August 27, 1977 – Rangers 8, Yankees 2

NEW YORK – What’s great about baseball is you could go to the ballpark every day, and there’s a decent chance that you might see something you’ve never seen before.

For the 33,179 who were in attendance at Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees worst game in three weeks, they certainly had a memory they could cling to, and 40 years later, no one has repeated what the Rangers did to Ken Clay.

Among the five home runs Texas hit in the game, which helped to end Mike Torrez’s streak of seven consecutive complete-game victories, two were inside-the-park jobs which came on back-to-back pitches.

Only one other time in major-league history had a team hit back-to-back inside-the-park homers. Previously, the feat had been accomplished in 1946 when Eddie Waitkus and Marv Rickert of the Cubs did it against the New York Giants at the spacious Polo Grounds, but this was the first time it had happened on successive pitches.

The historic event occurred in the top of the seventh with the Rangers leading 4-2. Willie Horton and Dave May were on base after hitting singles when Toby Harrah lashed a shot into right field. Lou Piniella, playing in place of Reggie Jackson, leaped to catch the ball but it glanced off his glove, hit the wall and bounced back toward the infield. Piniella was dazed after crashing into the wall and stayed down for a couple minutes, meaning he could do nothing to stop Harrah from circling the bases and scoring standing up for a three-run dinger.

Here's the video recap of the back inside-the-park homers with Mel Allen narrating.

On the very next pitch, Bump Wills hit a blast to straightaway center field. Mickey Rivers turned the wrong way going back, and when he tried to make the catch it glanced off his glove and bounded away toward the left-center gap as the speedy Wills sped around the bases, a far different trip than he’d taken earlier in the game when he hit one over the wall for a conventional home run against Torrez.

While the Rangers were banging out 13 hits off Torrez, Clay, Gil Patterson and Ken Holtzman, the Yankees could do almost nothing against Bert Blyleven. He went the distance and yielded two runs on six hits and five walks. Graig Nettles hit his 31st home run, and the only other guy who produced was Thurman Munson, who showed signs of emerging from his slump with a 3-for-3 day, though he didn’t score a run nor drive one in.

The daily baseball report

#BumpWills #TobyHarrah #MikeTorrez #WillieHorton