Fans examining the box scores on the morning of August 6, 1975 can be
forgiven for assuming that Chicago Cubs' Bill Bonham's pitching line
contained a typographical error. It showed that Bonham had given up seven
hits (for 15 total bases) and seven runs in his start against Philadelphia
at Veterans Stadium the night before, although under the innings-pitched
column there was a zero. Unfortunately for Bonham and the Cubs it was no
mistake; he did indeed face just seven Phillies batters who did produce
seven hits and score seven runs.
The 26-year-old right-hander took the mound to face the Phillies in the
bottom of the first after Phils starter Dick Ruthven had retired Chicago in
the top of the inning. Bonham had lost 22 games in 1974 tying the all-time
Cub record for losses in a single season. However, he entered the game
against Philadelphia as the team's leading winner with a 10-7 record; a very
respectable mark for a club that was 51-60 and 14 1/2 games behind the
division-leading Pittsburgh Pirates.
Second baseman Dave Cash, whose 213 hits would lead the National League in
1975, led off against Bonham with a single to center. Shortstop Larry Bowa
followed with a single to right sending Cash to third, and both rode home on
center fielder Garry Maddox's home run over the left field fence. It was the
third of the season for Maddox who had come over to the Phillies for first
baseman Willie Montanez in a May 4 trade with the San Francisco Giants.
Down 3-0 after facing just three batters, Bonham then yielded a single to
center to clean-up hitter Greg Luzinski, the National League leader in both
home runs (27) and runs-batted-in (90). Back-to-back doubles by Jay Johnstone, which moved Luzinski to third, and Tommy Hutton increased
Philadelphia's burgeoning lead to 5-0. Chicago manager Jim Marshall and his
pitching coach, Marv Grissom, after considering the alternatives (the Cubs
would finish with the worst earned-run-average in either league in 1975)
decided to stay with Bonham. But when third baseman Mike Schmidt made the
score 7-0 by driving a 2-2 pitch into the left field seats for his 22nd home
run, Marshall had seen enough. He brought in Ken Crosby, a 27-year-old
right-hander who was making his first major league appearance.
Catcher Johnny Oates kept the rally going as he greeted Crosby with a single
to right, the Phillies eighth consecutive hit. The streak finally ended when
manager Danny Ozark had Ruthven lay down a sacrifice bunt. Three walks two
hits and a balk produced three more runs, and at the end of the first inning
the score was Philadelphia 10, Chicago 0. It was the first time the Phils
had scored ten runs in the first inning since they did it against the New
York Giants in a 12-7 win at Shibe Park on August 13, 1948.
Schmidt, the league's defending home run king hit his second of the game in
the fifth, marking the tenth time in his career that he had homered twice in
a game. The blast came off Cubs' reliever Milt Wilcox and made the score
12-4. Chicago had erupted for four runs in the third, the big blow being
Rick Monday's triple that bad-hopped past left fielder Luzinski.
Schmidt never got a chance for a third home run; Tony Taylor pinch hit for
him in the seventh. Talking about Bonham after the game, Schmidt called him
"one of the most underrated pitchers in baseball." Nevertheless, Bonham left
with the ignominious distinction of being the only pitcher in big league
history to have surrendered hits to the first seven batters in a game.
Philadelphia scored their final run in the eighth against lefty Ken Frailing, while the Cubs scored an unearned run in the ninth. That was off
Jim Lonborg, making his first relief appearance since 1973 and the only one
he would make this season. Ruthven's win was his first big league victory in
1975. The Phils had recalled him a day earlier after he had gone 10-12 for
manager Jim Bunning with Toledo of the International League. For
second-place Philadelphia, trailing Pittsburgh by four games, it was just
their fourth win in 11 tries against Chicago and their first at home.
As so often happens in baseball, Bonham made a complete reversal of form in
his next start. On August 10 at Atlanta, he was perfect for four innings on
his way to five-hit, 9-1 victory. However, he lost seven of his final nine
decisions to finish the season 13-15. The 13 wins were the most Bonham won
in his ten-year career.
