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THE CURSE OF
THE BAMBINO, PT 5
"THE
BEGINNING OF GOING NOWHERE" ...
Ted Williams hits his 400th
homer
July 17, 1956
... Ted Williams banged out number 400, to leave him
314 homers behind "The Babe". The Sox took a doubleheader from the
Athletics, 10-0 and 1-0.
Ted's homer came against Kansas City righthander Tom Gorman on his
first pitch in the bottom of the sixth inning of the second game. It
was a belt-high fastball that Ted hit on a line into the 14th row of
the right field bleachers.
Ted became the fifth player to hit 400 homers. Ahead of him are Babe
Ruth (714), Jimmy Foxx (534), Mel Ott (511) and Lou Gehrig (494).
In the double victory there was plenty of room to congratulate Tom
Brewer for his magnificent pitching. By shutting out the A's on four
hits in the first game, Brewer ran his string of consecutive
scoreless innings over Kansas City, to 38.
In the second game, Bob Porterfield continued the shutout
performance. He held Kansas City to seven hits in winning his third
game of the season. He had a shaky start when the A's loaded the
bases on two singles and a walk with one out. But he bailed himself
out by erasing the next two batters on pop-ups.
He then got into trouble in the eighth inning when with two outs and
two men on, Dick Gernert made a spectacular catch of a low line drive
and turned it into an inning-ending doubleplay.
The first game was totally one-sided. While Brewer was toying with
the Athletics, Art Ditmar was struggling to get the Sox batters out.
Manager Lou Boudreau kept him in to take the beating. Of the 16 Red
Sox hits, Ditmar gave up 15 of them. He was charged with all ten Red
Sox runs.
Half of the Sox hits were for extra bases, with two homers, a triple
and five doubles. Don Buddin knocked out two doubles and a homer.
While the Sox were having batting practice, Brewer had the A's in
check. Only twice in the game did they have two runners on base at
the same time.
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TED SPITS
AT THE CROWD |
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