When President Dwight Eisenhower elected to spend Opening Day 1953 golfing with Ben Hogan in Augusta, Georgia, the snub to baseball upset tradition-minded fans far beyond the Nation's Capital. The outcry was so great that when the game got rained out, Ike on the advice of his political advisors (fans are also voters) hurried back to Washington to throw out the first ball at the rescheduled opener. So when the same option faced him in 1954, an April 13 Yankees-Senators opener in Griffith Stadium, or golf with Hogan (again fresh off a win in the Masters), Eisenhower wisely chose baseball. Moreover, the president not only participated in the pre-game ceremonies, he and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower sat through the entire game, which lasted just under three hours. Yankee Manager Casey Stengel helped make it so lengthy by using a total of nineteen players, including five pitchers. The Senators finally won the marathon, 5-3, on Mickey Vernon's dramatic tenth-inning home run, after which Eisenhower signaled the hero to join him. Vernon, whose climactic blow off reliever Allie Reynolds thrilled the crowd of 27,160, broke loose from his teammates congratulatory hugs and headed to the presidential box. Ike shook his hand and said "Nice going. Wonderful, a wonderful home run."
It had been a wonderful day all-around for Washington baseball fans. During the late morning and early afternoon, the Myer Goldman Band entertained them, just as they had been doing on Opening Day here for more than 30 years. Then, precisely at 2:30, the United States Army Band marched onto the field and the pre-game ceremonies began. At 2:45, the President entered the park as the band greeted him with Hail to the Chief. The Speaker of the House, Joe Martin of Massachusetts, led the parade to the flagpole. Marching with Congressman Martin were American League President Will Harridge and Senators' Vice President Calvin Griffith. Griffith was substituting for his dad, Clark Griffith, who was skipping the parade for the first time since becoming the team's president in 1912.
The elder Griffith, sitting next to the Washington dugout in Box 12, between Ike and Mamie, presented Ike with a brand new glove to wear while throwing out the first ball. It was a $28 Lefty Gomez model, although made for a right-hander. Eisenhower's throw was "too hot to handle" for several players, but Yankee pitcher Johnny Sain finally came up with it. The photographers asked the president if he would throw another one, and he obliged gladly. He threw the ball to a rookie Senator pitcher, Gonzalo Naranjo, who was standing in front of the Washington dugout. But, to the consternation of the Secret Service, Naranjo, a 19-year-old Cuban, tossed it back to Ike.
The president appeared to enjoy this exchange of throws, and he flipped it back to Naranjo a final time. Then, when Washington Manager Bucky Harris assigned Naranjo the task of sitting in front of the presidential box to protect against foul balls, Eisenhower, evidently confident that he was able now to catch anything hit his way, waved Naranjo back to the Washington bench. The pre-game attention focused on Naranjo was his "15 minutes of fame." After the game, the Senators sent him to their Chattanooga Lookouts farm team. His major league career would consist of seven games with the 1956 Pittsburgh Pirates.
Harris had refused to announce his starting pitcher in advance, perhaps seeking any advantage he could find. He said it would be either right-hander Bob Porterfield or left-hander Chuck Stobbs. "I don't know what Bucky is trying to prove" Stengel said when he learned of Harris's ploy. "It makes no difference to me whether he pitches a left-hander or a right-hander. I have men for all positions." Finally, an hour before game time, Harris named Stobbs. In 1953, his first in Washington, Stobbs won nine of his last twelve decisions to finish 11-8. However, he gained the greatest notoriety of his career on April 17 when he yielded Mickey Mantle's memorable "tape-measure" home run here at Griffith Stadium. Meanwhile, Stengel not needing any more advantages as a comparison of the two rosters would clearly have shown, had announced his starting pitcher two days earlier. To no one's surprise it was Whitey Ford who had come back from two years in the Army to win eighteen games (18-6) in 1953.
