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THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO, PART 6 ...
"THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM"
The Angels stop the Sox winning streak
July
25, 1967 ... The two hottest teams in baseball
met at Fenway Park and the Anaheim team won, 6 to 4. The Angels had
won six straight and the Red Sox had won ten, going into the game. In
only one of their ten straight wins, had the Red Sox been behind and
had to come back. The Angels wrapped up the game in the first three
innings against rookie Gary Waslewski. Bad karma was on the Red Sox when they
made their first error in 68 innings in the first inning when the Angels scored
three times off Waslewski. They scored six runs after four innings so the Red
Sox had to play catch-up.
In the first inning, Don Mincher lined a drive down the right-field line and
Tony Conigliaro headed for the fence. He got hold of the ball in the webbing of
his glove and slammed into the barrier as the ball popped out. Conigliaro
managed to retrieve it, before falling to the ground as Woody Held, who had
singled, was able to score. Mincher made it to second base with a double and
scored when Jimmie Hall doubled to left field, as Yaz's leap couldn't quite
connect with the baseball, and another run came across. Rick Reichardt grounded
down to Mike Andrews, and his bad throw allowed Reichardt to get to second base
as Hall crossed with the third Angels run.
Bobby Knoop made a great diving stab off Carl Yastrzemski in the first
inning, after Andrews had doubled to left. Andrews eventually scored on a wild
pitch thrown by Angels starter, Ricky Clark, to score the Red Sox first run.
Then in the second, Knoop made a fine diving tag on Reggie Smith, who had
singled to left, and was being thrown out at second base, trying to stretch it.
Waslewski went out in the third inning when Mincher and Hall both connected
off him. With runners on second and third, José Santiago was brought in to face
Reichardt. Reichardt's checked swing single over the drawn in infield, scored
Mincher and Hall to give the Angels a 5 to 1 lead.
Andrews, Joe Foy and Yastrzemski hit consecutive singles in the bottom half
of the inning for a run, but the Angels picked up their sixth run in the next
inning on two walks and a single by Hall.
In the fifth inning the Red Sox got a run back off Bill Kelso, who had
relieved Clark in the fourth inning. A single by George Scott after a walk, and
then two straight walks to Adair and Smith forced in the third Boston run. When
Kelso walked José Tartabull in the sixth inning, he was replaced by Fred Newman.
Newman got Andrews and Foy to ground out and Yaz singled to right to score
Tartabull with the last Red Sox run.
Dick Williams had wanted to stay with the same line up he had been using in
the last 10 wins, but Mike Ryan showed up with a fever before the game and had
to be replaced by Russ Gibson. |
