Welcome to your special pre-Labor Day edition of This Week in Baseball History. Today we’ll cover the period August 30 through September 5.
Pain for the Dentist
August 30, 1972: Pitcher Steve Arlin of the San Diego Padres had a unique offseason occupation. He was a dentist. His grandfather, Harold Arlin, was behind the microphone for the first baseball game ever to be broadcast on the radio. The date was August 5, 1921, the combatants were the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies, and the radio station was KDKA in Pittsburgh. KDKA was still the Pirates’ flagship station in 1972. On this date, Bob Prince, the Voice of the Pirates, had an idea: He invited Harold to Three Rivers Stadium to broadcast the first two innings in which his grandson pitched against the Pirates. On June 18, Dr. Arlin pitched a two-hit shutout against the Pirates at Three Rivers. Ironically, Sports Illustrated used photos of four Pirates hitters from this game for a two-page spread headlined “Four Murderers in a Row.”
This evening didn’t go as well for Dr. Arlin. The Pirates touched him up immediately for three runs in the bottom of the first. His line for the game: six innings, five earned runs, 11 hits, eight strikeouts, and no bases on balls. The Pirates won, 11-0, behind Bruce Kison’s complete-game pitching. Meanwhile, the old former broadcaster was entertaining, discussing the terminology in his day (pitches were “in-shoots” and “out-drops”) and the creative dental-related newspaper headlines that ran after his grandson pitched.
“I Love Playing There”
August 30, 2004: Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones arrived at Turner Field in time to join the game in the seventh inning and help the Braves to a 7-6 victory over the San Francisco Giants. Jones was late because his wife had given birth to their second child, a boy whom Jones named “Shea,” after Shea Stadium, where Jones had always hit well. “I love playing there,” Jones told the Associated Press. “Check the numbers.” Somebody did. At the time, Jones was a .314 hitter at Shea with 17 home runs, including his first in the majors. By the time you read this, Shea will have turned 22. He’s probably glad that Dad hit just .252 in the Astrodome.
Batters Beware
August 31, 1957: Those who saw left-hander Steve Dalkowski pitch thought he was the fastest pitcher they’d ever seen. His problem was he lacked control. On this date, pitching for the Kingsport Orioles of the Appalachian League, he struck out 24 batters, but walked 18, hit four batters, and uncorked six wild pitches, losing 9-8 to the Bluefield Dodgers. Note that no animals were harmed in the typing of this paragraph. (I wanted to end this story on a positive note. That was the best I could do.)
Like Son, Like Father
August 31, 1990: Ken Griffey, 40, and Ken Griffey Jr., 20, became the first father-and-son duo to play in a major league game when they took the field for the Seattle Mariners at the Kingdome. Griffey Sr. had been on his second tour of duty with the Cincinnati Reds, who released him seven days earlier, allowing him to join his son and live a dream. The father played left field and hit second in the order, and the son was nearby on both offense and defense, playing center field and hitting third. Each went 1-for-4 with a run scored, as the Mariners defeated the Kansas City Royals, 5-2. “The first time up, I was really nervous,” Griffey Sr. told the AP. “It was like being a rookie all over again.” He played left field like a youngster, playing Bo Jackson’s sixth-inning drive off the wall and firing the ball to second base to nab Jackson trying to stretch the hit into a double.
Uecker was Once a Hero. Really.
September 1, 1964: The great thing about baseball, to paraphrase a line from David Bowie, is that anybody can be a hero, just for one day. Even if “anybody” is Bob Uecker, the journeyman catcher who made a career for himself by mocking his playing career. The St. Louis Cardinals entered this Busch Stadium game against the Milwaukee Braves in fourth place in the National League, 7.5 games behind a first-place Phillies team that was about to embark on an epic collapse. Earlier in the season, Uecker was traded from the Braves to the Cardinals. Now he was in the lineup against his former team, catching and hitting eighth against left-hander Denny Lemaster.
Lemaster was no master over Uecker on this day. The Braves jumped to an early 4-0 lead, which the Cards’ Ken Boyer cut in half with a two-run homer in the third inning. In the bottom of the fourth, Uecker blasted a solo home run off Lemaster, his first of the season and second of his career. Lemaster was still on the mound in the bottom of the ninth when the score was 4-4, and Julian Javier hit a one-out double for St. Louis. Believing lightning couldn’t strike twice, Milwaukee walked Carl Warwick intentionally with Uecker on deck. Uecker’s subsequent line-drive single won the game for St. Louis. “I wasn’t trying extra hard just because we were playing the Braves,” Uecker told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I was just happy to get some hits.” The Cardinals went 21-10 the rest of the way and won the pennant after Uecker’s heroics.
