July 4, 1984: Jim Rice’s walk-off grand slam in 10th beats Athletics

It was quite a game for a holiday – or any day. It was quite a game for the 16,571 mostly Boston Red Sox fans at Fenway Park. And it was quite a game for slugger Jim Rice, who hit the only walk-off grand slam of his 16-year career to make the Red Sox winners on Independence Day 1984.  

The Boston Globe’s Larry Whiteside led his game story: “When all else fails for the Red Sox, you still know there is Jim Rice. His motto is leadership by example, and over the years his teammates have come to count upon it.”1

The Red Sox were 37-42, in fourth place and already 18 games behind the America League East Division-leading Detroit Tigers. The Oakland Athletics were 39-43, also in fourth place, in the AL West, but only 4½ games behind the first-place California Angels.

The Wednesday afternoon game was the third of a three-game set. The first two had been thrillers. On July 2 Boston had tied it up on back-to-back eighth-inning homers by Tony Armas and Mike Easler but lost, 9-6, when Oakland scored three runs off Mark Clear in the 11th. The Red Sox won, 6-5, a night later, on three consecutive singles in the bottom of the ninth.2

Boston manager Ralph Houk had left-hander Bobby Ojeda start the July 4 game. In his fifth year with the Red Sox, Ojeda was 6-6 (4.71 ERA).3 Ojeda walked the first two batters he faced, Rickey Henderson and Dwayne Murphy, induced a double play, walked another batter, and finally got out of the inning with a force at second.

Oakland’s manager Jackie Moore went with right-handed starter Chris Codiroli, who was 1-3 with an 8.57 ERA.4 Codiroli had been 12-12 (4.46) the year before, his first full season in the majors. He was not as fortunate as Ojeda. Wade Boggs led off with a single, took second on a groundout to shortstop, and scored on Jim Rice’s single. Two batters later, Easler hit a two-run homer.5 It was 3-0, Red Sox.

The A’s evened it up in the top of the second, 3-3. The first three batters singled. The third single, by Tony Phillips, was followed by throwing errors by both Ojeda and Rice, and two runs scored.6 Shortstop Mark Wagner’s groundout produced the tying run.

The Red Sox struck back in their half of the inning. After two outs, shortstop Glenn Hoffman’s single was followed by an error by Oakland right fielder Davey Lopes, which allowed Hoffman to score and the batter Boggs to get all the way to third base. Dwight Evans doubled, driving in Boggs. Rice picked up another RBI on a single, and Armas hit a two-run homer over everything in left and onto the street behind the wall. It was 8-3, Boston. The wind was blowing out; before the game was over, there were six home runs. Because of the Lopes error on what would have been the third out, all five runs were unearned.7

The score remained 8-3 through the sixth inning.

In the seventh, the Athletics scored four times, to draw within a run. Pinch-hitter Bill Almon hit a one-out solo home run into the center-field bleachers. Henderson singled, and – after two outs – stole second base, his 41st steal of the season. Right fielder Mike Davis, who had replaced Lopes, doubled off the center-field wall, driving in Henderson. Mark Clear relieved Ojeda, but the first batter he faced, Dave Kingman, hit a two-run homer into the bleachers.8 It was the 23rd homer of the season for the A’s designated hitter and 365th of his career.

Right-hander Keith Atherton took over from Codiroli – suffering arm cramps – and the first batter he faced was Dwight Evans, who homered deep into the Red Sox bullpen in right-center field. Rice was up next; he singled, and then stole second, something he’d done only once since August 1981.

Lefty Gorman Heimueller came in from the bullpen to take over from Atherton. Though he walked two, he secured the final two outs of the inning on infield grounders.

In the top of the ninth, Oakland scored twice off Clear and tied the game, 9-9. First up was Rickey Henderson, who walked. He stole second, then held there on a fly-ball out. Mike Davis singled to center, and Henderson scored the first run.

Kingman singled, Davis stopping at second. Steve Crawford was summoned to relieve Clear. The first batter he faced was former Red Sox third baseman and 1981 AL batting champion Carney Lansford, traded to the A’s in the December 1982 deal that brought Armas and catcher Jeff Newman to Boston.

Lansford hit a high hopper that resulted in a force out, shortstop to the second baseman – but a hustling Davis scored all the way from second on the play (not even drawing a throw) and the game was tied. The third out came when Lansford was thrown out trying to steal second base.

Bill Buckner hit a two-out single in the bottom of the ninth but was stranded there when Newman hit into a force play, third to second.

Despite giving up a single and a walk, Crawford got three outs in 10th without a run scoring.

The first Red Sox batter up in the bottom of the 10th was second baseman Marty Barrett, who singled off the left-field wall. Hoffman attempted to sacrifice Barrett to second. Second baseman Joe Morgan, playing the final season of a Hall of Fame career, covered first but dropped the throw and both baserunners were safe.

Boggs bunted, too, and there were runners on second and third with just one out. Dwight Evans was a real threat. Six days earlier, on June 28, Evans had hit a three-run walk-off homer in the 11th to cap a cycle and defeat the Seattle Mariners. He went on to lead the major leagues in OPS in 1984 (.920).