Stobbs set the Yankees down in order in the first inning, and when the Senators headed for their dugout the fans noticed something different. Each player was still holding his glove, the result of a new restriction that prohibited gloves from being left on the playing field. Thus, a charming custom, one that little boys had always tried to execute exactly as their favorite big leaguer did, was eliminated.
Ford, whose wife and parents were in attendance, bore little resemblance to the 18-game winner he had been in 1953. After an easy first inning, he yielded two runs in the second, and then after the Yanks had tied it in the third, allowed the Senators to regain the lead in the fourth.
Roy Sievers, in his first plate appearance as a Senator, singled to open the second. Sievers had not been very productive since winning the American League's Rookie of the Year Award in 1949, and the newly-minted Baltimore Orioles (relocated from St. Louis) had traded him to Washington for Gil Coan. With center fielder Jim Busby at the plate, a passed ball charged to catcher Yogi Berra allowed Sievers to move to second. Busby, an excellent outfielder, but not noted as a hitter. However, after coming to Washington, he batted .312 in 150 games in 1953. In his first at-bat of 1954, he drilled one of Ford's pitches on a line into right center that easily scored Sievers. Busby would have another good year, a .298 average in 155 games; in fact, these two seasons with Washington would be by far the best of his 13-year career. A good effort by Hank Bauer in cutting the ball off, limited Busby to a double. After Pete Runnels sacrificed him to third, Ed Fitzgerald followed with a slow grounder to first base. Joe Collins tried to get the out at the plate, but the speedy Busby beat the throw.
Down 2-0, second baseman Jerry Coleman led off the third with the Yankees' first hit, a single to left. Coleman had missed almost all of the 1952 and 1953 seasons serving as a Marine combat pilot in Korea. He was, with Ted Williams and Bob Kennedy, one of the three major leaguers to serve in both World War II and the Korean War. Although an armistice had been signed last July, Americans were still being drafted, and Coleman was replacing one of them. Billy Martin, who had replaced Coleman at second base in 1952, was now himself in the Army. After Phil Rizzuto's single to center put runners at first and third, Ford hit a little topper that Stobbs fielded, checked Coleman at third, and then threw to second. However, his throw was wide and all three runners were safe. Bauer's two-run single to left tied the game and left the Yanks with two runners on and nobody out. The heart of the order was coming up, Collins, Mantle, and Berra, but Stobbs got out of the inning without further scoring.
A fourth-inning error by Coleman helped Washington regain the lead and knock Ford out of the game. With one out, he bobbled Runnels's grounder allowing the Senators shortstop to reach base safely. Ford got Fitzgerald for out number two, but he walked the weak-hitting Wayne Terwilliger. Stobbs, left-handed all the way, then put his team ahead by singling to right field. When Ford walked Eddie Yost to fill the bases, Stengel removed him and brought in right-hander Tom Gorman to pitch to right-hand hitting Tom Umphlett. A year ago, as a Red Sox rookie attempting to replace Dom DiMaggio, Umphlett hit a solid .283. Nevertheless, Boston, always looking for power hitters, traded him and pitcher Mickey McDermott to Washington for Jackie Jensen. Harris countered the insertion of Gorman by sending up Tom Wright, a veteran left-handed hitter, to bat for Umphlett. Wright, in his first at-bat as a Senator, fanned, but Washington still led 3-2.
