Saturday, October 2, 1948. Fenway Park. The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox took the field with identical 94-58 records, both one game behind Cleveland with two days left in a race that had refused to break all summer. By the end of the afternoon the Yankees were finished. Two days later Cleveland beat Boston 8-3 in the league's first playoff game and took the pennant.
Three Clubs, One Lane
Nobody pulled away. In early August four teams -- Cleveland, Philadelphia, the Yankees and Boston -- sat bunched within a game and a half of each other. The Athletics eventually fell away. The other three didn't.
On Friday night, September 24, the Yanks beat Boston 9-6 at the Stadium while Detroit beat Cleveland. All three clubs went to bed at 91-56 with seven games left. A week of baseball for a whole season's worth of standings.
The Yankees went 3-4 the rest of the way. Cleveland and Boston each went 5-2. That's the entire autopsy, and it fits on an index card.
Boston's manager made it stranger. Joe McCarthy had managed the Yankees from 1931 to 1946 and won eight pennants and seven World Series in the Bronx before walking away in 1946. Two years later he was in Boston, trying to knock his old club out of the race. Over the final weekend, he did.
Saturday: Williams in the First
Boston and New York closed the season with two games at Fenway. Cleveland closed at home against Detroit. If the Indians won on Saturday, whoever lost in Boston was done.
Bucky Harris gave the ball to Tommy Byrne. McCarthy went with Jack Kramer, a 17-game winner. In the bottom of the first, Ted Williams turned on a Byrne pitch and hit it out for his 25th home run of the year. Kramer went the distance. Red Sox 5, Yankees 1.
Out in Cleveland, rookie Gene Bearden shut out the Tigers 8-0. The Indians now had 96 wins. The Yankees, at 94-59 with one game left, couldn't get past 95. The math wasn't complicated, and nobody in the visiting clubhouse needed it explained.
Sunday: Four Hits for Somebody Else
That left one game that meant nothing to the Yankees and everything to Boston. Joe DiMaggio played it anyway.
He shouldn't have. A bone spur had been grinding into his right heel for months, and he was playing on sore legs. He banged out four hits, and in the fifth the Yankees clawed back within 5-4.
None of it mattered. Boston pulled away, pounded four Yankee pitchers for 15 hits and won 10-5. Late in the game Harris finally took DiMaggio out, and he limped toward the dugout while more than 31,000 Red Sox fans stood and roared for the man who'd spent the afternoon trying to wreck their season. DiMaggio later called it one of the greatest thrills of his career.
In Cleveland, Hal Newhouser beat Bob Feller for his league-best 21st win. The Indians and Red Sox both finished 96-58. The Yankees had spent their final day helping Boston into a playoff, which wasn't anybody's idea of a consolation prize in the Bronx.
Monday: Boudreau's Afternoon
The American League had never played a pennant playoff before. It played its first on Monday, October 4, before 33,957 at a chilly Fenway.
McCarthy's starter surprised everyone. He passed over Mel Parnell, the left-hander everybody expected, and handed the ball to Denny Galehouse, a 36-year-old right-hander who was 8-7. Cleveland player-manager Lou Boudreau went the other way and started Bearden, a left-handed knuckleballer, on one day's rest.
Boudreau settled it himself. He homered off Galehouse in the first. In the fourth he and Joe Gordon singled, and Ken Keltner hit his 31st home run, a three-run shot that made it 4-1. Boudreau homered again in the fifth to make it 6-1. He went 4-for-4, and he managed the game from shortstop while he was at it. Bearden went all nine, allowed five hits and won his 20th game. Cleveland 8, Boston 3.
The Indians beat the Boston Braves in six games for the World Series, finishing it off on October 11. Boudreau hit .355 that year and won the MVP. DiMaggio, who'd led the league with 39 homers and 155 RBI, finished second.
The Bill Comes Due
Harris had won the 1947 World Series. He'd won 94 games in 1948. Neither number saved him. He'd been Larry MacPhail's hire, and George Weiss, now running the front office, wanted his own man in the dugout.
It's hard to pin a third-place finish on the pitching. Vic Raschi went 19-8, Allie Reynolds went 16-7, and Ed Lopat, in his first year after the trade with the White Sox, went 17-11.
