1951 BOSTON RED SOX ...

 

After the 1950 season, with the most powerful offense in baseball belonging to the Red Sox, the front office knew that their lack of dependable pitching needed to be addressed.

In the off-season General Manager Joe Cronin overpaid for Red Sox nemesis, Ray Scarborough. He would win only 12 games, while Mel Parnell had another good year, with 18 victories. Ellis Kinder (11-2, 2.55 ERA) transformed himself into an All Star relief pitcher after being a so-so starter, racking up 14 saves and 10 wins in relief, to lead the league.

The Sox also grabbed player-manager Lou Boudreau, when he became available from the Cleveland Indians.

But Sox catcher, Birdie Tebbetts (.310 BA) was not happy and after numerous jabs at certain members of the Sox pitching staff, he was let go. The Sox then overpaid $100K to the Browns to get Les Moss (.198 BA) and two others. Moss and Buddy Rosar (.229 BA) took over the catching duties in 1951.

Billy Goodman’s bat cooled off and he batted only .297, a far cry from his league leading .354 BA in 1950. Ted Williams, available for the whole season, had a good year, batting .318 with 30 home runs and 126 RBIs.

Manager Steve O'Neill took a lot of heat, but unforeseen injuries to Bobby Doerr and Vern Stephens would hurt the Sox. Walt Dropo slumped and was benched early in the season and then sent to the minors.

An aging starting lineup and a host of inexperienced young pitchers would end up being the Sox story of 1951.

The Sox and got off to a slow start, losing their first three games. But then won three straight, with Ted smacking three homers at Fenway.

On April 26th the Yankees paid their first visit to Fenway Park and were beaten in a 13-7 slugfest. Billy Goodman had four hits to lead the Sox. The next day the Sox beat the Yankees again, 4 to 3, led by Mel Parnell. Lou Boudreau drove in, what proved to be, the winning run, with two hits.

In Philadelphia, Boudreau had two more hits, including a homer, as the Sox beat the A's, 4-2 on April 28th. The next day the Sox scored four times in the 13th inning to send the A's to another defeat, this time by a score of 12-8. The Sox finished April, winning seven of their last eight games.

At the start of the month, the Sox went on the road and played .500 ball. On May 6th, Ted Williams (.229 BA) was the hero in the first game of a doubleheader in St. Louis. His 10th inning homer led the Sox to a 5-4 win in the first game, in spite of the Sox stranding 19 runners. Lou Boudreau enjoyed a 13 game consecutive hit streak.

Willard Nixon was the star in the next game, shutting out the Browns, 2-0, and hitting a homer that gave him the win.

The Sox ended their road trip by taking 2-of-3 in Washington and returned home having won 7 of the 13 games. On May 13th, Williams slammed his sixth home run of the season and the Sox beat the Senators, 10-1.

It being the team's 50th anniversary, the Red Sox honored the 1901 team on May 15th. While Cy Young and other members of the team watched, Ted Williams blasted his 300th career home run.

In late May they won ten in a row (12 of 13) to get back into the race.

At Fenway, against the Indians, on May 19th, Dom DiMaggio had a big day against Bob Feller. Dom (.312 BA) slammed a homer and three singles to pace the Sox in a 9-4 victory.

Two days later on May 21st, Ted Williams broke out of a slump. Ted lined a double off the left field wall in a seven-run seventh inning, to go along with a single and a home run, as the Sox beat the Tigers, 9 to 7.

On May 23rd, Mel Parnell shut out the Browns, giving up only four hits, 12 to 0. Parnell also had a big day with the bat, knocking out four hits himself. Vern Stephens had 10 assists to tie an A.L. fielding record. And Williams was one short of a record, being walked five times.

Against the Senators, the Sox pounded out 19 hits on May 25th. Ted had two doubles and a home run into the Sox bullpen. Dom DiMaggio's double and two singles led the Sox over Washington in the next game, as the Sox won, 11-1.

On May 28th, playing the Yankees, Bobby Doerr's homer helped Parnell beat New York, 3-2. In a Memorial Day doubleheader, on May 30th, the Sox swept the Yankees. In the first game Vern Stephens' walk-off homer in the 15th inning gave the Sox an 11-10 victory. In the second game, Stephens delivered the key blow, a two-run single in the seventh inning that put the Sox ahead, 6 to 4.

Dom DiMaggio extended a hitting streak to 27 games with a two-run single that gave the Red Sox a 5 to 3 in Chicago on June 7th. It broke a five game losing streak for the Red Sox. But Dom's streak ended in Cleveland the next day, when Bob Feller shut down the Sox. Dom got 46 hits in 124 times up for .343 BA during the streak.

Stephens continued his hot spring at Fenway on June 16th against the Browns. He slugged two home runs that accounted for five runs in the 10-5 Sox win. Ted Williams was the hitting star the next days as the Sox swept a doubleheader from St. Louis. His single sent across the deciding run in the opener, 5-4, and his 13th homer reached the left field net to settle the nitecap, 3-0. Mel Parnell pitched his second consecutive shutout in the second game.

