July 17, 1956: Ted Williams hits 400th home run to win second game of Red Sox’s double shutout

In the first game of a twi-night doubleheader on July 17, 1956, Tom Brewer of the Boston Red Sox shut out the visiting Kansas City Athletics when he allowed just four base hits. In so doing, he ran his scoreless innings streak against the Athletics to 38 innings and his record against them to 6-0. The Red Sox won, 10-0 on 16 hits, with the three RBIs by shortstop Don Buddin leading the offense. All 10 runs were scored off starter Art Ditmar. Second baseman Billy Goodman drove in two.

Ted Williams had been waiting for home run no. 400 since July 8, when he’d won a game with no. 399. Williams was 1-for-4 in the first game, a third-inning single.

The second game was a makeup of a game that had been rained out on June 3. The game pitted a pair of right-handers, Bob Porterfield for the Mike Higgins-led Red Sox and Tom Gorman for Lou Boudreau’s Athletics. Porterfield had been acquired by the Red Sox over the previous winter and came into the game with a season record of 2-8 and an ERA of 6.19. He hadn’t won a game since May 31.

Both pitchers ran into trouble in the first inning. Porterfield gave up back-to-back singles to the first two batters he faced, third baseman Hector Lopez and center fielder Al Pilarcik (who had two of the four Kansas City hits in the first game). Left fielder Gus Zernial popped out to the catcher. Porterfield then walked right fielder Harry Simpson, loading the bases with just one out. He got two fly balls to close out the inning, first to shortstop from first baseman Eddie Robinson and then to Ted Williams in left by the catcher, Tim Thompson.

Gorman struck out Billy Goodman to start the bottom of the first, then walked third baseman Billy Klaus. Ted Williams singled, and Klaus scooted to second. First baseman Mickey Vernon grounded into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.

Both teams pulled off double plays in the second. Shortstop Joe DeMaestri singled, leading off the inning, but was erased on a double play; Gorman struck out.

Back on the mound in the bottom of the inning, Gorman gave up back-to-back singles to right fielder Jackie Jensen and center fielder Jimmy Piersall. Red Sox catcher Pete Daley hit into a 5-4-3 double play, with Jensen reaching third base. Buddin flied out to center.

The Athletics went down in order in the third. Goodman hit a one-out single for Boston, but Klaus flied out to left and Williams lined out to first baseman Robinson, who “knocked down his line drive and retired him unassisted,” reported the Kansas City Times.1 

Thompson singled with two outs in the top of the fourth but was caught stealing when trying to get himself into scoring position. Jensen walked, the only Boston baserunner in the inning.

Porterfield retired Kansas City in order in the top of the fifth. He was the only batter for Boston to get on base, with a single, in the bottom of the inning. He then put down the Athletics 1-2-3 in the top of the sixth.

The game was still scoreless when Ted Williams came to the plate leading off the bottom of the sixth. He swung at Gorman’s first pitch. He connected. At the moment of impact, there was “no doubt about the destination of his smash,” per the Boston Globe.2

As the Boston Herald recounted, the ball “streaked on a line toward the bullpens, unlike typical Williams homers of the well-remembered sky-scraping variety. It carried over almost the middle of the two bullpens until it landed at least half a dozen rows into the stands, and the crowd came to its feet as one.”3

There was “quite a scramble” for the ball in the bleachers.4 It wound up in the hands of 24-year-old Peter Hickey of Winthrop Street, Waltham. Bullpen coach Mickey Owen and a couple of ushers approached Hickey, who got to meet Ted and get a couple of autographed balls and a pair of tickets to a future game in exchange for the memento. He said he would save one of the autographed balls for his son, Jimmy Hickey.5

It was 1-0, Red Sox. Mickey Vernon followed with a base on balls. Jensen singled, but Vernon was thrown out trying to go from first to third. Piersall and Daley both flied out.

Eddie Robinson hit a double after Simpson had grounded out in the KC seventh. Pinch-runner Johnny Groth came in to add a little more speed and increase the Athletics’ chances of tying up the game, but he remained stuck on second as Porterfield induced two more groundouts.

