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With Joe DiMaggio (left) there to greet him, Ted Williams crosses the plate after hitting a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the American League a 7-5 victory in the 1941 All-Star Game in Detroit on July 8.
By Phil Ellenbecker
Much has been made of what a glorious year 1941 was for baseball, with Joe Dimaggio's record hitting streak, Ted Williams being the last to hit .400, the long-daffy Dodgers finally winning a pennant -- all this coming on the cusp of the U.S. plunging into World War II with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The best of times before the worst of times, so to speak, and pardon my Dickens.
And much has been made of what a glorious showcase and centerpiece for the Splendor of 1941 that year's All-Star Game was for Williams, age 22 and in his third year in the big leagues. A three-run homer by "The Splendid Splinter" in the bottom of the ninth inning brought a dramatic climax to a 7-5 victory for the American League at Detroit's Briggs Stadium on Tuesday, July 8. But what I intend to do here is take a look at events that set the stage for Teddy Ballgame's blast. First of all, before Williams came to the fore, the game already had a ready-made hero in Arky Vaughan, whose back-to-back two-run homers had given the NL a 5-3 lead coming into the ninth. He had become the first player in the All-Star Game's nine-year history to homer twice in a game, and those two homers were a third of the total he had for the Pittsburgh Pirates during the regular season. A somewhat overlooked Hall of Famer, Vaughan was ranked the second-best shortstop of all time behind prohibitive favorite Honus Wagner in Bill James' "Historical Baseball Abstract." He wasn't voted into the Hall until 1985, by Veterans Committee vote, yet he ranked second behind Wagner in lifetime batting average among shortstops, won one batting title and three times led the league in on-base percentage, walks and triples. He was selected to nine straight All-Star Games and hit .364 in the Midsummer Classic.
And when you stand up side-by-side the batting lines of Vaughan and Williams on July 8, 1941, you could make as equal or better a case for MVP with Vaughan, who went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and four RBIs and his two homers, over Williams, 2-for-4 with a run and four RBIs and his game-ender.
Beyond the stolen thunder from Vaughan, another thing that sticks out to me in the prelude to Ted's Big Bang was questionable managing by NL manager Bill McKechnie, a Hall of Famer, in that fateful last half-inning.
First up for the Nationals was Claude Passeau, who'd come on to pitch in the seventh and threw a 1-2-3 inning, then allowed a run in the eighth. McKechnie had given his first three pitchers two innings apiece, but decided to give Passeau a chance at three and allowed him to bat. Passeau was not a bad hitter, with a .221 average and three homers in 1941, .192 lifetime with 15 homers. And McKechnie was down to four position players on the bench, and one, Hank Leiber, was inactive from June 24 to Aug. 6 so no doubt unavailable. Besides that he hit only .216 that year and one has to question why he was on the squad.
But also available was Dolph Camilli, who was the NL MVP that year with 34 homers and 120 RBIs. You might suggest his numbers weren't that great at the All-Star break. No, he was second in homers with 16 and in RBIs with 54.
And what had McKechnie done previously when his pitchers came up? He pinch hit for his starter, Whit Wyatt, his first time up. (Wyatt hit. 239 with three homers that year.) Paul Derringer's turn didn't come around before he gave way to Bucky Walters, a former position player and more than capable batsman (lifetime .242 BA), who doubled and scored in his first at-bat and then was pinch hit for. Passeau was the next pitcher, and his initial plate appearance was the top of the ninth.
Passeau flew out to right, bringing up Chicago Cubs teammate Stan Hack. So after passing up a pinch-hitting opportunity for Passeau, McKechnie sends up Cookie Lavagetto, a Brooklyn Dodgers teammate of Camilli who hit .277 that year, to hit for Hack. Lavagetto grounded out to first, and Terry Moore popped out foul to the first baseman to retire the side. Moore finished 0-for-5 and was the only player besides Pete Reiser to play the whole game for the NL.
