It’s pretty rare that a team can win a baseball game without any help from their opponents. Sometimes, that help might be as small as just a couple slightly off pitches that lead to runs. Sometimes, it’s just getting a little bit under a pitch and hitting a long fly out instead of a home run.
Then sometimes, the other team makes a catastrophic mistake to help you win. That was the case in one 1955 game, and the Yankees were the beneficiaries.
On June 14, 1955, the Yankees were hosting the Detroit Tigers
in the Bronx. With a 38-20 record, the Yankees were off to a very nice start to the season, and held a couple games lead in the American League. Meanwhile, the Tigers weren’t out of it at this point, but they were in the middle of the pack with a 30-24 record.
The Yankees struck first, scoring a couple runs over the second and third innings off future podcast guest Ned Garver. Billy Hunter picked up an RBI single in the second, while Irv Noren added a two-run homer in the third.
Yankees starter Bob Wiesler opened the game with a couple scoreless innings, but eventually ran into trouble in the fifth. Including giving up a single to Garver, Wiesler allowed the first four Tigers in the fifth inning to reach base, with Harvey Kuenn driving in one run with a double. While he then struck out the next two batter, including Hall of Famer Al Kaline, Bubba Phillips got him for a single to score another two runs. After issuing one last walk, Wiesler was pulled from the game, having coughed up the lead. Bob Grim replaced him, but issued a bases loaded walk himself, giving the Tigers the lead.
After that, the Yankees’ offense had plenty of chances to answer back, putting runners in scoring position in all of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth innings. However, they failed to cash in on any of those chances, and the Tigers then eventually padded their lead. With two outs in the top of the ninth, Jim Delsing hit a two-run double, increasing Detroit’s lead to three. Delsing himself was thrown out trying to stretch the double an extra base, ending the inning. As it turned out, he might’ve been better off staying at second and waiting for the rest of the inning to play out.
Down to their final three outs, Noren got a potential Yankees rally started well, when he homered off Garver to lead off the bottom of the ninth. After Mickey Mantle then reached on an error, the Tigers decided to go to the bullpen to try and finish off the win, brining in Al Aber. To start, Aber did his job perfectly, retiring Yogi Berra and Eddie Robinson to get the Tigers an out away from victory.
With Andy Carey at the plate, Aber then seemingly finished things off. Carey grounded one right back to Aber, who threw over to first for what should’ve been the final out. However, Aber’s throw was described as “low and wild” and went past Detroit first baseman Ferris Fain. Mantle scored easily thanks to the error, but the Tigers also dealt with a brutal bounce. The New York Times’ story of the game describes the throw as “skidding off the box seat railing” before rolling down into deep right field. The bounces the ball took apparently evaded fielders enough that Carey managed to race all the way around the bases and make it home safely with what you might call a “little league home run.” Out of absolutely nowhere, the Yankees had managed to tie the game.
In the top of the 10th, the Yankees’ Tom Morgan managed to work around a Phil Rizzuto error to keep the Tigers off the board. In the bottom half of the frame, Tigers pitcher George Zuverink recorded the first two out of the inning, but — like in the frame before — couldn’t finish things off. A Joe Collins walk and a Noren single brought Mantle to the plate. The Yankee icon delivered, singling to bring home Collins and give the Yankees the win.
Prior to Aber’s error, the Yankees had just a five percent chance at winning according to Win Probability. The error isn’t the single biggest shift in win probability of any play in Yankees’ history, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger one when you factor in the shift of vibes that probably also occurred.
