifted his batting average to just .263, well below his .317 lifetime mark.7

Hitless in his first two at-bats against Niekro, Clemente came through with an infield hit that Kessinger knocked down.8 While on the ground, the Cubs’ shortstop threw wildly to second.9 Alley scampered to third on the error and scored when Stargell hit a line-out sacrifice fly to center.10 After six innings the score was knotted at one run apiece.

For the seventh inning, the Cubs sent up their 7-8-9 batters. McBean retired the first two Cubs and then faced his pitching opponent.

On a 2-and-2 fastball, Niekro – 4-for-34 to that point in the season – rifled a single to center.11 McBean later noted, “Never should have happened.”12

After Kessinger singled, Pirates manager Shepard visited McBean and got 15-year veteran right-hander Ron Kline throwing in the bullpen.13 Kline was in his second stint with the Pirates, having pitched for them in the 1950s. He’d returned a month earlier in a June 10 trade with the Giants.14

But Shepard’s mound visit didn’t help McBean’s control; Beckert walked on four pitches. The bases were now loaded for the left-handed-batting Williams.

During Beckert’s walk, Shepard realized he needed a left-hander to face Williams. He quickly had lefty Luke Walker start to loosen.15

Following the game, Williams explained his strategy with the bases loaded. “I figured McBean would want to throw a strike to me after walking Beckert on four pitches and I guessed right,” he said.16

Williams jumped on McBean’s first-pitch fastball and lined it almost 430 feet from home plate into the right-field stands.17 Three Cubs trotted home ahead of Williams, whose ninth homer of the season and fifth career grand slam had snapped the tie.18

Williams was asked in the locker room if he was surprised Shepard let McBean pitch to him. His response was straightforward. “No, I wasn’t surprised he left McBean in to pitch to me because the left-hander [Luke Walker] had just gotten up and Shepard had no choice.”19

Shepard at last lifted McBean after the first two pitches to Santo were out of the strike zone. Kline, inheriting a two-ball count, walked Santo, who came around on a single by Nen and Smith’s third hit of the day, giving the Cubs a 6-1 lead.

The Pirates tallied one run in the eighth. Manny Jiménez, pinch-hitting for Kline, singled to left and moved to third on a groundout and flyout. Clemente’s single plated Jiménez to make the score 6-2.

Bill Henry took over for Kline for the Cubs’ ninth. Henry, like the man he was replacing, was in his 15th year in the big leagues and had been obtained from the Giants in June. He allowed Beckert’s leadoff bunt single, extending the Cub second baseman’s hitting streak to 19 games,20 but Mazeroski and Alley turned Santo’s grounder into an inning-ending double play.

Niekro returned to the mound in the ninth. He began the inning by retiring Matty Alou on a grounder to short, capping a 0-for-4 day for the NL’s leading hitter.21 He then set down Clendenon and Mazeroski to close out his second complete-game six-hitter of the season at Forbes Field, giving him five wins in six lifetime decisions against the Pirates.

Niekro admitted after the game that he was “dead tired the last three innings but all those runs…gave me a big lift.”22

The outcome reshuffled the NL standings. The Cubs moved up to sixth place, and the Pirates dropped to eighth, percentage points behind the seventh-place New York Mets. Chicago made it a series sweep and 10 Pittsburgh losses in a row a day later, as Fergie Jenkins pitched a 10-inning complete game and drove in the winning run with a single against Walker.23 The Pirates, who had equaled the franchise’s longest post-1900 losing streak, finally ended it on July 16 by rallying for a 3-2 win over the Mets.

From July 6 through August 10, the Cubs won 29 of 39 games to take over second place in the NL, still well behind the front-running Cardinals. They finished third at 84-78-1, 13 games out. Pittsburgh came in sixth at 80-82.

Williams appeared in all 163 games for the 1968 Cubs,24 hitting 30 homers and finishing eighth in the NL Most Valuable Player voting. His 426 career homers, hit over 18 seasons, included eight grand slams.

