September 7, 1970: Fergie Jenkins belts home run and goes the distance for Cubs

In their first visit to newly opened Three Rivers Stadium, the Chicago Cubs trounced the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-2, in the second game of a Labor Day 1970 doubleheader to secure the split. Leading a quartet of stars was Fergie Jenkins, who spanked a home run and held the Pirates to five hits for his major-league-most 20th complete game.1 Ron Santo belted two home runs, Billy Williams blasted one, and Glenn Beckert collected the 1,000th hit of his career.

For the second consecutive season, Leo Durocher and the Cubs were battling for the National League East Division crown and the North Siders’ first postseason berth since 1945. The Cubs had collapsed in 1969, blowing what had been a nine-game lead on August 16 by losing eight straight games in early September, but the ’70 squad was making an unlikely comeback. After spending two months in first place, the Cubs dropped 12 in a row heading into July. Entering the three-game set with first-place Pittsburgh, (74-64), however, Chicago (72-66) had won six of eight and moved into second place.

Skipper Danny Murtaugh’s Pirates had maintained sole possession of first place since August 2 but had not recently played like a first-place club. They concluded August by losing 13 of 19 games before taking four of five from the lowly Montreal Expos and the Philadelphia Phillies to push their lead over the Cubs to two games. The reigning World Series champion New York Mets were just 2½ games off the lead and possessed the NL’s stingiest pitching staff, making for an exciting three-team race. “[O]ur annual once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-forgotten pennant battle is here on schedule,” quipped Leonard Koppett in the New York Times.2  

On a sunny Monday with temperatures in the low 70s and rising, 42,556 spectators packed Three Rivers Stadium.3 Less than two months earlier, on July 16, the Bucs had inaugurated the new all-purpose arena, which replaced the venerable yet decaying Forbes Field, their home ballpark since mid-1909. The final series at Forbes Field, in late June, had been the Cubs’ most recent appearance in Pittsburgh.

In the doubleheader’s opener, which began promptly at 10:30 A.M., the Pirates bashed their way to an 8-3 victory. Of note was Roberto Clemente’s absence from the day’s lineups. The Pirates had been without Clemente ever since he developed a muscle spasm in his back against the Phillies the previous Friday evening. His teammates picked up the slack. Richie Hebner smacked two home runs and a double, Bob Robertson chipped in with a homer and a two-bagger, while Bob Moose went the distance. “They made me mad,” remarked the Cubs’ Billy Williams, who went 0-for-4. “That first loss angered us up. We had to go out and do something.”4

Toeing the rubber in the second game was the Cubs’ ace, Fergie Jenkins. The 6-foot-5, 27-year-old Canadian right-hander – and former Harlem Globetrotter – was 18-14 and en route to his fourth of seven seasons with at least 20 victories. “I’m pitching better than I did this time a year ago and better than I did earlier in the season,” he told a newsman.5 His late-season struggles in ’69 (2-4 with a 5.27 ERA in his late six starts) mirrored the Cubs’ collapse in the NL East race; and after 11 starts in ’70, he was a dismal 3-7 (5.01 ERA). But now his name was splattered on the NL leaderboard: tied for second in complete games (19), third in innings pitched (260 1/3) and strikeouts (230), and fourth in wins. Jenkins, however, had lost his last five starts against the Pirates, including all three thus far in ’70.

Taking the mound for Pittsburgh was 34-year-old southpaw Bob Veale. Once considered among the hardest throwers in baseball, the 6-foot-6 former NL strikeout king still cut an intimidating presence on the mound. He had a 109-90 career record, including 9-14 with a 4.03 ERA thus far in 1970, his final of seven straight seasons with at least 200 innings pitched.

The Pirates claimed an early lead against Jenkins. “I couldn’t get my breaking stuff over the plate,” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.6 Two-out doubles by Al Oliver and Willie Stargell put the Pirates up 1-0 in the first inning. Jenkins soon found his groove and retired the next 10 batters in order.

Veale, “whose fast ball was smoking in the early innings,” started the game cleanly, facing just one batter over the minimum through the first three innings.7 “My shoulder began to pain me,’ he said afterward. “It bothered me when I warmed up, but I thought the pain would go away the more I pitched. It got worse instead.”8

In the fourth, Williams and Jim Hickman knocked consecutive base hits to put runners at the corners with one out. Santo, nursing a .053 batting average in September, drove in Williams with a sacrifice fly to center fielder Matty Alou, to tie the game.

Manny Sanguillén ended Jenkins’ perfect streak with a leadoff double in the bottom of the fifth. Veale helped his own cause by driving in Sanguillén with a two-out base hit to left for Pittsburgh’s second and final run of the game. Other than Dave Cash’s two-out single in the seventh, Jenkins retired the 13 remaining home batters without trouble.

Entering the game with the most runs scored in the majors (713), the heavy-hitting Cubs finally cooked Veale and his aching left wing. Billy Williams, just four days removed from ending his NL-record streak of 1,117 straight games played, belted his 37th homer of the year to even the score, 2-2, with two outs in the sixth inning. Santo broke the tie in the seventh with a leadoff home run.9 Two batters later, Joe Pepitone, who had homered in the opener, doubled and scored on Randy Hundley’s two-bagger, effectively ending Veale’s afternoon.

