1951 – The Giants score with two outs in the 9th inning to edge the Braves’ Chet Nichols, 4 – 3. Eddie Stanky drives home the winner with a single off 3B Sibby Sisti’s glove. Dave Koslo wins in relief.
66,924 fans are on hand for Johnny Mize Day at Yankee Stadium, as the Yankees top the fading Red Sox, 9 – 5, to go 4 games up on Boston and 2 1/2 ahead of Detroit. Phil Rizzuto contributes a single, double, and home run, while Yogi Berra adds 4 hits, including a triple. Joe DiMaggio’s hit streak reaches 15. New York will win 5 of their next 7, while the Tigers will manage to go 4-3.
P Erv Palica of the Dodgers is the star today, pitching a two-hitter in an 11 – 0 win over Philadelphia, and hitting a 5th-inning grand slam off Bubba Church of the Phils. The win cuts the Phillies’ lead to five games. The Phils will win two out of three in Boston to put the Braves out of the race.
Mental lapses crush Tiger hopes. Due to heavy smoke from a Canadian forest fire, Detroit puts on the lights in a Sunday afternoon contest with the Indians. Cleveland’s only score in nine innings is pitcher Bob Lemon’s home run in the 4th, as the match is tied 1 – 1 on Johnny Lipon’s homer. Lemon opens the 10th with a triple, and two intentional walks follow. With the bases loaded and one out, C Aaron Robinson thinks he has a shot at a double play by just stepping on home. Because of the haze, he does not see 1B Don Kolloway remove the force after fielding the ball hit by slugger Luke Easter, and the Indians win, 2 – 1.
Bob Elliott hits three successive home runs for Boston, as the Braves down the Giants, 6 – 4.
Ellis Kinder (15-1 at Fenway Park) pitches a six-hitter, and Ted Williams lines his 42nd homer to beat the Yankees, 2 – 0, and pull the Red Sox one game behind the Yankees.
The Red Sox loss to the Yankees, along with Detroit’s defeat of the Indians, results in a three-way tie for first place with Boston, Cleveland, and New York finishing the day with identical records of 91-56 with only seven games to play. A one-game playoff, between the Tribe and BoSox, will be needed to crown Cleveland as the American League champs.
1946 – Disappointing on the field, the Yankees nevertheless finish their home season with a 2,309,029 attendance. The best previous draw was the 1929 Cubs at 1,485,166. Total major league attendance was 18.5 million, 80 percent more than 1945.
1943 – A crowd of 314, the smallest in Wrigley Field history, see Andy Pafko make his Cubs debut. Pafko drives in 4 runs with a double and a single in 3 at bats, as the Cubs top the Phillies, 7 – 4, in a five-inning downpour.
In the final game of his twentieth and last full season, Ted Lyons beats the Indians, going the distance in the White Sox’ 3-1 victory at Cleveland’s League Park. The 41 year-old ‘Sunday Teddy,’ although exempt from the draft due to his age enlists in the U.S. Marine Corps after the season and fights in the Pacific during WW II, completes all of his twenty games, all started on Sundays, posting a 14-6 record along with an ERA of 2.10.
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