Even though Jim Rice was on deck, it made sense to walk Evans intentionally. Rice had already hit into 24 double plays in 1984, including one with two on and none out in the 11th inning of the July 2 loss to the A’s.

This time, on a 2-and-1 count, Rice hit a grand slam to win the game, 13-9. Red Sox reliever Bob Stanley caught the ball in his cap, in the Boston bullpen.9

Heimueller had struck out Rice to close out the eighth inning but, Rice said, “This time, I had my eyes wide open. I wasn’t going to leave it up to Tony [Armas]. I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to do something right here. I don’t get paid for overtime.”10

Rice had himself a 5-for-6 day, with four singles and the homer, and six runs batted in.11 He also collected his second stolen base of the year. The home run gave him 15 for the season and 291 for his career.

As the United Press International correspondent wrote, “A tired Jim Rice was trying for a sacrifice fly in the 10th inning – he got a grand slam instead.”12 Rice said, “I wasn’t trying to hit it out of the park.” He added, “I was just trying to score the guy (Marty Barrett) from third. … We had already finished nine innings. I was tired and I wanted to go home. I just wanted to get the ball out there so he could score.”13 

He was also thinking something else: “I said, ‘This guy is giving me no respect.’ In a way I’m glad they walked Dewey [Evans] because it made me bear down a little harder.”14

The pitch Heimueller threw to Rice was the last pitch he threw in the major leagues. He had appeared in 16 games in 1983 and was 3-5 with a 4.41 ERA. In 1984, this was his only decision, in six appearances. He was optioned to Triple-A Tacoma six days later.

Rice, who played for the Red Sox throughout his career, homered 382 times and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2009. He hit seven other grand slams in the majors, but none was a walk-off. He hit four other walk-off home runs, but none of those were grand slams.15

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Jim Rice, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted baseball-almanac.com, Baseball-Reference.com, and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS198407040.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1984/B07040BOS1984.htm

Thanks to John Fredland for supplying Bay Area newspaper accounts of this game.

Notes

1 Larry Whiteside, “Rice slams A’s in 10th, 13-9,” Boston Globe, July 5, 1984: 57.

2 Reliever Lary Sorensen gave up a leadoff single to Easler, then one to Bill Buckner, and finally a walk-off single to Gary Allenson.

3 At year’s end, Ojeda led the majors with five shutouts in 1984.

4 Codiroli had been optioned to Triple-A Tacoma on June 22, then recalled a week later, on June 29.

5 It was Easler’s third homer in the series against the A’s. He had homered on Monday night and Tuesday night. This one brought his total for the year to 15.

6 Ojeda fielded Phillips’s ball and (because third base was uncovered) threw it into left field. (It was scored a single and an error.) Rice grabbed the ball and “casually flipped the ball” to a likewise-uncovered second base. Kit Stier, “Pitching Dooms A’s Again in 13-9 Loss,” Oakland Tribune, July 5, 1984: F1.

7 Glenn Schwartz of the San Francisco Examiner devoted a column to the poor Athletics defense to this point in the 1984 season. Glenn Schwartz, “A’s Make Defense a Foreign Notion,” San Francisco Examiner, July 5, 1984: F2. He quoted Lopes: “I played it too nonchalantly. I just drifted with it and let the ball play me instead of going to a spot and catching it.”

8 Sportswriter Mike Loftus quipped, “Clear, although he has a record of 5-2, has looked more like an arsonist than a fireman for much of the last two seasons.” Mike Loftus, “It’s Clear to Houk: Umps Are to Blame,” Quincy (Massachusetts) Patriot Ledger, July 5, 1984: 29.  

9 Associated Press, “A’s Lose in July 4 Fireworks,” Santa Cruz (California) Sentinel, July 5, 1984: 29.

10 Whiteside. The three games against the A’s had been tiring – lasting 3:38, 3:43, and this one at 3:25. In the Oakland Tribune, Stier added, “In 10 hours, 46 minutes of baseball, there were 48 runs, 77 hits, a dozen home runs and 13 doubles.” Moore did not want to use his weary ace reliever Bill Caudill unless the A’s took a lead late in the game.

11 Coming off an 0-for-16 stretch, Rice had singled each of his last three times at bat the night before.

12 United Press International, “A’s Grand-Slammed by Jim Rice in 10th,” Ukiah (California) Daily Journal, July 5, 1984: 9. The six RBIs tied Rice with Dave Kingman for the league lead at 67 apiece.

13 “A’s Grand-Slammed by Jim Rice in 10th.”

14 Mike Shalin, “Rice Slams Door on A’s,” Boston Herald, July 5, 1984: 68.

15 His other four walk-off homers were solo homers on May 28, 1978 (10th inning, against the Detroit Tigers), and August 30, 1980 (10th inning, against the Oakland Athletics), and three-run ninth-inning homers on May 21, 1981 (also against Oakland) and June 10, 1985 (against the Milwaukee Brewers). The Athletics pitchers he had previously victimized were Bob Lacey in 1980 and Brian Kingman in 1981.