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Lefty Grove Wins 300, Then Walks Away

By July 25, 1941, Lefty Grove was 41 years old and running on fumes. The fireballer who'd once been the most dominant pitcher on Earth was now grinding through every start, stuck on 299 career wins and desperate to get one more. At Fenway Park against Cleveland, he got it, but he had to sweat. Grove labored through a 10-6 complete game, helped along by a fifth inning home run from a 22-year-old teammate you may have heard of: Ted Williams, in the middle of his .406 season. Win number 300. The 12th pitcher in history to reach it. And then? That was it. Grove never won another game. He tried a few more times, couldn't get there, and hung up his spikes. His 300th was also his last, a career that ended on the roundest possible number. Nine pitchers have reached 300 wins since. In an era of pitch counts and bullpen games, it's a club that may never add another member. Grove got in the front door like Grandpa Simpson and closed it behind him.

Red Sox

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Mookie Betts last game as a Red Sox

September 29, 2019. Game 162. Bottom of the 9th, tied 4-4 against the Orioles. Mookie Betts draws a walk, and then on a Rafael Devers single, Mookie turns on the jets. He rounds second, sees Baltimore bobble the ball, and sprints all the way home from first to score the game-winning walk-off run to end the season. No one in Fenway knew it at the time, but that headfirst slide into home plate and the Gatorade shower afterwards would be one of the last moments we’d ever see Mookie Betts in a Red Sox uniform. On February 10th 2020 Mookie Betts was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs, and Connor Wong. As a Red Sox fan, he gave us an MVP season, a World Series ring, and some of the best moments of the decade.

@ChuckieHussy

The Babe Outduels The Big Train

On May 7, 1917, a 22-year-old Boston pitcher named Babe Ruth squared off at Griffith Stadium against Washington's Walter Johnson, the most feared arm in baseball. Johnson had led the AL in wins four straight years and strikeouts five straight. He was the standard. Ruth beat him 1-0. The Red Sox lefty threw a two-hit complete game, his sixth win against zero losses on the season, and improved his lifetime record against Johnson to 6-0. Three of those six wins ended 1-0, that's how thin the margin was every time these two faced each other. AL President Ban Johnson called it "one of the best ballgames I've ever seen." Two years later Ruth would be sold to the Yankees and start hitting home runs for a living. But before he was the Bambino, he was a 22-year-old who could out pitch the greatest pitcher alive. The forgotten chapter of his career produced 94 wins and a 2.28 career ERA, Hall of Fame numbers if he'd never picked up a bat.

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Red Sox Record Inning

On May 6, 1934, at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox put up one of the strangest innings in baseball history. Twelve runs in the bottom of the 4th against the Tigers. And in the middle of it, FOUR consecutive triples, a record that's still standing 92 years later. Center fielder Carl Reynolds hit the first. Left fielder Moose Solters hit the second. Catcher Rick Ferrell hit the third — a future Hall of Famer who had no business legging out a triple. And then 25-year-old third baseman Bucky Walters hit the fourth. Walters is the kicker. He'd convert to pitching three years later, win 27 games for Cincinnati in 1939, take home the NL MVP, and finish his career in Cooperstown as one of the great right-handers of his era. On this day, though, he was an infielder closing out the most absurd four-batter sequence in Red Sox history. Reynolds added a fifth triple later in the game. Final: Boston 14, Detroit 4. The Tigers, who'd go on to win the AL pennant that year and reach the World Series, never recovered. To this day, no team has matched the four-triples-in-a-row barrage Boston dropped on them in that one inning.