{"id":504368,"date":"2026-01-03T19:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T19:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/504368\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T19:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T19:31:12","slug":"yankees-history-a-crazy-final-out-comeback-from-1955","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/504368\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees History: A crazy final out comeback from 1955"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 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\u2019s just getting a little bit under a pitch and hitting a long fly out instead of a home run.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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On June 14, 1955<\/a>, 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\u2019t out of it at this point, but they were in the middle of the pack with a 30-24 record.<\/p>\n

The Yankees struck first, scoring a couple runs over the second and third innings off future podcast guest Ned Garver<\/a>. Billy Hunter picked up an RBI single in the second, while Irv Noren added a two-run homer in the third.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

After that, the Yankees\u2019 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\u2019s 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\u2019ve been better off staying at second and waiting for the rest of the inning to play out.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019ve been the final out. However, Aber\u2019s throw was described<\/a> as \u201clow and wild\u201d 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\u2019 story of the game describes the throw as \u201cskidding off the box seat railing\u201d 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 \u201clittle league home run.\u201d Out of absolutely nowhere, the Yankees had managed to tie the game.<\/p>\n

In the top of the 10th, the Yankees\u2019 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 \u2014 like in the frame before \u2014 couldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Prior to Aber\u2019s error, the Yankees had just a five percent chance at winning according to Win Probability. The error isn\u2019t the single biggest shift in win probability of any play in Yankees\u2019 history, but you\u2019d be hard-pressed to find a bigger one when you factor in the shift of vibes that probably also occurred.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s pretty rare that a team can win a baseball game without any help from their opponents. Sometimes,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[21948,5,66901,53,66898,66899,6853,4,66900,142],"class_list":["post-504368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-andy-carey","tag-baseball","tag-bob-wiesler","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-irv-noren","tag-jim-delsing","tag-mickey-mantle","tag-mlb","tag-ned-garver","tag-yankees"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115832834238351104","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}