McKechnie's substitution of Lavagetto makes sense because Lavagetto was a third baseman like Hack, while Camilli played first. But why not let Hack, who'd singled and walked in four previous trips to the plate and was a .371 hitter that year while leading the league in hits, bat for himself, for a fifth time as he did Moore?
(Speaking of Lavagetto and Camilli, curiously Dodgers manager Leo Durocher had Lavagetto, who drove in 78 runs with one homer in 1941, batting ahead of Camilli throughout the year -- third through fifth for Cookie and fifth and sixth for Dolph, in random checks.)
(And speaking of five times to the plate, would-be All-Star MVP Vaughan wouldn't have gotten that opportunity because Eddie Miller was sent in for him at short to begin the bottom of the ninth).
Second-guessing aside, the NL still had a 5-3 lead and if Passeau could hold the Americans at bay, the senior circuit could win its second straight and close its All-Star deficit to 5-4. And it appeared headed that way when Frankie Hayes popped out to second leading off.
But Ken Keltner, batting for pitcher Al Smith in the No. 9 spot, set the winning rally in motion by bouncing a grounder off Miller at shortstop for an infield single. Joe Gordon followed with a single to right. A walk to Cecil Travis loaded the bases.
The AL pulled within 5-4 when Keltner scored on DiMaggio's fielder's choice that retired Travis at second. Facing an 0-2 count, DiMagio sent a grounder to Miller at short, who went to Billy Herman, whose throw pulled first baseman Frank McCormick off the bag in the attempt to complete an inning-ending double play
Enter Williams. After fouling off the first pitch from Passeau and looking at two wide ones, he sent a chest-high fastball onto the facing of the right-field roof at Briggs. Here comes Gordon, here comes DiMaggio, here comes Ted, there's your ballgame. Bring on the jubilation.
"Ted Williams bounded down the first-base line at Briggs Stadium like the kid he was," wrote Marc Lancaster in his account of the game for the Society of American Baseball Research's Games Project. "He clapped his hands twice as he neared the bag, then bounded over it with a joyful skip as he made his way around the bases."
The thrill was never gone for Ted.
“I’ve never been so happy and I’ve never seen so many happy guys,” Williams would write decades later in his autobiography. “… I had hit what remains to this day the most thrilling hit of my life.”
A mob of AL teammates was waiting at the plate to bring Ted home, including starting pitcher Bob Feller, who sprang from the clubhouse to join the celebration. Remember, this was when the All-Star Game really, really meant something to the players involved. Detroit Free Press columnist put it in perspective:
“That one pitch destroyed forever the theory accepted in some quarters that there is no spirit in this All-Star game … that there is nothing at stake," he wrote. “No college football team ever showed more enthusiasm than the American Leaguers when Williams came trotting through the lengthening shadows toward home plate.”
Meanwhile, the Nationals were "plunged into gloom," according to the Free Press, after the ninth-inning gut punch. "Ted, you're just not human," McKechnie said, according to the 1958 issue of Baseball Heroes magazine.
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| Claude Passeau, shown with Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean in the Chicago Cubs dugout in 1939, surrendered a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning by Ted Williams that gave the American League a 7-5 win over Passeau and the Nationals in the 1941 All-Star Game. | ||
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| National League manager Bill McKechnie played a rather pat hand in the ninth inning as the American League rallied from a 5-3 deficit to win the 1941 All-Star Game, 7-5. |
The other choice, Lon Warneke, would have been a more-than adequate replacement for Passeau. The "Arkansas Hummingbird" went 17-9 with a 3.15 ERA that season, while Passeau was 14-14, 3.35 and was making his first All-Star appearance in his sixth full year in the big leagues. Warneke had appeared in three All-Star Games.
More second-guessing: With runners at first and third and two out in the bottom of the ninth, McKechnie could have chosen to intentionally walk lefty-swinging Williams and force a right-on-right matchup between Passeau and Dom DiMaggio. The Cincinnati Reds skipper talked it over with catcher Harry Danning and his infielders. The decision was made to pitch to Williams.