Behind 4-2, Murtaugh called on rookie righty John Lamb. With two outs and two on, Pittsburgh native Beckert lashed a single to left for the 1,000th hit of his career. Hundley attempted to score from second, but Stargell relayed the ball to catcher Sanguillén for the third out at home.10

In the eighth, Santo further extended the Cubs’ lead, to 5-2, with his second consecutive homer and 23rd of the season, this time to deep left field.11 He became the first visiting player with a multihomer game at Three Rivers Stadium.12  

Making his major-league debut for the Pirates in the ninth was the right-handed Panama native Ed Acosta. With one out and Pepitone on first, Jenkins launched his third home run of the year into deep left field. “The ball really flies out of this park,” he said later.13 “I thought it was a pop up. Even if the wind was blowing out in Wrigley Field it wouldn’t have carried that one out.”

The Cubs’ Don Kessinger singled to center and made it to third when Alou failed to retrieve the ball. Murtaugh swapped in righty Bruce Dal Canton, but to no avail – Beckert singled to drive in Kessinger, and made his way home on Williams’s double. It took a third pitcher, veteran southpaw Joe Gibbon, get the Pirates out of the inning.

Jenkins retired the final three Pittsburgh batters of the day with ease for his 19th win of the season. With 22 games left, he was just one win from his fourth consecutive 20-win, 20-complete-game season. Since 1920, five NL-AL hurlers had accomplished the feat: Urban Shocker (1920-23), Lefty Grove (1930-33), Dizzy Dean (1933-36), Carl Hubbell (1933-36), and Red Ruffing (1936-39). Robin Roberts stretched the milestone over six seasons (1950-55).14

Beckert’s milestone day saw his career hit total land at 1,001. Yet only 34 of them had come while batting in his native city. “I just can’t seem to hit in Pittsburgh,” he lamented.15 “I don’t think I’m nervous, or anything, just because I’m at home. … Maybe I’ll hit in this park where I didn’t in Forbes Field. It’s really a beautiful stadium.”16

The doubleheader split did little to change the landscape of the NL East race, described by the Associated Press as “a prize catch nobody seemed willing, or able, to make.”17 The Pirates maintained sole possession of first place and their two-game lead over the Cubs. The Mets moved into second place, a game and a half back, after sweeping the Expos in their own doubleheader at Shea Stadium.

In the series finale on Tuesday, the Cubs again walloped the Pirates, 10-3, to stay in third place, a game behind Pittsburgh and a half-game behind New York. “The Cubs haven’t caught anybody yet. But they’re confident,” noted a Pittsburgh sportswriter.18 “The scar of last year’s fold-up seems to have disappeared.”

In the final weeks, however, the Cubs either split or lost all but one of their remaining series and finished 84-78, eight wins below their 1969 mark. The Pirates, on the other hand, won 10 of their last 14 games, including six of seven against the Mets, and clinched the division on September 27. On the final day of the season, the Cubs officially claimed second place over the Mets.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Troy Olszewski and copy-edited by Len Levin.

The September 8, 1970, edition of the Chicago Sun-Times is courtesy of Richard Smiley of Chicago’s Emil Rothe chapter of SABR.

Photo credit: Fergie Jenkins, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the authors consulted the SABR.org, Baseball-Reference.com, and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent material and the box scores noted below.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT197009072.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1970/B09072PIT1970.htm

Notes

1 Jenkins tied Bob Gibson for the major-league lead with 20 complete games.

2 Leonard Koppett, “Hit and Myth,” New York Times, September 6, 1970: 114.

3 “The Weather,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. September 8, 1970: 12.

4 Jerome Holtzman, “2 Santo Homers Give Cubs Split,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 8, 1970: 96.

5 George Langford, “Cubs, Pirates Divide; Rematch Today,” Chicago Tribune, September 8, 1970: 1.

6 Jimmy Jordan, “Jenkins Was Worried,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 8, 1970: 16.

7 Jordan.

8 Jordan.

9 Following a three-hit game in San Deigo on August 28, Santo went 1-for-24 before hitting his seventh-inning home run on Monday. His singular hit was a two-run home run in the seventh inning of a 13-inning Cubs loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on September 1.

10 Stargell led the National League in assists by a left fielder in 1966 (9), 1967 (13), and 1968 (11). In 1970, he led the league again with 15 LF and 16 total OF assists.

11 Through the end of the season, Santo hit .375 in 18 games with three home runs, 10 RBIs, and 13 walks.

12 Two Pirates had multihomer games previously at Three Rivers Stadium: José Pagán on August 15 and Hebner in Game One of the Labor Day doubleheader. The next time a visiting player accomplished the feat was July 7, 1971, when Lee May of the Cincinnati Reds homered against the Bucs in the sixth and ninth innings.

13 Langford, 5.

14 Jenkins’ streak reached six seasons in his 1972 campaign. He earned his seventh and final 20-win, 20-CG season with the Texas Rangers in 1974. Only two other pitchers in the Live-Ball Era have seven or more 20-win, 20-CG seasons, Warren Spahn (11) and Bob Lemon (7).

15 Jordan, 18.

16 In his career, Beckert, who attended Pittsburgh’s Perry High School and the University of Pittsburgh, hit .250 at Three Rivers Stadium and .221 at Forbes Field. He drove in just two runs at Three Rivers Stadium, including his RBI single in the ninth inning of this game, and drove in nine at Forbes Field. He never homered in Pittsburgh.

17 Associated Press, “Murtaugh’s Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” Lebanon (Pennsylvania) Daily News, September 28, 1970: 19.

18 Charley Feeney, “Sizzling Cubs Sink Bucs, 10-3,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 9, 1970: 23.