June 15, 1947: Jake Jones caps first day with Red Sox with walk-off grand slam against former teammates

First baseman James Murrell Jones – nicknamed “Jake” – had his best season in the major leagues in 1947, his only opportunity to play a full big-league campaign. He appeared in a total of 154 games for the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox, as he was traded from Chicago to Boston on June 14 while the clubs were playing a weekend series at Fenway Park. In his first day in a Red Sox uniform, Jones haunted his former teammates with two home runs, including a walk-off grand slam in the second game of Boston’s doubleheader sweep.

A Louisiana native, Jones reached the majors in September 1941 after leading the Texas League with 24 home runs for Shreveport. But he appeared in just three White Sox games in 1941 and seven in early 1942 before getting returned to the minors. Later in the summer of 1942, Jones enlisted in the US Navy, and he was commissioned as an officer in August 1943. He became a decorated pilot during World War II and flew Hellcats off the carrier USS Yorktown. He was credited with having shot down seven enemy aircraft during aerial combat.1

Back in the big leagues with the White Sox after the war, Jones suffered a season-ending broken wrist and elbow in May 1946. He’d had 13 RBIs in his 24 games.

Jones became Chicago’s starting first baseman in May 1947, and he was batting .234 with three homers and 20 RBIs when the White Sox arrived in Boston for a weekend series on June 13. In the series opener — a 5-3 Red Sox win in the first night game played at Fenway Park — Jones had two hits, but the Chicago Daily Times described his play as underwhelming, “stumbling and bumbling” at first base.2

A day later, he was with the Red Sox, traded for Rudy York in a swap of first basemen after Saturday’s game was rained out. The 33-year-old York, whose 119 RBIs for the pennant-winning 1946 Red Sox were third in the AL,3 was hitting just .212 with six home runs and 27 RBIs in 1947.

Why had the White Sox given up the 26-year-old Jones to trade for York? “We needed somebody who could hit that long ball,” said Chicago manager Ted Lyons.4 Hy Hurwitz of the Boston Globe wrote, “The White Sox were glad to get rid of him. They said he wasn’t there in the clutch.”5

Sunday’s weather was good for the scheduled doubleheader at Fenway Park. With the season nearly one-third over, the AL standings reflected a very close race for all eight teams on the morning of June 15. The Detroit Tigers were in first place, one game ahead of the New York Yankees. The Red Sox were just one game behind New York. The White Sox were five games behind the Tigers. Even the last-place St. Louis Browns were just 6½ games back.

In Sunday’s first game. Boston won, 7-3. Tex Hughson started for the Red Sox and an undefeated Bob Gillespie (4-0) for the White Sox. Left fielder Jack Wallaesa hit a three-run homer for Chicago in the fourth, offsetting an early 2-0 Boston lead. The four runs the Red Sox scored in the bottom of the sixth – on three hits and three Chicago errors – gave them a 6-3 edge. Jones, whose sacrifice had aided the sixth-inning rally, hit a solo home run in the seventh for the final run. York was hitless for the White Sox.

Boston manager Joe Cronin had Joe Dobson (6-3) start the second game; Lyons started Orval Grove (3-2). As in the opener, Jones was batting seventh and playing first base for Boston.

The White Sox took a 2-0 lead in the top of the third. First up, Grove walked. After one out, center fielder Dave Philley, in the first full season of what became an 18-season career, hit his first major-league homer.6

The Red Sox came right back in the bottom of the inning, scoring four times after the first two batters made outs. Johnny Pesky singled. So did right fielder Wally Moses. Ted Williams walked. Center fielder Sam Mele singled, driving in the two runs that tied it.

Bobby Doerr walked, re-loading the bases. Jones hit an inside fastball and singled to drive in Williams and Mele, putting Boston ahead, 4-2.7

Neither team scored in the fourth or fifth, but the White Sox tied the game with two runs in the top of the sixth. Philley led off with a double to left. Forty-year-old Luke Appling singled, Philley advancing to third, from which he scored on a subsequent force play. York popped out, but right fielder Bob Kennedy singled, and second baseman Cass Michaels followed with an RBI single, tying the game.

The only man to reach base for Chicago in the next two innings was York, with a two-out single in the eighth. The Red Sox went down in order in the seventh.

Jones led off Boston’s eighth inning with a walk. He stole second, but three outs followed.

Dobson retired all three batters he faced in the top of the ninth. Grove returned to the mound in the bottom of the inning.

Pesky led off by pulling a single into right field. Moses sacrificed Pesky to second. Not wanting any part of Ted Williams, Grove walked him intentionally. Mele grounded out, third to first, both runners advancing. With first base open, and both teams still playing by the book, Doerr was walked intentionally. That loaded the bases, but there were two outs.

