One Tough Moment Did Not Define Al Downing's Career

Today, I’m wishing left-hander Al Downing a happy 83rd birthday. He joined the Yankees’ system in 1961, came up to the Bronx for good in 1963, and put together a solid resume, even though he pitched for some terrible teams in the late 1960s. He later moved to the Dodgers where, in 1974, he was on the wrong side of one of the most famous events in MLB history. Lets get to it.

If not for one pitch, thrown as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers 50 years ago during the first week of the 1974 Major League Baseball season, Al Downing’s primary legacy during a fine 17-year career would have been crystal clear.

As a 20-year-old rookie, the Trenton, New Jersey native became the first Black pitcher in Yankees history when he took the mound against the Washington Senators on July 19, 1961, a full 14-plus years after Jackie Robinson integrated MLB.

That would have been a hell of a lead paragraph on the story of Downing’s now 83-year life, but instead, that important fact has always been overshadowed by what happened 13 years later when Downing became a central figure in one of the greatest moments in the history of baseball.

On the night of April 8, 1974, at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and in front of a national TV audience which back then was a big deal, Downing threw the pitch that Hank Aaron launched over the left-field fence for his 715th career home run, breaking Babe Ruth’s record.

The video will be on loop until the end of time and it will never not include Downing throwing the fastball which Aaron belted, and Downing standing on the mound watching Aaron circle the bases before getting mobbed at home plate by his Braves teammates as the sellout crowd roars in the background.

Yet Downing has never had trouble coping with his role in that moment, not then, not now. “If I had been in the league for only a year or two, it might have been more emotional for me,” Downing told Yankees Magazine in 2020. “But I had been around for a long time, and I was content knowing that I threw him a good pitch.”

Given their obvious link, the New York Times contacted Downing when Aaron died in 2021 and he shared a story about how, the night after the home run, Aaron sought him out.

“(Aaron) said, ‘I know we didn’t get a chance to talk last night because it was so hectic here on the field,’” Downing recalled. “He had told the bat boy to come over to our clubhouse and get me, and we met behind the cage on the field as he was getting ready to take batting practice. He told me, ‘Don’t keep your head down. Don’t feel sorry.’ I said, ‘Mr. Aaron, I don’t have my head down. It’s a pleasure to play in the big leagues against you.’”

That was who Downing was, a quiet, humble, unassuming ballplayer who wanted nothing to do with the spotlight - not when he made Yankees history because of the color of skin and not when he served up Aaron’s record-breaking home run.

Downing was pitching for Rider College in New Jersey when the Yankees signed him in 1961 and sent him to Single-A Binghamton. He wasted no time making an impression, so much so that in the middle of a dazzling start to his pro career - he finished that season in Binghamton 9-1 with a 1.84 ERA - Downing was surprisingly called up to the Yankees because they were in the midst of a pitching injury crisis.

The fact that he bypassed pitchers at higher levels in the minor league system indicated what the Yankees thought of him. When Downing joined the team, catcher Elston Howard - who had been the first Black player to don the pinstripes in 1955 - became his road roommate. Howard had been rooming with the Yankees’ other Black player, outfielder Hector Lopez, and Lopez quipped, “Maybe we (the three Blacks) should have a suite.”

Downing’s debut did not go well as he faced eight Senators and five scored before manager Ralph Houk took him out in the second inning.

“I wasn’t ready for that,” Downing told Yankees Magazine. “That wasn’t who I was. I was so overwhelmed by the atmosphere that I reverted back to the kid who had to throw the ball through a brick wall in order to get guys out. Yogi caught me that night. All the writers were talking about me in the clubhouse after the game, and out of nowhere, Yogi walked in between them and told them, ‘Say something nice about Al. He’s going to be here for a long time.’ That made me feel so much better. That was Yogi.”

Downing would pitch four more games that year for the Yankees and just one in late 1962 (he was at Triple-A Richmond all year) before he proved Berra right in 1963 by earning a spot in the rotation. He went 13-5 with a 2.56 ERA in 24 appearances and started Game 2 of the World Series against the Dodgers, suffering a 4-1 loss at Yankee Stadium.

“When I came up to the big leagues, I was throwing hard, but not throwing strikes,” he said. “It took me a while to figure out how to be effective again. When I came back up in ’63, everything in my life had changed. I had gone through the whole Richmond situation (playing in a racially-charged city that made his life as a Black man often difficult) and that helped me mature. I had also learned a lot about pitching and about what I was capable of overcoming. Going out and throwing seven, eight or even nine innings felt easy after that.”

In 1964 he became a workhorse as he helped the Yankees win their fifth straight AL pennant. He started 35 games, went 13-8 with a 3.47 ERA in 244 innings, then made three appearances in the seven-game World Series loss to the Cardinals.

But it would be 10 years before he pitched again in the postseason because for his final five years in the Bronx the Yankees were mostly terrible, the beginnings of one of the worst epochs in franchise history. Still, Downing almost always gave them a chance to win when it was his turn to pitch and somewhere along the way - probably after he led the AL in strikeouts in 1964 with 217 - some were calling him the “Black Sandy Koufax” because his left-handed fastball and big curveball were so impressive.