Ted, determined to made amends for whiffing looking the inning before against Passeau, made the NL pay.“I said: ‘Listen, you lug. He outguessed you last time and you got caught with your bat on your shoulder for a called third strike,' " Williams said. " 'You were swinging late when you fouled one off, too. Let’s swing and swing a little earlier this time and see if we can connect.’”
Ted, determined to made amends for whiffing looking the inning before against Passeau, made the NL pay.“I said: ‘Listen, you lug. He outguessed you last time and you got caught with your bat on your shoulder for a called third strike,' " Williams said. " 'You were swinging late when you fouled one off, too. Let’s swing and swing a little earlier this time and see if we can connect.’”
That he did.
Sources:
For play-by-play information: https://www.
Before then, back and forth
Prior to the ninth-inning drama, the 54,674 at Briggs had witnessed a seesaw game with increasing suspense.
After the first 4 1/2 innings had gone the minimum 21 batters (two double plays and a pickoff moving things along), Williams gave an indication of things to come by doubling in Travis with two out in the bottom of the fourth off Derringer, after Travis had doubled with one out.
The NL squared matters in the sixth when Moore's fly out out to left off Thornton Lee scored Walters, who'd led off the inning with his double. (Moore wasn't credited with a sacrifice fly since 1941 was one of 36 of the 65 seasons before 1954 when the sacrifice fly rule wasn't in effect. Thus Moore's 0-for-5 in the box score that day.)
The Americans went back ahead in their half of the sixth when a single by pinch hitter Lou Boudreau plated DiMaggio, following walks to DiMaggio and Jeff Heath around a fly out by Williams.
Vaughan put the Nationals in command with his two-run blows, both to the upper deck in right, in the seventh and eighth. Enos Slaughter was aboard in the seventh after he'd greeted new pitcher Sid Hudson with a single and moved to second when Williams in left fumbled the hit. Vaughn followed with a homer for a 3-2 AL lead. After Johnny Mize doubled off Eddie Smith (the game's winning pitcher) with one out in the eighth, Vaughan went deep again, giving the NL a 5-2 lead.
It was the Brothers DiMaggio putting the AL within 5-3 in its half of the eighth. Dom DiMaggio singled to center off Passeau, driving in Joe, who'd doubled before Williams struck out looking for the second out of the inning.
(Dom, who patrolled center field alongside Williams in Boston for 10 years, had yielded to Joe in center and was playing right field as an All-Star after entering the game in the top of the seventh.)
Williams' punch-out prompted some lengthy jawing between the sharp-eyed slugger, known for getting the benefit of the doubt from the umpires, and home-plate arbiter Babe Pinelli.
Boudreau followed Dom DiMaggio with his second single of the night and advanced to two bases away from tying the game when Reiser made his second error of the game in center.
(Reiser, whose kamikaze, wall-crashing, outfielding style contributed to a tragically short nine-year career, was amazing in his first full season of 1941, leading the NL in WAR, hitting, slugging, on-base percentage, on-base plus slugging, total bases, runs, doubles and triples. He was second behind teammate Camilli in the MVP voting.)
(Speaking of making a splash in 1941, Stan Musial broke in with the St. Louis Cardinals on Sept. 17 of that campaign after tearing up the Class C Western Association in Springfield with a .379 average at the beginning the season and then the Double-A International League in Rochester, hitting at a .326 clip. He found himself in St. Louis in the middle of a pennant race that came up short and hit .426 in 12 games. As we said at the start, 1941 was quite the year.)
Getting back to June 8 of '41, Passeau got out of the eighth by fanning Jimmie Foxx, one of nine Hall of Famers on the AL squad. But the roof caved in on Claude the following frame, raining Ted Williams. Maybe Passeau shouldn't have been in there.
But maybe it doesn't make a difference. Maybe it was destined to be for Teddy Ballgame. After all, 1941 was Willams' year (among many), and he was a star among stars in the All-Star Game -- the career leader in RBIs, second in homers and third in runs scored, hits and total bases in the Midsummer Classic.
