|
1953 BOSTON RED SOX
...
There was a lot of news in the winter before the start of the 1953 season. Ted Williams arrived in Korea for combat duty on February 4th. On February 10th, Vern Stephens was traded to the Chicago White Sox for pitchers Hal Brown, Marv Grissom and Bill Kennedy. But the big news happened when the Boston Braves decided to move to Milwaukee. Braves owner Lou Perini saw the writing on the wall. He estimated that staying in Boston would cost him $1 million per year. These were the days before television contracts. Boston could not support two teams at the gate, and his was not the better of the two. Over the winter Perini developed a secret plan to move the team, an act that had been unheard of in baseball. But with airplane travel replacing days on the road via the railroad, it was now possible to move a team away from the east coast. On March 18th, after receiving unanimous league approval, Perini took the Braves and left forever to Milwaukee. There the Braves had their AAA affiliate, Milwaukee Brewers, also owned by Perini and a brand new stadium waiting for them, totally financed by taxpayer dollars. Boston now belonged to the Red Sox. A part of the Red Sox inheritance, with the departure of the Braves, was the "Jimmy Fund" the team's primary charity, that funded cancer treatment for children. But with less pressure to win now, manager Lou Boudreau still decided to play his kids. Young players like Ted Lepcio, Milt Bolling, Dick Gernert, Gene Stephens and Tom Umphlett were all important to the Sox plans for 1953. Paced by Ellis Kinder's 27 saves and 1.85 ERA, the Sox pitching was surprisingly strong. Mickey McDermott won 18 games and Mel Parnell was 21-8. Billy Goodman batted .313, Dick Gernert had 21 HRs and George Kell led the offense with 73 RBIs and a .307 BA. Sammy White matured into a fine big-league catcher and Jimmy Piersall came back strong. But the rest of the young players were only average at the plate and ultimately held the team back.
Milt Bolling was the star of the Sox opener in Philadelphia on April 16th. He went 4-for-5 and George Kell did likewise as the Sox pummeled the A's for 19 hits and an 11 to 6 victory. In the Fenway opener on April 20th, Dick Gernert hit three home runs in a doubleheader sweep of the Washington Senators. On April 25th, against the A's at Fenway, Kell was instrumental in a 4-3 comeback win. His key two-run double gave the Sox the tying and winning runs in the fifth inning. It was his eight straight game, hitting safely. On April 22nd, Clyde Vollmer was sold to the Washington Senators. And a veteran like Dom DiMaggio, who was suffering from eye problems, found himself without a job and retired on May 12th.
The Sox won six straight on the road as April turned into May and were 2 1/2 games behind as they returned home to face the Yankees. The Sox beat the Yanks, 2 to 1, on Billy Goodman's walk-off homer in the first game on May 8th, but the Sox lost the next two games. Jimmy Piersall's 11th inning two-out single drove home Ted Lepcio with the run that gave the Red Sox a 5-4 triumph over the Indians on May 14th. A couple of balks helped make possible the Sox third straight win over Cleveland. The Indians actually balked themselves out of the game. On May 16th, Mickey McDermott struck out 10 Indian batters and held them to two soft singles in winning 1-0. Then on May 22nd, the Red Sox swept a tight doubleheader from the Athletics by identical scores of 3 to 2, winning both games with strong finishes. George Kell brought in two of the three runs in the opener and his eighth inning single scored Jimmy Piersall with the game winner. In the second game, the Sox tied it up at 2-2 in the ninth inning. Then in the 12th inning, Evers opened with a walk and Kell drew another walk, Sammy White ended it with a slashing double to left center, as Evers flashed across the plate with the winning run. The Sox took to the road and started by losing 2-of-3 to the Yankees. But on May 25th, in a marathon game that took a record 3 hours and 52 minutes to play, the Sox and Yankees battled in the longest nine inning game ever played in the majors. Thirty two players were put on the field, 19 by the Yankees and 13 by the Sox. Ten different pitchers were used, who gave up a total of 33 hits. The Sox won, 14-10 and pitcher Mickey McDermott banged out four straight hits, drove in two runs and scored three times. The Sox finished the month of May by losing 4 of the 5 games they played against Washington. They were a .500 team at 21-21, and eight games behind the Yankees in 5th place.
