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LEON CULBERSON |
IN THE RUNNING UP
UNTIL
UNCLE SAM CALLS AGAIN ...
Leon Culberson
homers to take the game
into extra innings and Bobby Doerr
homers to win it
August
13, 1944 ... Three times in one game against
the league-leading St. Louis Browns, the Red Sox were face-to-face
with defeat, yet they came away with a 7 to 6 win in the 13th inning
on a home run by Bobby Doerr. Unfortunately they were crushed 6 to 1
in the nightcap, cut the five innings by the Massachusetts Sunday
Blue Laws. The first game was a storybook classic. First the Red
Sox went behind 5 to 1 in the third inning when Mike Ryba was left on the mound
to long.
The Sox probably would've one in regulation had Ryba not been suffering in
the 101° heat and had been removed two batters earlier. In the first inning he
gave up three hits, including a two run homer by Stephens. In the second inning
he gave up just one hit, but in the third with one out George McQuinn homered
into the right-field grandstand. Then Stephens doubled and he walked Gene Moore.
At that point he was wasted, but there was no help coming. So he pitched to Al
Zarilla and walked him to load the bases. Still there was no help so he pitched
to Mark Christman, who lined a single that drove in two runs, putting the Sox
behind 5 to 1.
Relief came too late. Clem Hausmann started the fourth inning and threw four
no-hit innings.
The Sox thumped away at Bob Moncrief, getting a run in the third on Leon
Culberson's double and Pete Fox's double. They scored two runs in the fourth, on
a single by Jim Tabor, a triple by Hal Wagner and a sac fly off the bat of
Skeeter Newsome. In the fifth, George Metkovich led off with a triple and came
in with the tying run on Bob Johnson's fly to left.
But in the eighth-inning, a home run off Hausmann by Stephens, his second of
the game, put St. Louis ahead 6 to 5.
Then when the Red Sox came within one out of defeat in the ninth-inning,
Culberson hammered a three run homer over the left-field wall and sent the game
into extra innings.
In the 10th inning, the newly purchased pitcher, Rex Cecil, who had arrived
only a few minutes before the game, went to the mound. It was the first time he
had ever been in the major league ballpark, and in almost no time, he was in a
lot of trouble.
He loaded the bases and with two outs, he had the count at three and two on
Don Gutteridge. Gutteridge took the next pitch and umpire Ernie Stewart called
it a strike. Cecil was out of the inning and became a hero. He blanked the
Browns through the 13th inning.
George Caster came into pitch for St. Louis in the seventh inning and had
given the Red Sox only two hits. But in the 13th, Bobby Doerr got him for a home
run over the fence in left-center for a walkoff 7 to 6 victory. |
