June 24, 1949: Ted Williams’s 2 homers, 7 RBIs lead Red Sox to blowout win over Browns

In a game that ends 21-2, the hit that produced the third run is the hit that won the game – even though there would have been plenty of backup candidates had the losing team scored more runs.

Ted Williams would have had the game-winning homer had the score been tied 16-16 after 6½ innings, since he also hit a leadoff home run in the seventh. It was his first-inning home run that made the difference in this one.1

Williams hit eight of his 521 career home runs on June 24. His only day with more homers was July 26, when he hit 10. Two of his June 24 homers came in the Boston Red Sox’ 21-2 rout of the St. Louis Browns on that date in 1949.2

Williams, headed for his second American League MVP Award and fourth home-run crown, put the Red Sox ahead to stay with a first-inning three-run homer. Later, he contributed to Boston’s barrage with a bases-loaded walk, a solo homer, and a two-run single.

Before a Friday afternoon crowd of 6,722 at Fenway Park, Williams’s seven RBIs paced the Red Sox’ highest-scoring game since a 24-4 win over the Washington Nationals in September 1940. It was only the fourth time in the franchise’s 49-season history that it had scored 20 or more runs in a game.3 Boston’s 25 hits tied a franchise record set in 1919.4

Who was the fortunate pitcher to be given so many runs in support? It was Ellis Kinder, who worked a complete game. Kinder, who had broken into the majors at age 31 with the Browns and attracted the nickname Old Folks, had started his career as a reliever and became one again. (In both 1951 and 1953 he led the league in appearances.) In 1949 he finished with a 23-6 record, leading both leagues in winning percentage. He did a fine job in this game, holding his former team to just five hits while walking only one.

The story of the game, though, was the offense. Besides Williams, center fielder Dom DiMaggio drove in three runs and so did first baseman Billy Goodman. Even Kinder drove in one. The only player in the lineup who did not was Johnny Pesky, but he was 3-for-4 at the plate and scored three times. The Red Sox scored in all but one of the innings they batted.

The Browns actually held an early lead, when left fielder Whitey Platt hit a two-out solo home run in the top of the first inning. The lead didn’t last long.

St. Louis Globe-Democrat sportswriter Harry Mittauer began his article writing, “Manager Zach Taylor wasn’t kidding the other day when he said that he was hard-pressed for pitchers.”5 Because of injuries, the Browns were traveling with only eight pitchers. A day earlier, St. Louis’s Ned Garver had gone the distance, giving up 12 hits and six walks, in the Red Sox’ 7-0 win.

When the Red Sox came to bat in the bottom of the first, they faced Joe Ostrowski. A left-hander, he’d also broken into the majors with the Browns at age 31. His nickname was Specs or Professor, due to the eyeglasses he wore. He was 2-2 with a 4.08 ERA before the game.  

Three batters in, the Red Sox were ahead. Dom DiMaggio singled to center field and Pesky doubled to right field. Ted Williams hit “a tremendous wallop into the dead centerfield seats about 15 rows up.”6 It was Williams’s 18th homer of the season.

Before the first inning was done, the Red Sox loaded the bases – on singles by Vern Stephens and Billy Goodman and an intentional walk to catcher Birdie Tebbetts. Kinder grounded out to strand them.

Ostrowski allowed a single but kept the Red Sox scoreless in the second, and second baseman Andy Anderson hit a leadoff home run for St. Louis in the third. The score was thus 3-2.

In the bottom of the third, the Red Sox upped the ante a bit with four consecutive singles – Goodman, Al Zarilla, Tebbetts, and Kinder – resulting in two more runs and a 5-2 lead.

They added five runs in the fourth. Pesky singled and Williams walked. Al Papai took over in relief of Ostrowski. Stephens singled, scoring Pesky. Bobby Doerr walked, loading the bases, and Goodman hit a two-run single. Doerr scored on Zarilla’s groundout to first. Tebbetts was given an intentional walk. Kinder fouled out to the catcher, but DiMaggio doubled in the fifth run, making it 10-2. Ray Shore came on in relief of Papai. He walked Pesky and struck out Williams for the third out.

