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ON THIS DATE (May 8, 1953) ... Billy
Goodman slugged an 11th inning homer the give the Red Sox a 2-1 win
over the New York Yankees. The game winning home run ended a 12-game
winning streak the Yankees held over the Sox.
Sox pitcher, Hal Brown's only walk in the second inning game the
Yankees their run on a freak infield play. A strange bounce off the
bat of Gil MacDougald made the run possible. Following a walk to
Mickey Mantle, Hank Bauer popped out. MacDougald slapped a roller
down toward George Kell at third base, but the ball took an
unexpected hop and hit Kell in the face. Before he could recover,
Mantle was on second and MacDougald was safely on first. Billy Martin
then lined a single down the right field line to bring in Mantle.
Jimmy Piersall quickly tracked down the ball and made a strong throw
to keep MacDougald at third base.
It took one swing by Dick Gernert in the bottom half of the inning.
His monstrous smash cleared the left field screen in a second.
There were very few scoring chances after that. The Yankees had one
in the 10th inning, but Piersall came up with a great catch on a ball
off the bat of Billy Martin. Johnny Sain scratched a single in the
hole that Milt Bolling did all he could to stop. Then Phil Rizzuto
smashed a ball to Gernert's left and he flipped it to Bolling to
force Sain.
The top of the 11th produced a moment of worry for Brown. He whiffed
Yogi Berra and Gene Woodling rolled out to Goodman. Mantle lined a
single, and then Brown got behind Hank Bauer on three straight balls.
On the next pitch Mantle took off and Sammy White threw a strike to
nail him at second and end the inning.
Goodman's first homer of the season seemed to take forever to reach
the seats past the right field foul pole in the bottom of the 11th.
The win gave the Sox eight victories in their last 11 games, and
pushed them to within 1 1/2 games of the first place Yankees. |
