1973 – Montreal’s Mike Marshall walks home the tying run in the bottom of the ninth before Tom Walker balks home Cesar Cedeno for a 4-3 Astros win. Bob Watson’s two solo homers plated the other two Houston runs.
Don Zimmer, who replaced the recently fired Preston Gomez, gets the first of his of 885 victories as a big league manager when the Padres blank the Phillies at San Diego Stadium, 4-0. The victory is very unlikely as Steve Arlin, who will lead the league in losses with 21, bests Steve Carlton, this season’s eventual Cy Young Award winner, who will be tops in the majors with 27 victories.
1966 – A dropped third strike keys a 5-4 win over the Braves. Phil Niekro has Rusty Staub out on strikes but he is safe at first after Gene Oliver lets the pitch roll away in the ninth inning. John Bateman eventually singles Staub home with the game-winner. Lee Maye and Jim Gentile also homer for Houston.
On April 29, 1965, colorful New York Mets broadcaster Lindsey Nelson delivers the play-by-play of a game at the Astrodome from a hanging gondola, which is located 208 feet above the second base bag. Nelson, known for his loud sportcoats, will win the Hall of Fame’s prestigious Ford C. Frick Award in 1988…
4/29/1963: In a game at Comiskey Park, Chicago centerfielder Jim Landis led off the first inning with a homer to left. It came off Yankee Bill Stafford and was the only hit in the one and a half innings played before the game was rained out.
1962 – Roman Mejias belts a ninth-inning homer off Don McMahon to beat Milwaukee, 3-2. Hal Smith and Jim Pendleton also launch solo homers in the victory. Dick Farrell takes the win in relief.
Frank Thomas of the New York Mets ties a major league mark by being hit by pitch twice in one inning. Art Mahaffey and Frank Sullivan plunk Thomas in the seven-run 4th inning at the Polo Grounds in the Philadelphia Phillies’ 8 – 0 defeat.
Granted, Roberto Clemente and Howie Goss — the latter, a career minor leaguer cum Pirate reserve outfielder — are not likely to be linked terribly often in the years, decades and centuries to come. On this day, however, it is the benching of the former — having arrived late for today’s twin bill vs. Los Angeles — by an irate Danny Murtaugh (the first major flareup in what will remain a largely unreported but nearly decade-long rift between the two) that affords the latter, in his 10th year of professional baseball, his first big league start. Making the most of his “15 minutes”, Goss goes 3 for 5, his 7th-inning, two-run homer erasing a one-run deficit and sparking Pittsburgh’s 6 – 1 win. In the nightcap, Dick Stuart’s 400-foot solo blast provides all the support needed by rookie Al McBean, who notches his first career complete game and shutout, completing the sweep and propelling Pittsburgh past the first-place Cardinals.
Russ Snyder accomplishes the rare feat of getting two hits in one inning as a pinch hitter in the Orioles’ 8-3 victory at Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium. Leading off the top of the seventh, the Oriole outfielder, batting for Wes Stock, ties the score at 3-3 with a solo home run, and he will add a two-out RBI single before the frame is finished.
With shades of his 430-foot, May 6, 1955 birthday-crashing clout, Roberto Clemente once again triples over the head of his one-time mentor, Willie Mays, in the midst of a decisive, 7th-inning, three-run rally. Now, as then, Pittsburgh’s outburst fuels a 3 – 2 come-from-behind win over the Giants. Clemente initiates today’s uprising, reports UPI, “with a booming triple to centerfield.” Centerfield, in this case, would be that of Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, whereas the earlier contest took place in New York’s Polo Grounds. Both arenas, however, feature similarly ample centerfield real estate.
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