September 24, 1969: Mike Andrews’ 14th-inning double helps Red Sox beat Yankees, 1-0

Through the 2024 season, the Boston Red Sox have shut out the New York Yankees 61 times in Boston, dating to 1904 when the teams were known as the Boston Americans and the New York Highlanders. The scores of the 61 games ranged from 1-0 to 13-0.1 Three were extra-inning games – all 1-0 final scores: September 30, 1916 (10 innings); August 7, 1956 (11 innings); and September 24, 1969 (14 innings).

The 1969 game was played on a Wednesday night at Fenway Park. In baseball’s first season of divisional play, the Baltimore Orioles had already clinched the American League East Division, with 106 wins games to just 48 defeats. The Red Sox had a shot at second place, but even with a winning record at 83-71, they were 23 games out of first and 3½ games behind the second-place Detroit Tigers. The 75-79 Yankees were next to last in the six-team division, 31 games behind Baltimore. Still, there was baseball to be played, and the game drew a respectable 13,614 attendance.

The Red Sox were led by Eddie Popowski, who had replaced fired former skipper Dick Williams just two games before. Boston had taken the first two games of a four-game set against the Ralph Houk-managed Yankees by scores of 4-3 and 8-3.

In this game, it seemed as if neither team wanted to score.

One could credit the pitchers, though. Starting for the Red Sox was 1966 first-round draft pick Ken Brett, six days past his 21st birthday.2 Brett had appeared in one major-league game in 1967, but then not again until 1969. He’d pitched three games in April (0-1, 12.91 ERA) and was called up again in September. He had beaten the Yankees, 4-3, on September 12 and the Tigers, 3-1, on September 19.

For the Yankees, it was 25-year-old Ron Klimkowski, in his first major-league start.3 Klimkowski had appeared in two games over the past nine days, closing out both and giving up just one run in five innings of work. The Yankees lost both of those games, too.

Both pitchers worked a full nine innings without giving up a run. Klimkowski allowed only three hits; Brett, six.

Both teams’ leadoff batters were second basemen. Both opened their respective halves of the first inning with a hit, and both got into scoring position. Horace Clarke singled to left to lead off for the Yankees. Shortstop Gene Michael bunted, sacrificing Clarke to second. A fly ball to first base and a 6-3 groundout ended their effort.

In the bottom of the first, Boston’s Mike Andrews swung at the first pitch he saw and doubled high off the wall in left, “missing [a home run] by two feet.”4 He moved to third on a one-out grounder by Carl Yastrzemski, whose two homers in the previous night’s game gave him 39 for the season. Reggie Smith walked, but Rico Petrocelli – like Yastrzemski, sitting on 39 home runs – grounded out, short to first. Andrews, like Clarke in the top of the inning, was stranded.

Yankees right fielder Frank Fernandez drew a one-out walk in the second but was caught trying to steal second. Boston got two on with a leadoff single by rookie right fielder Billy Conigliaro and a one-out walk by catcher Tom Satriano, but Brett grounded into a 4-6-3 double play.5

Neither pitcher allowed a baserunner in the third.

The Yankees came close to scoring in the fourth. Bobby Murcer walked and Joe Pepitone and Fernandez singled, but Murcer was thrown out at home plate on a fine throw from left fielder Joe Lahoud, one that had Murcer beat by 15 feet. Murcer came in hard and was tagged hard by Satriano. There was a bit of a fracas, but the combatants were restrained.

George Scott singled to lead off the Red Sox fifth, but one out later Brett – who had swatted a solo homer and then a two-run double off New York’s Mike Kekich 12 days earlier – hit into another inning-ending double play.6

Michael singled with one out in the New York sixth, but Roy White hit into a 6-4-3 double play.

The Red Sox got a man into scoring position in both the sixth and seventh, but neither runner scored.   

Brett set down the Yankees in order in the seventh. Only Klimkowski reached in the eighth, on Scott’s two-out error on a grounder to third, but he got no farther than first. Klimkowski then set down the Red Sox in order and the game went to the ninth still scoreless.

Murcer doubled with two outs in the top of the ninth, but Pepitone grounded to second baseman Andrews, with Brett taking the throw at first base. Billy Conigliaro reached on third baseman Len Boehmer’s two-out error in Boston’s ninth, but George Scott flied out to center.

