There’s an old baseball axiom to the effect that by July 4, we know which teams are for real and which are not. Let’s celebrate the holiday weekend by looking back at some unreal moments from baseball’s past.
Double No-Hit Star Optioned Out
June 28, 1940: Just two years removed from astounding the baseball world by tossing consecutive no-hitters, Johnny Vander Meer of the Cincinnati Reds was optioned out to their Indianapolis farm team at his request. Unlike another former pitcher, Ian Snell, who recently graced this column for having requested a demotion to work on “nothing” and escape negative bloggers, Vander Meer had a plan. “I realize the only way I can help myself and the club is to get better control,” the lefty told Associated Press. “The only way is to work hard. . . I’m glad of the opportunity to get regular work, and as soon as I get four or five good games under my belt, I expect to be back.” He’d been seldom used, pitching just 8.2 innings while walking 13 batters.
Redlegs Fans Make Frick See Red
June 28, 1957: “Something had to be done,” said baseball commissioner Ford C. Frick after Cincinnati fans engaged in a ballot-box-stuffing scheme that was the envy of the other 15 fan bases and resulted in eight Redlegs being chosen to start the All-Star Game for the National League. (The Reds were temporarily known as the Redlegs during the era of McCarthyism to avoid implications that they were Communists during those paranoid times, as if a for-profit, capitalist organization like a major-league ball club could ever be so mistaken.) Frick explained that the 550,000 votes cast in a last-minute deluge by Cincinnati fans were “greater than the total number of ballots cast by all other sections of the country for a similar period.” Frick denied the results and took action. In an action unprecedented in the history of the All-Star Game, Frick, after consultations with the league presidents, removed Gus Bell, George Crowe, and Wally Post from the starting lineup and replaced them with Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial. Five Redlegs had started the previous year’s All-Star Game, so Frick figured that five were a good number for 1957 as well.
Umpire Records Save
June 28, 2017: The save is a rather contrived, meaningless stat in the opinion of this writer, but one day in Pittsburgh, umpire John Tumpane recorded the best “save” of all. He probably didn’t imagine he’d become a hero after having lunch and walking across the Roberto Clemente Bridge on his way to PNC Park, where he would later work behind the plate in a game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Pittsburgh Pirates. Tumpane spotted a woman climbing over the bridge’s railing, intending to jump into the Allegheny River below. When he asked the woman what she was doing, she replied that she wanted to get a view of the city from that side of the railing. Tumpane wasn’t falling for it. He hooked his arm in hers and offered to take her to lunch. When she tried to break free, he locked both of his arms behind her back. He mouthed to a passerby to call 911. Others stepped in to help. Eventually, a police boat, a helicopter, an ambulance, a fire engine, and a policeman arrived on the scene. The woman was lifted over the railing and carted away in the ambulance. In a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article to which multiple writers contributed, Tumpane was quoted as saying, “You never know what somebody’s day looks like. It’s a nice day, everyone’s out for a walk, and somebody’s not having the same day you’re having. I was just glad to help.”
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Moonlight Serenade
June 29, 1905: Graham, r, R-0, H-0, P-0, A-0, E-0 read the entry in the newspaper box score after the New York Giants’ Moonlight Graham entered the game in the ninth inning to replace George Browne in right field during the Giants’ 11-1 victory over the Brooklyn Superbas at Washington Park. It was Graham’s only major league appearance. In eight minor league seasons, the incomplete records of the period indicate he had 424 hits in 1,431 at-bats. He was forever immortalized in the movie Field of Dreams in 1989.
Skip This One if You’re Grossed Out Easily
June 29, 1951: It was bad enough that Cleveland pitcher Bob Lemon was bothered by an abscessed tooth. Bugs were swarming all over the mound at Cleveland Stadium in the top of the sixth inning when Lemon was protecting a 4-0 lead over the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers loaded the bases with two outs, and as pinch-hitter Charlie Keller was stepping into the batter’s box, Lemon accidentally swallowed a bug. Lemon instantly felt sick and called time. When he finally resumed pitching, he still felt wobbly and walked Keller, forcing in the Tigers’ only run. Lemon held on to earn a complete game, 4-1 triumph. It may have been the only time in baseball history that a bug cost a pitcher a shutout, not counting the Boston Bees, Cleveland Spiders, or Bugs Raymond.