Jake Jones stepped into the batter’s box. He swung at the first pitch and pulled it over Fenway’s left-field wall.

The game had been won, but Jones might have been denied credit for a home run save for the alertness of third-base coach Del Baker. Despite the exultation felt by Red Sox players and fans alike, Baker kept focused. The Boston Globe explained how Jones might have lost out: 

 “Bobby Doerr, who was on first base when Jones hit the ball over the fence, ran down to second base, touched the bag — and then headed to the clubhouse.

“Just as Doerr reached the vicinity of the pitcher’s box, he saw Coach Del Baker waving at him and suddenly realized that — although the winning run was scored — a rookie’s home run was at stake.

“He then turned back and resumed his trip around the bases.

“If Doerr had not turned back, it would have changed the score of the game to 5-4 — instead of 8-4,” the Globe summarized.8

“I didn’t realize it was a home run until (Del) Baker yelled to me to keep going,” Doerr explained later.9

Jones was, of course, no longer a rookie, but despite this being his fourth year in the majors, he had come into 1947 with only 34 games to his credit.

Jones touched all the bases himself – behind Pesky, Williams, and Doerr – and his walk-off grand slam went into the record books. On his first day in a Red Sox uniform, he had seven RBIs.

York had failed to do “anything except add two no-account singles to the White Sox attack,” lamented the Chicago Sun.10

Providence columnist Joe McGlone mused, “Jones may blandly settle down to tedium and routine for the next three months or he may continue at intervals to hit home runs with the bases full, but for this one day, at any rate, drama came to him and touched him with the magic wand of romance.”11

Jones hit 16 homers for the Red Sox during 1947 – 14 of them at Fenway Park. Overall, he batted .237 with 19 home runs and 96 RBIs. He had two more clutch late-inning homers, both against distinguished pitchers: a game-tying eighth inning blast against fireman Joe Page in a comeback win over the Yankees on August 8 and a three-run seventh inning shot against Hall of Fame-bound Bob Lemon on August 25 that gave the Red Sox a lead they later lost.

Jones was back with Boston in 1948, but incoming manager Joe McCarthy used him in only 36 games. Perhaps McCarthy’s perception was correct. Though Jones was only 27, he batted only .200 and had just one home run in 1948. It was his final season in the major leagues.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas Merrick and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS194706152.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1947/B06152BOS1947.htm

Notes

1 Any pilot who shot down five or more enemy aircraft was considered an ace. In his SABR biography of Jones, Dick Thompson provides many more details of Jones’s military service. Jones received a Silver Star and two Distinguished Flying Crosses.  Thompson reports of Jones that, “Years later he told his son that he flew back to the Yorktown from one of those missions with a hole in a wing that was big enough for a man to climb through.”

2 John C. Hoffman, “Sox seek first road win against Shea, Yankees,” Chicago Daily Times, June 16, 1947: 40. He had not been charged with any of Chicago’s three errors, but apparently looked clumsy, with derision directed his way by Boston fans who called him “Muriel.” His given name was James Murrell Jones. 

3 Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers – who had traded York to the Red Sox before the 1946 season – led the AL with 127 RBIs, and Boston’s Ted Williams was second with 123 RBIs.

4 Harold Kaese, “And Guy Named Jones Makes the Most of It,” Boston Globe, June 16, 1947: 5.

5 Hy Hurwitz, “New First Sacker Bats in Seven Runs; Red Hose Tie Tigers for Second Place,” Boston Globe, June 16, 1947: 4.

6 Philley hit 84 career home runs in the majors.

7 “It had enough carry to pass over the infield for a single.” Hy Hurwitz, “Jones’ Grand Slam Homer With 2 Out in 9th Wins for Sox,” Boston Globe, June 16, 1947: 4.

8 Dick Thompson, Spahn, Sain, and Teddy Ballgame: Boston’s (almost) Perfect Baseball Summer of 1948, ed. Bill Nowlin (Burlington, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2008), 244. Gene Mack’s sports page cartoon on page four in the Globe depicted Red Sox fans debating the trade of York for Jones, both of Jones’s homers, and Baker chasing after Doerr.

9 Lin Raymond, “Lyons Wanted York for Long Time; Sox Find Jones First Uniform Fine,” (Quincy, Massachusetts) Patriot Ledger, June 16, 1947: 11,12.

10 Milt Woodard, “Jones’ Homers Pace Boston to Victory, 7-3, 8-4,” Chicago Sun, June 16, 1947: 15.

11 Joe McGlone, “Joe McGlone,” Providence Evening Bulletin, June 16, 1947: 29.