He was never better than in 1946 at home in Fenway Park, when he went 4-for-4 with two homers, four runs scored and five RBIs in leading the AL to a 12-0 shellacking. He rose to the occasion, as he did in '41, as did Arky Vaughan. But who remembers Arky Vaughan? Wrote Gayle Talbot of the Associated Press, he wound up “just another unfortunate who almost hit the jackpot.”
After the first 4 1/2 innings had gone the minimum 21 batters (two double plays and a pickoff moving things along), Williams gave an indication of things to come by doubling in Travis with two out in the bottom of the fourth off Derringer, after Travis had doubled with one out.
The NL squared matters in the sixth when Moore's fly out out to left off Thornton Lee scored Walters, who'd led off the inning with his double. (Moore wasn't credited with a sacrifice fly since 1941 was one of 36 of the 65 seasons before 1954 when the sacrifice fly rule wasn't in effect. Thus Moore's 0-for-5 in the box score that day.)
The Americans went back ahead in their half of the sixth when a single by pinch hitter Lou Boudreau plated DiMaggio, following walks to DiMaggio and Jeff Heath around a fly out by Williams.
Vaughan put the Nationals in command with his two-run blows, both to the upper deck in right, in the seventh and eighth. Enos Slaughter was aboard in the seventh after he'd greeted new pitcher Sid Hudson with a single and moved to second when Williams in left fumbled the hit. Vaughn followed with a homer for a 3-2 AL lead. After Johnny Mize doubled off Eddie Smith (the game's winning pitcher) with one out in the eighth, Vaughan went deep again, giving the NL a 5-2 lead.
It was the Brothers DiMaggio putting the AL within 5-3 in its half of the eighth. Dom DiMaggio singled to center off Passeau, driving in Joe, who'd doubled before Williams struck out looking for the second out of the inning.
(Dom, who patrolled center field alongside Williams in Boston for 10 years, had yielded to Joe in center and was playing right field as an All-Star after entering the game in the top of the seventh.)
Williams' punch-out prompted some lengthy jawing between the sharp-eyed slugger, known for getting the benefit of the doubt from the umpires, and home-plate arbiter Babe Pinelli.
Boudreau followed Dom DiMaggio with his second single of the night and advanced to two bases away from tying the game when Reiser made his second error of the game in center.
(Reiser, whose kamikaze, wall-crashing, outfielding style contributed to a tragically short nine-year career, was amazing in his first full season of 1941, leading the NL in WAR, hitting, slugging, on-base percentage, on-base plus slugging, total bases, runs, doubles and triples. He was second behind teammate Camilli in the MVP voting.)
(Speaking of making a splash in 1941, Stan Musial broke in with the St. Louis Cardinals on Sept. 17 of that campaign after tearing up the Class C Western Association in Springfield with a .379 average at the beginning the season and then the Double-A International League in Rochester, hitting at a .326 clip. He found himself in St. Louis in the middle of a pennant race that came up short and hit .426 in 12 games. As we said at the start, 1941 was quite the year.)
Getting back to June 8 of '41, Passeau got out of the eighth by fanning Jimmie Foxx, one of nine Hall of Famers on the AL squad. But the roof caved in on Claude the following frame, raining Ted Williams. Maybe Passeau shouldn't have been in there.
But maybe it doesn't make a difference. Maybe it was destined to be for Teddy Ballgame. After all, 1941 was Willams' year (among many), and he was a star among stars in the All-Star Game -- the career leader in RBIs, second in homers and third in runs scored, hits and total bases in the Midsummer Classic.
He was never better than in 1946 at home in Fenway Park, when he went 4-for-4 with two homers, four runs scored and five RBIs in leading the AL to a 12-0 shellacking. He rose to the occasion, as he did in '41, as did Arky Vaughan. But who remembers Arky Vaughan? Wrote Gayle Talbot of the Associated Press, he wound up “just another unfortunate who almost hit the jackpot.”
Sources:
For play-by-play information: https://www.
For Arky Vaughan information:
https://sabr.org/bioproj/
For history of sacrifice fly info:
http://research.sabr.org/
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.
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