May 22, 1958: Ted Williams’s 16th career grand slam helps him bust out of a slump in Kansas City

The Kansas City Star ran a headline on May 22, 1958, as the Boston Red Sox arrived in town for the opener of a three-game series with the Kansas City Athletics: “What’s Wrong with Ted?” Boston’s slugger Ted Williams had led the American League with a .388 batting average in 1957 – the year he turned 39. At this point, after 27 games in 1958, he was hitting .225. He had gone 0-for-5 the day before and not one of the balls he hit had left the infield.

The Red Sox faced second-year right-hander Jack Urban in a Thursday night game at Kansas city’s Municipal Stadium. With one out in the top of the first inning, Williams walked, but a strikeout and a force out ended any mounting threat.

Red Sox manager Pinky Higgins had Tom Brewer as his starter. Brewer retired the side in the bottom of the inning.

In the Red Sox second, catcher Lou Berberet hit a one-out single and center fielder Jimmy Piersall walked. Again, there might have been something building, but Brewer grounded into a double play.

And then he gave up three runs on four hits. Left fielder Bob Cerv walked leading off the Kansas City second; Cerv was playing with his jaws wired together after a collision with Detroit Tigers catcher Red Wilson five days earlier. Cerv stole second and reached third on Berberet’s throwing error, then scored on center fielder Bill Tuttle’s single.

First baseman Whitey Herzog singled. Catcher Hal Smith doubled, driving him in. Brewer struck out shortstop Billy Hunter, but Urban helped his own cause with a single, scoring Herzog and sending Smith to third. On a grounder to Frank Malzone at third base, Smith was trapped off the base and was tagged out by Berberet, who ran up the line.1 A force out at second base brought the inning to a close with the Athletics leading, 3-0.

Shortstop Don Buddin walked to lead off the Boston third. Second baseman Pete Runnels grounded out and Buddin reached second. Williams also grounded out, and Buddin reached third. First baseman Dick Gernert singled, and Buddin scored. Third baseman Malzone made the final out of the inning.

Brewer walked two in the bottom of the third, but the score remained 3-1, Kansas City.

Red Sox right fielder Jackie Jensen doubled off the left-field wall to lead off the fourth; it was said the wind prevented the ball from going out.2 Berberet made an out. Piersall singled and scored Jensen from third. Brewer struck out. Buddin got on with another base on balls. Runnels topped the ball and reached on a slow roller to third base. The bases were loaded for Williams.

Williams fouled off Urban’s first pitch, and then the second pitch, and then the third pitch. The fourth pitch he hit “onto the right field embankment,” according to the Kansas City Star.3 As the Boston Globe reported, it went “over the 11-foot right-field fence – 363 feet from the plate. Fifteen feet farther on, and up an embankment, it hit the base of a light tower.”4 It caromed off the concrete base of the tower and bounded back toward the field. It also catapulted the Red Sox to a 6-3 lead, a grand slam. The ball was hit exceptionally hard, wrote the Boston Herald. It “soared through a cross-wind that blew in strongly from centerfield.”5

The Athletics got one run back in the bottom of the fourth. In the field, Ted Lepcio replaced Runnels defensively at second base; Runnels had hurt his leg beating out his infield single in the top of the inning. Urban was removed for a pinch-hitter, who popped out. With two outs, second baseman Mike Baxes walked. Right fielder Bob Martyn tripled, making the score Boston 6, Kansas City 4. Hector Lopez made the final out of the inning.

Murry Dickson was the new pitcher for the Athletics in the fifth inning. He faced three Boston batters and retired all three.

Brewer had some difficulty in the Athletics’ fifth. He walked Cerv. Tuttle singled. Brewer walked Herzog with his sixth walk of the game. Manager Higgins brought in Mike Fornieles to relieve, facing Hal Smith with the bases loaded and nobody out. Smith’s sacrifice fly brought in one run. Hunter then singled, loading the bases again. Athletics manager Harry Craft inserted Vic Power to pinch-hit for Dickson, but Power hit into a 4-3 inning-ending double play. The Athletics had edged to within one run, 6-5.

