60 YEARS AGO/13: AN OTHERWISE-EMPTY DANCE CARD

Mondays and Thursdays are still the likeliest off-days during the baseball season; thus they usually have fewer games scheduled. Monday, April 23, 1962 was no exception, with only three NL games on the docket and no AL games at all. Two of those three games involved the Dodgers and the Giants.

In Milwaukee, "teenage monster" Joe Moeller caught a break when Henry Aaron's injury during the previous day's game kept him out of the starting lineup, and the slender righty showed much better control than had been the case in his first MLB in Cincinnati five days earlier, settling down after allowing the Braves to score a run in the first when he uncorked a wild pitch, allowing Howie Bedell to score.

Duke Snider and Tommy Davis drove in runs in the fourth to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead, and Braves' starter Lew Burdette weakened further in the fifth and sixth, surrendering homers to Willie Davis and Johnny Roseboro. Moeller staved off a Braves' rally in the seventh, retiring a pinch-hitting Aaron with two men on based, and minimized another one in the eighth, notching his first big league win. Final score: Dodgers 5, Braves 2.

In Cincinnati, veteran lefty Billy Pierce kept the Reds at bay, hurling a complete-game seven-hitter as the Giants score single runs in the first, second, sixth and ninth inning (including another homer from Ed Bailey, his third of the year). Harvey Kuenn remained hot, stroking three singles and scoring twice, bringing his early-season BA up to .417. Final score: Giants 4, Reds 1.

In the only other game of the day, the New York Mets won their first-ever game in their tenth attempt, with former Reds prospect Jay Hook scattering five hits in what would prove to be his best moment in a Mets uniform--he also singled in two runs in the Mets four-run second, an inning in which the Pirates' 43-year old rookie reliever Diomedes Olivo poured gasoline on starter Tom Sturdivant by allowing hits to three of the first four batters he faced. The "flashy keystone duo" of Felix Mantilla and Elio Chacon--both of whom would last only one year with the Mets--each slapped out three hits as the Mets snapped Pittsburgh's ten-game winning streak.

SEASON RECORDS: PIT 10-1, SFG 9-4, LAD 8-5, NYM 1-9