September 24, 1950: Dodgers’ Erv Palica adds grand slam to two-hit shutout over Phillies

“Erv’s superior hurling in the last weeks of the 1950 campaign was partly responsible for the last-ditch fight of the Dodgers which took them to the final day of the season before being eliminated from pennant contention.” – 1951 Bowman baseball card (No. 189)

Any story about Erv Palica and the 1950 baseball season must begin with his rookie 1948 campaign under Brooklyn Dodgers managers Leo Durocher and Burt Shotton.1 Palica preferred to use his strong fastball to set up his curve and knuckleball, instead of as an out pitch.2 Durocher loved Palica’s approach, earning the right-hander a spot in the bullpen. As SABR biographer Mark Stewart put it, “Durocher appreciated a hard-throwing kid who dared to fool hitters with soft stuff.”3

Shotton, who replaced Durocher in July 1948, had a different perspective on Palica’s approach – “Palica’s fastball had a lot of life, so why should he try to fool the batters with soft stuff?”4 Even though general manager Branch Rickey’s prospect development plan earmarked Palica as a potential starter, most of his work continued to come from the bullpen.5

Shotton’s lack of confidence in the 21-year-old hurler, the youngest on the roster, would linger as long as Shotton managed the Dodgers. Dick Young, writing for the New York Daily News in his direct and often abrasive style, had his own view of Shotton as a manager. He never doubted Shotton’s desire to win but faulted the manager’s aloofness toward his players: “Failure to develop a closer personal relationship with his players is responsible for the many conflicting reports you have read from time to time.”6

Shotton deployed Palica, who had added a screwball to his repertoire, as Brooklyn’s top bullpen arm in 1949. The 21-year-old hurler, youngest on the roster, delivered eight wins, six unofficial saves, a 3.62 ERA, and a team-leading 49 appearances (48 in relief). But Palica inexplicably did not pitch in the last two weeks of the regular season as the Dodgers battled the St. Louis Cardinals for the NL pennant. He made only one appearance in the World Series, two innings in relief with the Dodgers trailing by eight runs in the Yankees’ title-clinching Game Five.

Palica’s 1950 season began just as his 1949 season had ended … in the bullpen. In fact, by July 9, the Dodgers, winners of just two of their last 11 games and sitting in fourth place, were desperate for starting pitchers. Shotton put Palica on the Ebbets Field mound nearly one year after his last start and Palica delivered a five-hit complete game to beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-3. Young minced no words: “And where has this guy been? … The answer of course is that Erv has been sitting in Kindly Old Burt Shotton’s spacious doghouse, reading the mail-order catalogue while the Dodgers were starving for a starter.”7

When Palica (11-7, 3.85 ERA) took the Shibe Park mound on September 24 with only one week to go in the regular season, the Dodgers were in second place but trailed the “Whiz Kids” Phillies by six games. Since his first start in July, Palica had won eight more games in that role and filled a spot in the rotation right behind Don Newcombe and Preacher Roe.

Manager Eddie Sawyer sent rookie right-hander Bubba Church (8-4, 2.18 ERA) to the mound for the Phillies’ last home game of a season that produced record attendance at Shibe Park, 1,217,080.8 It was miraculous that Church was even pitching. Nine days earlier, he was carried off the field after a line drive by Cincinnati’s Ted Kluszewski struck him under the left eye.9 Church could be excused for what was about to unfold.

Jackie Robinson hit Church’s first pitch in the second inning on a line to left for a double. Robinson scored when Carl Furillo hit a grounder through the legs of first baseman Eddie Waitkus, the first of five Phillies errors, two by Waitkus.10

Church was fortunate to escape the third inning unscathed. With the bases loaded and two outs, Furillo drove a liner to right-center which center fielder Richie Ashburn caught on the run to end that threat.11

The Dodgers did add another unearned run in the fourth. Gil Hodges opened with a single down the left-field line and Bruce Edwards walked. Billy Cox’s bunt down the third-base line toward Willie “Puddin’ Head” Jones forced Hodges at the base. When Palica followed with a roller in the same direction, Jones stepped on the bag, but his throw to first sailed over Waitkus’s head and Cox scored from first. Instead of an inning-ending double play, another unearned run gave the Dodgers a 2-0 lead.

