McLish bloomed early and flopped twice before the age of 25; when he regrouped into the PCL, his major league record stood at 8-21, with a 5.88 ERA. (Some of that, it should be said, stemmed from a "teenage monster" phase with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1944, when MLB was awash in peach fuzz due to WWII--a kind of jock-strap analogue to the Val Lewton film Youth Runs Wild.)
But, true to the last of his middle names, McLish found redemption with a team whose (at-the-time) nickname (Indians) was congruent with his roots (Oklahoma, once referred to as "Indian country"). He would do some late blooming in Cleveland, get traded despite winning 19 games, go bust, and wind up spending his twilight years with the Phillies, pitching for his teenage teammate with the Dodgers (Gene Mauch). When all accounts were settled, Cal's career captured the connective tissue in baseball between anarchy and random variation: his won-loss record was 92-92.
However, on our day in question (May 24, 1962), McLish faced the Giants, a tough hitting team, beginning with a leadoff hitter (Harvey Kuenn) who wore him out (18-for-55, 5 HRs). He'd handled the team's big boppers (Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda) pretty well, though. In fact, Cepeda was only 1-for-12 against him lifetime.
Then Cepeda, who hit one to the fence in left that Ted Savage hauled in on the dead run. Hiller scored, tying the game. Cepeda would single in the third--another ball hit so hard that the baserunner on second (Kuenn, who'd walked and stolen second) had to be held at third. McLish wriggled off the hook by retiring Felipe Alou--the second straight time Alou had left a man on third base. ("Indian country," indeed.)
The score was still 1-1 when Mays came to the plate in the bottom of the sixth. BLAM! A home run over the center field fence, the ball traveling nearly 450 feet. Then Cepeda again. BLAM! A long drive to left that cleared the fence for another home run. The Giants led, 3-1.
But Juan Marichal had been uncharacteristically wild in this game, and Giants' manager Al Dark had pulled him in the fourth after he'd walked six Phillies. Don Larsen had replaced him, and had thrown two more scoreless innings--but Dark tried to stretch him into the seventh, and it didn't work. Tony Taylor doubled, Ted Savage walked, and Johnny Callison singled to cut the lead to 3-2. Dark brought in his putative ace reliever Stu Miller--who brought his gasoline can with him to the mound. Stu got three outs in the inning--but not before the Phils had three more hits and two more runs, taking a 4-3 lead.
In the bottom of the seventh, Tom Haller (brought in via a double-switch by Dark when he'd relieved Larsen--some slick stuff there from a guy who, like McLish, originally hailed from Oklahoma) singled. Then Dark decided to have Kuenn bunt him along--remember Kuenn has hit 5 HRs off McLish in his career. (You can see the android taking over in Dark's cranium, with a monotone voice: "It's a one-run game...you must bunt...it's a one-run game...you must bunt...".) Harvey does what he's told, Haller gets safely to second, and makes third when Hiller makes Callison back up for his fly ball in right.
Cepeda rips a single to left. (The Baby Bull would add four more consecutive hits in his subsequent at-bats against McLish.) THEN Mauch pulls Cal in favor of big journeyman right-future manager Dallas Green, who faces Felipe Alou.
BLAM! Alou homers, and has a noticeable smirk on his face as he rounds the bases.
Stu Miller becomes the putative ace in the eighth and the ninth that he'd been so unputatively in the seventh--and the Giants have stopped stumbling. Final score: Giants 7, Phillies 4.
THAT evening in LA, the Dodgers found themselves trailing 2-1 to a tough young right-hander (Bob Miller) when Jim Gilliam's error led to the Mets scoring two unearned runs in the third. It would stay that way until the seventh, when LA would scratch across its own unearned run on a single by Wally Moon. Reliever Craig Anderson, who would move into the Mets' starting rotation with catastrophic results (0-11), would surrender two two-out runs on singles by Frank Howard and Johnny Roseboro. Larry Sherry would induce expatriated Dodger great Gil Hodges to hit into a game-ending double play, and that (as they say...) was that. Final score: Dodgers 4, Mets 2.
SEASON RECORDS: SFG 29-14, LAD 27-15.
NL HOME RUN LEADERS: Mays, SFG 13; Cepeda, SFG 13; Thomas, NYM 12; Pinson, CIN 12
