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ON THIS DATE (July
17, 1935) ... Performing like champions for the
benefit of a 16,000 midway crowd, the Red Sox finally crashed the
American league upper circle once again by winning an entertaining
doubleheader from Cleveland's battered Indians at Fenway Park.
Coming from behind in the first game, the Sox unleashed some of their current
terrific hitting to hammer Mel Harder, the All-Star game hero, out-of-the-box
and then rollicked home to a 13 to 5 victory because of some excellent relief
pitching by Rube Walberg.
The second game found both defenses tightened up considerably, but Lefty
Grove prove more effective in the tightest spots then did Monte Pearson and
thereby chalked up his six straight win and his 11th of the season. The score
was 3 to 1.
Leading the 18 hit attack in the opener was Bill Werber. After drawing a pass
his first time at bat, Werber cracked out four successive doubles, all of which
hit the left-field wall either on the fly or on the bounce, to tie the major
league record shared by 13 ballplayers, the most recent of which are Dick
Bartell of the Giants and Paul Waner of the Pirates.
Werber hit three doubles in successive innings: the fourth, the fifth and the
sixth. It's doubtful if that performance as ever been approached. The
spectacular thirdbaseman scored three runs, drove in four others and handled for
difficult chances in the field.
He refused to let up in the nightcap. Werber drew free passes his first two
times to the plate and scored the highly important Red Sox run with some great
baserunning. He was on second and Bing Miller was on third with one out in the
fourth, when Moe Berg, who incidentally drove home all the local runs in the
game, lined a hit to left.
It looked as if Joe Vosmik were going to catch the ball on the fly, and after
running halfway down the third, Werber stop to see if Vosmik was going to make
the catch. When he saw the ball fall safely for a hit, he turned and straight
for third. Vosmik believed that he would stop at third and lazily relayed the
ball into the shortstop Bill Knickerbocker.
However, Werber didn't hesitate and kept right on going, completely catching
the opposition unaware. Knickerbocker uncorked a hurried throw that reached the
catcher in the dirt and even if the throw had been perfect, Werber would have
been safe with his great speed.
The extra run gave Lefty Grove, who yielded eight hits needed breathing space
after, when the Indians start to clutter up the bases. Rex Ferrell and Babe
Dahlgren were right behind Werber in hits during the opener. Ferrell had a
single, double and the only home run of the day in his five trips and batted in
three RBI. |
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