The Sox moved into Detroit and then St. Louis where they feasted on the two lower tier teams, winning 7-of-8. In the first game of a doubleheader on June 10th, Jimmy Piersall, who had been the only Sox player to play in every game, set a team record by going 6-for-6 in six at bats, in the first game of a doubleheader against the Browns. He flied out in his first at bat of the nite cap. But the Sox lost 3-of-4 in Chicago and returned home 13 1/2 games out of first place. The Red Sox continued to be a slugging-and-slump team. On the road trip they went through 22 innings without scoring a run, then against the Tigers at Fenway, they scored 40 runs and knocked out 47 hits in two games. That included a 17 run inning on June 18th. Billy Goodman (.354 BA) was leading the American League batting race with seven straight hits in the Detroit series. Then against the Browns on June 19th, he got three hits in four times up, to extend a 15-game hitting streak. In 17 times at bat, he had reached safely 15 times. On June 30th, Sammy White parked a low outside pitch high into the left field screen, giving the Red Sox a come-from-behind 5 to 4 victory over the Yankees.
The homestand that ended June and started July produced only a .500 record. The Sox were 12 1/2 games behind the Yankees on July 4th.
After a brief 4-1 road trip, the Sox returned to Fenway and beat the Athletics with a walk-off base-on-balls on July 10th. Jimmy Piersall's 9th inning homer had tied the game and Piersall took four straight balls, with the bases loaded, to bring home Dick Gernert with the winning run, in the 12th inning and a 3-2 victory. Billy Goodman was named the starting secondbaseman for the American League All Stars. Sammy White and George Kell were also named as All Stars, with manager Lou Boudreau added to Casey Stengel's coaching staff. At the All Star break, Kell led the American League batting race with a .3293 BA. Percentage points behind him was Goodman with a .3292 BA. Gernert's 17 HRs was five behind Al Rosen, in the A.L. home run derby.
In Korea, Captain Ted Williams had seen the right wing of his Panther jet smashed by anti-aircraft flak while flying a mission over Chinnampo on the west coast of North Korea. It was the second time his jet had been struck. Then in February, he was struck again and had to make a dead stick landing. After flying thirty nine missions, crash-landing once, and taking on anti-aircraft fire, Williams was mustered out of the service in July. In Cincinnati, as Ted watched from the American League bench, the National League All Stars beat their American League counterparts, 5 to 1. Ted then began to work out and get into-shape for his return to the Red Sox. He would be released from the service on August 1st. After the break, the Sox swept the Tigers in three games at Detroit. On July 18th, they scored five times on home runs by Hoot Evers and Sammy White, in the ninth inning, to win the game, 5 to 3. On July 23rd in Chicago, Evers went on a batting spree, hitting two doubles and a homer. Jimmy Piersall, who was quickly becoming one of the top defensive outfielders in the majors, made another spectacular catch and hit a clutch triple that gave the Red Sox a 4-2 victory. The win was the 10th for Hal Brown. Mickey McDermott picked up his 10th win the next day in a doubleheader sweep of the Browns. McDermott and Bill Henry each pitched shutouts, while George Kell increased his league-leading batting average to .325. The Sox concluded their 10-2 road trip and were in third place, 7 1/2 games behind, when they returned to Fenway.
But at home the Sox lost seven straight games and fell back to 13 games out, when Ted Williams returned to the Red Sox on August 6th as a pinch hitter. At thirty-four many wondered what he had left in the tank. In his first start on August 16th, Ted slashed a double and a homer against Washington. On August 19th, Ted homered again in Philly for the game-winner. In Washington, on August 21st, he had four consecutive hits, one a game-tying homer and another a game-winning single. The next day he drove in two runs for another win. He had personally accounted for the last three Sox wins. His batting average was .484 in 25 at bats, with 11 RBIs, and five homers since his return.
In the final game of August in Cleveland, Ted slammed the game-winning homer to give Mickey McDermott his 15th win. Ted chalked up a .407 BA in 91 at-bats, with 13 HRs and 34 RBIs for the rest of the season. Since the All Star game, one of the brightest spots in the Sox lineup was Jimmy Piersall. Piersall had batted .345 since then and had been giving one of the greatest exhibitions of defensive outfielding since Harry Hooper. On September 19th, he started his seventh doubleplay of the season from rightfield and went on to win the team's MVP award. In spite of the strong second half of the season by Ted Williams and the strong season by Piersall, the Sox were only able to play .500 ball and finished in fourth place, 16 games behind the Yankees.
|
