July 18, 1951: Ralph Kiner’s 3 homers boost Pirates over Dodgers

“I was gunning for it, all right,” said Ralph Kiner, the Pittsburgh Pirates star left fielder. “I was sure gunning for that fourth home run in the ninth inning yesterday against the Dodgers … You don’t get these chances too often.”1

Although another home run would have nudged Kiner deeper into rare historic company, the three he walloped spearheaded the Pittsburgh Pirates to a 13-12 triumph over the Dodgers in front of 7,083 fans at Ebbets Field. It was the fourth triple-homer game of Kiner’s career. A potential fourth homer nestled into Carl Furillo’s glove near the stands in deep right-center in the ninth inning.2

As with most slugfests, this contest was wrought with blown leads, sloppy fielding, and (quite obviously), shoddy mound work. After the game, the losing pitcher, Erv Palica, was verbally dressed down by his manager, Charlie Dressen, and GM Buzzi Bavasi.

“He’s finished,” Dressen said. “Here’s what’s wrong with him.” (Dressen clutched his own throat, signaling that Palica choked under pressure.)3

“I walked up to him in the clubhouse,” declared Bavasi. “And I said – you haven’t got a gut in your body. I was hoping he would punch me in the nose. But all he said was, ‘I try to do good.’”4

Dressen, in his inaugural year as Brooklyn’s manager, replaced Burt Shotton, who had apparently been relieved in part because he “bruised the feelings” of his pitchers. It would appear that Dressen wouldn’t dare snarl at his hurlers; apparently he had not gotten the memo. Joe King wrote in The Sporting News, “Dressen couldn’t be trusted doing the same this year. Has a manager ever before been yoked with such a galling handicap?”5

The terse rhetoric notwithstanding, Palica was hardly the lone goat on the mound, for either team. In the top of the first, Brooklyn starter Phil Haugstad surrendered Kiner’s first blast, a towering grand slam that pushed the Pirates to a 4-0 early cushion, the 10th grand slam of his career. Singles by Pete Castiglione and George Metkovich and a walk coaxed by Gus Bell provided full sacks for Kiner.

Nine Pirates batted in the opening frame, and Haugstad’s day finished quickly. (All six batters he faced reached base.) Reliever Dan Bankhead salvaged the inning by recording all three outs. Considerably more anonymous than teammate Jackie Robinson, Bankhead was the first African American pitcher in the major leagues. He and four brothers played in the Negro Leagues. The 1951 season was his last, after a career in the Negro Leagues, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Canada.6

In the bottom of the second, Pirates starter Murry Dickson gave back half the runs, yielding a Roy Campanella two-run homer. The fourth inning through the sixth furnished a staggering 17 combined runs. For the Pirates, Kiner, referred to as “Mr. Slug” by beat writer Jack Hernon, was far from finished. The league leader in home runs at the time was opponent Gil Hodges with 28. Hodges had wrestled the home-run lead from Kiner earlier in the season.

Ralph McPherran Kiner was born in Santa Rita, New Mexico, on October 27, 1922. His father died when he was 4. His mother, who served as a nurse in World War I, took a job in Alhambra, California, near Los Angeles. Growing up in a warmer climate afforded young Kiner ample opportunity to hone his baseball skills. In his rookie year with the Pirates, 1946, a Pittsburgh sportswriter described Kiner in this way: “Kiner can run like a deer, he can throw like a DiMaggio and when his bat clicks nothing but the fences will stop his line drives.”7 Although his throwing arm and speed were often questioned early in his career, few accounts doubted his hitting ability.

After a scoreless third, the Pirates exploded in the top of the fourth. Castiglione opened the inning with a strikeout, then Metkovich singled. Gus Bell’s triple plated him. Kiner followed with his second clout of the day, this time into the upper left-field stands, and a 7-2 advantage. One out later, Joe Garagiola homered over the screen in right. The bottom of the order then joined the fun. George Strickland singled and scored on Monty Basgall‘s triple.

“Ball players seldom aim deliberately for seats or the fence,” said the red-hot Kiner. “We simply try to meet the ball squarely and hope it will carry.”8

As insurmountable as a 10-2 lead seemed at the time, the combatants were hardly trending in the same direction in 1951. The Dodgers entered the game with a 53-31 mark; the Pirates were 33-50. One glance at the lineup cards might appear to render this an unfair fight – even though the Pirates had triumphed the day before, 4-3. Anchored by four future Hall of Famers, the band from Brooklyn battled back in the very next half-inning. Their efforts were supplemented by some paltry Pirates defense; the chief philanthropist was Pirates shortstop George Strickland, with two errors. (He finished 1951 with 37 errors.)

