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“DIARY OF A WINNER”
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THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO, PART 6 ... April 23, 1967 ... The Yankees snuck out of town with a 7 to 5 victory, that came before 18,000 frigid patrons at frozen Fenway Park. Dick Williams along with Carl Yastrzemski was ejected from the game in the fifth inning for protesting some of umpire Red Flaherty's decisions. Williams was thrown out for the first time in his major league career for arguing over a pitch to Elston Howard in the top of the fifth inning. Yastrzemski came up to bat in the last half of the inning and when Flaherty called a questionable strike. They started swapping uncomplimentary lines at each other, and Flaherty won the battle of words by throwing Yaz out of the game. With Yastrzemski gone and Tony Conigliaro hurt, along with George Scott and Joe Foy being benched, Al Downing marching in from the Yankee bullpen and threw six shutout innings in relief, to preserve the win. Downing is the same pitcher who shut off the Red Sox over the last five innings of the 18 inning marathon at Yankee Stadium. However thru the first three innings it looked as though the Sox were going to not have anything to worry about. They built up a 5 to 1 lead against Jim Bouton and his reliever, Fritz Peterson. Sox starter, Darrell Brandon was throwing hard and seemed to have things under control. The Sox opened the game with three runs in the first inning. Dalton Jones got things going with a double and then Yaz slammed a home run over the net in deep left center. It was his 13th hit in 22 at-bats against the Yankees, and his second home run in two days. Tony Horton followed with a single and took second on a groundout by Rico Petrocelli. He scored the third run of the inning when George Thomas singled to center. The Yankees got a run back in their third inning when Mickey Mantle hit a broken bat single to center that scored Dick Howser from second base. In their half of the third inning, the Red Sox added two more runs to grab a 5 to 1 lead. With two outs and an infield hit by Petrocelli off Peterson, Thomas collected his second single before Russ Gibson bombed a long double to the corner of the bullpen, scoring both runners. Downing came on to pitch in the fourth and gave up just one hit over the last six innings, a two-out single to Don Demeter in the seventh. The Yankees came back in the fifth inning, when Brandon's wildness put him in trouble. With one out, he walked Tom Tresh and Mantle. Joe Pepitone singled and the bases were loaded for Steve Whitaker. Brandon then uncorked a wild pitch that scored Tresh and let the runners move up. Whitaker lofted a fly ball to center that scored Mantle and moved Pepitone over to third. When Brandon walked Charlie Smith, he was removed in favor of José Santiago. The first batter to face Santiago was Jake Gibbs and he singled up the middle to score Pepitone, making it 5 to 4. At that point Elston Howard was sent up to pinch-hit for shortstop John Kennedy. He slashed a line drive to right-field which Thomas tried to grab with a diving catch. But he came up short and the ball bounced off his chest, allowing both runners to score and the Yankees had a 6 to 5 lead. It stayed that way into the ninth-inning when the Yankees scored again off Galen Cisco with one out. Whitaker singled to right and took second when Thomas bobbled the ball. He moved to third on an infield hit by Smith and came home on a sacrifice fly by Gibbs. The way Downing was throwing, the Sox were out of luck. |
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