Stobbs's best work may have been in the fifth, when to maintain his one run advantage he had to overcome three Washington errors. Vernon made the first one when he dropped the throw from Stobbs after the pitcher had fielded Rizzuto's come-backer. Bob Cerv, batting for Gorman, then lifted a fly ball to left center that the usually sure-handed Busby dropped for error number two. After Bauer, attempting to bunt, forced Rizzuto at third, Stengel sent Bill Skowron up to bat for Collins. Skowron had signed with the Yanks in 1950 out of Purdue University, where he had been a halfback on the football team. He was a standout hitter in the minors, and while at Kansas City made the conversion from an outfielder to a first baseman. Skowron's solid spring training, along with the retirement of Johnny Mize, induced Stengel to bring him to New York. Now, in his first major league at-bat, Skowron popped out to second baseman Terwilliger. Stobbs then got Mantle to ground to Runnels who flipped the ball to Terwilliger for the ostensible force play on Bauer and final out of the inning. However second base umpire Jim Honochik called Bauer safe, saying that Terwilliger had failed to touch second base. It was the third Senators' error of the inning and loaded the bases. Stobbs now had to face the always dangerous Berra, but he again got the routine ground ball to short. This time Runnels and Terwilliger executed the play cleanly, although Mantle, who was still recovering from two off-season knee operations, almost beat the force at second.
Bob Kuzava, in the fifth and sixth innings, and Johnny Sain, in the seventh and eighth, did superb relief work for the Yankees. Each pitched two scoreless and hitless innings. By keeping Washington from increasing their lead, the Yanks were able to tie the game with a run in the ninth. Coleman, whose error had paved the way for the Senators third run, started the inning with a one-out double, New York's first hit since the third inning. When Rizzuto followed with a bouncer to Runnels, Coleman foolishly tried to reach third, but Runnels throw to Yost cut him down. Stobbs was now one out away from victory. He got two strikes on pinch-hitter Eddie Robinson, but Robinson, in his first Yankee at-bat, singled to right to send Rizzuto to third and keep the inning alive.
Robinson and pitcher Harry Byrd were the men the Yankees were after when they made their huge five-for-six trade with the Philadelphia Athletics in December 1953. Among those going to Philadelphia in that trade were Bill Renna, and two very promising minor-leaguers, Jim Finigan and Vic Power. Finigan would hit .302 this year and finish second to the Yankees' Bob Grim in Rookie of the Year voting. Power, a dark-skinned Puerto Rican, had been one of the two Blacks in their minor league system considered most likely to eventually integrate the Yankees. The other was Elston Howard, an outfielder whom the Yanks had just sent to Toronto of the International League where he would learn to be a catcher. Power was a fine hitter, an excellent first baseman, and a certain major leaguer. However, he played with a flamboyance that was then uncommon in baseball and generally frowned upon, particularly by the Yankees. Power's "showboating," and his reputation as a potential "troublemaker," doomed his chances in New York. Unquestionably, the Yankees had been slow in recruiting Negro ballplayers. But if the reason was that they believed any black man in a Yankee uniform would displease a specific segment of their clientele (and it probably was), then a man like Power surely would not be the first.
Following Robinson's single, he trotted off the field as Enos Slaughter, came in to run for him. After 13 years with the Cardinals, Slaughter had lost his job to rookie Wally Moon. Still he entered the 1954 season second among active players in hits (to Stan Musial) and runs-batted-in (to Ted Williams). Slaughter later recalled that he had played in Griffith Stadium only once before, with an industrial team way back in 1934.
After losing Robinson, Stobbs tried to end the game against Bauer, but again failed. Bauer got his third run-batted-in of the game with a single to center, that sent Rizzuto home with the tying run. Harris, sensing that the game was slipping away, brought in right-hander Sonny Dixon to pitch to Skowron. Stengel responded by pulling Skowron in favor of left-hand hitting Irv Noren. Dixon got Noren on a fly to Sievers, and when the Senators came to bat in the last of the ninth, it was against Reynolds, who had evolved into the Yankees best relief pitcher. Noren, normally an outfielder, replaced Skowron at first base, becoming New York's third first baseman of the day. Reynolds got through the ninth, despite issuing a walk, and Dixon easily set the Yanks down in the tenth.