In a 9 to 2 victory over the Indians on June 19th, Ted slammed another homer and added two singles, good for four runs to pace the Sox to a 9 to 2 win.

On June 23rd, Billy Goodman's hot bat and slick fielding tied up the game for the Red Sox against Chicago. Then Stephens lined a double off the wall in the 11th inning to score Ted with the walk-off run, 8 to 7.

Walt Dropo slumped all spring and manager Steve O’Neill eventually had to bench him in favor of Billy Goodman. On June 25th, he was optioned to the minors in San Diego.

On June 27th, the Sox beat the A's and Ted collected a couple of hits. His batting average was up to .341, some 51 points above his average in the 15 games at the start of the homestand. The Sox headed to New York, just three games out of first, after being 6 1/2 games behind at the homestand's start.

After winning 5-of-8 on a road trip to start the month of July, the Sox returned to Fenway to square off against the Yankees. They were only two games out of first place.

Clyde Vollmer then got red hot. He smacked out 13 homers, and every one seemed to be a game winner. Vollmer led the Sox in clutch performance after clutch performance.

On July 6th, Vollmer and Dom DiMaggio helped Parnell win his 10th game. DiMaggio's two-run homer and Vollmer's two-run triple sewed up a 6 to 2 win. In the second game, which the Sox won, 10 to 4, on July 7th, Vollmer climaxed a six-run first inning with a grandslam homer. The Sox swept the Yankees with a 6-3 victory. Down 3-0, Lou Boudreau homered with Ted Williams on base. Then Vollmer put the Sox ahead to stay with another two-run homer. The Sox were only one game out of first place as the All Star Break came about.

DiMaggio and Williams were starters for the American League All Stars in Detroit and each got a hit. Parnell pitched an inning and gave up one run on three hits, including a homer to Ralph Kiner. The N.L. Stars won the game, 8 to 3 on four home runs.

The Sox climbed into first place after the All Star Game, when they swept a doubleheader in Chicago on July 12th. The second game took 17 innings for the Red Sox to pull out, 5 to 4, on a sac fly by Vollmer. It gave the Sox the win, the A.L. lead and Ellis Kinder 16 straight wins over the White Sox.

The Red Sox lost the next game but beat the White Sox in the finale on July 14th, 3 to 2. Again it was Vollmer who delivered the deciding blow in the ninth inning, a two run single that scored Billy Goodman and Bobby Doerr.

On July 15th, the Sox split a doubleheader with the Browns in St. Louis. Goodman led the assault with five straight hits. The Sox had won 10 of their last 12 games. But Chicago lost two to the Athletics, giving the Red Sox a two game advantage in the American League. It would be their high water mark.

In Cleveland on July 18th, Vollmer again put the Sox on his back, putting them on the scoreboard. The home run proved to be the game winner in a 4-3 Sox win. The next day the Sox lost in spite of two homers by Vollmer, the second of which gave the Sox the lead in the 11th inning. Unfortunately that lead didn't hold up in the bottom half of the 11th. But it was 16 straight games that Vollmer had gotten a hit in. His streak was halted when the Sox lost in Detroit the next day.

The next game Vollmer started a new hitting streak. He steered the Sox to a 6-3 win in Detroit with three hits, knocking in their first four runs with a homer and a double. The Sox returned to Fenway tied for first place with both the Yankees and Indians.

On the road trip, Ted Williams made just six hits, but in the first game at Fenway on July 24th, he snapped hit slump with four hits, one of which was a homer into the left field nets. Ted's average at Fenway was .470 for the season.

On July 26th, the Red Sox beat the White Sox, 13 to 10. Clyde Vollmer hit three home runs (17 HRs) in four times at bat. Each time his home run broke an existing tie game. He had hit 12 home runs in just over three weeks.

Vollmer, who had batted in 50 runs with 50 hits, on July 28th, slammed a grandslam off Bob Feller. It was in the 16th inning and gave the Sox and 8 to 4 verdict over the Indians. Vollmer had just singled home Billy Goodman in the 15th inning to tie up the game at 3-3. This was the 13th game Vollmer had won for the Sox in the just the month of July. Vollmer had now hit 18 homers this season. This was his 13th homer of the month and the 12th that was a game winner.

As August started, Vollmer and the Sox came back to earth. As their bats fell silent, they lost 3-of-4 to the Tigers and 2-of-3 to the Athletics. At the end of their homestand they fell to 3rd place, five games behind the Yankees. On August 6th, Lou Boudreau broke his wrist while Bobby Doerr suffering from a bad back, was in and out of the lineup. A week later Vern Stephens pulled a tendon in his leg.

The Sox batters were not producing, leaving way too many men on base. Against the Browns on August 21st, they left eight men on and the next night, 22 men were left on base. That was within two of the MLB record in that category. Dropo (.236 BA) was back from the minors but still slumped badly.

The Sox started September, five games behind the Yankees, who had just picked up Johnny Sain from the Boston Braves. As the Yankees won two of every three games they played, the Sox fell to third place, losing nine games in a row at the end of the season and finished 11 games behind New York.

On September 22nd, Bobby Doerr, plagued with a painful spinal condition, announced his retirement.