Supernatural 10–0 Comeback
Jeltz big game, Pirates broadcaster’s big walk
By Larry Shenk
Yes, what happened on a Thursday night, June 8, at Veterans Stadium was supernatural. Final score: Phillies 15, Pirates 11 before 18,511 fans some of whom might have left in the first inning. How many stayed through the 3-hour, 20-minute game? No one knows.
Supernatural? You decide.
**Former Phillies pitcher Bob Walk was the Pirates starter. Bob singled in 2 runs and had a 10–0 lead before he threw his first pitch. He lasted only 3.2 innings.
**Steve Jeltz, who replaced 2B Tom Herr in the bottom of the first, hit a 2-run homer from the left side in B4 that sent Walk to the showers with his team leading, 10–4.
**Von Hayes, who played 1B-RF-1B, hit a pair of 2-run home runs but no one noticed.
**Bottom of sixth with his team trailing, 11–6, Jeltz, batting right-handed, became the first Phillies player to hit a home run from each side of the plate in the same game. 3-run HR made it 11–9.
**Jeltz finished the night with 5 RBI. Going into the game, he had 6 for the season. His 2 homers doubled his season total.
**Bottom of the eight, still trailing, 11–10, the Phillies tied the game on a wild pitch. C Darren Daulton followed with a 2-run single for Phillies first lead and RF Curt Ford, a double-switch replacement two innings earlier, tripled in two more. He was out at home plate trying for an inside-the-park homer. That’s 7–5–2, if you are keeping score.
**After falling behind, 10–0, Phillies outscored the Pirates, 15–1.
**Steve Bedrosian closed the door in the ninth. Don Carman (2–9), fourth of five Phillies pitchers, was the winner.
**Oh, Pittsburgh broadcaster Jim Rooker, a former pitcher. When the Pirates led 10–0 in the first inning, he turned to his partner John Sanders and said, “If we lose this game, I’ll walk back to Pittsburgh.”
**Well, that October 5th, Rooker and a friend left Philadelphia for a 327-mile walk to Pittsburgh. Took them 12 days. Backed by a sporting goods company and four corporate sponsors, “Rook’s Unintentional Walk” raised over $100,000 for charity in Pittsburgh.