There was a fair amount of activity in the 10th inning, though neither team scored. The Yankees’ Fernandez walked. After one out, Boehmer singled. Sonny Siebert relieved Klimkowski and induced two fly-ball outs.

Jack Aker was New York’s new pitcher in the bottom of the inning; a pinch-hitter for Klimkowski had hit the first of the fly outs. With two outs, Aker walked Mike Andrews. Lahoud singled to right, and Andrews went first to third. Yastrzemski was due up. Houk had Steve Hamilton take over from Aker. Yastrzemski hit a fly ball caught by shortstop Michael.

Siebert walked Murcer with two outs in the top of the 11th, but nothing came of it. In the bottom of the 11th, Lindy McDaniel became New York’s fourth pitcher of the game. With two outs, Billy Conigliaro tripled to left-center, but he was left at third when George Scott grounded to second.

In the 12th, rookie catcher Thurman Munson hit a one-out single but tried to get the first stolen base of his career and was thrown out.7 Boehmer’s fly ball to left ended the inning. Stan Bahnsen came in from the Yankees bullpen, got Satriano to ground out and struck out Siebert and Andrews.

Siebert retired the Yankees in order in the top of the 13th, two by strikeout. After one out in the bottom of the inning, Yastrzemski doubled to left. Reggie Smith was walked intentionally to set up a possible double play and get the right-handed Bahnsen matched against righties Petrocelli and Conigliaro. Two infield popups followed. The game went to the 14th inning.

It was three up, three down for New York in the 14th – two groundouts sandwiched around a strikeout.

George Scott led off the bottom of the 14th with an infield single, which the New York Times described as “a hit to deep shortstop that Gene Michael reached with a backhand stab. His throw, however, was too late to catch Scott at first.”8

Satriano successfully sacrificed with a bunt to Bahnsen. Dalton Jones pinch-hit for Siebert. Bahnsen was careful and walked him on four pitches.

Mike Andrews finally brought the game to an end, swinging at the first pitch, which he described as a “hanging curve ball.”9 He connected for a two-base hit to left, down the line. It struck about 10 feet up on Fenway Park’s left-field wall. Scott easily scored the winning run.

Siebert had given up just one hit and walked one in 4⅔ innings of relief. He got the win and hadn’t given up a run in eight consecutive appearances, spanning 16 innings.  

The 26-year-old Andrews was in his third full year with the Red Sox. Selected as an All-Star, he had the best season of his eight-year career for batting average, finishing with a .293 mark. He drove in 59 runs.   

The Red Sox won the next day too, 4-3, completing a four-game sweep of the Yankees.

The Yankees ended up with a losing record (80-81), 28½ games behind Baltimore. The last time the Yankees had finished that many games behind was in 1925. The Red Sox hadn’t done that much better; they finished third (87-75), 22 games behind the Orioles. In October some New York fans exulted as the New York Mets beat the Orioles in the 1969 World Series.

Acknowledgments

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

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/BOS196909240.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1969/B09240BOS1969.htm

Notes

1 Thanks to Carl Riechers for researching the statistics regarding scoreless Red Sox and Yankees games played in Boston. The New York team shut out the Bostons 64 times. None were extra-inning games. The scores ranged from 1-0 to 11-0, but the author of this article prefers not to dwell on that.

2 Ken Brett was the older brother of future Hall of Famer George Brett.

3 Klimkowski had begun his professional baseball career with the Red Sox and played in their minor-league system from 1964 until an August 1967 trade sent him to the Yankees.

4 Clif Keane, “Andrews’ Hit Tops Yankees in 14th, 1-0,” Boston Globe, September 25, 1969: 57. 

5 Billy Conigliaro was playing in lieu of his older brother, Tony Conigliaro, out with elbow soreness after being hit by a pitch the night before.

6 The Red Sox won that September 12 game, 4-3. That win was Brett’s first in the major leagues.

7 Over the course of his career, Munson did steal base 48 times.

8 Thomas Rogers, “Red Sox Defeat Yankees in 14th,” New York Times, September 25, 1969: 59.  

9 Geroge Bankert, “Andrews Stars Beginning to End,” Quincy (Massachusetts) Patriot Ledger, September 25, 1969: 25. Had his drive to left in the first inning gone out, and nothing else been different, the game would have been over in nine innings.