Mr. Tiger and the Green Monster

When I first saw the title "Top 25 Team Killers All-Time" I DVR'd the program thinking that it'd be a show featuring Milton Bradley, Carlos Zambrano and Jeff Kent. Clearly, I was mistaken when on my screen I saw Stan Musial, Roy Oswalt and Albert Pujols.

Fast forwarding a bit, I stumbled upon some video taped footage. It was of a Tigers/Red Sox broadcast featuring Al Kaline doing what he did best: killing the Red Sox. The clip featured 'sound effects' which may or may not have been from the telecast, however it had a narrator speaking over the clip obscuring any play-by-play that might have existed in the clip.






Thanks to the LF scoreboard, this one is pretty easy to nail down. We know it's Kaline vs the Sox. With Kaline finishing on 2B in the clip, we know it is a double to LF. Dick McAuliffe (#3) scores on the play and #24 Mickey Stanley awaits the runner at homeplate, bat in hand.



So:

-Kaline double to LF
-McAuliffe run scored (RBI for Kaline)
-Stanley next batter
-Day Game at Fenway

What about the Red Sox in this clip? The pitcher in the clip is right handed with his number obscured and is dark complected. The catcher in the game is #22. In the 1960s, the only 3 catchers the Red Sox had with that number were Russ Nixon (1960-1962) , Mike Ryan (1966-67) and Gene Oliver (1968).

This is all a lot of work that I really didn't have to do. Because of the shot of the scoreboard, I know the linescore for this game. Using the RBI 2B scenerio for Kaline at Fenway park, he only did it 23 times in his 22 year career. Of those, only 1 matches the score on the scoreboard: May 13th, 1967. You can see the Tigers have 5 runs at this point in the 9th inning.


With that info in mind, the pitcher is John Wyatt, the catcher is Mike Ryan and Kaline's double drove in the 6th run of the 9th inning in a game the Tigers actually trailed in 5-4 before exploding in the final frame. The Red Sox would push across 3 runs with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th before recording the final out with the tying run at the plate.


Why this clip exists, how much of it exists, etc is unknown. It is color videotape footage and with both a substantial amount of footage from the Boston and Detroit markets showing up from this era, it's debatable who the source actually is.