September 5, 1948: Dodgers’ Preacher Roe goes the distance in dramatic 12-inning win over the Giants

“Preacher came to Dodgers in a trade that sent Dixie Walker, Hal Gregg and Vic Lombardi to Pirates after spending four seasons with Pirates – winning 34 and losing 47. Became a steady pitcher in 1948 for Dodgers and wound up season with 12 games won, 8 lost. Entered OB in 1938 as a Card – spent next five seasons on Card farm teams before going to Pirates.” – 1949 Bowman baseball card (No. 162)1

Look at the back of Preacher Roe’s baseball card to reveal a turning point in his career, the 1948 season. The December 1947 trade to the Brooklyn Dodgers reunited him with Branch Rickey, who had signed Roe to his first major-league contract with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1938.

But even Rickey didn’t know for certain what kind of a pitcher Roe could still be at age 32, two years after he suffered a near-fatal head injury while coaching a high school girls’ basketball team in February 1946.2 Roe had led the National League with 148 strikeouts in 1945, but he posted an ERA above 5.00 in each of the next two seasons in Pittsburgh.

Roe biographer David Jerome elaborated on the steps Rickey took before signing Roe to a contract for the 1948 season. Rickey sent Roe to the Mayo Clinic for intense therapy and dispatched his brother, Frank Rickey, to hunt and fish with Roe over the winter to observe his stamina.3 Roe later expressed his gratitude for Rickey’s faith in his future as a Dodger pitcher – “If you get right down to it, Branch Rickey was probably the best friend I had in professional baseball.”4 The 1948 season was his first opportunity to repay Rickey’s confidence.

The Dodgers were the defending National League champions, but an eight-game losing streak one month into the season, all at Ebbets Field, put them in last place. Roe broke the skid with a complete-game performance against the Cincinnati Reds on May 24 for his second win as a Dodger. By the All-Star break, however, the Dodgers’ 35-37 record put them in fifth place, 8½ games out of first. Change was about to strike in the dugout and on the front pages of the New York Times, the Brooklyn Eagle, and the New York Daily News.5

Rickey traded Leo Durocher’s managerial contract to the New York Giants on July 16. Mel Ott resigned as manager of the Giants, and Burt Shotton was back again in the dugout after leading the Dodgers to the NL flag in 1947.

By the time the Dodgers returned home for a four-game Labor Day weekend series against the Giants, they had climbed into second place, only a half-game behind the Boston Braves. Shotton called on Roe (8-7, 2.82 ERA) to start the Sunday series finale, which took on added importance after the Giants won the first three games. In the previous week, Roe had pitched two gems, a three-hit shutout at Crosley Field to beat the Cincinnati Reds and a four-hitter at Wrigley Field to shut out the Chicago Cubs. With a win, a Labor Day doubleheader in Boston against the Braves would put first place at stake.

Now in the other dugout at Ebbets Field, Durocher gave the Giants’ starting assignment to Monty Kennedy (2-4, 4.80 ERA). Kennedy’s last three starts were all complete games, two wins and a 12th-inning loss on a walk-off home run.6

The 35,750 fans, the season’s best gate at Ebbets Field, were in for a pitching duel. Over the first three innings, Roe only yielded a single to center by Sid Gordon in the first. Kennedy survived his own first-inning miscue. Jackie Robinson tripled with one out but held third when Kennedy erred on Pee Wee Reese’s back-to-the-mound grounder. A double-play grounder followed to end the inning. In the second inning, an infield error put Carl Furillo on first, but another double play erased him. Like Roe, Kennedy finished three innings having allowed just one hit.

Johnny Mize came to bat in the fourth inning with two outs. Mize had been the St. Louis Cardinals’ first baseman and a teammate when Roe made his major-league debut in 1938. Mize hit Roe’s first pitch over the wall and onto Bedford Avenue for his 33rd home run, the first run allowed by Roe in 23 innings.

While Roe struck out six consecutive Giants – Walker Cooper, Bobby Thomson, and Buddy Kerr in the fifth and Kennedy, Jack Lohrke, and Whitey Lockman in the sixth – Kennedy held the Giants’ one-run lead. Robinson’s second extra-base hit of the game, a two-out double to left, also went for naught in the sixth.

When Gordon popped out to Reese to open the seventh inning, Roe’s strikeout streak was broken.7 Roe’s other streak also came to an end in the inning when he walked Cooper with two outs, his first pass in 34 innings.8 The walk put a Giant in scoring position, but Thomson’s fly ball to center ended the inning.

