July 19, 1958: Ted Williams turns jeers into cheers as Red Sox win in 12 innings

Both starters worked into the ninth inning, and it seemed like a game the Red Sox didn’t want to let get away. Three times they had to take the lead, even in those first nine frames. And then they had to do it once again in the 12th, with one swing from their venerable left fielder.

Midway through the 1958 season, the Tigers and Red Sox were contending for second place. Boston was 11 games behind the first-place Yankees and Detroit was 3½ games behind the Red Sox, but only two games separated the third-place Tigers from the seventh-place Indians. Save for the Yankees, the standings were tightly bunched. The Red Sox were riding a five-game winning streak.

It was a Saturday afternoon game at Boston’s Fenway Park. Right-hander Dave Sisler was the starting pitcher for the Red Sox. He was 6-4 coming into the game, with a 4.38 ERA, facing righty Frank Lary of the Detroit Tigers. Lary had been a 21-game winner two years before, leading the American League in wins. He came into this game 9-8 with a 3.15 ERA.

Center fielder Harvey Kuenn kicked things off for the Tigers with a leadoff single. Shortstop Billy Martin, in what turned out to be the only season of his playing career in Detroit, sacrificed him to second base. But Al Kaline grounded to second and first baseman Gail Harris struck out.

Boston got on the board first. After back-to-back groundouts, Ted Williams doubled – to left field. Third baseman Frank Malzone did the same, scoring Williams. Jackie Jensen struck out.

The Tigers tied it up in the top of the second with a two-out solo home run into the bleachers in straightaway center field by third baseman Ozzie Virgil.

Red Sox first baseman Dick Gernert doubled to right-center field to lead off the bottom of the inning. Catcher Sammy White singled, driving him in, and the Red Sox had restored their one-run lead. Three outs followed.

Lary singled to lead off the third inning but was picked off first. Kuenn walked, but Martin hit into a 6-4-3 double play. The Red Sox grounded out three times in succession in their half.

In the top of the fourth inning, the Tigers tied it again, 2-2. With one out, Harris singled and so did left fielder Gus Zernial, Harris taking third. Second baseman Frank Bolling singled into center field and Harris scored easily. Sisler struck out Virgil and got catcher Jim Hegan to ground into a force play at second base.

The Red Sox wasted little time reestablishing a one-run lead. With two outs in the bottom of the fourth, White tripled to center field and shortstop Billy Consolo doubled to center. Sisler grounded the ball back to Lary. It was now 4-3, Red Sox.

Both teams got runners on base in the fifth and again in the sixth but neither team scored.

The Tigers tied it up in the top of the seventh on a two-out solo home run into the screen to the right of the left-field scoreboard by Kuenn. The Red Sox were retired in order.

Ted Williams misplayed a ball in left field in the top of the eighth. Al Kaline hit the ball to him and Williams apparently (one wishes there were video replays) achieved “the unusual feat of fielding a one-hop line drive with his posterior.”1 No error was assessed, and Kaline was credited with a double.2 The fans in left field got on Williams a bit. Harris flied out to right field and Kaline took third base. Zernial then lined out to left and Kaline tagged up and scored.

The Red Sox went down in order with neither Williams, Malzone, nor Jensen getting the ball out of the infield.

The Tigers bumped up their lead to 5-3 in the top of the ninth on a one-out solo home run by Jim Hegan into the netting a few feet to the right of the left-field foul pole. Bud Byerly relieved Sisler. He retired Lary and Kuenn.

Facing a two-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth, Gernert grounded to Martin at short for the first out. White hit a home run into the Boston bullpen in deep right-center to bring the Red Sox to within one run, 5-4.3 Billy Klaus pinch-hit for Consolo and flied out to center. With the Red Sox down to their last out, Lou Berberet pinch-hit for Byerly and was hit in the foot by Lary’s pitch. Marty Keough came in as a pinch-runner. Gene Stephens singled to right-center field, sending Keough from first to third. Pete Runnels then grounded a single into center field, and the game was tied.

Hank Aguirre relieved Lary, to pitch to Williams with runners on first and third. Aguirre got the Red Sox slugger to ground out unassisted to first base, and the game went into extra innings. Williams incurred a few more boos and catcalls.

Leo Kiely took the mound for the Red Sox. He set down the Tigers in order, and Aguirre set down the Red Sox in order.

They both did it again in the 11th inning. Three up, three down.

The 12th inning saw the Tigers take a 6-5 lead. With one out, Aguirre himself singled to right field. Kuenn hit to first base, with Gernert throwing to second for the force. Martin, though, doubled to left-center field and Kuenn scored from first base because of a “wide throw to the plate by Gene Stephens.”4 Kaline was walked intentionally. Harris grounded out, first baseman to pitcher.

Red Sox manager Pinky Higgins had Jimmy Piersall pinch-hit for Stephens, and Piersall came through with a single to center. Hoping to tie the score, Runnels executed a sacrifice bunt and Piersall got to second. There was a stiff wind heading out to right field. That may well have helped Ted Williams. After initially planning to walk Williams, Tigers manager Bill Norman chose not to, because of the cardinal rule “Never put the winning run aboard.”5 But Williams jumped on Aguirre’s first pitch and “smashed a soaring two-run homer into the right field grandstand.”6 The jeers changed to cheers. It was another game-winning home run, giving the Red Sox a 6-5 victory. It was “miles high but not far fair.”7 “It was fair by this much,” said first-base umpire Frank Umont “holding his hands four feet apart.”8

The Detroit Times wrote, “The Tigers thought they had it won not once, but twice, but when the afternoon was over they had nothing more to show for their efforts than their fourth straight defeat.”9 It was so stunning a reversal that the Tigers seemed unable to believe it. “I never saw anything like it,” said Higgins. “I had to look at the scoreboard to make sure we weren’t tied. That Detroit team didn’t move from the field. It was the doggonedest thing.”10

After grounding out in the ninth, Williams had told Higgins that Aguirre’s ball was sailing in on him and that, in the manager’s words, “he’d have to move back in the box to get a good shot at it.” Williams said, “I don’t know really what I did hit. Ask Aguirre. That guy has been really tough on me. It’s about time I hit one.”11

Of Ted’s homer number 471, the Globe noted, “He’s getting closer to Lou Gehrig.”12 Lou had 493 career home runs.

Even with the game going into the bottom of the 12th inning, even with 26 base hits and 13 runs scored, the game was over in less than 3 hours, with 9 minutes to spare.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Joe Wancho and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card DB.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Bill Nowlin, 521: The Story of Ted Williams’ Home Runs (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2013).

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS195807190.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1958/B07190BOS1958.htm

Notes

1 Roger Birtwell, “Ted Wins It in 12th,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1958: 53.

2 “[Williams] played a single into a double,” wrote the Detroit Times’s Joe Falls. See Joe Falls, “Mighty Ted Clips Detroit,” Detroit Times, July 20, 1958: D1.

3 “First time I ever hit one in the bullpen,” White said. Henry McKenna, “Norman Shifts on Passing Ted,” Boston Herald, July 20, 1958: 39.

4 Arthur Sampson, “Ted’s Homer Nips Tigers, 7-6,” Boston Herald, July 20, 1958: 39.

5 McKenna.

6 Sampson.

7 Joe Cashman, “Sox 7-6 on Ted’s Homer,” Boston American, July 20, 1958: 35.

8 Birtwell.

9 Falls.

10 Bob Holbrook, “Tigers Can’t Believe It! Refuse to Leave the Field,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1958: 54.

11 Holbrook. Williams later hit number 499 off Aguirre on June 16, 1960, in Detroit.

12 Birtwell.