May 4, 1969: Astros tie major-league record with seven double plays in win over Giants

Losers of seven straight and 14 of their last 15 games, the Houston Astros were desperate to get off the merry-go-round as April 1969 drew to a close. Looking up at the rest of the National League West Division from last place, what they got over the next five days was a round trip for the record books.

First, they were no-hit on April 30 in Cincinnati by the Reds’ Jim Maloney, then returned the favor a day later when flamethrowing Don Wilson no-hit Cincinnati. Over the ensuing weekend, Houston pulled off the franchise’s first series sweep of the first-place San Francisco Giants since June 1963, winning the finale on May 4 thanks to a major league-record seven groundball double plays. That mark remained unequaled through the 2025 season.1

One year earlier, the Giants had been part of the major leagues’ first back-to-back no-hitters by opposing teams, with San Francisco’s Gaylord Perry no-hitting the St. Louis Cardinals a day before St. Louis’s Ray Washburn returned the favor. The day after Wilson’s 1969 masterpiece, it was Perry who fell victim to Houston’s Jim Wynn, surrendering two home runs to Wynn in a 3-1 loss to start the Giants’ three-game set at the Astrodome. Houston took an early lead and held on for a 4-3 win on Saturday night, May 3.

Astros manager Harry Walker turned to veteran southpaw Denny Lemaster on Sunday afternoon. His record 0-4 after five starts, with a 6.08 ERA, Lemaster’s only no-decision had come in a 6 1/3-inning outing nine days earlier against Bobby Bolin at Candlestick Park. This time, he was facing San Francisco’s ace, Juan Marichal.

An eight-time All-Star and the 1968 NL leader in wins and innings pitched, Marichal entered the contest with a 4-1 record and a league-low 1.74 ERA. His previous two starts included a four-hit complete-game win over the Astros in San Francisco and, most recently, a two-hit shutout of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

May 4 brought the largest crowd of the young season to the Astrodome, with the Astros providing 50-cent admission and free Little League bats to youngsters 14 and under.2  Before many of the 31,890 on hand had even settled in, Lemaster’s day was done.3

Lemaster’s start began well enough, as he struck out the Giants’ first batter, little-used right fielder Frank Johnson. But he allowed singles to second baseman Ron Hunt and center fielder Willie Mays. A walk to first baseman Jack Hiatt, playing for an injured Willie McCovey (the eventual MVP was out with a sore right hip), loaded the bases.4 When Lemaster walked catcher Dick Dietz to force in a run, Walker gave him the hook. This was the second time in four weeks that Lemaster hadn’t made it out of the first inning. On April 16 he was yanked after allowing two runs and retiring only one batter against his former team, the Atlanta Braves.5   

Walker brought in Dooley Womack, acquired from the New York Yankees in the offseason. In nine appearances, all in relief, Womack had allowed only two earned runs in 17 innings. Left fielder Jim Ray Hart bounced Womack’s first pitch to shortstop Denis Menke for an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.6

An inning later, Houston knotted the score on a leadoff triple by third baseman Doug Rader and a one-out groundout to the right side by first baseman Curt Blefary.

The Giants threatened in the top of the third as Mays and Hiatt reached on one-out singles, but Womack held them scoreless with an around-the-horn inning-ending double play off the bat of Dietz. With two out in the bottom of the inning, Houston’s diminutive second baseman Joe Morgan pulled a 3-and-1 high fastball from Marichal over the right-field wall to put the Astros ahead, 2-1.7 It was the second of three career home runs that the north Texas native hit off his fellow future Hall of Famer.8

Hart singled to lead off the San Francisco fourth but was erased when Menke turned third baseman Bobby Etheridge’s grounder into the third Astros double play of the game. The pattern repeated in the fifth, with Marichal’s leadoff single going for naught when Johnson grounded to Morgan, who started double play number four.

