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DOM DiMAGGIO |
BOSTON RED SOX
...
THE CURSE OF
THE BAMBINO, PART 3
A
SUBWAY SERIES DISAPPEARS ...
The Sox bomb the Tigers behind Mel Parnell
September 21, 1948 ... It
took the bombing bats of the Red Sox only one inning to smother the
Detroit Tigers, 10 to 2 and boost their lead over their American
League rivals by an additional one half game. The idle Cleveland
Indians sit one game behind the Sox and Yankees are one half game
behind Cleveland. The classy southpaw, Mel Parnell, didn't have to
work very hard to gain his fourteenth win. He gave up eleven hits, but was able
to coast after the third inning when the Sox slammed three pitchers and gathered
in six runs. Parnell enabled the Sox to split the four-game series with the
troublesome Tigers, since dropping the doubleheader on Sunday.
The Sox advantage was fashioned by some timely hitting on the part of Vern
Stephens, who came out of his slump, along with Stan Spence and Parnell himself.
Each player knocked in a pair of runs and Stephens boosted his RBI total in the
American League to 130, but still is behind Joe DiMaggio who knocked in 148. Lew
Stringer got his first American League hit and it was a home run into the
right-field stands.
The support Parnell got from centerfielder Dom DiMaggio was sensational. The
little professor made two sparkling defensive plays, one of them in the
eighth-inning with two men on base. Bob Swift rattled one to the left-field
fence and Dominic climbed the wire screening to backhand it for an out.
The Tigers used four pitchers. Ted Gray started and lasted until the third
inning. With this inning coming on top of the two run first inning, the ballgame
was settled. DiMaggio opened in the first inning by hitting a triple to
left-field. After Johnny Pesky walked, Ted Williams brought him in with his long
fly ball out to center. Pesky then scored on Spence's single to center, putting
the Sox up 2 to 0.
Then in the third Pesky started it all with a base hit, Williams walked and
Stephens knocked in both in with a double to left. Art Houtteman, who came in
relief of Gray, walked Billy Goodman and Tebbetts scored Stephens from third,
when he reached on a fielder's choice. Parnell came up and hit a line drive to
center that scored Goodman and Tebbetts. He went to second on DiMaggio's infield
hit and Pesky singled for the second time in the inning, to score Parnell with a
sixth run of the inning.
Stubby Overmire, who had come into pitch during the uprising, did pretty good
work for the remainder the game, holding the Sox to only two runs. Stephens
tripled in the eighth and scored on a fly ball hit by Spence. Then in the ninth
Stringer deposited a fastball into the right-field bleachers some 325 feet away.
Bobby Doerr has been ordered not to do anything for the rest of the season,
not even throw a baseball. Sam Mele, who is nursing a bruised foot, is coming
along nicely, but he too was sidelined indefinitely. |
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