September 27, 1952: Eddie Mathews becomes first NL rookie to hit 3 home runs in a game

The Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves were two teams headed in opposite directions. Brooklyn, with 96 wins and the National League pennant already clinched, had a World Series date with the New York Yankees. On Saturday, September 27, 1952, Dodgers manager Charlie Dressen gave the ball to pitcher Joe Black as a final regular-season tune-up.1 Locked in seventh place and the owners of 63 wins, the Braves were a woeful team aspiring to snap a 10-game losing streak. Their lone attraction was a powerful rookie third baseman, Edwin Lee Mathews.2

Boston’s last taste of victory had come at the Chicago Cubs’ expense in the first game of a twin bill on September 14. Johnny Klippstein, the Cubs pitcher, was one out away from sending the scoreless affair into extra innings. After three fruitless at-bats, 20-year-old Eddie Mathews provided ninth-inning heroics and deposited his 22nd career home run into Braves Field’s deep left-field seats to win the game, 1-0.

“I was a little surprised when I saw the right fielder backing up for the ball,” Mathews said after the game. “I felt sure it was gone when I hit it, and then when I saw [Frank] Baumholtz moving back I was a little worried.”3

In the 10 games since the Braves’ last win, Mathews batted .250, managing a mere 10 hits during his last 40 at-bats with no runs batted in. With the season winding down, he hoped to provide a spark that would end the season-high losing streak when he stepped to plate against the Dodgers with one out in the top of the first inning.

Before Mathews’ first at-bat, Braves center fielder Sam Jethroe opened the game with a single to right field. Johnny Logan followed by flying out to center field. Mathews eyed Black and took practice swings as fewer than 5,000 fans watched from the Ebbets Field stands. With the count 2-and-2, Jethroe broke for second. Catcher Roy Campanella gunned the ball to shortstop Pee Wee Reese who successfully applied the tag.

Mathews stepped back in the batter’s box with the bases wiped clean, two outs, and the count full. Black coaxed the young lefty into chasing strike three, fanning for his 115th time in the season.4

Before the start of the season, Braves players and coaching staff heaped praise upon Mathews. The California native, considered one of the best hitting prospects in the game, accelerated through Boston’s minor-league system.5 Dixie Walker, Mathews’ manager with the Double-A Atlanta Crackers, did not hesitate to compare the youth’s hitting prowess with that of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.6

“He hits the longest balls I’ve ever seen,” said Jack Daniels, Boston’s right fielder. “The funny part of it is that he makes everything look so easy. A twist of the wrists and the ball is out of the park.”7

“The biggest factor is he doesn’t scare,” said Tommy Holmes, the former manager of the Braves. Holmes, who was fired early in 1952, added, “He has hitting guts, I wish I had 10 percent of him.”8 This would prove true in Mathews’ next trip to the plate.

Duke Snider’s first-inning home run gave the pennant winners an earlier 1-0 lead, but Boston answered in the top of the third. Following Daniels’ leadoff walk, second baseman Jack Dittmer belted a two-run blast, giving the Braves a 2-1 edge. With two outs and Virgil Jester on second base, Mathews stepped in to face Black for the second time. He worked the count full, then connected with Black’s fast curve and sent the ball on a line over Ebbets Field’s 30-foot-high fence for a two-run home run. On one bounce, the ball hit a filling station across the street from the ballpark.9 With his 23rd homer of the year, Mathews extended the Braves’ lead to 4-1.

The round-tripper meant Mathews had homered in all eight National League ballparks during his rookie campaign.10 He launched the first of his career against the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park on April 19. By June 6 he had accomplished the feat at New York’s Polo Grounds (April 23), Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field (April 30), St. Louis’s Sportsman’s Park (May 4), Boston’s Braves Field (May 10), Cincinnati’s Crosley Field (June 1), and Chicago’s Wrigley Field (June 6). Only Ebbets Field had eluded him until this game.

In the top of the fifth, Black surrendered a single to Jethroe that plated Dittmer and gave the Braves a 5-2 lead. In the bottom of the inning, Dressen pulled his hurler, who was slated to lead off the bottom of the frame, for a pinch-hitter. Black, who had not worked much down the stretch, realized he was not as sharp as he wished.11 Brooklyn failed to capitalize and sent Ben Wade to the mound in the sixth.

Leading off the inning, Eddie Mathews swung and missed at Wade’s first offering. With his twist of the wrists, he hit the second pitch, a belt-high fastball, over the scoreboard near the 340-foot mark. The rookie sensation extended the Braves’ lead to 6-2 and logged his first career multi-homer game.

