RetroSimba

After climbing back from a 9-0 deficit against the Giants and tying the score, the Cardinals lost the game.

On July 17, 1954, at St. Louis, the Giants led 9-0 in the third inning behind their ace, Johnny Antonelli. The Cardinals rallied with five runs in the sixth, three in the seventh and one in the eighth, tying the score at 9-9, but the Giants won, 10-9, in 11.

The game matched Antonelli, 24 and hailed by Giants catcher Wes Westrum as the best left-handed pitcher in the National League, against Royce Lint, a 33-year-old rookie left-hander making his third big-league start for the Cardinals.

From the beginning, the game followed script as a mismatch. Three of the first four batters reached base against Lint. The Giants led 2-0 in the first before manager Eddie Stanky lifted Lint and replaced him with Cot Deal, a 31-year-old right-hander pitching in his last major-league season.

The Giants scored seven times against Deal in the third for a 9-0 lead.

After cruising through five innings, Antonelli surrendered five runs in the sixth _ the big hits being a two-run single by Rip Repulski and a two-run double by Red Schoendienst.

In the Cardinals’ three-run seventh, pinch-hitter Joe Frazier hit a two-run triple against Hoyt Wilhelm.

The Cardinals tied the score, 9-9, in the eighth when pinch-runner Dick Schofield scored on first baseman Whitey Lockman’s error.

Marv Grissom and Windy McCall held the Cardinals hitless over the last three innings. In the 11th, Harvey Haddix, pitching his third inning of relief for the Cardinals, yielded a sacrifice fly to Don Mueller. Boxscore

The winning run was scored by Billy Gardner, who was a pinch runner for a pinch runner.

After pinch-hitter Bobby Hofman led off the 11th with a single, Giants manager Leo Durocher sent in pitcher Ruben Gomez as a pinch runner. Gomez reached second on a sacrifice and went to third on an infield single.

As Mueller stepped to the plate, Durocher looked at Gomez and remembered the pitcher was scheduled to start the next day’s game. Concerned Gomez might risk injury if he had to slide on a play at the plate, Durocher replaced Gomez with Gardner, a reserve infielder.

“If it all sounds screwy, that was the pattern of the contest,” the New York Daily News noted.

That was one of several unusual occurrences in the game:

_ Though the teams combined for 19 runs, no one hit a home run.

_ Though the Cardinals had nine runs and 15 hits, two of their top hitters, Stan Musial and Wally Moon, were a combined 0-for-10.

_ In the fourth, Giants center fielder Willie Mays received word of the death in Alabama of his aunt, Sarah Mays, with whom he had lived as a child. Heartbroken, Mays was unable to continue and was removed from the game by Durocher.