Marshall's Big Day

Giants at Phillies, April 26, 1949

Giants at Phillies

This was another crazy one.

If you’ve been following along, you know by now that the New York Giants have played very well so far in this 1949 replay. They came into this game with a 6-1 record, good enough for second place in the National League.

In contrast, Philadelphia has looked poor.

But, of course, nothing is sure in baseball.

Trading Blows

This game was quiet until the bottom of the 3rd inning, when Phillies pitcher Ken Heintzelman managed to get the Phillies first hit — a double down the third base line.

With two out, that set the stage for catcher Andy Seminick:

And so Seminick drove in his battery mate. Up next was Dick Sisler, always a threat:

Bill Nicholson grounded out to short to finally end the threat, but the damage was done. The score was suddenly 2-0 Phillies.

However, the lead didn’t last long.

With one out in the top of the 4th, Willard Marshall doubled. That brought up the always dangerous Bobby Thomson for the Giants:

Up came Whitey Lockman with runners on first and third:

And now, with the score 2-1 Phillies, Johnny Mize came up in a clutch spot:

Just like that, it was 3-2 Giants.

Fighting Back

The Phillies didn’t give up, however.

It took a little while, but the rally came. Willie Jones walked to lead off the bottom of the 7th, bringing up Heintzelman again.

Heintzelman had been pitching well, and so I decided to leave him in the game. I thought about it for a minute, and finally decided that bunting was the best option. Ken’s bunt worked, advancing Jones to second and setting the stage for Del Ennis:

That was an awful throw from Marshall, who seened to not realize the importance of that baserunner. After all, we were now tied at 3 — and the Phillies weren’t done yet.

Andy’s towering blast made this a 5-3 ballgame, and made me believe that the Phillies were really going to knock off the favored Giants.

Comeback

Of course, if it were that easy I probably wouldn’t be writing this.

Sid Gordon, who had a poor game up to this point, led it off for the Giants in the top of the 8th:

That brought up Marshall once again. Marshall had a chance to redeem hiimself for a poor fielding play almost right away, and he delivered:

Then came Thomson, now down 5-4:

As you can see, there is a certain rhythm to this New York Giants offense. Once one or two men reach base, it’s like the basepaths turn into a merry-go-round, and the players start cycling around and around and around.

Next was Lockman again:

With a heavy heart, I went to the mound to take Heintzelman out of there. Ken had pitched reasonably well, and hadn’t thrown all that many pitches in the process. I couldn’t let him self-destruct like this, though, and I called right away for Jim Konstanty.

Now, this wasn’t the best position for Konstanty to be in. There were no outs, and the bases were loaded. We were still clinging to a tight 5-4 lead, but you know these Giants…

Next came Mize once again, and I brought the infield in:

It wasn’t a grand slam home run, thank goodness, but it did get the job done. We were now tied at 5. There was only one out, and there were runners on second and third.

Up came Jack Lohrke. I looked at my lineup sheet and decided to pitch to him instead of walking him:

That set the stage for Buddy Kerr, who seemed like a human vacuum machine out there at short. Everything we hit either went straight to Kerr, or wound up caught by Thomson out in center.

I wasn’t going to mess around with Kerr:

We decided to try our luck with Mickey Livingston instead:

Smart move.

The 9th

We couldn’t buy a hit in the bottom of the 8th. And up came Giants starting pitcher Larry Jansen to lead off the 9th.

I imagine some of you would take the pitcher out in this situation. It was a tight ballgame, tied at 5. The Giants were on the road, and they were in need of a base hit. It would be mighty tempting to take the pitcher out, look for the base hit right away, and worry about a reliever when you got that far.

The computer manager decided to leave Jansen in:

Another smart move.

Bill Rigney came in to pinch run for Jansen, which was even more interesting. Larry was apparently good enough to hit, but couldn’t be trusted to run for himself. And the plot thickened.

Up came Gordon, always threatening:

This was a big moment, and Gordon’s inability to move the runner over seemed like a huge failure. I thought we might get out of this one after all.

But up came Marshall again:

Forget about that one non-chalant play in the field. Marshall had more than redeemed himself in this one!

The threat remained. However, Thomson struck out:

And Lockman didn’t manage anything, either:

And now we needed something. We needed at least a blip and a bloop, down one run — though a blast would have also done the trick.

Hank Behrman was the new Giants pitcher. As you can see from his player page, he, umm, didn’t exactly have a reputation for throwing strikes.

First was pinch hitter Eddie Waitkus:

Next up was Ennis, and I thought we might try a bit of hit-and-run:

In retrospect, I should have told Del to stand up there and look at every pitch.

Seminick was up next. He took us to another full count, but ultimately failed:

Sisler was our last hope:

Now it was getting interesting. And Nicholson made it even more interesting:

Now that the bases were loaded, we could take another look at what just happened. Behrman had gone to a full count on 4 of the 5 hitters he had faced to this point in the bottom of the 9th. The only exception was Ennis, and that’s because I foolishly had him swinging on the first pitch for a hit-and-run play.

Granny Hamner was up there now, and I almost wanted him to just take every pitch, too. But, alas, he swung:

And that was that. The Giants won a thriller, and they won it the hard way.

Shortstop was the vacuum position in this one. Kerr had 2 putouts and 6 assists, as well as 1 error. Hamner, on the other hand, had 4 putouts and 7 assists with no errors. Meanwhile, Thomson made 7 putouts in center field, which happens to be extremely deep (almost 470 feet to deep center). We need to teach our boys to push it to the opposite field.

Other Games

We’ve managed to complete April 26, 1949. Here is a list of the games we played:

Red Sox 14, Senators 5: At Boston, the Red Sox spotted Washington 3 runs before exploding for several sustained rallies. Watch the game here.

Tigers 6, White Sox 5 (10): At Chicago, George Kell and Johnny Groth put away the White Sox. Read extended write-up here.

Indians 7, Browns 2: At Cleveland, the World Champions teed off for 7 runs off Browns pitching, capped by a Bob Kennedy 3-run homer:

Yankees 2, Athletics 1: At New York, this is my favorite game of this 1949 replay so far. Read extended write-up here. Watch the game here.

Dodgers 11, Braves 10: At Brooklyn, the Dodgers took out a lot of offensive frustration in this wild one. The hits fell almost as frequently as the raindrops. Read extended write-up here.

Cardinals 15, Reds 1: At St. Louis, Harry Brecheen threw a 5-hit complete game and went 4 for 5 at the bat, driving in 3. Enos Slaughter also had a pretty good game at the plate:

Giants 6, Phillies 5: At Philadelphia, see write-up and video link above.

Standings

Pittsburgh and New York are the surprises so far in the National League. None of you will be surprised to see the Red Sox, Yankees, and Indians fighting it out in the American League. It’s still early, but some teams are really making a statement in the early going.