DiMaggio's season wasn't the best of his career -- his 1937 line of .346, 46 homers and 167 RBI beat it everywhere -- but he led the league in homers and RBI on a heel that needed surgery. He had the operation that November. It had already been a heavy year: the club had watched Babe Ruth say goodbye at the Stadium in June and then buried him in August.
Eight days after Bearden's last pitch, the Yankees introduced Casey Stengel. Stengel was 58 and fresh off a Pacific Coast League pennant in Oakland. By then Harris was already gone. The Stengel hire drew laughs, and the new manager seemed to know it.
I didn't get the job through friendship. The Yankees represent an investment of millions of dollars. They don't hand out jobs like this just because they like your company. I got the job because the people here think I can produce for them.
| Final Standings | CLE 97-58, BOS 96-59, NYY 94-60 |
| Yankees Games Behind | 2.5 (CLE), 1.5 (BOS) |
| Three-Way Tie | 91-56 each, night of Sept. 24, seven games left |
| Yankees After the Tie | 3-4 (CLE and BOS each 5-2) |
| Elimination Game | Oct. 2: Red Sox 5, Yankees 1 (Fenway) |
| Season Finale | Oct. 3: Red Sox 10, Yankees 5 |
| Playoff | Oct. 4: Indians 8, Red Sox 3 (33,957 at Fenway) |
| Boudreau in Playoff | 4-for-4, 2 HR |
| Bearden in Playoff | CG, 5 H, 20th win (one day's rest) |
| DiMaggio 1948 | .320, 39 HR, 155 RBI (led AL in HR, RBI) |
Three-Way Tie
The Yankees beat Boston 9-6 at the Stadium and Detroit beats Cleveland. All three clubs sit at 91-56 with seven games left.
Yankees Eliminated
Ted Williams homers off Tommy Byrne in the first and Jack Kramer goes the distance in a 5-1 Red Sox win. Gene Bearden's 8-0 shutout of Detroit clinches at least a tie for Cleveland.
DiMaggio's Four Hits
DiMaggio gets four hits and a standing ovation at Fenway, but Boston wins 10-5. Hal Newhouser beats Bob Feller, and Cleveland and Boston finish tied at 96-58.
The First AL Playoff
Lou Boudreau homers twice and Ken Keltner hits a three-run shot as Cleveland beats Boston 8-3 for the pennant.
Cleveland Wins It All
The Indians beat the Boston Braves in Game 6 to win the World Series.
Stengel Introduced
Weiss introduces Casey Stengel as Bucky Harris's replacement.
Heel Surgery
DiMaggio undergoes surgery on the bone spur in his right heel.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who won the 1948 American League pennant?
The Cleveland Indians. They finished the 154-game schedule tied with the Boston Red Sox at 96-58, then beat Boston 8-3 in a one-game playoff at Fenway Park on October 4, 1948. It was the first pennant playoff in American League history. Cleveland went on to beat the Boston Braves in the World Series.
When were the Yankees eliminated from the 1948 pennant race?
On Saturday, October 2, 1948, the next-to-last day of the season. The Red Sox beat the Yankees 5-1 at Fenway Park while Cleveland beat Detroit 8-0, which left the Yankees unable to catch the Indians. They'd been tied with both clubs at 91-56 as late as September 24.
What was the Yankees' record in 1948?
The Yankees went 94-60 and finished third, 2.5 games behind Cleveland (97-58) and 1.5 games behind Boston (96-59). Those final standings include the Indians-Red Sox playoff game, which counted as a regular-season game.
Why did the Yankees fire Bucky Harris after 1948?
Harris had won the 1947 World Series and 94 games in 1948, but he'd been hired by Larry MacPhail, and general manager George Weiss wanted his own manager. Weiss brought in Casey Stengel, whom the club introduced on October 12, 1948. Stengel won the World Series in his first season.
Who managed the Red Sox in the 1948 playoff?
Joe McCarthy, the former Yankees manager who'd won eight pennants and seven World Series in New York from 1931 to 1946. He started Denny Galehouse instead of Mel Parnell in the playoff, and Cleveland won 8-3.
DiMaggio limped off Fenway's grass that October to a standing crowd that had just watched him try to ruin its season. He came back to the same field the next June on a repaired heel, under a new manager, and hit four home runs in three games. Boston didn't stand for those.