Yost led off the bottom of the tenth with a walk, his third of the day. Then, Reynolds struck out Tom Wright, the third time Wright had fanned, and prepared to face Vernon. The defending American League batting champion (.337) had been hitless in his four previous at-bats. Actually, no Senator batter had gotten a hit since the fourth inning. Vernon swung at Reynolds's first pitch, driving it to deep right field where the ball just nicked a beer sign before disappearing over the wall. Just like that, the game was over. The sun-drenched fans erupted with joy, with Mr. and Mrs. Eisenhower sharing in their delight, both vocally and physically. While Ike was congratulating Vernon, Mamie leaped to her feet and began kissing and hugging 84-year-old Clark Griffith. Hours after he finished celebrating Washington's victory, the president was on his way to Augusta for a golfing vacation.
Tuesday, April 13, 1954
New York Washington
ab r h po a ab r h po a
Bauer rf 5 0 2 1 0 Yost 3b 2 1 0 2 0
Collins 1b 2 0 0 5 0 Umphlett rf 2 0 1 1 0
cSkowron 1b 2 0 0 2 0 aWright rf 3 0 0 0 0
gNoren 1b 1 0 0 1 1 Vernon 1b 5 1 1 5 0
Mantle cf 5 0 0 4 0 Sievers lf 4 1 1 3 0
Berra c 5 0 0 9 0 Busby cf 4 1 1 7 0
McDougald 3b 3 0 0 0 0 Runnels ss 2 1 0 2 5
Woodling lf 4 0 0 0 0 Fitzgerald c 4 0 0 7 2
Coleman 2b 4 1 2 3 0 Terwilliger 2b 3 0 0 3 0
Rizzuto ss 4 2 1 2 3 Stobbs p 3 0 1 0 1
Ford p 1 0 0 0 1 Dixon p 1 0 0 0 0
Gorman p 0 0 0 0 0 Total 33 5 5 30 8
bCerv 1 0 0 0 0
Kuzava p 0 0 0 0 1
dCarey 1 0 0 0 0
Sain p 0 0 0 0 0
eRobinson 1 0 1 0 0
fSlaughter 0 0 0 0 0
Reynolds 0 0 0 0 0
Total 39 3 6*28 5
*One out when winning run scored.
aStruck out for Umphlett in fourth inning.
bSafe on Busby's error for Gorman in fifth inning.
cPopped out for Collins in fifth inning.
dStruck out for Kuzava in seventh inning.
edSingled for Sain in ninth inning.
fRan for Robinson in ninth inning.
fFlied out for Skowron in ninth inning.
New York 002 000 001 0-3
Washington 020 100 000 2-5
Errors--Stobbs, Coleman, Vernon, Busby, Terwilliger.
Runs batted in--Busby, Fitzgerald, Bauer 3, Stobbs, Vernon 2.
Two-base hits--Busby, Coleman.
Home run--Vernon.
Sacrifice--Runnels.
Double play--Collins (unassisted).
Left on bases--New York 8; Washington 6.
Bases on balls--Off Ford 3, Stobbs 2, Reynolds 2.
Struck out--By Stobbs 5, Ford 3, Gorman 1, Kuzava 3, Sain 1, Dixon 1, Reynolds 1.
Hits--Off Ford 4 in 3 2/3 innings, Gorman 0 in 1/3, Kuzava 0 in 2,
Sain 0 in 2, Reynolds 1 in 1 1/3, Stobbs 6 in 8 2/3, Dixon 0 in 1 1/3.
Runs and earned runs--Off Ford 3 and 2, Reynolds 2 and 2, Stobbs 3 and 3.
Passed ball--Berra.
Winning pitcher--Dixon (1-0).
Losing pitcher--Reynolds (0-1).
Umpires--McGowan, Paparella, Honochik and Chylak.
Time of game--2:58. Attendance--27,160.
Also by Lyle Spatz
» August 1982: Two Cy Young Winners Play the Outfield
» Bombing Bill Bonham: Cub pitcher allowed hits to first seven batters
» More submissions
Copyright © 1997 by Lyle Spatz. Posted September 4, 2002.
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