Sept. 7, 1963 - Yankee Stadium was turned into a Bronx bombing range today as the Yanks and Tigers exploded for 29 hits, with the home team piling up its biggest inning of the year — an eight-run bat-around in the fifth — en route to an 11-6 victory. Manager Ralph Houk picked up the pieces of M&M and put them back together again in a starting lineup for only the 23rd time this season. Roger Maris was ready, crashing the game’s only homer and two other hits and driving in four runs. Mickey Mantle contributed two singles and crossed twice before taking his aching legs to rest after the big fifth inning. As might be expected, the pitchers were running for bomb shelteres most of the day. It wasn’t until Hal Reniff, fifth Yankee hurler, and Bill Faul, fourth Tiger twirler, got into the late action that there was any semblance of professional hurling. The first five innings took two hours and 14 minutes to play, and the Yankee fifth lasted 34 minutes. But it wasn’t dull, and the 18,655 fans had a lot of runs for their money. This productive power session eclipsed three seven-run rounds the Yanks had achieved previously this year. Elston Howard pulled himself back toward MVP status again with three hits, one a double, and Joe Pepitone also was a three-hit man, as well as a hit-once man when Faul pinged him on the right arm in the eighth. Houk, of course, was pleased with the performance of his two sluggers. “This is sort of like spring training for them,” the Yankee skipper said. “I just hope we can keep ‘em healthy the rest of the way.”
