May 8 Roar of the Crowd

We love to share sports history with you each and every day. This gem of a story will give you not only a piece of baseball history from May 8, but it will also reward with learning about a great ball player from yesteryear.

Let's hear a tale of baseball…
William grew up in the Northeast on a large farm his family had owned for generations. The hard agricultural life provided him with strength and agility. This and natural athleticism made William a triple-threat halfback star on the football team and the captain and leading scorer of the high-school basketball team in his junior and senior years. Even with these accomplishments, his time spent on the baseball diamond was his passion; his head was filled with thoughts of one day playing the game professionally. As good of an athlete, as he was, he was not remembered as a particularly outstanding baseball player. An average fielder but not a power hitter. Steady and consistent, William did just enough of the little things, almost on demand, and when his team needed a critical hit, and ran to stay in the game. It became almost expected that William would come through when all the teams he played on needed him.

He first made it to the Atlanta Crackers of the Minor Southern League. Just as he climbed and became renowned, World War II broke out, and William joined the Navy.
That terrible, terrible war on so many fronts. Many talented you lives were lost or maimed in the horrors of battle. Also, the influx of baseball players exploded after so many soldiers and sailors were trained and gained experience playing ball in the service. The dream of making the Big Leagues may have died for this "ordinary" player.
He returned to the Crackers in the post-war times and had more success. His timeliness of clutch hits and plays may have emerged to show the "it factor" William felt he possessed. It was there to the point where the AL team in Beantown paid the highest price ever for the contract of a Southern minor leaguer with the negotiated tag of $75,000.
His dream of getting paid to play ball came to fruition through his hard work and consistent play. His eventual MLB manager was Hall of Famer Eddie Collins, the Red Sox’s skipper. Collins was a perfectionist who looked down upon and even criticized most of his players. Manager Collins looked at William and was reminded of his former teammate Jimmy Dykes who he referred to as “the best until the kid came along.”
He was right about William; Collins saw it. 

On May 8, 1953 the Yanks invaded Fenway, and the Beantown crowd was uneasy. The Boston Red Sox and their fans were stewing over thirteen straight losses to their bitter rivals the New York Yankees that stretched back to August in the 1952 season.

New York moved the scoreboard first in the to of the second on a bit of a fluke play. Sox pitcher, Hal Brown served his only walk of the day, to the pinstriped legend Mickey Mantle to hand the Yankees their only run. A strange bounce off the bat of Gil MacDougald made the run possible. Following that base-on-balls to Mantle, Hank Bauer popped out. MacDougald then slapped a roller down toward George Kell at third base, but the ball took an unexpected hop and hit Kell in the face. Before he could recover, Mantle was on second and MacDougald was safely on first. Billy Martin then lined a single down the right field line to bring in Mantle. The crowd became uneasy. They felt a little more comfortable when in the bottonhalf of the stanza, Dick Gernert hammered a solo-shot over the Green Monster to tie the score.

The game carried on that way all the way into extra innings. In the bottom of the eleventh it was time for our man William, better known as Second Baseman Billy Goodman, to once again be "johnny-on-the-spot."  Goodman's walk-off home run off Yankees starting pitcher Johnny Sain broke the tie, and the New York vexing streak over the Red Sox.

Boston HR hitter May 8, 1953 09 May 1953, Sat The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri) Newspapers.com

And now you know how… this story rounded third and got home...

Special thanks to information gathered from the following sources: Fenway Park Diaries, Baseball Almanac, The Day in Baseball History website, and Baseball-Reference.com.

The banner image is courtest of Newspapers.com of Boston HR hitter May 8, 1953 09 May 1953, Sat The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri) Newspapers.com.

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The franchises of Major League Baseball from both the National  and the American Leagues. We try to give you a bit a information on each franchise and in particular items that have to do with the jerseys and uniforms.

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Official New York Yankees Website | MLB.com ‣ New York Yankees

The official website of the New York Yankees with the most up-to-date information on scores, schedule, stats, tickets, and team news.^**

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The franchises of Major League Baseball from both the National  and the American Leagues. We try to give you a bit a information on each franchise and in particular items that have to do with the jerseys and uniforms.

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Official Boston Red Sox Website | MLB.com ‣ Boston Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox also played as the Boston Americans

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