The Red Sox mounted a bit of a threat after the seventh-inning stretch. With two outs, Goodman doubled. Klaus walked. Ted Williams was due up. Boudreau brought in a reliever, left-hander Bobby Shantz. He pitched carefully and walked Williams on a 3-1 count, loading the bases. Dick Gernert pinch-hit for Vernon, but grounded into a force play at third base.

With one out, Enos Slaughter pinch-hit and singled for the Athletics. Lopez singled, Slaughter taking second base. Pilarcik lined to Gernert, now at first base, who made a “spectacular catch of a low line drive…about six inches off the turf” and then stepped on first for an unassisted double play.6

Alex Kellner took over pitching for Kansas City. He got a routine groundout and two strikeouts.

It was the top of the ninth, the score still 1-0. Porterfield was still pitching for the Red Sox. He struck out Zernial, got Simpson to ground out to the second baseman, and got Groth to fly out to Piersall in center field.

“MOVE OVER BABE, JIM, MEL, LOU!” read a headline in the next day’s Boston Globe.

Hitting homer no. 400 put Ted Williams into a very exclusive club. At the time, he was only the fifth man to hit 400 or more home runs. Babe Ruth (714), Jimmie Foxx (534), Mel Ott (511), and Lou Gehrig (494) were the ones who preceded him.7

It was the game-winner in an otherwise scoreless game. Porterfield, of course, got the win. The Athletics had been shut out back-to-back in the twin bill.

After the game, Williams said of hitting no. 400, “I didn’t think I’d ever get it. It was a long time coming. But it sure felt good.”8

For Williams, it was mid-July and just his sixth home run of the year. He’d been under some criticism from Boston sportswriters for his lack of power. As he completed his home run trot, he had made a spitting gesture toward some members of the press as he crossed home plate – and admitted it afterward. “Sure, I spit in the direction. I didn’t actually spit, but the only reason was I might have hit Mickey Vernon. And you guys know why I did it. I don’t have to tell you.”9

The “surprisingly large crowd of 24,441 gave Williams a roaring ovation as he reached home plate but he made no effort to acknowledge it,” noted the Kansas City Times.10 Mickey Vernon said that Williams “was so intent that ‘as I put out my hand to congratulate him he didn’t even see me’.”11

Had the Red Sox ever won both games of a doubleheader at home by shutout? Writers at the time said no one could remember it. It had been nearly 30 years; on September 17, 1926, the Red Sox beat the St. Louis Browns 2-0 and 4-0. 

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Troy Olszewski and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Ted 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/BOS/BOS195607172.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1956/B07172BOS1956.htm

Notes

1 Joe McGuff, “Red Sox Blanks A’s Twice,” Kansas City Times, July 18, 1956: 18.

2 Hy Hurwitz, “Williams Hits 400th Homer; Joins Baseball Immortals,” Boston Globe, July 18, 1956: 1, 12.

3 Henry McKenna, “Williams Slugs 400th Homer,” Boston Herald, July 18, 1956: 1, 25.

4 Hurwitz, “Williams Hits 400th Homer; Joins Baseball Immortals.”

5 Hurwitz, “Williams Hits 400th Homer; Joins Baseball Immortals.”

6 Hy Hurwitz, “Brewer, Porterfield Shut Out A’s 10-0, 1-0,” Boston Globe, July 18, 1956: 11.

7 Ed Rumill spoke with Williams after the game about some of the home runs that stood out in Williams’s memory. Ed Rumill, “Red Sox Star Recalls Some High-Light Homers,” Christian Science Monitor, July 18, 1956: 11. Asked about how he might have made it to 500 by now, had it not been for two hitches of military service, and some injuries, Williams said, “Maybe. But I’ll never make it now and, of course, we’ll never know what it might have been.”

8 Hurwitz, “Williams Hits 400th Homer; Joins Baseball Immortals.” It’s perhaps of interest that another milestone was reached the same evening. Stan Musial collected his 2,700th major-league base hit.

9 “Ted Aiming At Only Few Sports Scribes,” Boston Traveler, July 18, 1956: 29. Bud Collins told more of the story in the Boston Herald. See “Disdain Shown for Newsmen,” Boston Herald, July 18, 1956: 25.

10 McGuff.

11 Mickey Vernon letter to Michael Seidel; see Seidel, Ted Williams: A Baseball Life (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1991), 281.