Wednesday, May 9, 1962 was the day when the Dodgers'
Davis boys--
Willie and
Tommy--began to bat back-to-back in the batting order. Willie, #2 in the batting race behind
Stan Musial at this point, had been moved into the third slot behind
Maury Wills and
Jim Gilliam earlier in the month; Tommy, #2 in the RBI race but destined to storm into the lead in both that category and in batting average, was moved into the cleanup slot on this day--and drove in a couple of runs.
The LA lineup kept up its lofty hitting in Colt Stadium, putting the lie to the notion that the stopgap ballpark favored pitchers--the Dodgers banged out 16 hits and broke the game wide open by scoring five runs in the ninth inning.
Johnny Podres scattered eight hits and coaxed the Colts into an 0-for-7 performance with runners in scoring position--though catcher Merritt Ranew, later famous as one of the Seattle Pilots' "country boy" players featured in Jim Bouton's Ball Four, became the 85th catcher since 1901 to hit two triples in the same game, a feat that has been accomplished only nine times by catchers in the twenty-first century. Final score: Dodgers 9, Colt .45s 2.
IN St. Louis,
Curt Simmons allowed three homers to the Giants...but they were all solo shots; meanwhile the Cardinals knocked
Jack Sanford out of the game in the fourth, led by
Carl Sawatski, who wound up with four RBIs. (Like the Pirates, the Cardinals would prove to be an extremely streaky team in '62, and they'd play a decisive role in the outcome of the pennant race in the last days of the '62 season.) Final score: Cardinals 7, Giants 3.
SEASON RECORDS: SFG 21-7, STL 16-8, LAD 17-11, PIT 14-10, PHI 12-11, CIN 13-13, MIL 11-14, HOU 10-15, NYM 5-16, CHC 6-20