“If I had to compare him with someone from the past I’d say Charlie Gehringer,” said Doc Gautreau, former Braves infielder and team scout, earlier in the season. “Only, this kid has much more power than Gehringer ever did.”12

Boston added another run in the top of the seventh inning. Wade surrendered a leadoff walk to Daniels. Daniels went to second when Dittmer reached on an error by second baseman Jackie Robinson. Pitcher Jester advanced the runners on a sacrifice. Jethroe’s fly ball to center field drove Daniels home to give the Braves a 7-2 advantage.

As he did in the sixth, Mathews again led off in the eighth. Wade, still on the mound, got Mathews to unsuccessfully chase his first offering. He took the second for a ball. Mathews connected on the third pitch and sent another home run over the right-field fence.13 Then the Braves scored three more runs, two of them unearned because of an error by third baseman Bobby Morgan.

Not only did Mathews tie Sid Gordon for the team lead in home runs with 25, he became the first rookie in National League history to hit three home runs in a game. Mickey Cochrane accomplished the feat as an American League rookie on May 21, 1925. Cochrane, a member of the Philadelphia Athletics, clubbed three solo home runs in a 20-4 rout of the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman’s Park.14 Cleveland Indians rookie first baseman Hal Trosky clubbed three home runs against the Chicago White Sox in the second game of a doubleheader at Cleveland’s League Park on May 30, 1934.15 Jim Tabor, the Boston Red Sox rookie third baseman, matched the feat against the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park in the second game of a doubleheader on July 4, 1939.16

When Mathews stepped to the plate in the top of the ninth, the fans wondered if he had a fourth home run in his bat. Brooklyn’s new pitcher, Billy Loes, missed the strike zone with his first three pitches. The lefty swung at the fourth pitch and hit a grounder to shortstop Reese, who scooped it up and fired the ball to Gil Hodges at first base.

Mathews (3-for-5, 4 RBIs) powered the Braves to their 11-3 victory. Both managers as well as Mathews’ teammates were in awe of his performance.

“It’s his wrists and his hips that do it. He’s learning to lay off that high ball,” said Braves manager Charlie Grimm. “He takes a real swing – no double-hitch – and if he’s fooled, he goes through with his swing. With his terrific wrist power, and his speed down the line, he’s going to be harder and harder to stop. He has improved so much defensively that – with the exception of Billy Cox – he’s the best third baseman in the league right now.”17

“That kid’s going to be tough for everyone next year,” said Dressen. “Now that he’s learned to lay off the high inside pitch, we’ll have to rewrite the book on him.”18

“He might become one the greatest,” said Walker Cooper, the Braves catcher and team captain. “That would be when he learns how they’re trying to pitch him – and what. He’s not even a good hitter right now.”19

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, and SABR.org.

NOTES

1 Dave Anderson, “Mathews Slams Three Homers in Boston Win,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 28, 1952: 18.

2 Harold Kaese, The Boston Braves: 1871-1953 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1954), 282.

3 Bob Holbrook. “Home Run Into Wind Provokes Admiration,” Boston Globe, September 15, 1952: 8.

4 Al Hirshberg, The Eddie Mathews Story (New York: Julian Messner, Inc., 1961), 84.

5 David Fleitz, “Eddie Mathews,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ebd5a210.

6 Bob Holbrook, “Braves’ Mathews Classed with Ruth, Ted by Walker,” Boston Globe, February 2, 1952: 4.

7 Bob Holbrook, “Daniels Says He’ll Produce for Holmes,” Boston Globe, January 23, 1952: 10.

8 Roger Birtwell, “Tribe Shells Black, Beats Dodgers, 11-3,” Boston Globe, September 28, 1952: 63.

9 Birtwell.

10 Birtwell.

11 Dick Young, “Mathews Hits 3, Dodgers Bow, 11-3,” New York Daily News, September 28, 1952: 74.

12 Birtwell.

13 Birtwell.

14 “Rookie Hits 3 Homers,” San Francisco Examiner, September 28, 1952: 41.

15 Edward Burns, “White Sox Beat Indians, 8-7, in 12th; Lose, 5-4,” Chicago Tribune, May 31, 1934: 19.

16 Gerry Moore, “Tabor Equals Two Home Run Records,” Boston Globe, July 5, 1939: 7.

17 Birtwell.

18 Hirshberg, 85.

19 Birtwell.