In the Red Sox fifth, the first four batters all reached base – Stephens (single), Doerr (walk), Goodman (single), and Zarilla (walk). Goodman drove in Stephens. Tebbetts’ fly ball allowed Doerr to tag and score. Kinder walked, reloading the bases. DiMaggio grounded out, but a third run scored. Pesky walked and so did Williams, picking up another RBI as the bases-loaded walk brought Zarilla home. Stephens grounded out.

A one-out Goodman double (his fifth consecutive hit of the afternoon), and then singles by Zarilla, Tebbetts, and DiMaggio scored two more runs in the sixth, boosting Boston to a 16-2 lead.

Ted Williams led off the bottom of the seventh against Shore, hitting “a line drive which went into the right-field end of the grandstand.”7 Williams now had 19 homers for the season.

This was the only run the Red Sox scored in the seventh, but they took advantage of one more opportunity to add to their run total. With one out in the eighth, Kinder singled, DiMaggio singled, and Pesky walked. Williams was up with the bases loaded. He singled to right field and drove in Kinder and DiMaggio.

Shore struck out Stephens, but the Red Sox pulled off a double steal, with Williams stealing second and Johnny Pesky stealing home. Doerr singled to left field and Williams scored the 21st Red Sox run, 11 of which were charged to Shore. Doerr was the only one of the regulars who didn’t have two or more hits, but he did walk three times.

In the meantime, John Sullivan’s two-out single in the fifth turned out to be St. Louis’s final baserunner of the game. Kinder retired 13 straight Browns to close out his seventh win of the season.

After the game, Browns manager Taylor said, “A losing manager can’t talk for publication.”8 Red Sox skipper Joe McCarthy was asked why he hadn’t taken out some of the regulars to give them a breather. His response, in part, was: “Heck, they don’t want to come out when they’re hitting. Did you ever see any ball player that did?”9

It was the most runs scored and the most hits by any AL club in 1949. In the National League, only the Cincinnati Reds’ 23-run, 26-hit outburst against the Chicago Cubs on July 6 exceeded it. Boston pounded out 17 hits in a 13-2 win in the series’ third game. In a four-game sweep, the Red Sox recorded 66 hits and outscored St. Louis 46-7.

A third of the Red Sox runs on June 24 – seven of the 21 – were batted in by Williams. The only time he drove in more in a game was his eight-RBI effort against Cleveland in July 1946. In 1949 Williams went on to set career highs in home runs for a season (43) and runs batted in (159). Remarkably, he shared the RBI crown with teammate Vern Stephens – 318 runs batted in between the two of them.10

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bill Marston and copy-edited by Len Levin.

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/BOS194906240.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1949/B06240BOS1949.htm

Notes

1 A “game-winning home run” is defined here as a home run that provides a game’s final margin of victory, giving the winning team at least one more run than the opposing team scored. For example, if a two-run homer increased a team’s lead from 2-1 to 4-1, and it went on to win 4-3, it qualifies as a game-winning home run. (This is different from the definition of “game-winning RBI” in baseball’s official statistics from 1980 through 1988, which counted as “game-winning” the RBI that provided a winning team the lead that it never relinquished.)

2 Two of the July 26 homers were game-winners. So were two of the June 24 homers – on June 24, 1942, his solo homer had beat Virgil Trucks in Detroit.

3 As of 2024, the Red Sox had reached the 20-run mark 18 times. The franchise record for runs in a game is 29, set against the Browns in June 1950.

4 On September 15, 1919, the Red Sox had 25 hits in a 15-7 win over the Philadelphia Athletics. As of 2024, the Red Sox had reached the 25-hit mark nine times. The franchise record for hits in a game is 28, set against the Browns in June 1950 and equaled against the Florida Marlins in June 2003.

5 Harry Mittauer, “Bosox Stick Browns with 21-to-2 Loss,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 25, 1949: 13.

6 Jack Barry, “Ted Belts Two Homers, Goodman Gets Five Hits in Mayhem at Fenway,” Boston Globe, June 25, 1949: 4.

7 Boston Post, as quoted in Bill Nowlin, 521 – The Story of Ted Williams’ Home Runs (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2013), 150.

8 Barry.

9 Barry.

10 The Red Sox finished the 1949 season in second place, one game behind the New York Yankees. The Browns were seventh in the AL, 44 games back.