He ultimately played in parts of nine seasons with New York, but the last two were plagued by an elbow injury and that prompted his trade to the A’s after 1969. His final line with the Yankees showed a 72-57 record in 208 games (175 starts), a 3.23 ERA, a 1.247 WHIP, and one All-Star appearance.

After splitting a miserable 1970 with the A’s and Brewers, Downing was traded to Los Angeles where he enjoyed a rebirth of sorts. Milwaukee general manager Marvin Milkes actually called Downing to say he had two solid offers, one from the Dodgers and one from the Cardinals, and he asked Downing which place he would prefer, an option most players being traded are rarely afforded.

The choice was obvious for Downing. “St. Louis had AstroTurf, and I hated AstroTurf,” he said. “And at that time, Dodger Stadium was a pitcher’s park.”

And in 1971, his first season in Dodger blue with his elbow finally healed, he certainly took advantage of that. He won 20 games for the first and only time, lost just nine, set career highs in starts (36), innings (262.1) and complete games (12) and posted a terrific 2.68 ERA that was helped by his National-League leading five shutouts.

“In ’71, everything broke just right,” he said. “I enjoyed what I was able to do that season because it kept us in the pennant race. A lot of our guys said that I was the difference maker because they didn’t count on me to win 20 games. But more than anything, it confirmed that I could still pitch in the majors. I had learned how to be effective without the same velocity I once had from watching Whitey (Ford) and from being around him earlier in my career, and it was satisfying to now do some of the same things he had done.”

Downing never enjoyed the same success in his last six years in Los Angeles, but he helped the Dodgers win the 1974 NL pennant and he made two appearances in that postseason, including taking the loss in Game 4 of the World Series against the A’s.

When he retired after 1977, left off the Dodgers playoff roster when they faced the Yankees in the World Series, Downing’s 17-year career showed a 123-107 record and a 3.22 ERA across 405 appearances and 2,268.1 innings.

Of his time in New York he said, “I really appreciate the time I spent playing for the Yankees. It’s something that stays with you forever. When I come back for Old-Timers’ Day, I think about how my life has played out. I was a kid from Trenton, who nobody paid much attention to, and before I knew it, I was pitching for the New York Yankees. That makes me feel real good.”

When Downing and Aaron participated in a 10-year anniversary of the home run, Aaron came to his defense for being the man who delivered the pitch that he sent soaring into history.

“At the reunion we had in ’84, we were sitting at the table at lunch and there were a bunch of writers there, and they were asking us questions,” Downing told the Times. “One writer decides he’s going to fire a couple digs at me so he says, ‘Hey, Al, Henry really wore you out, didn’t he?’

“So Hank says, ‘Wait a minute. No, no, no. Al was a darn good pitcher. He was not a guy you took lightly when you went up there. You knew he was going to battle you. He was a great adversary.’ The guy shut up real, real quick. He said, ‘I was going to hit that home run anyway, whoever was pitching. So, don’t make him out to be a bad guy. That (home run) doesn’t take away from his career.’”

⚾ June 24, 1962: The Yankees played their longest game in franchise history, a marathon 22-inning affair that took seven hours to play and ended in victory, 9-7 over Detroit at Tiger Stadium. The first inning alone was interminable as the Yankees scored six times off Frank Lary, the big blow a three-run homer by Clete Boyer. However, the Tigers answered in the bottom half when Purnal Goldy (what a name) hit a three-run homer off Bob Turley.

The Yankees scored in the second to make it 7-3, and then did not get a runner across home plate for the next 19 innings. The Tigers tied it in the sixth and then never scored again as rookie Jim Bouton blanked them on three hits over the final seven innings. New York won the game in the 22nd on a two-run homer by Jack Reed off Phil Regan, the seventh Detroit pitcher. Incredibly, that was the only home run of Reed’s 222-game career with the Yankees. Bobby Richardson went 3-for-11 and scored twice, Yogi Berra went 3-for-10, and Mickey Mantle drove in two runs before leaving the game in the seventh with an injury.

⚾ June 28, 1939: This was not a good day for Connie Mack and his Philadelphia A’s. The Yankees swept a doubleheader at Shibe Park by the ridiculous scores of 23-2 and 10-0, giving what was unquestionably one of the greatest Yankee teams in history a 48-13 record. In the opener, the Bronx Bombers set MLB records with eight home runs and 53 total bases. Joe DiMaggio and Babe Dahlgren (the man who had taken over at first base for the ill Lou Gehrig) hit two each and George Selkirk, Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, and Tommy Henrich had one apiece to lead a 27-hit assault.

In the nightcap, Lefty Gomez pitched a three-hit shutout while the offense mashed out 16 more hits including two homers by Gordon and one by DiMaggio, Dahlgren and Frankie Crosetti. The 13 home runs set a new record for most in a doubleheader. In between games, Gehrig presented the lineup card to the umpire for Game 2 and was met there by Mack, who rarely left the dugout.