In the eighth inning, the Giants attempted to use their version of small ball strategy against Roe to add to their one-run lead.9 Kerr’s first-pitch bunt single put him on first, but Kennedy’s bunt attempt to advance Kerr resulted in a popout to first baseman Gil Hodges. Kerr was thrown out trying to steal second against the arm of catcher Roy Campanella. Roe walked Lohrke, who also tried stealing second to no avail, Campy-to-Reese.10

In the Dodgers’ eighth, Kennedy walked pinch-hitter Pete Reiser to open the inning, but Roe struck out while attempting a sacrifice bunt. Billy Cox, Roe’s roommate and friend since their Pirates days, came to his rescue with a lined triple off the right field wall to tie the score at 1-1.

Both Kennedy and Roe staved off scoring threats in the ninth inning as the pitching duel continued. Mize was thrown out at second trying to stretch his two-out single off the right-field wall, Furillo-to-Reese. In their ninth, the Dodgers had Furillo, the potential winning run, on second with only one out, but Kennedy struck out Marv Rackley. Perhaps Shotton was thinking about his weary pitching staff when he decided to let Roe bat for himself with two outs.11 Roe hit a pop fly to Mize, and the game went to extra innings.

Later, Dick Young of the New York Daily News eloquently described the dramatic 12th-inning conclusion to the game – “The furious finish was another of those limitless evidences that you can’t tell what’s coming next in any game.”12 Lockman opened the inning with a single to right on Roe’s first pitch and moved to second on Gordon’s sacrifice. Mize left little to chance when he hit another towering shot over the right-field screen, his 34th home run, and the Giants had a 3-1 lead.13 The Dodgers had one more chance at avoiding a dreaded series sweep as a strategy battle was about to unfold, Durocher vs. Shotton.

When Kennedy walked Rackley on four pitches to open the 12th inning, his sterling, 132-pitch performance was at an end. Durocher called on Dave Koslo, who had closed out two of the Giants’ wins in this series.14 This time, Shotton did pinch-hit for Roe.15 It paid off when Tommy Brown singled to center and Cox loaded the bases with another single.

Undoubtedly, Shotton would have preferred to have Jackie Robinson bat in this situation, but that wasn’t an option. Robinson had been tossed by umpire Larry Goetz in the 10th inning after arguing about an inside-pitch third strike.16 When Robinson’s replacement, Eddie Miksis, hit a weak tapper to the left of the mound, Koslo’s backhand flip forced Rackley at home.17 But Reese walked on four straight balls, and the Giants’ lead was cut to 3-2.

Durocher brought right-handed Ray Poat in to pitch, and Shotton countered with left-handed batting Arky Vaughan, a future Hall of Famer (1985) with a career .318 batting average, playing his final big-league season at age 36. Advantage Durocher when Vaughan popped out to Lohrke for the second out.

But Shotton had one more move to make, lefty-swinging rookie George Shuba batting for Furillo. Shuba hit a 2-and-0 pitch off Poat just below the top of the screen in right-center, scoring both Cox and Miksis for an improbable Dodgers win, 4-3.18 Roe had a well-deserved ninth win of the season with an impressive pitching line – 11 strikeouts and two walks on 145 pitches.

Alas, the weary Dodgers, playing their fifth doubleheader in nine days, lost both games on Labor Day to the Braves.19 For the remainder of the season’s last month, they never got any closer to first place, finishing 7½ games behind the pennant-winning Braves.20

By many measures of pitching performance, Preacher Roe had met the test in 1948, with a 12-8 record and a career-best 2.63 ERA. He led the NL in fewest walks per nine innings pitched (1.672) and finished second in WHIP (1.064) to Cardinals southpaw Harry “The Cat” Brecheen (1.037). More recent statistical measures also show that Roe excelled in 1948. He finished in the league’s top 10 in many advanced statistical categories, including WAR (4.9) and Adjusted ERA+ (152).

Preacher Roe’s baseball career was now back on track. There would be more to come in Brooklyn for him during the next six seasons, including a win over the Yankees in Game Two of the 1949 World Series, a 22-win season in 1951, and another win over the Yankees in Game Three of the 1952 World Series.21 Years later, there was little doubt that Preacher Roe would have his own chapter in Roger Kahn’s acclaimed account of The Boys of Summer.22

Author’s note

Inexplicably, the Dodgers finished the 1948 season with a losing record at Ebbets Field, 36-41. During the 10-year period of 1947 through 1956, the Dodgers won six pennants and lost two others on the last day of the season, winning less than 45 games at home only this once.