Pirates Make History (for an Inning and a Third)
September 1, 1971: For the first time in major-league history, an all-minority lineup took the field. Manager Danny Murtaugh wrote the following names in his lineup card when his Pirates took on the Phillies at Three Rivers Stadium: Rennie Stennett, 2B, Gene Clines, CF, Roberto Clemente, RF, Willie Stargell, LF, Manny Sanguillen, C, Dave Cash, 3B, Al Oliver, 1B, Jackie Hernandez, SS, Dock Ellis, P. Much of the batting order wasn’t unusual. Left-hander Woodie Fryman was the Phillies’ starter. Under Murtaugh’s platoon system, Clines played center field against lefties, and third baseman Richie Hebner usually sat against them. Hernandez was seeing a good deal of time at shortstop because Gene Alley was frequently injured in 1971. The surprise was seeing Oliver, the left-handed half of the center field platoon, at first base instead of slugging right-handed Bob Robertson. But Murtaugh was disciplining Robertson for an undisclosed reason.
Murtaugh claimed that he wasn’t trying to make history. He was just trying to win a ballgame. According to Philadelphia’s Evening Bulletin, he told the press, “When it comes to making out the lineup, I’m color blind, and my athletes know it.” In any event, Ellis, who spent his short time on the mound trash-talking the Phillies’ dugout, was knocked out after 1.1 innings, during which he was charged with five runs. He was relieved by Bob Moose, a white pitcher. Fryman didn’t fare much better than Ellis. He gave up five runs in one-third of an inning. The Pirates won a wild contest, 10-7. Six Pirates had two hits.
“Spastic Pelican” Saves the Day
September 1, 1979: The Pirates entered this doubleheader at Candlestick Park in first place in the NL East Division, ahead of the hard-charging Montreal Expos by three games. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1, the Pirates led the Giants, 5-3. Pirates right-handed reliever Kent Tekulve, who pitched the eighth inning, got two quick outs to start the ninth before Jack Clark beat out a bunt for a single. With left-handed power hitter Darrell Evans due up, Pirates manager Chuck Tanner signaled for lefty Grant Jackson from the bullpen. But should Evans reach base, Tanner wanted Tekulve to pitch to the next hitter, the right-handed Mike Ivie, who was also no slouch in the power department. Thus, instead of sending Tekulve to the showers, Tanner sent him to left field.
It gets stranger. “I told Grant to pitch Evans outside,” Tanner told Dan Donovan of The Pittsburgh Press. “He’s a pull hitter and you know he’s going for a home run. If he gets the ball inside, he might hit it out.” Instead of pulling the outside pitch on the ground, Evans went with it and sent a high fly to left field, where Tekulve was positioned. Stargell described it thusly in his autobiography: “He waved his arms like a spastic pelican. Little did he know that there wasn’t a fellow player for thirty yards that needed waving off. Teke narrowly moved a step, lifted the glove in the air and followed the ball into his mitt.” In what had to have been a first, the team bypassed the pitcher who earned the save and mobbed the left fielder who caught an ordinary fly ball.
Banks Breaks Record
September 2, 1955: Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs hit his 40th home run, breaking Vern Stephens’ record for most homers by a shortstop in a season, as the Cubs beat the Cardinals, 12-2, at Wrigley Field. The big blast came in the second inning off Paul LaPalme with Gene Baker and Dee Fondy on base. After the game, Banks told United Press International, “I had a feeling that I ought to get one today. All the time we were on the road they were pitching me outside and I was hitting the ball to center field or right field. But the Cardinals always pitch me tight inside, and that’s where LaPalme threw it. I was tired out there on the road and I couldn’t get around well on the outside pitches.” It’s understandable. The Cubs had just come off an insane six-city, 17-day road trip.
Ernie Banks with manager Stan Hack with the bat that Banks used to set the home run record for shortstops with 40, September 2, 1955. Photo by John Dominis. The previous record of 39 was held by Vern Stephens. He would finish the 1955 season with a total of 44 home runs. pic.twitter.com/0T6sbm6yZd
— Baseball In Pics (@baseballinpix) December 31, 2025
One Strike Away
September 2, 1972: Cubs right-hander Milt Pappas should have been happier after pitching a no-hitter against the Padres and beating them, 8-0, at Wrigley Field. However, with two outs in the top of the ninth inning, he was one strike away from a perfect game when he walked pinch-hitter Larry Stahl, who checked his swing on a close 3-2 pitch. The call could have gone either way. Pappas was visibly upset with home plate umpire Bruce Froemming. Pappas got his emotions under control enough to retire the next batter, pinch-hitter Garry Jestadt, on an infield pop-up.
Pappas was philosophical when discussing the game with David Condon of The Chicago Tribune the next year. “Sure, I’ve replayed it,” he said, “but I never second-guessed the umpire. Those last two pitches were balls. But I’ve asked myself why several things couldn’t have been different. Like the umpires have called balls on absolute strikes, and this might have been one of those days when the ump would have called a ball a strike if he’d seen it that way. And those pitches were so close that I wondered why Larry never took a swing. Or in that spot, with history in the making, why didn’t he freeze and maybe pop up? Finally, why didn’t I get one of those two pitches over the plate?” Good thing he wasn’t driving himself crazy thinking about it.