The bottom of the fifth looked promising for Houston after Blefary pulled a single into right field and advanced to third when Geiger did the same. But moments later, Blefary became the first and only baserunner picked off by Dietz in his eight-season major-league career. Marichal responded by retiring catcher Don Bryant and Womack.

Womack cruised in the sixth but hit a wall in the seventh. After a missed-catch error by first baseman Blefary and a sacrifice by Etheridge, Womack walked Dave Marshall, pinch-hitting for shortstop Hal Lanier. With Marichal due to bat next, Giants manager Herman Franks could have gone to his bench, where he had left-handed-hitting Don Mason, righty Jim Davenport, or a gimpy McCovey available. Franks elected to let his ace bat instead. After Marichal took Womack’s next offering for ball one, Walker knew Womack had run out of gas. The reliever was under the weather and had been taking oxygen in the dugout during what proved to be the longest outing of his major-league career.9 “[W]hen Harry came and got me, I wasn’t mad. I had had it,” said Womack later.10

Into the game came Houston’s “paunchy” fireman, Fred Gladding.11 Acquired from the Detroit Tigers after the 1967 season, Gladding had missed most of 1968 with elbow problems, but was fast becoming a stalwart of the Astros bullpen.12 He’d earned a pair of saves for Houston, including one the night before. Gladding snuffed out the rally by getting Marichal to hit into a 6-3 twin killing – double play number five.

Marichal’s bad luck carried over into the seventh. He surrendered a leadoff double to Rader, then after the redhead advanced to third on a sacrifice, balked him home to make the score 3-1, Houston. Third-base umpire Mel Steiner made the call after Marichal had aborted a delivery to Blefary. Marichal walked Blefary but escaped further damage when Geiger lined to Hiatt at first base for an unassisted double play.

For the fourth time in five innings, the Giants first batter reached base in the eighth, but as had happened twice before, he was erased on a double play. This time it was right fielder Bob Burda, an earlier replacement for Johnson,13 who hit the leadoff single, and Hunt grounding into a 3-6 double play.

Nursing a two-run lead, Gladding began the ninth inning well as he fanned Hiatt, but Dietz followed with a double to right-center field and went to third on a single up the middle by Hart.14 Franks sent 23-year-old speedster Bobby Bonds in to run for Dietz, setting up the potential tying run on a fly ball to the outfield.

The next batter, Etheridge, bounced a Gladding sinker to Morgan. who shuttled it to Menke for a force out at second base, and then on to Blefary for the third out. The Astros had the win and a series sweep, thanks to an NL-record seven groundball double plays. The 1942 New York Yankees were the only other AL or NL team to have converted seven twin killings in a game, but just five of those came on groundballs.15

“I could almost hear Etheridge pleading, ‘Please, let me beat it out. Let me beat it out,’ coming down the line,” said Blefary afterward. 

To celebrate the Astros’ triumph, owner Roy Hofheinz had bottles of champagne sent to the clubhouse to celebrate. Blefary was dumbfounded as champagne sprayed in all directions: “Did we just win the pennant or something?”16

During the celebration, Hofheinz told the Astros’ infielders (Blefary, Morgan, Menke, and Rader) that he would give each an engraved gold watch to mark their historic day. The San Francisco Examiner considered the gesture particularly gratifying for Morgan.17

Long criticized for being too slow at turning double plays, Morgan had worked hard at improving, including studying the footwork of eight-time Gold Glover Bill Mazeroski.18 “I used to come across with my opposite foot,” Morgan explained, “and would have to take an extra step to make the throw to first. Now I am ready to throw when I hit the bag.”19

Happy with his hand in the double-play record, Morgan declared, “I got more satisfaction in making those double plays today than from anything I’ve done in baseball.”20

Having entered May with a 4-20 record, the Astros went 77-61 the rest of the way. Over those final 138 games, only two other NL teams mustered a higher winning percentage. And for the first time in their eight-year history, the Astros finished with a .500 record.

