1960s era Cubs shortstop Don Kessinger is instantly recognizable in this photo.
The Facebook page where I found it helpfully identified the other three people in the photo. The Cubs are obviously playing the Phillies. No. 6 is Cookie Rojas, later a Cubs coach. The other Phillies player is Don Money, and the umpire is Harry Wendelstedt.
You can also see the 1969 baseball centennial patch on Money’s left sleeve, which confirms that’s the year this photo was taken.
Here’s how I narrowed down this one. Of the nine games the Cubs played against the Phillies that year, Kessinger didn’t play in the two in September, and there’s ivy on the wall, so it couldn’t be the season-opening three-game series in April. Thus this has to be from the four-game series the Cubs played against the Phillies at Wrigley July 11-12-13, 1969 (the 13th was a doubleheader).
Kessinger is sliding into second base. A throw is coming in high, so clearly he’s safe. That makes this likely either a double or a stolen base. Kessinger had three doubles in that series and one stolen base. Two of the doubles happened Friday, July 11, one more double Saturday, July 12 and the stolen base in the second game of the doubleheader Sunday, July 13.
So which is this? The angle of the throw doesn’t seem to be coming from the catcher, so it can’t be the stolen base.
We have actual video of the July 12, 1969 game! This video should be cued to the Kessinger double, if not, scroll to 1:30:30.
As you can see, the photo can’t possibly be from that play.
So it has to be from one of Kessinger’s two doubles in the Friday, July 11 game — but in that game Harry Wendelstedt was the third-base umpire. So what’s going on here?
The answer can be found in a different photo, one I found in the Chicago Sun-Times archive.
This is obviously the same play as shown in the sleuthing photo. What appears to have happened is that Wendelstedt, the third-base umpire, was in the area of second base, so he made the call. Lee Weyer, the actual second-base umpire in that game. also made a safe call, as noted in the photo caption.
So the photo was taken Friday, July 11, 1969, in the bottom of the seventh inning. Kessinger eventually scored on a single by Ron Santo, and that tied the game 3-3.
The Cubs scored a pair in the bottom of the eighth and took that 5-3 lead into the ninth, but Ted Abernathy got pounded with a couple of home runs and three other hits. Abernathy and Don Nottebart allowed four runs and the Cubs lost the game 7-5.