Over the first four innings, only Dick Sisler and Ashburn reached base against Palica, both via walks. Palica was in control on the mound and now his bat was about to put the game out of reach.

With one out in the fifth, Duke Snider’s infield single and Robinson’s 13th home run of the season into the left-field stands doubled the Dodgers’ lead. Two walks and another infield single, this one by Billy Cox, loaded the bases for Palica, sporting a .189 career BA. Palica hit Church’s 1-and-1 pitch into the lower left center field stands, just missing the upper deck facade.12 The grand slam – the only home run of Palica’s career – extended the Dodgers’ lead to 8-0.13 As courageous as Church’s performance was, his day’s work was over after five innings.

Palica remained near perfection on the mound until the eighth. The Phillies finally got their first hit, a clean single to right by Andy Seminick to open the inning. He advanced no further.

The Dodgers scored three more runs of little consequence in the eighth and ninth innings against two Phillies relief pitchers, Paul Stuffel and Ken Johnson, to expand their lead to 11-0. Palica even got into the act in the two-run ninth with his second hit of the game, a single to center off Johnson.

In the ninth inning, Palica merely had to protect his shutout, which Del Ennis put in jeopardy with a two-out, line-drive double to left, becoming the only Phillie to reach second base. When Gene Hermanski grabbed Jones’ liner to left, Palica had his 12th victory. Palica was not overpowering and struck out only three batters. He did not need to be. Palica had the Phillies hitting the ball in the air for 18 outs, requiring only six assists from his defense.14

Palica’s victory cut the Phillies’ lead over the second-place Dodgers to five games with one week to go in the regular season. A season-ending, two-game series between the rivals at Ebbets Field loomed and baseball history tells us that the NL pennant was decided at that time with Palica being part of the story.

In the two teams’ penultimate game, Palica pitched a seven-hit complete game to beat the Phillies 7-3 for his 13th win, cutting the Phillies’ lead to one game with one to go.15 Clearly, Palica’s pitching down the stretch was instrumental in bringing the Dodgers to the season’s dramatic conclusion – Dick Sisler’s 10th-inning home run that finally clinched the NL pennant for the Whiz Kids.16 Palica’s stats since that early July start told the story described on the back of his baseball card – 12 wins in 19 starts including two shutouts in 10 complete games, pitching to a 3.31 ERA.

Changes came in 1951 for both Palica and the Dodgers management team. High blood pressure delayed his military service and stiff arm/sore hip ailments had become a seasonal occurrence. Charlie Dressen replaced Shotton as manager and Buzzie Bavasi replaced Branch Rickey as general manager.

Dressen and Shotton were like-minded when it came to Palica’s refusal to make greater use of his fastball. As both Stewart and author David Fleitz note, Dressen took his irritation public and questioned Palica’s courage – “a gutless kid who doesn’t belong in the majors.”17 Palica never pitched another complete game for the Dodgers after that last weekend of the 1950 season.

In his last season with the Dodgers in 1954 under new manager Walter Alston, Palica (3-3, 5.32 ERA) worked almost exclusively from the bullpen. He was traded to Baltimore before the 1955 season for Frank Kellert and cash, to be remembered in baseball history for helping bring the Dodgers to the brink of a NL pennant.18

Author’s Note

An accounting of the last two weeks of the thrilling 1950 NL pennant race – day-by-day, game-by-game – is shared by SABR author Lyle Spatz in The National Pastime, Issue 24.19 On September 18, the Dodgers stood in third place nine games behind the first-place Phillies, seven in the loss column. The Dodgers were just behind the second-place Boston Braves and just ahead of the New York Giants.