Judging by the five Gold Gloves and 1,505 double plays he was credited with over 22 years as a second baseman, Morgan got to be pretty good at turning two.21

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Harrison Golden and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Joe Morgan, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Stathead.com websites, including box scores and play-by-play at these links: 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/HOU/HOU196905020.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1969/B05040HOU1969.htm

Notes

1 Since 1901, more than two dozen teams have grounded into six double plays in a game, most recently (as of 2025) the Chicago Cubs on May 11, 2019.

2 “Astronotes,” Houston Chronicle, May 4, 1969: 32. Not until a late June weekend series with the Atlanta Braves did Houston draw a bigger crowd.

3 John Wilson, “Astros Clip Giants,” Houston Chronicle, May 5, 1969: 2-1.

4 James K. McGee, “Giants Lose Again,” San Francisco Examiner, May 4, 1969: C1.

5 Those runs came in on Henry Aaron’s career home run number 512, tying him with former Brave Eddie Mathews for sixth place all-time. Lemaster’s wildness may have come from problems he was having adjusting to the lower 10-inch-high mounds introduced for the 1969 season. Weeks earlier he had admitted to a Sporting News correspondent that he was struggling to adapt to the five-inch reduction in mound height, a step taken in response to the decline in offensive output in recent years. Wayne Minshew, “Hank Gets 512th, Braves Win, 6-4,” Atlanta Constitution, April 17, 1969: 69; Oscar Kahan, “Pitchers Moan, Batters Skeptical of Low Hill,” The Sporting News, March 29, 1969: 5; Michael Clair, “Four Stats That Showed by Baseball Had to Lower the Mound After 1968,” MLB-Cut4, December 3, 2015, https://www.mlb.com/cut4/why-was-the-mound-lowered-in-1968/c-158689966.

6 Bob Stevens, “7 Double Plays Rip Giants, 3-1,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 5, 1969: 47.

7 James K. McGee, “Giants Swoon in May?” San Francisco Examiner, May 5, 1969: 51.

8 Morgan was born in Bonham, Texas, about 70 miles north of Dallas. His family moved to Oakland, California, when he was 5.

9 Wilson, “Astros Clip Giants.”

10 Dick Peebles, “Astros’ Four Glory Days,” Houston Chronicle, May 5, 1969: 2-1.

11 James K. McGee, “Giants Lose Again,” San Francisco Examiner, May 4, 1969: C1.

12 “Hurler Gladding Out for Season; King Is Recalled,” Houston Post, July 5, 1968: 58.

13 The day after this game, Johnson was optioned to Triple-A Phoenix. He did not return to the major leagues until the next season. “Henderson Joins Giants, Johnson Sent to Phoenix,” San Francisco Examiner, May 6, 1969: 49.

14 John Heiling, “Astros Double Up for 3-1 Victory Over SF,” Houston Post, May 5, 1969: 2-1. 

15 Two of the seven double plays turned by the Yankees in an August 14, 1942, win over the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park came from catcher Bill Dickey throwing out runners attempting to steal on third strikes. The Boston Red Sox held the previous AL record for groundball double plays, turning six in the first game of a May 1, 1966, doubleheader at Fenway Park against the California Angels. “Yankees’ 7 Double Plays Break Major League Mark,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 15, 1942: 14.

16 John Heiling, “Astros Celebrate for Seven DPs,” Houston Post, May 5, 1969: 2-5.

17 “Gold Watches to Astro Infielders,” San Francisco Examiner, May 5, 1969: 55.

18 “Astros Celebrate for Seven DPs”; “National: Hot Astros ‘Double Up’ Giants,” Ventura County (California) Star-Free Press, May 5, 1969: 15.

19 “Astros Celebrate for Seven DPs.”

20 “Astros Celebrate for Seven DPs.”

21 In 1973 Morgan, by then a member of the Cincinnati Big Red Machine, led all NL second basemen with an assist or putout in 106 double plays.