The Main Event

  • August 22, 1928 – Mule Haas led off the bottom of the 17th inning with a home run off Cleveland’s John Miljus, capping a marathon 6-5 win over the Indians at Shibe Park that somehow took just 3 hours 15 minutes; it came in the thick of a tight three-team pennant chase that the A’s would turn into three straight AL flags and two World Series titles from 1929-31.

On August 22, 1928, at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, a light-hitting but sure-handed center fielder named George “Mule” Haas led off the bottom of the 17th inning against the Cleveland Indians and drove a pitch from reliever Johnny Miljus out onto 20th Street. It was a walk-off home run, his fifth of the season, and it ended a marathon that Philadelphia won 6-5. What makes the game worth remembering just for it’s pace of play — 17 innings in just just three hours and fifteen minutes — but what it represented: a Philadelphia Athletics team clawing its way back into contention against the New York Yankees, one year before that same young core broke through and built one of the great dynasties in baseball history.

The 1928 season belonged to New York on paper. The Yankees, fresh off a 110-win, World Series-sweeping 1927 campaign built around Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, looked like they’d cruise to a third straight pennant. By July 1, they held a commanding 13.5-game lead over Connie Mack‘s Athletics. Then Philadelphia caught fire. From July 1 through September 8, the A’s went 50-19 — a pace that would translate to roughly 117 wins over a full modern season — and on September 8, a doubleheader sweep of the Red Sox at Fenway Park vaulted them into first place, ahead of the Yankees for the first time all year.

The lead lasted about a day. New York swept a doubleheader from the Athletics at Yankee Stadium the very next afternoon, knocking Philadelphia back to second place, and the Yankees held on the rest of the way. New York finished 101-53; the Athletics finished 98-55, two and a half games back. It’s one of the great near-misses in AL history — a 50-19 stretch run that still wasn’t enough, partly because the two clubs played each other so often down the stretch and New York, even battered by injuries to Herb Pennock, Earle Combs, and Tony Lazzeri, kept finding ways to win the games that mattered.

The Mule Haas game, inning by inning

The Cleveland series in question came in the middle of that stretch run, with the Athletics building their case. Philadelphia crushed the Indians 12-4 in the series opener behind Jack Quinn‘s 16th win of the season. The next day’s marathon was a pitchers’ duel gone sideways: Cleveland’s George Uhle against Philadelphia rookie George Earnshaw, who was in the process of piecing together a strong first full season after four-plus years in the high minors.

Neither team scored for six innings until the Athletics pushed a run across in the second on a Mule Haas double and a wild throw. Cleveland tied it in the seventh, then broke the game open with four runs in the eighth, aided by a dropped throw at first base and a string of bunts that turned into base hits. Philadelphia answered immediately, scoring three in the bottom of the eighth to cut the deficit to 5-4, then tied it in the ninth on a wild throw by Cleveland’s shortstop. From there the two bullpens — Miljus for Cleveland, Eddie Rommel for Philadelphia — matched zeroes for eight more innings, trading chances until Haas ended it with one swing in the 17th. Rommel picked up the win in relief; Miljus, who had pitched brilliantly for nine-plus innings before the home run, took the loss.

From heartbreak to history: 1929-1931

The 1928 near-miss turned out to be the last step before the Athletics finally got where they were going. In 1929, the same core — catcher Mickey Cochrane, first baseman Jimmie Foxx, outfielder Al Simmons, and a pitching staff anchored by Lefty Grove — didn’t just catch the Yankees, they buried them, winning the American League pennant by 18 games and ending New York’s run of dominance outright.

That October brought one of the most famous comebacks in World Series history, and again, Mule Haas was in the middle of it. Down 8-0 to the Chicago Cubs in Game 4 and facing a 3-1 series deficit if they lost, the Athletics erupted for ten runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, which is still the largest deficit ever overcome in postseason history. The rally turned in part on Haas’ own at-bat: he lifted a routine fly ball to center that Cubs outfielder Hack Wilson lost in the sun, and it rolled all the way to the wall for an inside-the-park, bases-clearing home run. Philadelphia won 10-8, closed out the Series in five games, and Haas, the hero from a year earlier, had authored one of the signature moments of the franchise’s championship run.

