September 24, 1957: After reaching base 16 times in a row, Ted Williams grounds out – and then hits game-deciding homer

As the 1957 season was in its final week, there was still time for Ted Williams to squeeze in one final home run and for that home run to win one more game for the Boston Red Sox. Of the 38 homers he hit in 1957, eight were game-deciding home runs.1  

This one came in the fourth inning of a Tuesday evening game at Washington’s Griffith Stadium. The Washington Senators were deep in the cellar of the American League and finished the season 43 games behind the pennant-winning New York Yankees. The Red Sox finished in third place, 16 games out of first.

The September 24 game attracted a small crowd of 2,598 – or, as the Boston Globe put it, there were 26,071 empty seats.2

Pitching for Cookie Lavagetto’s Senators was 29-year-old right-hander Hal Griggs. He’d been 1-6 in his rookie season, 1956, but spent most of 1957 in Double A with the Chattanooga Lookouts, where he was a 20-game winner (21-12, 3.34). This was his first of two appearances with the Senators in 1957.3

Griggs breezed through the first inning, striking out leadoff batter Jimmy Piersall and then getting both shortstop Billy Klaus and Williams to ground out to second base.

Williams’s groundout was a routine play, but it ended his record-breaking streak of reaching base 16 times in a row. After missing more than two weeks due to a severe cold, Williams had returned with a pinch-hit homer on September 17. Over the next four games – with September 19 an off-day – he reached base all 15 times he batted, including a base on balls on September 18 and a game-deciding pinch-hit homer on September 20, and another game-deciding homer on September 21. Williams walked three times in two of the games and twice in another. As of 2026, it remained a post-1900 major-league record.4

Frank Sullivan took the mound for Red Sox manager Pinky Higgins. He came into the game with a 13-11 record. It was his fourth full season in the majors, and he had an excellent 2.80 earned-run average. He’d pitched 12 complete games in 1957. In eight of his 11 losses, the Red Sox had scored two or fewer runs.

Second baseman Pete Runnels led off with a double to center field. He had to hold there when catcher Clint Courtney grounded to third base and was thrown out when left fielder Roy Sievers hit one back to Sullivan, who fielded the ball and threw to third base, where Frank Malzone applied the tag. Right fielder Jim Lemon hit into the third out with a grounder to third base.

Griggs struck out all three batters he faced in the top of the second: Malzone, right fielder Jackie Jensen, and first baseman Mickey Vernon.

Sullivan achieved a certain symmetry himself, getting each of the three batters he faced to ground out to Malzone: third baseman Harmon Killebrew, first baseman Art Schult, and shortstop Rocky Bridges. Malzone had been involved in all three first-inning outs as well.

The Red Sox scored a run in the third. Second baseman Ken Aspromonte singled, but was erased on a strike-‘em-out, throw-‘em-out double play, with catcher Sammy White the strikeout victim. Sullivan singled, though, and scored from first base when Piersall tripled to right-center field, which, according to the Boston Herald, “fell off the out-stretched glove of Faye Thronberry.”5 Klaus grounded out, leaving Piersall unable to score.

Sullivan was pretty much the show in the bottom of the third. He got center fielder Throneberry to hit one back to him, and he threw to first base for the first out. Griggs struck out swinging, and Sullivan struck out Runnels, who took a called third strike.

The score was 1-0 after three innings.

The first batter up in the fourth inning was Williams. On a 2-and-1 pitch, he “crashed his 38th homer run of the season…a line drive over the right-field fence,” per the Boston Herald.6 It was the 456th home run of his career.

Malzone singled but was erased when Jensen hit into a 1-6-3 double play. Vernon walked but Aspromonte flew out to right field. The Red Sox had a 2-0 lead.

Courtney popped up to first base. Sievers flied out to Williams in left. Lemon walked, but Sullivan struck out Killebrew.

With two outs in the fifth, Piersall walked and stole second, but Klaus struck out. Throneberry reached base for the Senators because of an errant play by Aspromonte, but he was the only one to reach.

Leading off the sixth inning, Williams struck out. Not only that, he struck out looking, an unusual occurrence. The plate umpire was Nestor Chylak. Malzone grounded to short. Jensen singled, but Vernon popped up to second base.

The Senators put a rally together in the sixth. Runnels singled to center for Washington’s first hit off Sullivan since his leadoff double in the first. Courtney reached on an infield single to shortstop. Sievers grounded to third base, but Malzone’s only play was to first base and both baserunners moved up.