Oliva and Pepi Have Opposite Days
June 29, 1969: Tony Oliva of the Minnesota Twins entered the Sunday doubleheader at Memorial Stadium against the Kansas City Royals with a swollen index finger, thanks to a collision with center fielder Ted Uhlaender a few weeks earlier, and a sore back from a collision with second baseman Rod Carew the day before. You couldn’t convince the Royals that Oliva wasn’t 100 percent. He went 3-for-4 with an RBI in the first game, won by Kansas City, 7-2. In the second game, he went 5-for-5 with two home runs, a double, and five RBI, leading the Twins to a 12-2 victory. The eight hits fell one shy of the major league record for the most hits in a doubleheader. After his eighth hit, manager Billy Martin sent Charlie Manuel to pinch-run for Oliva and take over in the outfield. “His health is more important than any records,” said Martin to the AP, explaining why he didn’t let Oliva try to tie the mark.
Meanwhile, at Cleveland Stadium, the New York Yankees dropped the first game of a doubleheader, 5-1, as New York’s long-haired first baseman and cleanup hitter Joe Pepitone went a frustrating 0-for-4. In the second game, Pepitone hit a single in his first trip to the plate, but his emotions boiled over when he came up again in the top of the third. Cleveland lefty Mike Paul was taking too long on the mound for Pepitone’s taste, so Pepitone signaled to home plate umpire Emmett Ashford that he wanted a timeout. With “Pepi” out of the box, Paul delivered the pitch, and Ashford called it a strike. Pepitone went ballistic, bumped Ashford, and had to be restrained by several teammates. Ashford ejected Pepitone, and Len Boehmer finished the at-bat. The incident inspired the Yankees, who came back to win the second game, 6-3.
Afterward, Pepitone fumed to A.J. Friedman of The Blade, “I don’t know what they [the umpires] have against us. They’re so inconsistent, it’s unbelievable. I had every right to call time.” Ashford’s side of the story: “Once the pitcher is in a set position like Paul was, the batter is not allowed to step out.” Compounding Pepitone’s frustration was a teenage heckler, who stood on the Yankees’ dugout roof and called Pepi a “dirty bum” until he was removed from the stadium. “I think he must have been a dope fiend,” said Yankees manager Ralph Houk. I love how that generation blamed everything on “dope.” It apparently never entered Houk’s mind that somebody could have given the kid alcohol, Houk’s generation’s “drug” of choice. It’s the same thinking that decided the way to save the world was to have kids burn their comic books and rock-and-roll records. OK, off my soapbox and on to an interesting day in 1990.
Two No-Hitters in One Day
June 29, 1990: For the first time in baseball history, a no-hitter was thrown in both leagues on the same day. At the Sky Dome, Dave Stewart of the Oakland Athletics engineered the first no-hitter ever to be tossed in Toronto, as the A’s beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-0. Stewart did it by striking out 12 and limiting the Jays to three walks. On the West Coast, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela watched the conclusion of Stewart’s no-hitter on the clubhouse TV before taking the mound at Dodger Stadium, duplicating the feat against the St. Louis Cardinals, and winning, 6-0. Valenzuela struck out seven and walked three. Another Cardinal reached base on an error.
I Thought They Were Supposed to be Smart at Harvard
June 30, 1905: Three days after Harvard lost the Eastern Intercollegiate Championship game to Yale, students and alumni alike were incensed that Harvard’s “baseball authorities” agreed that the championship would be decided in a one-game playoff on “grounds that were not neutral.” Harvard had won the previous seven championships. Harvard declined to host a second game at Cambridge because, despite having nine days’ notice, there wasn’t enough time to print tickets. The esteemed research university that performed the world’s first successful kidney transplant and invented the first programmable computer and the cardiac pacemaker couldn’t figure out how to print tickets to a ball game in nine days.
Who Needs the Designated Hitter?
June 30, 1967: No less than four National League pitchers were the hitting heroes for their teams on this date. Locked in a 4-4 tie at the Astrodome, Dodgers pitcher Claude Osteen hit a home run in the top of the ninth off Don Wilson to give the Dodgers a 5-4 win over the Houston Astros. Osteen pitched into the ninth to earn the win. At Forbes Field, Pirates pitcher Steve Blass hit a two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the eighth inning against Clay Carroll to break a 1-1 tie against the Atlanta Braves. The 3-1 score held up as Blass pitched a complete game. In the bottom of the sixth at Wrigley Field, Chicago Cubs pitcher Bill Hands singled in two runs off Bob Lee to extend the Cubs’ lead to 6-0 over the Reds. It didn’t seem significant at the time, but the Cubs needed those runs when the Reds rallied to make it close, only to lose 7-5. Finally, Philadelphia Phillies hurler Chris Short got into the act when he ripped a three-run double off the San Francisco Giants’ Joe Gibbon. It extended the Phillies’ lead to 10-3, which was the final score.
