July 5, 1949: Stan Musial drives in both Cardinals runs and ends game with outfield assist

The Cardinals and Chicago Cubs staged a 10-inning pitchers’ duel on July 5, 1949, at Wrigley Field. Bob Rush threw all 10 innings for Chicago. Left-handers Harry “The Cat” Brecheen and Howard Pollet handled the pitching for St. Louis. In the Cardinals’ 2-1 victory, Stan Musial drove in both of the Cardinals’ runs and threw out the tying run at the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning to end the game.

In 1949 Musial was the defending National League MVP following a career year in which he registered the sixth-most total bases ever in a season. Musial hit .376 and led the NL in runs, hits, doubles, triples, RBIs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging, and total bases. His 39 home runs fell one short of the home-run title and the Triple Crown. Musial started 1949 determined to hit more homers, but swinging for the fences led to a decline in production and he spent most of May with a batting average under .270.1 Musial abandoned his power-happy approach and appeared to right himself in June. By the end of the month, he was hitting .303. 

Beginning July 1, Musial went 1-for-11 in a three-game series at home against Cincinnati as the Cardinals dropped two of three, leaving them one game behind the league-leading Dodgers. The Cardinals traveled to Chicago for a July 4 doubleheader at Wrigley followed by a single game on July 5. They split the holiday doubleheader with the last-place Cubs, who shut them out in the nightcap, dropping them two games behind Brooklyn. Musial went 1-for-9, lowering his batting average to .288.

Musial’s poor start in July prompted St. Louis Star-Times sportswriter Sid Keener to offer hitting advice. Keener claimed that NL pitchers were getting Musial out with off-speed pitches low and away. Keener wrote that Musial was overswinging, trying to yank home runs to right field. He suggested that Musial “let up a trifle on his swing, and with a quick twist of his body, aim for left field on that outside pitch.”2 The record does not indicate whether Musial saw, understood, or followed this advice. 

On Tuesday, July 5, a Ladies Day crowd of 26,802 at Wrigley Field included 10,047 women. The heat wave in Chicago broke as a front moved in at game time. The skies grew dark and threatening, and intermittent showers fell in the early innings. Bob Rush, a 23-year-old right-hander, handcuffed the Cardinals for five innings. Brecheen, the Cardinals starter, was coming off four straight bad outings in which he yielded 21 runs in 15⅔ innings. But on this inclement day Brecheen was in good form. He faced the minimum 12 batters in the first four innings, including pitching around an error in the fourth by getting a 5-4-3 double play.

The Cubs broke through with a run in the fifth. Hank Sauer led off with the first and only Chicago hit off Brecheen, a single to left. Hank Edwards laid down a bunt. Harry the Cat pounced on it and tried for the force out, but threw wide of shortstop Marty Marion and into center field, sending Sauer to third. One out later, Sauer tagged up and scored on Mickey Owen’s fly out to Musial in center. 

The Cardinals evened the score in the sixth. Red Schoendienst led off with a walk. Marion sacrificed him to second. Musial, who was hitless in his previous nine at-bats, came through with a single to left that drove in Schoendienst with the Cardinals’ first run in 19 innings. Brecheen retired the Cubs in order in the bottom of the sixth as the rain returned in a downpour that caused a 32-minute rain delay. 

When the game resumed, Brecheen reported to Cardinals manager Eddie Dyer that his arm had stiffened. Rush returned to the mound and struggled. After Rocky Nelson’s line drive was snagged by Edwards in right field, Rush walked Eddie Kazak and Joe Garagiola. Dyer then pinch-hit for Brecheen with Enos Slaughter, who was out of the lineup with a sore right elbow. Slaughter lined a shot toward second, where Cubs second baseman Gene Mauch speared it and turned an unassisted double play to end the inning. The Cardinals sent in their top starter, Howie Pollet, to finish the game. St. Louis was headed to Pittsburgh next, and Dyer did not plan to use the lefty Pollet against Ralph Kiner and the Pirates’ right-handed lineup, so Pollet was available to pitch in relief.

With the score still 1-1, St. Louis almost took the lead in the ninth. Hal Rice got a leadoff triple when Cubs center fielder Andy Pafko slipped on the wet grass. Rice was stranded at third by Mauch, who first caught Nelson’s liner and, after a walk to Kazak, fielded Garagiola’s bouncer, tagged Kazak and threw to first to complete another double play.