Acknowledgements

This article was fact-checked by Thomas E. Merrick and copy-edited by Kurt Blumenau.

Photo credit: Billy Williams, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT196807140.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1968/B07140PIT1968.htm

Notes

1 Charles Feeney, “Cubs Slap Pirates With 9th Loss in Row,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 15, 1968: 26.

2 Aaron became the eighth player in major-league history to reach the milestone.

3 Only Bob Feller (1938) and Sandy Koufax (1959 and 1962) had struck out 18 batters in a nine-inning game. As of the end of the 2025 season the record for a nine-inning game was 20 strikeouts, achieved by Roger Clemens (1986 and 1996), Kerry Wood (1998), Randy Johnson (2001), and Max Scherzer (2016).

4 Feeney, “Cubs Slap Pirates With 9th Loss in Row.”

5 Feeney, “Cubs Slap Pirates With 9th Loss in Row.”

6 George Langford, “Williams Hits a Grand Slam: Cubs Deal Pirates 9th Loss in Row,” Chicago Tribune, July 15, 1968: 59. Joe’s brother Phil was invited to a tryout camp by the Pirates, who decided not to sign him. In Phil’s autobiography, he stated that the news fell hard on family and friends. Niekro said, “Mom… couldn’t understand it…she harbors a grudge against the Pirates to this day.” Phil Niekro and Tom Bird, KnuckleBALLS (New York: Freundlich Books, 1986), 12.

7 In his final 59 games of the 1968 season, beginning on July 12, Clemente hit .347 with a .422 on-base percentage and a .543 slugging percentage. His .291 average was 10th in the NL in a pitching-dominated season. Clemente’s 8.2 Wins Above Replacement, as determined by Baseball-Reference.com, led all NL position players in 1968.

8 Les Biederman, “Pirates Slump to 10-Year Low; Niekro, Williams Grease Skids,” Pittsburgh Press, July 15, 1968: 25.

9 Biederman, “Pirates Slump to 10-Year Low.”

10 Biederman, “Pirates Slump to 10-Year Low.”

11 Langford, “Williams Hits a Grand Slam.”

12 Biederman, “Pirates Slump to 10-Year Low.”

13 Langford, “Willliams Hits a Grand Slam.”

14 The trade sent pitcher Joe Gibbon to San Francisco.

15 Langford, “Williams Hits a Grand Slam.”

16 Biederman, “Pirates Slump to 10-Year Low.”

17 Langford, “Williams Hits a Grand Slam,”; Biederman, “Pirates Slump to 10-Year Low.”

18 Langford, “Williams Hits a Grand Slam.”

19 Langford, “Williams Hits a Grand Slam.”

20 Beckert’s hitting streak eventually reached 27 games.

21 Alou, who came into the game batting .333, fell to .328 and trailed Cincinnati’s Pete Rose by a percentage point. Rose was the eventual winner of the 1968 batting crown with a .335 average. Alou finished second at .331.

22 Langford, “Williams Hits a Grand Slam.”

23 Charley Feeney, “Pirates Lose 10th in Row, Tie Club Mark,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 16, 1968: 14. The franchise’s longest losing streak was 23 games in 1890.

24 On June 29, 1969, Williams surpassed Stan Musial’s NL record of 895 consecutive games. Williams’ streak eventually reached 1,117 games before he sat out on September 3, 1970. Williams held the NL record for consecutive games until Steve Garvey surpassed him in 1983. Steve Wulf, “It Was Too Good to Be True,” Sports Illustrated, April 25, 1983, https://vault.si.com/vault/1983/04/25/it-was-too-good-to-be-true. As of 2025, Williams’s consecutive-games streak ranked second in NL history to Garvey’s 1,207. David Adler and Chad Thornburg, “MLB’s All-Time Consecutive Games Played Leaders,” MLB.com, September 28, 2025, https://www.mlb.com/news/most-consecutive-games-played-in-mlb-history-c282212708.