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The long road trip continued, but some off days gave the team a chance to catch a breather. Looking at the standings, they had shown some serious improvement. At 18-22, they weren’t where they wanted to be, but they had stayed in fourth place and looked to improve with a four-game set at New York. The vagaries of scheduling and rainouts meant that they would play all four games in two days.

Paige started the first one. His opponent, Cliff Melton, got off on the wrong foot, walking Dandridge to start the came, then giving up a classic Polo Grounds home run to Willie Wells right down the left field line. Paige, perhaps still ailing, gave up a three-run shot to Mel Ott in the bottom of the inning. Paige gave up one more in the third and another in the fourth, and Ruth lifted him for a pinch hitter in the fifth. With Tiant on the mound, the Phillies fought their way back in the seventh, including an RBI triple by Cool Papa Bell (pictured below.) The game was tied at five and in the hands of the bullpens. In the bottom of the seventh, Schoolboy Rowe gave up a 450-foot bomb to Babe Barna to put the Giants ahead. Murtaugh’s single tied it up again in the eighth and in the top of the ninth, Home Run Brown hit one that many on the team said was the longest they’d seen in a long time. It put the Phillies up 8-6. Beck pitched a scoreless ninth, and the game belonged to the visitors.

Johnson took the mound in the nightcap. Facing them was Bill Harvey, formerly of the Baltimore Elite Giants, making this the first time the Phillies had faced a black player on the other side of the field. Harvey, like most of the black Phillies, was a rookie in name only, and handled the visitors well to start. In the fourth, though, Brown hit a ball even farther than the one in the first game, one said to rival Gibson’s famous blast that nearly left Yankee Stadium in 1930. Ennis knocked in two more in the eighth to make it 3-0 as Johnson continued to hold the Giants hitters in check. The Giants finally got a run in the eighth, but that was all as the Phillies took both games that day.

Next day was another two-fer, with Barnhill on the bump against Van Mungo. The Giants scattered a couple runs over the first six, but the Phillies could only put up goose eggs. Down 3-0 in the ninth, they rallied to tie the game with four base hits including another clutch pinch hit by Bell. The rally meant pinch hitting for Barnhill, and when Rowe came in in the ninth, a bases loaded single gave the game to the Giants, 4-3.

Mathis, coming off the shutout in St. Louis, pitched the second game. The Phillies scored early to take a 3-0 lead. Ennis added another with his first homerun off the year in the fourth inning. Mathis was sharp, allowing no runs and two hits through five. Leonard sent a moon shot into the seats in the fifth to make it 5-0, his third hit already that day. Mathis’s luck finally caught up with him when he surrendered three in the sixth, but the Phillies still held the lead. After an hour-long rain delay, Rowe relieved Mathis in the seventh and held the line. He allowed a few baserunners, but no runs, and the Phillies won it 5-3, taking three of four in the road series.

The seventeen-game road trip had been a slog for the Phillies, but they made the best of it, winning eleven of the games. The also brought integrated baseball to new cities and new fans, showing more of the world that black and white men could play baseball—good baseball—on the same field.