September 21, 1949: Red Sox win 19th consecutive game at Fenway Park

There were 27 hits in this game, 10 bases on balls, and 10 pitchers used, but the score was only 1-1 after the first four innings. It turned into a slugfest in the fifth.

The Boston Red Sox entered their Wednesday afternoon game against the Cleveland Indians at Fenway Park on September 21 riding an 18-game home winning streak. They had not lost there since a 3-2 defeat to the New York Yankees on August 10. The Red Sox were in second place in the American League, only three games behind the first-place Yankees. They’d won six games in a row and not gained any ground, but there remained eight games to play so there was hope.

The Indians were battling for third place, in fourth place but just a half-game behind the Detroit Tigers.

Starting for Joe McCarthy’s Red Sox was Jack Kramer. It was far from Kramer’s best season. He came into the game 5-8, having won his last outing. His ERA was 4.80, but after this game it climbed to 4.92. Just the year before, he’d been 18-5 with the best winning percentage in the American League, but he had declined and by 1950 was used more in relief.

Cleveland right-hander Mike Garcia, on the other hand, was having a very good year – his first full season in the big leagues. By year’s end, his 2.36 ERA was the best in the American and National Leagues. His record was 14-5. He, too, saw an uptick in ERA due to this game. He was 13-5 (2.26) when the game began.

Neither team scored in the first inning. Indians manager-shortstop Lou Boudreau hit a one-out single off Kramer but never got to second base. Dom DiMaggio hit a leadoff single off Garcia in the bottom of the inning, but he never got to second, either.

The Indians took a 1-0 lead in the second, the RBI being Garcia’s. Wit one out, Bob Kennedy singled to center. Another out followed, and catcher Jim Hegan walked. Kennedy scored when Garcia singled to center field.

The Red Sox responded with a run in the bottom of the inning. Bobby Doerr doubled off the wall in left field. He tagged and took third on a sufficiently deep fly ball hit by Al Zarilla. Doerr came in from third base on Billy Goodman’s groundout to Boudreau.

First baseman Mickey Vernon doubled for Cleveland in the third, but he never got past second.

The first three batters got on for the Red Sox in their half of the third, though Kramer was thrown out trying to stretch his leadoff single to two bases. DiMaggio walked and third baseman Johnny Pesky singled, but left fielder Ted Williams – who had reached base in 80 consecutive games, more than anyone else in American or National League history – grounded into a 4-6-3 double play.

In the fourth inning, both pitchers retired their respective opponents in order. 

The Indians sent Kramer to the showers in the fifth. Garcia started things off with a single to left field. Left fielder Dale Mitchell singled to center. Garcia stopped at second base. Boudreau sacrificed the baserunners to second and third. Vernon singled to left and Garcia scored.

Cleveland center fielder Larry Doby hit a fly ball to center; Mitchell tagged and scored. Right fielder Luke Easter – a 34-year-old Negro Leagues veteran who had joined the Indians in August – doubled to right and Vernon scored the third run. Walt Masterson relieved Kramer. Bob Kennedy grounded out. Cleveland had taken a 4-1 lead.

Garcia had already beaten the Red Sox three times in 1949, but Boston rallied in its half of the fifth. With one out, catcher Birdie Tebbetts singled to left field. Tom Wright pinch-hit for Masterson and doubled down the line in left field. DiMaggio walked, which loaded the bases. When the count got to 3-and-0 on Pesky, Boudreau called on Bob Feller to pitch in relief. This wasn’t as rare an occurrence as one might expect; Feller relieved in 86 games over the course of his career.

Feller threw one pitch and walked Pesky, forcing in a run. Ted Williams flied out to right field and Wright tagged and scored. Vern Stephens singled to left field and both DiMaggio and Pesky scored, giving Boston a 5-4 edge. With 152 RBIs so far in the season, Stephens trailed Williams by just two for tops in the AL and NL.

Hy Hurwitz of the Boston Globe wrote, “The scrap and confidence which has been oozing from the Sox since they returned home 10 days ago was never more apparent than yesterday. Twice they came from behind to go ahead.”1

Chuck Stobbs was the new pitcher for the Red Sox in the sixth. He walked second baseman Johnny Berardino but then struck out Jim Hegan and Hal Peck (batting for Feller). Mitchell singled, but Boudreau grounded into a force play at second base.

Al Benton took over pitching duties. Al Zarilla greeted him with a homer over the Red Sox bullpen and into the right-center-field bleachers, making it a 6-4 game.

Cleveland struck back in the top of the seventh. Stobbs walked both Vernon and Doby and then Easter doubled, driving in Vernon for his second RBI of the game. Ellis Kinder relieved Stobbs. Kennedy was walked intentionally, and Berardino hit a fly ball to right, scoring Vernon with the tying run.

The tie lasted just four pitches into Boston’s half of the seventh. Ted Williams led off against new reliever Steve Gromek. The count on Williams went to 2-and-1. He swung at the next pitch and “lifted the ball loftily toward right center. Easter gave chase and made a leap for the ball as it dropped into the Red Sox bullpen, a homer by inches.”2 With his 41st home run of the season and 155th RBI, the Red Sox took a 7-6 lead.3

Stephens doubled off the left-field wall and Gromek was quickly removed, with Frank Papish coming in to pitch to Doerr, who bunted to Papish and sacrificed Stephens to third base. Zarilla reached on an infield single to Boudreau, but Stephens had to stay put on third base. He scored, though, when Goodman singled to left. After Papish walked Tebbetts, loading the bases, the Indians brought in their third pitcher of the inning (and sixth of the game), Sam Zoldak. He got both Kinder and DiMaggio to hit fly-ball outs.

Boudreau doubled off Kinder in the eighth but no one else did anything helpful to the offense.

The Red Sox added a ninth run in the bottom of the inning. With two outs, Stephens singled and Doerr tripled, both balls hit to center field. Every one of the six Cleveland pitchers gave up at least one base hit. Cleveland Plain Dealer writer Harry Jones called it a “tee-off party.”4

Easter singled leading off the top of the ninth. He was 3-for-5 in the game. Kennedy grounded to shortstop and Easter was forced out at second. Kinder struck out the next two batters, Berardino and Mike Tresh, who had come in to catch after Hegan had been pinch-hit for in the seventh.

The 9-6 victory went to Kinder, his 22nd win of the year. It was the Red Sox’ seventh win in a row, as well as their 19th straight at Fenway Park.

They won the next two home games as well, the last two home games of the year, beating the Yankees both times and tying them for first place. The Yankees, however, defeated the Red Sox on October 2, the final day of the regular season, to take the pennant.

The 1949 Red Sox’ 21-game home winning streak remained a franchise record until 1988, when they won 24 home games in a row from June 25 through August 13.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas J. Brown Jr. and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Ellis Kinder, 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/BOS/BOS194909210.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1949/B09210BOS1949.htm

Notes

1 Hy Hurwitz, “Red Sox Defeat Indians 9 to 6 on Ted’s Homer; Yanks Lose,” Boston Globe, September 22, 1949: 1, 22.

2 Arthur Sampson, “Kinder Saves Day,” Boston Herald, September 22, 1949: 1, 29.

3 The home run was one of six Williams hit off Gromek.

4 Harry Jones, “Williams Clouts 41st to Break Tie,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 22, 1949: 26.