The potential tying run was on second base with just one out. Lemon grounded out, also to third base, but the runners had to hold. Killebrew – appearing in his sixth big-league game of 1957 after spending most of the season in Double A – then singled into center field. Runnels scored, but, as the Washington Post reported, “Courtney got too ambitious” – his bid to tie the score was cut short by Piersall’s throw home.7 It was one of a dozen outfield assists for the Red Sox center fielder in 1957, and one of 95 in his 17-season major-league career.  

Neither team got anyone on base in the seventh. When Malzone threw out Schult for the first out of the bottom of the inning, it was the Sox infielder’s 10th assist of the game, tying an American League record for assists by a third baseman in a nine-inning game.8

Williams walked in the eighth, the only Boston batter to reach base. Piersall had struck out, leading off – the ninth K of the game for Griggs.

Griggs was due up first for Washington. Neil Chrisley pinch-hit for him and struck out. Runnels reached on Aspromonte’s second error of the game. Courtney lifted a high foul ball, caught by the second baseman. Sievers grounded into a force play at second base.

The new Senators pitcher was Bud Byerly. He got two groundouts, walked Aspromonte, then struck out White.

Sullivan closed out the game in the ninth. Lemon led off with a single to left. Killebrew, however, struck out – Sullivan’s seventh strikeout of the game. Schult hit a “vicious liner” but into a 4-6-3 game-ending double play.9 According to the Boston Globe, it was “sparkling…banged far to Aspromonte’s right. Ken backhanded it and made a quick, off-balance toss to Billy Klaus who completed the twin killing.”10

Once again, Sullivan had pitched a complete game in which the Red Sox scored two or fewer runs. By holding the Senators to just one run and benefitting from the Piersall triple and the Williams home run, he was able to notch his 14th win of the year and bring his ERA down to 2.73, a career best – and fifth-best in the American League.

The game-winner off Griggs was Williams’ final home run of 1957, a season that many believe was the most remarkable of his career. His .388 batting average led both leagues; five more hits or a few fewer outs and he would have hit .400 – in the year he turned 39. Both his .526 on-base percentage and .731 slugging percentage also led major-league baseball.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Keith Thursby.

Photo credit: Ted Williams, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball Reference and Retrosheet.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WS1/WS1195709240.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1957/B09240WS11957.htm

Notes

1 A “game-deciding home run” is defined here as a home run that provides a game’s final margin of victory, giving the winning team at least one more run than the opposing team scored. For example, if a two-run homer increased a team’s lead from 2-1 to 4-1, and they went on to win 4-3, it qualifies as a game-winning home run (i.e., the May 7, 1957 game). (This is different from the definition of “game-winning RBI” in baseball’s official statistics from 1980 through 1988, which counted as “game-winning” the RBI that provided a winning team the lead that it never relinquished.) The dates of Williams’ game-deciding home runs in 1957 were May 7, May 8, June 2, June 13, August 14, August 28, September 21, and September 24. In all, he hit 110 game-winning home runs. In 1947, he hit 10. The eight in 1957 matched his total in 1949. See Bill Nowlin, “The Kid” Blasts A Winner (South Orange, New Jersey; Summer Game Books, 2022).

2 Bob Holbrook, “Sox Win on Ted’s 38th Home Run,” Boston Globe, September 25, 1957: 25.

3 He also started the final game of the season, on September 29, and received a no-decision.

4 In 1893, Piggy Ward reached base 17 consecutive times. See Trent McCotter, “Consecutive Times Reaching Base: Ted Williams Dethroned by an Unlikely Record Holder,” Baseball Research Journal (SABR, 2006). https://sabr.org/journal/article/consecutive-times-reaching-base-ted-williams-dethroned-by-an-unlikely-record-holder/. Accessed September 10, 2026. Earl Averill reached base 17 consecutive times in 1962, but once on a fielder’s choice and once on an error.

5 Henry McKenna, “Ted Hists No. 38,” Boston Herald, September 25, 1957: 33.

6 McKenna.

7 Bob Addie, “Sullivan Outduels Griggs, 2-1,” Washington Post, September 25, 1957: C1.

8 The National League record was 11, first set in 1884, matched in 1890, and most recently tied by the Boston Braves’ Dee Phillips in 1944. Malzone shared the A.L. record with Luke Appling, Vern Stephens, and Heinie Majeski. See McKenna. The current record through the 2025 season is 11, shared by Ken McMullen and Mike Ferraro. See Baseball Almanac at https://www.baseball-almanac.com/rb_3bas.shtml. 

9 Addie.

10 Holbrook. The Herald’s McKenna enthused, “You never saw a better one.”