May 7, 1957: The New York Yankees play the Cleveland Indians at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Tom Sturdivant is the starting pitcher for the Yankees. For the Indians, it's Herb Score.
A lefthander from he Rosedale section of the Borough of Queens, in New York City, score was a month away from his 24th birthday. In 1955, he set a rookie record, since broken by Dwight Gooden, for strikeouts in a season, 245. He went 16-10 with a 2.85 ERA, made the American League All-Star Team, and was named AL Rookie of the Year.
In 1956, he was even better, going 20-9 with a 2.53 ERA and 263 strikeouts, making the All-Star Game again. The Boston Red Sox offered the Indians $1 million for Score's contract -- about $10.6 million in 2022 money. The Indians turned it down: The great Bob Feller was retiring, and they saw Feller being succeeded by Score as the pitching equivalent of the Yankees getting their great center fielder Joe DiMaggio, succeeded by Mickey Mantle, or their great catcher Bill Dickey succeeded by Yogi Berra.
Score began the game by getting Hank Bauer to ground out to 3rd. The next batter was Gil McDougald, playing shortstop. He hit a line drive right up the middle, smacking Score in the eye, the ball rebounding to 3rd base, where it was fielded by Al Smith, who threw McDougald out.
Not that it mattered: McDougald saw Score go down, and heard a crowd of 18,386 groan. McDougald never went to first, he went right to Score, not that there was anything he could do to aid him. But he knew what could happen: He had been hit in the head with a pitch in 1955, and began to lose his hearing.
Both teams' trainers tended to him. He was bleeding badly, even soaking through a towel. He was taken off the field on a stretcher.
Pressed into emergency service, the intended next night's starter for the Indians, Bob Lemon, took the mound, and held the Yankees to 1 run the rest of the way. That run came in the top of the 7th. The Indians got the run back in the bottom of the 7th, thanks to a Yankee error; and won it in the 8th, when Sturdivant walked Rocky Colavito with the bases loaded. The Indians won, 2-1.
Mickey Mantle went 0-for-4 for the game. Playing center field for the Indians was a rookie who would one day become a part of Yankee history: Roger Maris. He went 1-for-3. This was the 1st MLB game in which Mantle and Maris both played.
After the game, McDougald said he would quit baseball if Score lost the use of his eye. He didn't: Although his facial injuries kept him out for the rest of the season, his vision remained 20-20. He returned for the 1958 season, but hurt his elbow. In 1959, afraid of a similar injury -- not another comebacker -- he altered his pitching delivery, and that gave him a different injury. He was never the same, and finished his career only 55-46.
He later became a broadcaster for the Indians, from 1964 until 1997. He had joined the team after their 1954 Pennant, and lasted just long enough to see them move into Jacobs (now Progressive) Field and win Pennants in 1995 and 1997. He was elected to the Indians' team Hall of Fame, and died in 2009.
McDougald became more skittish about playing than Score did: Afraid of hitting another pitcher, he became less aggressive at the plate. He retired after the 1960 season. He became the head baseball coach at Fordham University in The Bronx, but had to quit because his hearing loss became total. In 1987, he was interviewed for the team history video New York Yankees: The Movie, and his speech had deteriorated to the point where, not yet knowing about his hearing loss, but seeing his memory still intact, I thought he'd had a stroke.
He later received a cochlear implant that restored his hearing, became a paid spokesman for it, and his voice was fine when he was interviewed by the YES Network for its Yankeeography series in 2002. He lived until 2010.
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May 7, 1957 was a Tuesday. Football, basketball and hockey were out of season. These other Major League Baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-5 at the Polo Grounds. Red Schoendienst, former Cardinal All-Star 2nd baseman and future Cardinal World-Series-winning manager, hit a home run for the Giants. So did Dusty Rhodes. Willie Mays got the day off. Stan Musial went 0-for-3.
* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Cincinnati Redlegs, 9-2 at Ebbets Field. (Caving in to Cold War paranoia, the Reds were the Redlegs from 1954 to 1958.) Frank Robinson went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs. The Dodgers got only 6 hits, 2 of them by Gino Cimoli.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Milwaukee Braves, 8-4 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Hank Aaron went 2-for-4 with an RBI triple, but Robin Roberts outpitched Warren Spahn.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 10-8 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Ernie Banks went 3-for-6, and Roberto Clemente went 1-for-6 with an RBI on a sacrifice fly. The Cubs blew a 6-4 lead in the bottom of the 9th, then scored 4 runs in the top of the 14th. The Pirates scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 14th, but it wasn't enough.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 5-3 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Al Kaline went 1-for-4 for the Tigers. Harmon Killebrew was eligible to play for the Senators, but did not.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Ted Williams went 2-for-2 with a home run, 2 walks, and 3 RBIs.
* And the Kansas City Athletics beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Brooks Robinson did not play for the Orioles. Instead, their 3rd baseman was a Hall-of-Famer, but for his managing later on: Dick Williams. Vic Power won it for the A's with a home run in the 10th inning.
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