The Dodgers won 49 games at home in 1951 and Roe’s 22-3 season record gave him MLB’s highest winning percentage (.880). On June 3, the author visited Ebbets Field for the first time. Oh, the sparkling white home uniforms of those Brooklyn Dodgers – Pee Wee, Duke, Skoonj, Gil, Newk, Oisk, Preacher, Campy, Jackie, and all the rest. Imagine, a playing field of luscious green grass meticulously framed by lines of white chalk. Thanks to Newk and Preacher, two of those 49 home wins came that day in a doubleheader sweep of the Cubs.23  

Acknowledgments

This essay was fact-checked by Harrison Golden and copy-edited by Keith Thursby.

Sources

The author accessed Baseball-Reference.com for box scores/play-by-play information (baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO194809050.shtml) and other data, as well as Retrosheet.org (retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1948/B09050BRO1948.htm). The Preacher Roe baseball card (1949 Bowman No. 162) is from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 The Dodgers also received Billy Cox and Gene Mauch from the Pittsburgh Pirates in the December 8, 1947 trade. (John Drebinger, “Dodgers Send Walker, Lombardi, Gregg to Pirates in Straight Player Deal,” New York Times, December 9, 1947: 41.)

2 David Jerome, Preacher Roe: The Life of a Professional Baseball Great from the Ozarks (Teal Publishing, 2026), 150-154. Roe had been assaulted by a referee while arguing a call. He fell backwards and lost consciousness after hitting his head on an iron object.

3 Jerome, 202.

4 Jerome, 201.

5 John Drebinger, “Durocher to Manage Giants; Ott Quits; Shotton to Dodgers,” New York Times, July 17, 1948: 1. “Dodger Fans Divided on Durocher Shift,” Brooklyn Eagle, July 17, 1948: 1. “It Can Happen Here,” New York Daily News, July 17, 1948: 1. The New York Daily News also headlined its back cover, “Lippy Succeeds Ott; Shotton Flock Mgr.”

6 On August 22, Kennedy’s five innings of shutout baseball led the Giants to a rain-shortened 3-0 victory over the Phillies, his first win of the season. On August 28, Stan Musial’s 33rd home run in the 12th inning walked Kennedy off the mound with a 5-4 loss to the Cardinals. On September 1, Kennedy allowed only one unearned run in a 3-1 win over the Pirates.

7 Roscoe McGowen, “Pinch Hit Decides for Brooks, 4 to 3,” New York Times, September 6, 1948: 8. The modern-day record of seven at the time was held by Hooks Wiltse (1906), Dazzy Vance (1924), and Van Lingle Mungo (1936). As of the 2026 season, the record of 10 consecutive strikeouts in a game was first set by Tom Seaver and matched by others (Thomas J. Brown Jr, “April 22, 1970: Mets’ Tom Seaver strikes out 19 Padres batters,” SABR Baseball Games Project).

8 Harold C. Burr, “Young Dodgers Reel Under Rugged Pace, The Sporting News, September 15, 1948: 6.

9 Paul Dickson describes the term “small ball” as a synonym of “little ball,” which he defines as “a style of offensive play that relies less on home runs than on execution of basic fundamentals such as sacrifice hits, squeeze bunts …” (Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 508, 795.)

10 Campanella led all NL catchers in caught stealing percentage (66.7%) in 1948 for the first of five consecutive seasons. Campanella has the highest career caught-stealing percentage of any catcher in NL/AL history, 57.4 percent.

11 In the previous four games in three days, all losses, Dodger pitchers threw 20⅓ innings in relief.

12 Dick Young, “Dodgers Get 3 in 12th to Stem Giants, 4-3,” New York Daily News, September 6, 1948: 16.

13 Mize and the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Ralph Kiner ended the 1948 season as AL/NL co-leaders with 40 home runs.

14 Saves were not officially recognized as a statistic until 1969, but Koslo was retroactively credited with saves in both of those games.

15 Preacher Roe’s batting line for the 1948 season, 5-for-51, .098 BA, did not appear on the back of his baseball card. Roe sported a career .110 BA.

16 McGowen.

17 Young.

18 Young.

19 Robert Goodof, “September 6, 1948: Braves break out as Spahn wins 14-inning Labor Day duel,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

20 The New York Giants finished the 1948 season in fifth place in the National League, six games behind the third-place Dodgers.

21 Steven C. Weiner, “ October 6, 1949: Preacher Roe shuts out Yankees in Game 2 to even World Series,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Steven C. Weiner, “September 14, 1951: Dodgers’ Preacher Roe beats former teammates for 20th victory,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

22 Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 290-309.

23 Steven C. Weiner, “June 3, 1951: Don Newcombe strikes out 12 Cubs in Sunday opener at Ebbets Field,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Steven C. Weiner, “June 3, 1951: Preacher Roe, Gene Hermanski lead Dodgers to sweep of Cubs,” SABR Baseball Games Project.