July 3, 1966: No pitcher – not even Babe Ruth – did what Braves starter Tony Cloninger did against the Giants at Candlestick Park. Cloninger went 3-for-5 with two grand slams and nine RBI as Atlanta won a 17-3 laugher. Previously, no NL pitcher had driven in more than five runs in a game. Cloninger also became the first NL player to hit two grand slams in one game. Four AL players had done it, but none was a pitcher. The big blows came off pitchers Bob Priddy and Ray Sadecki. Cloninger told Dan Schlossberg of Baseball Digest, “The funny thing was nobody asked me about my pitching.” He’s no longer extant for anybody to ask, so let the record show that he pitched a complete game, gave up seven hits (including two home runs), walked two, and struck out five.
Tony Cloninger took “going the distance” literally on this date in 1966, pitching a complete game for the @Braves while hitting two grand slams.
His Denis Menke model bat is part of the Hall of Fame’s collection. pic.twitter.com/KHXneidXey
— National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) July 3, 2025
DiMaggio Plays First Base
July 3, 1950: Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio made the only appearance of his career at first base, a move that was designed to prolong his career by saving him the wear and tear of patrolling center field. “It will add a couple of years to DiMaggio’s playing life,” manager Casey Stengel explained to The Washington Post sports reporter Shirley Povich. “Other outfielders stand out there and daydream, but DiMag is racing all over the place, backing up everybody’s play when he isn’t going for the ball himself. At his age [35], he’s getting little rest.” It was also meant to improve the Yankees’ lineup. A first base platoon of Joe Collins and Tommy Henrich wasn’t cutting it, and outfielders Hank Bauer, Cliff Mapes, and Gene Woodling were performing and deserved playing time. “I just can’t wait for Henrich anymore,” Stengel told Arch Murray of the New York Post.
The Yankees lost to the Washington Senators, 7-2, that day at Griffith Stadium. DiMaggio went 0-for-4 at the plate, but the focus was on how he played in the field. In the second inning, he slipped and fell flat on his face while chasing a pop-up to the second baseman. But in the fourth inning, he made a brilliant play on a ball Irv Noren smashed down the line, and in the eighth, he jumped for a high throw and put the tag on Sherry Robinson. Overall, however, Povich didn’t think DiMaggio looked like a first baseman. DiMaggio, who hated to be embarrassed on the field, said after the game, “The time for me to learn how to play first base is in spring training, not when we’re trying to win a pennant.” An ugly showdown between DiMaggio and Stengel, who didn’t care for each other behind the scenes, could have ensued. However, when Bauer went down with an injury in that game, it gave Stengel a face-saving opportunity to move DiMaggio back to center field, where he remained for the rest of his career.
Manager Channels Jenny
July 3, 2014: The Rays had won five in a row, scoring 29 runs in the process. Even so, for this game against the Tigers at Comerica Park, manager Joe Maddon looked to the Tommy Tutone power pop hit of 1981, “867-5309/Jenny” for inspiration and created a “Jenny” batting order, with center fielder Desmond Jennings leading off, shortstop Ben Zobrist hitting second, etc. The zero indicated the designated hitter spot. The catcher and second baseman, who aren’t represented in Jenny’s phone number, filled out the bottom of the order in numerical order. (Jenny was a real person, and that was her actual phone number, according to the band members.) The song may have been a hit, but it didn’t produce hits for the Rays. They lost to the Tigers, 8-1. Then again, when the starter gives up five runs in the first inning, there’s not much Jenny can do about that.
Jenny, @RaysJoeMaddon’s got your number. Tonight’s #Rays batting order (by position) starts 867-5309: pic.twitter.com/m87PirbvKM
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) July 3, 2014
The “Grand Slob”
July 4, 1976: “It’s definitely the longest single I’ve ever hit. I’m calling it my grand slob,” an embarrassed Tim McCarver told David Fink of the Post-Gazette. In the first game of a Bicentennial Day doubleheader at Three Rivers Stadium, Steve Carlton was on the mound for the Phillies against the Pirates. That meant Carlton’s personal catcher, McCarver, was in the starting lineup. In the top of the second inning, the left-handed-batting McCarver stepped to the plate against Pirates right-hander Larry Demery with the bases loaded. I don’t do interviews for this column, but fortunately, I was able to get an eyewitness account from somebody who was there (me). McCarver hit a screaming line drive to right field. Right fielder Dave Parker went back as though he had a play on the ball. McCarver knew right away the ball was going to clear the wall. The runner on first, Garry Maddox, wasn’t as sure. He took a few steps off first and watched the ball. McCarver was into his home run trot, head down, and passed Maddox, who had his back to him. McCarver was called out and credited with a three-run single. The goof-up didn’t cost the Phillies, who won, 10-5.
Tomorrow marks the nation’s 250th anniversary. What’s that called? A bicentennial and a quarter? Happy whatever-that’s-called to you.
