June 29, 1972: Bill Freehan’s grand slam caps Tigers’ 8-run rally against Red Sox

It is the top of the ninth inning – a rookie pitcher takes the mound and looks to cap off a shutout win in his first start at home. On a hot summer night, 22-year-old Boston Red Sox rookie Lynn McGlothen found himself just three outs from glory. Three outs from defeating the division leaders and sending the Fenway Park crowd home happy.

On that fateful night in Boston, however, McGlothen learned that seemingly imminent glory can disappear in the blink of an eye.

The team McGlothen was facing, the Detroit Tigers, entered the game leading the American League East by a game over the Baltimore Orioles. The Tigers were in their second season with Billy Martin at the helm and were trying to do what no one else had ever done before: defeat the Orioles for the AL East title.1 Norm Cash, Al Kaline, and Mickey Lolich – stars from the Tigers’ 1968 World Series champions – led a team looking for another shot at glory.

McGlothen’s team, the Boston Red Sox, was struggling. They were a sub-.500 club at 27-33 whose manager, Eddie Kasko, was the subject of persistent rumors that he was due to be fired at any moment.2 Star player and 1967 American League MVP Carl Yastrzemski had missed time with a knee injury.3 The Red Sox entered the night seven games out of the division lead.

McGlothen, a star of the Red Sox minor-league system, had made his debut five days earlier on the road against the Milwaukee Brewers. He held the Brewers to one hit through six innings but received no run support and took the loss with two runs charged to him. On this night he received another chance to lift the Red Sox and show them that the future was looking bright.

The game started with a one-two-three top of the first, and the Red Sox gave McGlothen a lead in the bottom of the inning. Yastrzemski reached on a two-out single off Detroit starter Tom Timmerman and stole second. First baseman Cash’s error on Reggie Smith’s grounder allowed Yastrzemski to score. Smith then stole second and scored on Rico Petrocelli’s groundball single, giving Boston a 2-0 lead.

McGlothen cruised through the next two innings, giving up only a single to Kaline in the second. In the bottom of the second, Timmerman once again faced Yastrzemski with two outs. As in the first inning, Yastrzemski found his way to second, this time on a double. Smith scored Yastrzemski on a line-drive single to put the Red Sox up 3-0.

The Tigers’ bats stirred for the first time in the top of the fourth. Aurelio Rodriguez started the inning with a single. McGlothen hit the next two batters, Gates Brown and Bill Freehan, loading the bases. Cash – whose 343 career home runs to date had included eight grand slams – stepped to the plate with no one out, with the Hall of Fame-bound Kaline on deck. But McGlothen induced Cash to foul out, then got Kaline to hit a grounder to third, which Petrocelli turned into an inning-ending double play.

Detroit had a baserunner in the fifth on Jim Northrup’s leadoff single, but Ed Brinkman hit into another double play to short-circuit the rally.

Veteran reliever Ron Perranoski replaced Timmerman and held the Red Sox scoreless in the fifth and sixth innings. Detroit again threatened in the seventh, getting Northrup and Kaline to first and second with two outs. Martin pinch-hit Willie Horton for shortstop Brinkman, but McGlothen was again up to the challenge, as Horton grounded to Petrocelli to end the inning.

In the bottom of the seventh, McGlothen and Doug Griffin singled off reliever Chris Zachary to put two runners on with no outs, but Ben Oglivie popped up a sacrifice attempt and Yastrzemski hit into an inning-ending double play against new reliever Fred Scherman. After McGlothen kept the Tigers scoreless in the top of the eight, allowing just a two-out single to Rodriguez, the Red Sox added a fourth run when Smith scored on Juan Beniquez’s sacrifice fly.

McGlothen walked out onto the mound to start the ninth, just three outs from shutting out the division leaders in his first start at Fenway Park. He had allowed just six hits and one walk.

In a baseball game, momentum can change in the blink of an eye, and the beginning of the ninth inning was a great example. Freehan began the inning by hitting a routine groundball to Griffin at second, but the ball became stuck in Griffin’s glove,4 and he could not make the play at first.5 Freehan was safe on the error.

McGlothen got a brief reprieve when Cash hit a pop fly that Fisk handled behind the plate, but Kaline followed with a walk.

Northrup hit a high bouncer back to McGlothen, but the potential double-play ball hit off the pitcher’s glove and deflected into center field. Freehan scored from second on the single, and Kaline took third.6

Paul Jata came to the plate as a pinch-hitter and singled Kaline in. The Red Sox still had a 4-2 lead, but things were unraveling in a hurry. Kasko removed McGlothen and put in another rookie, Don Newhauser. In the space of just five batters, the shutout was gone, the four-run lead was down to two, and the potential tying run was on first.

Newhauser gave up a single to Tony Taylor that loaded the bases. Another lucky hit followed, as Dick McAuliffe hit a barely fair blooper to left that bounced into the stands.7 It was a rulebook double, and the Tigers had tied the game.

Kasko took out Newhauser and put in Bill Lee.

Lee started by intentionally walking Rodriguez to load the bases, then struck out Ike Brown, batting for Gates Brown. But Freehan came to the plate for the second time in the inning and hit a grand slam to cap off an eight-run ninth inning and give the Tigers an 8-4 lead.

Chuck Seelbach closed out the game for the Tigers, and set the Red Sox down in a one-two-three bottom of the ninth inning to end the game. Scherman got the win.

The night ended with the Red Sox at their lowest point in 1972, eight games out of first, and the home debut of one of their newest players ruined by multiple strokes of bad luck. But this night was not determinative of the rest of the season. On the Fourth of July at Fenway Park, McGlothen got his shutout victory, going the distance to beat the Minnesota Twins, 2-0. He finished the season 8-7, with a 3.41 ERA. The Red Sox rallied to take the AL East lead in September, but ultimately lost the division to the Tigers by just a half-game.8 Baseball is a fickle game, and momentum can turn in a moment.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

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

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B06290BOS1972.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS197206290.shtml

Notes

1 In 1969, the American and National Leagues were each split into two divisions, East and West, to accommodate the addition of the Montreal Expos, Kansas City Royals, Seattle Pilots, and San Diego Padres. The Orioles won the AL East title in 1969 through 1971, and also won the AL championship in each of those seasons.

2 Neil Singelais, “Eddie Kasko, the Man and the Manager,” Boston Globe, June 1, 1972: 51.

3 Neil Singelais, “Downcast Yaz Hits Lowest Point in His Career,” Boston Globe, May 11, 1972: 53.

4 Griffin went on to win a Gold Glove in 1972 so this error was uncharacteristic of his usual manner of play.

5 Jim Hawkins, “8 Runs in 9th! Tigers Slam BoSox,” Detroit Free Press, June 30, 1972: 37.

6 Bob Ryan, “Freehan Slam Decks Sox, 8-4,” Boston Globe, June 30, 1972: 49.

7 Ryan.

8 The season was a strike-shortened one (basically over the size of pension payments) and teams played an uneven number of games. The Tigers finished 86-70 while the Red Sox finished 85-70, a half-game behind. Head-to-head, Detroit had beaten Boston nine games to five.