August 5, 1975
Chicago Philadelphia
ab r h rbi ab r h rbi
Kessinger ss 4 1 2 0 Cash 2b 4 2 1 0
Sperring ss 1 0 0 0 Anderson cf 0 0 0 1
Monday cf 4 1 1 3 Bowa ss 5 1 2 0
Frailing p 0 0 0 0 Maddox cf 5 2 3 4
Madlock 3b 1 0 0 0 Harmon 2b, 3b 1 0 0 0
Harris 3b 2 0 1 1 Luzinski lf 4 1 2 0
Cardenal lf 3 0 0 0 Johnstone rf 4 2 3 2
Morales rf 4 0 0 0 cBrown rf 1 0 0 0
LaCock 1b 3 1 0 0 Hutton 1b 3 1 1 2
Trillo 2b 4 0 0 0 Schmidt 3b 3 2 2 4
Swisher c 2 1 1 0 dTaylor 2b 1 0 0 0
Hosley c 1 0 0 0 Oates c 5 1 3 0
Bonham p 0 0 0 0 Lonborg p 0 0 0 0
Crosby p 0 1 0 0 Ruthven p 3 0 0 0
aHiser 1 0 1 0 eBoone c 1 1 1 0
Wilcox p 0 0 0 0 Total 40 13 18 13
bThornton 1b 2 0 1 1
Total 32 5 7 5
aDoubled for Crosby in fourth inning.
bGrounded out for Wilcox in seventh inning.
cStruck out for Johnstone in seventh inning.
dGrounded out for Schmidt in seventh inning.
eTripled for Ruthven in eighth inning.
Chicago 0 04 000 001- 5
Philadelphia 10 00 020 01X-13
Error--Taylor. Double plays--Ruthven, Cash and Hutton; Bowa, Taylor and
Hutton. Left on bases--Chicago 5; Philadelphia 11. Two-base hits--Johnstone,
Hutton, Swisher, Luzinski, Hiser. Three-base hits--Monday, Boone. Home
runs--Maddox (3), Schmidt 2 (23). Stolen bases--Monday. Sacrifice--Ruthven.
Sacrifice flys--Harris, Anderson.
IP H R ER BB SO
CHICAGO
#Bonham (L, 10-8) 0.0 7 7 7 0 0
Crosby 3.0 5 3 3 5 1
Wilcox 3.0 5 2 3 5 0
Frailing 2.0 1 1 1 1 2
PHILADELPHIA
Ruthven (W, 1-0) 8.0 6 4 4 3 4
Lonborg 1.0 1 1 0 1 0
#Pitched to seven batters in first inning.
Balk--Crosby.
Passed ball--Swisher.
Umpires--Runge, Vargo, Froemming and A. Williams. Time of game--2:48.
Attendance--19,611.
» Lyle Spatz is the chairman of the Society for American Baseball Reserarch's Baseball Records Committee, a post he has held since 1991. He is the author of New York Yankee Openers—1903-1996; Yankees Coming, Yankees Going—New York Yankee Player Transactions, 1903-1999; and a co-author of The Midsummer Classic—The Complete History of Baseball’s All-Star Game.
Spatz has also contributed chapters to The Dictionary of Literary Biography-Sportswriters; The Biographical Dictionary of American Sports-Baseball; Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports, and the American Dream; and The Perfect Game. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Baseball Weekly, Baseball Digest, The National Pastime, and The Baseball Research Journal, and he has presented papers at the Babe Ruth Conference at Hofstra University and at the Jackie Robinson Conference at Long Island University.
In 2000, he was presented with the Bob Davids Award, SABR's most prestigious honor, and in 2001, the magazine The Diamond Angle presented him with their F. C. Lane Award in recognition of his excellence in baseball writing.
» More submissions
Posted July 16, 2001.
BALLPLAYERS | TEAMS | CHRONOLOGY | TODAY | BOOKS | NEWSLETTER | ERRATA | FAQ
