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TONY LUPIEN |
ON THIS DATE (June 14, 1942)
... A crowd of 30,311 people came
into Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox make a double killing of the
Detroit Tigers. The Bosox took the first game, behind Dick Newsome,
by a 3 to 2 score and later came through in the 11th inning of the
second game to win it, 2 to 1 for Tex Hughson. The hero was Tony
Lupien who scored the tying run and drove in the winner in the first game, and
broke up the second game with an 11th inning single with the bases loaded.
The opener was a come from behind affair in which the Sox finally landed
enough late game hits against Tommy Bridges to pull out a 3 to 2 victory for the
slow starting, but fast finishing, Dick Newsome. The Red Sox got nine hits,
seven of which were bunched together in the last three innings when the runs
came in one at a time. Against Newsome, the Tigers made six hits, doing all
their scoring in the first two innings. In each of these innings Detroit scored
one run, but after a nice start they only got three hits and only one runner got
past second base.
The Sox got on the board with a run in the sixth inning. With two outs Lou
Finney reached on a single and Ted Williams walked. Bobby Doerr sizzled a ball
past Mike Higgins at third-base. Finney scored but Williams was nailed going to
third base.
In the seventh inning, Lupien's pop fly to right was windblown and dropped
in. He eventually scored on a base hit by Johnny Peacock to tie the game at two
each.
In the next inning Ted got his only hit of the game. It was a solid double
which caromed off the low right-field fence. It again was Lupien who got the
break and credit for the winning hit, when his fly ball toward the left-field
wall caused a mixup for Don Ross, who fell down with the ball landing only a few
feet away. It gave the Red Sox a 3 to 2 lead when Ted scored and Lupien ended up
on second base. He stole third but Jim Tabor made the final out. Newsome worked
around a double by Mike Higgins in the ninth to secure the victory.
Tigers pitcher Hal White gave a free pass to Williams that led to the Sox run
in the second inning of the nightcap. Billy Hitchcock made a bad throw to first
after reaching Bobby Doerr's infield hit. Lupien was passed and Ted scored on
Jim Tabor's fly to Ned Harris in right.
Detroit landed the equalizer in the fourth inning as Rudy York doubled high
off the left-field wall and Don Ross' single to center brought him home. Ross
was nipped a moment later when Jimmy Bloodworth hit a fly ball to Dom DiMaggio.
DiMaggio made one of those fireball pegs that headed off Ross who was trying to
get back to first.
The biggest moment of the game came with the Tigers effort to grab the lead
in the 11th inning. Hughson passed York after two batters were out. Then Harris
hit the ball to centerfield and it took a bad hop to get past DiMaggio. But
Dominic rushed to recover and made a quick throw back. York swung around third
and headed for home. The relay came to Bobby Doerr who was looking for Harris to
come to second base not seeing that York was heading home. But he was able to
make a fast throw straight to Bill Conroy who caught York by a hair.
The end of the game came quickly for the Red Sox. In the bottom of the 11th
they won it before anyone had been retired. Finney led off with a single and Ted
doubled off the left-field wall. White passed Doerr intentionally to force a
play and had to face Lupien. Tony then pumped a line drive single to
right-field, that sent Finney in with the game-winning run. |
