The significance of Fourth of July baseball | Lucas

As we prepare to celebrate our country’s 242nd birthday, we can take time to appreciate a couple of great times she celebrated with her national pastime. The Fourth of July is significant in baseball, especially in the Yankees organization. In 1925, Hall of Famers Herb Pennock and Lefty Grove each pitched 15 innings as the Yankees topped the Philadelphia…

As we prepare to celebrate our country’s 242nd birthday, we can take time to appreciate a couple of great times she celebrated with her national pastime.

The Fourth of July is significant in baseball, especially in the Yankees organization.

In 1925, Hall of Famers Herb Pennock and Lefty Grove each pitched 15 innings as the Yankees topped the Philadelphia Athletics 1-0 in the first game of a doubleheader. Late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was born on July 4, 1930.

Exactly nine years later, Henry Louis Gehrig deemed himself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth, even in the face of a life-ending illness, and said goodbye to the game. In 1960, another Yankee great, Mickey Mantle, clubbed the 300th of his 536 career home runs. In 1984, Phil Niekro recorded his 3,000th strikeout on Uncle Sam’s birthday. This week, we will look at two major baseball moments that took place on America’s birthday.

At the very beginning of the 1983 MLB season, I spoke with a young pitcher on the Yankees roster, and confident in his repertoire, I told him that he would be the next Yankee to throw a no-hitter. On July 4 of that year, the Yankees and Red Sox celebrated by battling in another edition of their historic rivalry. Trying to take three of four games in the Bronx, Boston started John Tudor, a fifth-year left-hander who would win 21 games with a sub-2 ERA for the Cardinals just two years later. The Bombers countered with their own fifth-year southpaw, and the beneficiary of my prediction, Dave Righetti.

On that day, I was unable to attend the ballgame because I was training with a seeing-eye dog, but the game’s memory remains with me 35 years later.

Eight of Righetti’s nine strikeouts came in the first five innings, including two against Dwight Evans and one against then-future Hall of Famer Wade Boggs.

Along with Evans, Tony Armas, and fellow Hall of Famer Jim Rice, Boggs would lead a tremendous lineup to within one victory of a World Championship just three years later.

The Yankees began to pounce on Tudor in the fifth with an RBI single by Andre Robertson, and followed that with a solo home run off the bat of Don Baylor in the sixth. Though he had walked Rice twice and Reid Nichols once, Righetti had not allowed a hit entering the eighth, and his right fielder, Steve Kemp, would make two plays to cement his name in this ballgame. Dwight Evans led off the inning and hit a fly ball deep down the right field line in foul ground, and Kemp leapt into the stands to put his pitcher just five outs away from a no-hitter. In the bottom half of the inning, Kemp put the game itself away with a two-run single off Tudor to extend the lead to four.

In the ninth, after walking Jeff Newman, ground outs by Glenn Hoffman and Jerry Remy put Righetti one out away from the history books. He would celebrate America’s 207th birthday by striking out Boggs swinging on a low slider to end the ballgame.

Just two years later, the New York Mets celebrated Uncle Sam’s birthday with the Atlanta Braves at a party that lasted long beyond day’s end. At 7:05 p.m., these teams were completely unaware that their night would end later than any other night in Major League history. Doc Gooden and Rick Mahler were the starters, but they would not even combine for six innings of work, due in no small part to three long rain delays, in what became a 19-inning game.

Mets first baseman Keith Hernandez finished hitting for the cycle within the standard nine innings, while driving in three runs, and scoring another three. The late Hall of Famer Gary Carter accomplished maybe the biggest feat of his career by catching all 19 innings, with 305 pitches from seven pitchers. The Braves scored four in the eighth to take an 8-7 lead, but the Mets tied it in the ninth with an RBI single by Lenny Dykstra.

A two-run homer by Howard Johnson in the 13th met its match with a tying shot by Terry Harper. Davey Johnson and Darryl Strawberry were both ejected for arguing balls and strikes in the 17th, but an 18th inning Dykstra sac fly looked like it would end the game, as pitcher Rick Camp batted due to Atlanta being out of position players. Then-Braves announcer John Sterling commented to his broadcast partner Ernie Johnson how nutty the game would be if Camp hit a game-tying homer off Tom Gorman. About 30 seconds later, cue the dramatic irony. Despite his only career home run, Camp lost the game by allowing three runs in the 19th, for a 16-13 Mets win.

Yet, there was still more insanity. Though the game ended at nearly 4 a.m. on July 5, it began on July 4, causing fireworks to go off when it concluded. The snoozing citizens of Atlanta awoke in a moment to call the local authorities, believing their city’s crime had escalated quickly. Rather, it simply marked the end to an insane game that began while honoring Lady Liberty.