Chicago almost won the game in its half of the ninth. Left fielder Rice made a nifty running catch on a deep drive by Frankie Gustine to start the inning. Two singles were sandwiched around a popout, putting the winning run on second with two out, but Pollet got pinch-hitter Herman Reich to ground out.    

The 10th inning provided the kind of excitement that had the Star-Times gushing that “[t]his contest will rank as one of the classics of this or any other baseball seasons.”3 Although certainly an overstatement, in truth several decades of Cardinals baseball history converged in this inning. Pollet led off by flying out. Schoendienst, a Cardinals Hall of Fame player in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, a manager in the ’60s and ’70s, and a coach into the twenty-first century, singled to right. Marion, the Cardinals’ 1944 NL MVP and manager of the Stadium Club in Busch Stadium II until 1984, also singled to right, sending Schoendienst to third. That brought up Musial, a legendary Cardinals player from 1941 to 1963 and the club’s general manager in 1967.

With runners at first and third and one out, Cubs manager Frank Frisch, a Hall of Fame Cardinals player in the 1920s and ’30s, and manager of the 1934 World Series champion Cardinals, opted to play the infield back at double-play depth. This was a risky move because if the Cubs couldn’t double up the fleet Musial, the lead run would score. After the game, Frisch’s decision was criticized by telecaster Rogers Hornsby, yet another Cardinals Hall of Fame player (1915-26, 1933) and player-manager of the Cardinals’ first modern World Series champion in 1926. “You can’t play like semipros and expect to win,” sneered Hornsby. “You gotta play … your infield in.”4   

Sure enough, Musial hit a grounder to Roy Smalley at shortstop, who flipped to his future brother-in-law Mauch at second, who hurried a relay to Phil Cavaretta at first, too wide and too late to get Musial. Schoendienst scored on Musial’s second RBI of the day. The Cardinals led, 2-1.

The Cardinals inserted ballhawk Chuck Diering into center field in the bottom of the 10th, and shifted Musial to right field. Smalley led off the Cubs’ 10th with an infield hit to deep short. Mickey Owen sacrificed him to second. Mauch struck out. Down to their last out, the Cubs sent utility infielder Bob Ramazzotti to hit for Rush. Ramazzotti, a right-handed hitter, had been to the plate only once in the prior two weeks and was batting .111. 

Ramazzotti punched a single to right. Musial, a solid four-tool player, did not have a strong arm. The former pitcher had injured it playing outfield in the minors in 1940. With two out, Smalley was running from second on contact. Musial, charging fast, fielded the ball on one hop and unleashed a clothesline strike to home plate. St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Bob Broeg described Musial’s heave as having “unusual strength and direction.” In disbelief, Broeg added that “The Man just doesn’t have the kind of arm he demonstrated in that extra-inning clutch.”5 Smalley and Musial’s throw arrived at the plate almost simultaneously.

As was the practice in those days, Cardinals catcher Garagiola was blocking the plate. As he caught the throw, Smalley leapt at him and planted both spikes in his midsection. Garagiola had the wind knocked out of him but held the ball, and plate umpire George Barr called Smalley out. Frisch charged out of the dugout to protest, but the umpires vacated the field, ending the game. Garagiola took several minutes to recover before walking off.

Although not at the top of his game, Musial had managed to help engineer a 2-1 victory for the Cardinals by driving in both runs and cutting down the tying run at the plate in extra innings with a clutch throw. After the July 5 win, Musial went on a tear. For the remaining 84 games, he recaptured the magic of 1948, hitting .381 and slugging .726. He finished the 1949 season at .338 with 36 homers and 123 RBIs.     

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, the Chicago Tribune, and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN194907050.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1949/B07050CHN1949.htm

Photo credit: Stan Musial, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 James N. Giglio, Musial – From Stash to Stan the Man (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001), 174.

2 Sid Keener, “Tip to Stan Musial, Now in Slump, on ‘How to Bat,’” St. Louis Star-Times, July 6, 1949: 23.

3 W. Vernon Tietjen, “Catcher’s Sparkling Play in Tenth Stops Cubs, 2-1; Munger to Face Pirates,” St. Louis Star-Times, July 6, 1949: 22.

4 Tietjen.

5 Bob Broeg, “Brecheen, Pollet Shine on Hill; Garagiola and Musial Get Final Out,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 6, 1949: 14.