After Dickson fanned Hodges, Campanella reached when Strickland’s throw sailed over Metkovich’s glove at first. Don Thompson followed with a single off Metkovich’s glove, sending Campanella to third. Billy Cox reached on Strickland’s second miscue, a grounder that squirted through the shortstop’s legs, preventing a double play.9 Another Pirates mistake led to the next Dodgers run. With pinch-hitter Hank Edwards at the plate, Dickson balked, sending Thompson home free. Edwards doubled in Cox, then Furillo singled in Edwards. All four Dodgers runs were unearned, and sliced the Pirates’ lead in half.

With the Dodgers’ starting pitcher recording no outs and their relievers getting knocked around just as badly, the chance of winning this game was predicated on their hurlers reversing course on their performance. The Pirates fifth began with a groundout, but Gus Bell belted a solo shot off Palica for an 11-6 Bucs advantage. The embattled Dodgers reliever retired Kiner and Bill Howerton to stop the bleeding.

The emerging slugfest took a respite in the next two half-innings. Then suddenly, the Dodgers’ bats awoke with a vengeance in the bottom of the sixth. Once again, the lowly Pirates aided the effort with sloppy play. Had the famous Dodgers fan Hilda Chester still been around, it was certain the players would have heard her cowbell, along with the loud shrieks emanating from her homemade noisemaker, a frying pan and a metal spoon.10

Dickson walked the first two Dodgers batters in the sixth, Don Thompson and Billy Cox. Palica reached base after Dickson flubbed a sacrifice bunt. The Dodgers knocked Dickson out of the contest after Carl Furillo doubled home Thompson, Cox, and Palica. Mel Queen replaced Dickson, retired Pee Wee Reese, then walked Duke Snider. Jackie Robinson then smashed a home run that gave the Dodgers a 12-11 lead. Queen stopped the scoring there, but a new game had emerged.

The final three frames were much less docile on offense. The ending defied all that had happened before. Kiner led off the eighth with his third home run, tying the score. Erv Dusak followed with a double to right. With two outs, former Dodger Pete Reiser coaxed a broken-bat single, scoring Dusak and giving Pittsburgh the lead for good.

“How about that, said an unidentified player. “Kiner hits three home runs but Pete wins the game with a broken-bat single.”11 Pirates reliever Ted Wilks held the Dodgers scoreless in the final two frames. Despite giving up nine walks, committing four errors, and blowing a 10-2 lead, the Pirates squeaked out a victory. Kiner’s final blast was his eighth of the season against Brooklyn; none were as sweet as this game’s wallops, which accounted for seven RBIs. A piece in the Pittsburgh Press said that the league leader in home runs, Gil Hodges, “must have been glad to see the Bucs go.”12

“I gave it everything I had when I faced Erv Palica in the ninth (attempting a fourth homer),” said Kiner. “Usually you swing and hope. This time I swung, hoped, and prayed.”13

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, SABR.org, and The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record.

NOTES

1 Ralph Kiner, “Kiner’s Liners,” Pittsburgh Press, July 19, 1951: 38.

2 Jack Hernon, “Kiner Smashes in 3, Drives in 7 as Bucks Trim Dodgers, 13-12,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 19, 1951: 16.

3 United Press, “Dodgers Might Sell Palica for Choking Up on the Bucs,” Pittsburgh Press, July 19, 1951: 38.

4 “Dodgers Might Sell Palica.”

5 Joe King, “Shotton’s Censure of Pitchers Led to Muffler on Dressen, but He Gets His Message Across,” The Sporting News, July 25, 1951: 16.

6 Rory Costello, “Dan Bankhead,” BioProject, Society for American Baseball Research, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/62db6502.

7 Charles J. Doyle, “California Sun, Buc Pitching Turn Back Clock for Frisch,” The Sporting News, February 28, 1946, 8, quoted in Kiner’s SABR biography written by Warren Corbett. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ralph-kiner/.

8 Kiner.

9 Hernon.

10 Oscar Palacios, “Ebbets Field: Home of the Brooklyn Dodgers,” Ballpark Sourcebook: Diamond Diagrams, 1988 Stats Inc., 98-99.

11 Hernon.

12 “Dodgers Might Sell Palica.”

13 “Dodgers Might Sell Palica.”