A Stupid Game
September 3, 1899: Once again I ask the reader to indulge my unhealthy fascination with 19th-century baseball coverage. The Reds played an unusual doubleheader at League Park, losing to the Louisville Colonels, 7-6, and then defeating the Cleveland Spiders, 3-1. The anonymous wire service reporter summarized the first game with one sentence: “The Reds lost the first game because they played stupid ball.” Indeed, the Reds were charged with four errors in that game. In his coverage of the second game, the Spiders were referred to as the Wanderers. In that era, “wanderers” was a derisive nickname given to teams without a home ballpark. Generally regarded as the worst team in Major League Baseball history, the 1899 Spiders finished 20-134 and played just 41 games at home, split between League Park and Robison Field.
Galvin Wins No. 300
September 4, 1888: Right-hander Pud Galvin became the first pitcher in major league history to win 300 games when he pitched Allegheny City to a 6-4 victory over the Indianapolis Hoosiers at Seventh Street Park. The Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette wrote, “Indianapolis batted Galvin freely, if unluckily, as the ball almost invariably dropped into the hands of a Smoky City infielder.” The milestone wasn’t even mentioned. That wasn’t surprising, as Galvin seems to have been the Rodney Dangerfield of 19th-century pitchers; MLB doesn’t recognize him as the first to have tossed a perfect game, either. It took until 1965, 63 years after he died, to get Galvin into the Hall of Fame. He was almost a third of the way to 300 wins from the 1883 and 1884 seasons alone, when he won 46 games each year for the Buffalo Bisons.
The Letter, Part 2
September 4, 1908: The Cubs, Pirates, and New York Giants were entangled in perhaps the most exciting pennant race in baseball history up to that point. On this day at Exposition Park, the Cubs and the Pirates were locked in a scoreless tie as the Pirates came to bat in the bottom of the 10th. They loaded the bases with two outs when Owen Wilson whacked a single off Mordecai Brown that dropped into center field as Fred Clarke crossed the plate with the winning run. Or did he?
Back on July 19, Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers read a letter to the sports editor of the Tribune and stored it in his memory for when needed. In those days, when a batter hit what we would today call a “walk-off” hit, the forced runners didn’t trouble themselves with the formality of touching the next base. Usually there were fans on the field, and the scene was chaotic. However, the sports editor noted that if the inning ended in a force out, the winning run couldn’t score.
This time, the runner on first, Warren Gill, ran halfway to second, then turned and ran off the field when Wilson’s ball fell into center field. Evers called for the ball, received it from center fielder Jimmy Slagle, and tagged second base. It was to no avail, however, as umpire Hank O’Day, the only umpire working the game, had already left the field and was getting a drink of water. As Evers and shortstop Joe Tinker argued, O’Day said, “Clarke was over the plate, so his run counted anyway.” The Cubs filed a protest, which was denied on the grounds that O’Day didn’t see anything. But the rule would loom large in a crucial game later in the season. How? Sorry, you need to keep reading this column every week to find out.
Striking Out on the Bench
September 4, 1978: Pirates rookie Doe Boyland, a left-handed batter, was sent to the plate as a pinch-hitter against New York Mets right-hander Skip Lockwood for his first major league at-bat. Lockwood got ahead in the count, 1-2, then left the game with an injury. Mets manager Joe Torre brought in left-hander Kevin Kobel. Pirates manager Tanner countered with Stennett, a right-handed hitter who swung and missed Kobel’s first pitch. The strikeout was charged to Boyland under baseball scoring rules. He remains the only batter in major league history to strike out in his first major league at-bat while sitting on the bench.
Crabber Hits into Triple Play
September 5, 1901: Larry Hesterfer was a highly regarded amateur left-handed pitcher for the amateur Watsessing Park team in East Orange, New Jersey. In mid-August, he received a telegram from Giants shortstop/manager George Davis inviting him to pitch a game in a doubleheader against the Brooklyn Dodgers on the 17th. Hesterfer turned him down because he’d already had plans to go crabbing that day. I guess a major league promotion didn’t mean as much in those days.
Somehow, he was persuaded to join the Giants for the second game of a doubleheader against the Pirates at the Polo Grounds on September 5. In his only major league appearance, the 23-year-old Hesterfer pitched six innings, surrendering 15 runs, of which only five were earned thanks to seven Giants’ errors. With the Pirates ahead 15-7, the game was called after 6.5 innings because of darkness. As a result, Hesterfer was credited with a complete game. Batting in the second inning with no outs and the bases full, Hesterfer hit a line drive up the middle as the runners took off. Shortstop Honus Wagner, making what The Pittsburgh Post called “one of the greatest plays of this or any other season,” leapt and caught the ball behind the bag before it hit the ground. He stepped on second to retire the runner who left the base too soon and tossed the ball to first baseman Kitty Bransfield to retire a similarly overanxious runner.
Thus, Hesterfer is best known for hitting into a triple play in his only major league game. Let the record show that it took a great play by a future Hall of Famer and two teammates who didn’t know to freeze on a line drive until it dropped.
