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The Red Sox won a franchise-record 15 straight games in 1946. This article, 'Williams, Pesky, Doerr& Company Are Making Every Day May Day' by Jack Malaney, originally appeared in the May 16, 1946 issue of The Sporting News.
One must go back many years, possibly back to 1914, when Boston's Braves came from the bottom of the list right on through to the top to win the pennant, to find a winning stride which struck the popular chord as resonantly as did the 15-game winning streak of Joe Cronin's Red Sox.
Throughout major league baseball territory, and then from the sunny slopes of California to the rocky outlines of Maine, the average baseball fan seemed pleased that success was coming to a team which, so often in past years, has knocked at the door of baseball success, but did not hear if beckoned to come in.
Some sort of a record was made when the Red Sox racked up 15 consecutive victories. For one thing, it probably never before happened that, in the month of May, one club won every game played with the teams of the league's western portion of the circuit.
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The Sox did it.
They accomplished that stunt after they had beaten the Yankees once and had gone to Philadelphia and knocked off the Athletics three straight.
Started on Tigers
The Detroit Tigers, still champions by virtue of their 1945 victory, were the first team in. The Sox beat them thrice. Cleveland was next and Lou Boudreau's outfit was downed twice.
The Browns arrived for a double-header on May 5 which was rained out. It was played the next day, an off day, and the Sox eked out two victories. They were trailing the following day when suddenly they came to life, tied the score and then won in 14 innings on Leon Culberson's grand-slam homer.
The White Sox were next. Boston's pitching collapsed thoroughly in the Pale Hose series, but before the Chicagoans realized that fact, the Red Sox had made so many hits and runs that they could not be overhauled. Chicago made 17 hits in their first game, with a lone two-bagger the only extra-base hit. They blasted 15 hits which included four doubles the next day and yet that was not enough, either.
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It got so the Red Sox could not seem to do anything wrong. Everything they did was right and all the breaks went against the other team. Then they were put to the test. They left the chummy confines of Fenway Park with its nearby left field barrier which the Sox tattoo regularly, for their first western trip; but before going west, they had a three-game series with the Yankees at New York.
That became a "World Series in May." It was the test the Red Sox needed. They had been a devastating, slugging outfit with anybody in the lineup, including the pitchers, likely to break up a game at any time. Their pitching had been weak at times, but sufficient to get them the longest winning streak in years.
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The opening game was played May 10 with 64,183 persons in the stands. It was quite a ball game. The Sox power had broken out in the second inning to post three runs on the board. Joe Dobson was sailing along nobly, seeking his fifth pitching victory in as many tries. He filled the bases in the fifth inning and then Joe DiMaggio banged a high outside pitch into the right field turn of the grandstand for a grand-slam home run.
That was where the real test started. The Sox lead was gone; they were behind now by one run. Yankee power had taken over, and the Gotham scribes were muttering that it still was baloney no matter how you sliced it unless the Yankees were considered the best.
Dobson was yanked after that homer. It was a great move by Joe Cronin, although the homer only was the fifth safety off Dobson in the game. Earl Johnson, who was brought in to relieve Joe, had not worked for more than two weeks.
Culberson Out With Broken Finger
Johnson shut the door on the Yankees' faces completely. The only hit he gave up in five innings was a ball hit by Joltin' Joe down third base way which Leon Culberson challenged, hot as it was, but it got away from him and Joe beat the throw after the ball was retrieved. That hit broke the index finger of Culby's right hand.
Meanwhile, Joe Page, who had replaced Red Ruffing, was breezing along. But Lefty Joe tempted fate when he walked Bobby Doerr to start the seventh. Rudy York came along with a gargantuan three-bagger to left-center which tied the score and then trotted home nonchalantly on a single by Dom DiMaggio. The way Johnson was pitching, those runs were sufficient for the fifteenth victory.
It was different the next day, Ernie Bonham hurling a two-hit, 2 to 0 shutout.
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The Sox success kept the Braves in the background the past couple of weeks, although the Tribe did not have too much luck on its western trip. In their first two stops, they were rained out of four games and lost the only one played. They dropped two of three to the Cardinals and were one and one with the Cubs, winning a 12-inning battle.
They stopped at Brooklyn on the way home for a night game which they lost. At home, May 11, they played Boston's first night game before a packed house and again were beaten, this time by the Giants, but the next day, Sunday, they shellacked Ott's gang, winning a double-header.
The Braves followed with a victory over the Ottmen, May 13, and climbed to third place in the standings.