More than 50 years after that dramatic pennant race, Spatz, a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in his youth, shared his thoughts on postseason baseball. “But most of all, I mourn for the exciting pure pennant races we once knew, the ones without ‘wild cards.’ Win and you go to the World Series; lose and it’s ‘Wait Till Next Year.’ So despite the disappointing finish, these last games were baseball excitement at its best, and I miss it.”20

Now more than 20 years after Spatz’s review of the 1950 NL pennant race, there have been even more dramatic changes to the postseason landscape, which in turn have impacted how each team approaches its own regular season – the roster, the strategy, the games. While baseball history shares its stories, baseball fans can ponder the postseason possibilities for their favorite team.

Acknowledgments

This essay was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Keith Thursby.

Sources

The author accessed Baseball-Reference.com for box scores/play-by-play information (baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI195009240.shtml) and other data, as well as Retrosheet.org (retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1950/B09240PHI1950.htm). The Erv Palica baseball card (1951 Bowman No. 189) is from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 John Drebinger, “Durocher to Manage Giants; Ott Quits; Shotton to Dodgers,” New York Times, July 17, 1948: 1.

2 David L. Fleitz, Charlie Dressen, A Baseball Odyssey (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2026), 129.

3 Mark Stewart, “Erv Palica,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, accessed September 5, 2026.

4 Fleitz.

5 Bill Roeder, “Dodgers’ Baby Cuts His Teeth in Bullpen,” The Sporting News, August 10, 2026: 2.

6 Dick Young, “Flock Players Split on Burt’s Ability,” New York Daily News, August 4, 1950: 58. Dick Young, “Inside Burt Shotton,” Baseball Digest, November 1950: 45.

7 Dick Young, “Palica’s 1st Start in a Year Clips Phils With 5 Hits, 7-3,” New York Daily News, July 10, 1950: 21. doghouse – “A figurative place of exile for a player who has displeased the manager.” (Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 262.)

8 Stan Baumgartner, “Brooks Rout Phillies, 11-0, On 2-Hitter; Lead Now 5,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 25, 1950: 1.

9 Stan Baumgartner, “Phils Win, 8-7, in 19th To Take 2; Church Hurt,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 16, 1950: 1.

10 Dick Young, “Palica’s Slam, 2-Hitter Cut Phils Lead to 5, 11-0,” New York Daily News, September 25, 1950: 48. The only major league first baseman in 1950 who had a better fielding percentage than Eddie Waitkus (.993) was the Dodgers’ Gil Hodges (.994).

11 Baumgartner, “Brooks Rout Phillies, 11-0, On 2-Hitter; Lead Now 5,” 28.

12 Roscoe McGowen, “Dodgers Defeat Phils Again as Palica Hurls 2-Hitter,” New York Times, September 25, 1950: 27.

13 Palica finished the 1950 season batting .221 and completed his career with a .198 BA.

14 Harold C. Burr, “Dodgers Stop Worrying About Phillies After Palica’s Masterful Two-Hitter,” Brooklyn Eagle, September 25, 1950: 12.

15 Bob LeMoine, “September 30, 1950: Whiz Kids fizzle in Brooklyn, setting up a showdown,” SABR Baseball Games Project, accessed September 5, 2026.

16 C. Paul Rogers III, “October 1, 1950: Dick Sisler’s 10th-inning home run clinches Phillies’ pennant on the last day of the season,” SABR Baseball Games Project. The Whiz Kids Take the Pennant – The 1950 Philadelphia Phillies, ed. C. Paul Rogers III et al. (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, Inc., 2018).

17 Stewart. Fleitz, 130.

18 Kellert is best remembered for being the pinch-hitter in the batter’s box when Jackie Robinson stole home in Game One of the 1955 World Series. Kellert later claimed that umpire Bill Summers got the call wrong.

19 Lyle Spatz, “Baseball’s (Almost) Greatest Comeback Ever,” The National Pastime, Issue 24 (SABR, 2004) 25-32.

20 Spatz, 32.