The Athletics repeated as World Series champions in 1930, beating the St. Louis Cardinals, and won a third consecutive American League pennant in 1931 before the Cardinals turned the tables, upsetting Philadelphia in a seven-game rematch sparked by rookie sensation Pepper Martin. It was the last World Series appearance for the Philadelphia-era Athletics. The Great Depression hit the franchise’s attendance hard, and Connie Mack — as he had done once before after the club’s first dynasty in the 1910s — began selling off his stars piece by piece over the next several years. Grove, Cochrane, Simmons, and Foxx were all gone from Philadelphia within a few seasons, and the team wouldn’t sniff the postseason again until 1972, by then relocated to Oakland.

Where Mule Haas fits in

Haas himself was never the marquee name on those Athletics teams — that recognition belonged to Foxx, Simmons, Cochrane, and Grove — but he was exactly the kind of player great teams need underneath the stars. A steady defensive center fielder and one of the American League’s best baserunners of his era, he led the league in sacrifice bunts six different times and posted his best all-around season in 1929, batting .313 with 41 doubles. Signed originally by the Pittsburgh Pirates, Haas played for the Athletics from 1928 through 1932, moved on to the Chicago White Sox, and returned to Philadelphia for one final season in 1938. His 17th-inning home run against Cleveland in August 1928 was a small, half-forgotten footnote in a long pennant race the A’s ultimately lost — but a year later, with the same swing off the same sun-blinded outfielders, he’d help write one of the sport’s most improbable championship comebacks.

Philadelphia Baseball Events for August 22

  • August 22, 1952 – Both starting pitchers wound up in the same hospital after a game at Crosley Field. Reds starter Frank Hiller suffered a broken nose and spike wounds in a first base collision with Richie Ashburn in the first inning, and Phillies starter Curt Simmons joined him later after taking a line drive off the wrist in the third.
  • August 22, 1954 – The Phillies lost pitcher Jim Konstanty on waivers to the New York Yankees.
  • August 22, 1961 – Art Mahaffey threw a one-hit, 6-0 win over Chicago, ending a personal 10-game losing streak; the only hit was a single by Ron Santo, the second batter of the game.
  • August 22, 2000 – Bruce Chen gave up a first-inning grand slam to Cincinnati’s Alex Ochoa, the record-setting 142nd slam hit across the majors that year.
  • August 22, 2002 – Randy Wolf hit his first major-league home run on his 26th birthday and picked up the win with eight shutout innings.
  • August 22, 2023 – Trea Turner‘s two-out, two-run single in the ninth deflected off Giants closer Camilo Doval‘s glove, lifting the Phillies to a 4-3 walk-off win over San Francisco.

ICYMI

Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for August 22

  • Howie Camnitz (born 1881) – Primarily a Pittsburgh Pirates ace, Camnitz was traded to the Phillies midseason in 1913 and made nine appearances for Philadelphia, going 3-3 down the stretch of what turned out to be his final full big-league season.
  • Wally Schang (born 1889) – Schang was the Philadelphia Athletics’ regular catcher from 1913-1917, batting .357 with a home run in the 1913 World Series as the A’s beat the Giants for the title. He later added a second championship with the A’s in 1930 (though he didn’t play in that Series), one of four World Series rings across his career.
  • Herman Fink (born 1911) – Fink spent his entire three-year big-league career (1935-1937) with the Philadelphia Athletics, a swingman who went 10-20 with a 5.22 ERA for some lean Connie Mack-era teams.
  • Ed Freed (born 1919) – Freed collected four hits in his major-league debut for the Phillies on September 11, 1942, but that was his only big-league season; he joined the Army the following year and never returned to the majors after World War II.
  • Doug Bair (born 1949) – A well-traveled reliever across 15 big-league seasons, Bair pitched for the Phillies in 1987, making 11 relief appearances.
  • Randy Wolf (born 1976) – Wolf came up through the Phillies’ system and started for Philadelphia across parts of eight seasons (1999-2004, then again in 2007), making the 2003 All-Star team; his first career home run came on his 26th birthday in a Phillies win.
  • Drew Hutchison (born 1990) – Hutchison pitched for the Phillies in 2018, one stop in a wide-ranging career that also included Toronto, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Texas.

Please scroll down to comment on this story or to give it a rating. We appreciate your feedback!

PBN Logo

Disclaimer: Some of the products featured or linked on this website may generate income for Philly Baseball News through affiliate commissions, sponsorships, or direct sales. We only promote items we believe in, but please assume that PBN may earn a cut from qualifying purchases that you make using a link on this site.

Privacy Policy | Contact us

© 2026 LV Sports Media. All rights reserved.