Neither team scored in the sixth, Tom Gorman pitching for Kansas City. Buddin drew a third base on balls, but he was the only one to reach base for Boston. Kansas City’s Martyn had the only base hit, a single.

Gorman faced three batters in the seventh and got all three out. Hal Smith got a one-out triple but was thrown out at the plate when Hunter hit back to Fornieles. The Red Sox pitcher threw the ball to the plate, a fielder’s choice. Pinch-hitter Woodie Held then popped out.

Virgil Trucks became the fourth K.C. pitcher in the Red Sox eighth. Jensen and Berberet singled, and Trucks was replaced by Ray Herbert. He disposed of the next three batters without any more damage and it remained a one-run game.

Martyn singled again in the bottom of the eighth but was wiped out when Lopez grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.

The Red Sox added a couple of insurance runs in the ninth. Lepcio led off with a home run, a “jet-blast over the 375-foot marker in left-center field with a strong, gusty wind trying to beat the ball back all the way.”6 Williams walked, with Marty Keough coming in to run for him. Gernert sacrificed Keough to second base. Baxes flubbed a play at second base and Malzone reached base, with Keough scoring from second. Herbert retired Jensen and Berberet, but Boston now had an 8-5 lead.

For the bottom of the ninth, the Red Sox shifted their outfield defense, moving Jensen to left. Keough played right field. Bob Cerv hit a liner to left, which Jensen caught up against the wall. Tuttle grounded back to Fornieles, who threw him out. Herzog grounded out, second to first.

The game was over. The four-run homer by Ted Williams in the top of the fourth was the game-winning hit. It was the 16th grand slam of his career. Two months later, he hit another, off the Tigers’ Jim Bunning, for what proved to be a final total of 17.7

Whatever might have been wrong with Wiliams righted itself. He didn’t have as spectacular a year as he had enjoyed in 1957, but his.328 batting average did win the American League batting title. His .458 on-base percentage led both leagues. His 26 homers and 85 RBIs helped the Red Sox secure a third-place finish, a game and a half ahead of the Cleveland Indians and only two games ahead of the fifth-place Tigers.

Jack Urban won eight games for the 1958 Athletics. He was 8-11 (5.93). Mike Fornieles got the win. He had allowed just four hits in five innings of relief. He was in the midst of a 12-year major-league career and was 4-6 (4.96) in 1958.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Victoria Monte and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Ted Williams, Trading Card Database.

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/KC1/KC1195805220.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1958/B05220KC11958.htm

Notes

1 “He Can’t Get Away” – photograph, Kansas City Star, May 23, 1958: 32.

2 Henry McKenna, “Sox Defeat Athletics, 8-5,” Boston Herald, May 23, 1958: 41.

3 Joe McGuff, “Ted’s Slam Shakes A’s,” Kansas City Star, May 23, 1958: 32.

4 Bob Holbrook, “Ted’s Homer Wins,” Boston Globe, May 23, 1958: 37.  Ed Rumill of the Christian Science Monitor agreed: the ball was hit “well up on the right field banking, behind the fence.” Ed Rumill, “Better Than All Except League-Leading Yankees,” Christian Science Monitor, May 23, 1958: 19.

5 McKenna.

6 Mike Gillooly, “Mike Blasts Lane After Lepcio HR,” Boston American, May 23, 1958: 41. Lepcio told Gillooly, “Before I went up to bat, I was talking with Ted (Williams). He told me that because I hadn’t batted much this season, I should go up there and relax, take it easy and get a ball I could really see. Then, just meet it. I guess I followed his instructions to the letter.” See Gillooly, “Lane Pain in Neck, Explodes Higgins,” Boston American, May 23, 1958: 58. Lane is a reference to GM Frank Lane.

7 Williams’s 17th grand slam was hit at Tiger Stadium on July 29, 1958. He also hit a three-run homer later in the game.