60 YEARS AGO/43: EVERYONE HAD THEIR HITTING CLOTHES ON...

We should amend that headline to note that three of the four teams in our two featured games on Friday, May 25, 1962, also had their walking clothes on. The Dodgers and Mets each drew six walks, while the Giants drew eight, including three from the normally swing-happy Chuck Hiller. 

The Phillies drew only three walks, but they would eventually compile eleven hits as they tried to overcome a nine-run deficit at Candlestick Park. They didn't make it, but Al Dark seemed intent on giving them a bushelful of chances (to paraphrase Rhoda Penmark) to do so. (The real-life Rhoda, actress Patty McCormack, would blanch at such a thought--a good Brooklyn girl from the get-go, McCormack is a lifelong Dodger fan.)

Once again, Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda were in the middle of things, each hitting their 14th homer and knocking Phillies starter Jack Hamilton out of the game in the fifth. Frank Sullivan must have felt the presence of the Bad Seed during his brief but unmerciful relief stint, for the Phils made three errors in the sixth to hand the Giants four more (unearned) runs, pushing the score to 10-1.

Billy Pierce was cruising until the eighth, when star-crossed bonus boy Mel Roach singled home Ted Savage and scored on Tony Gonzalez' two-run homer, making it 10-4. He gave more ground in the ninth, finally giving way to Stu Miller after Johnny Callison's three-run shot. Stu almost allowed the tying run to come to the plate, but apparently thought better of it, coaxing Roach to tap one back to the mound for the game-ending out. Final score: Giants 10, Phillies 7.

DOWN in LA, the Dodgers rolled out two six-run innings as they took after five Met hurlers, scoring runs against all of them. Maury Wills had four hits, three stolen bases, and scored three runs; Tommy Davis had four hits and three RBI. But the real damage came from the bottom three hitters in their lineup: Larry Burright (his era now seriously on the cusp of vaporization...) had a last fling with a double, a homer and four RBI; third-string catcher Norm Sherry coaxed long-misplaced memories from his bat, also knocking in four runs; and Ron Fairly had three hits, three RBI and scored three times, thus conjuring up three hat tricks at once. 

Teenage monster Joe Moeller didn't pitch well, but he didn't really have to--but he was touched for homers by Frank Thomas (#13, trying to keep pace with Mays and Cepeda) and another one of the Mets' ethereal legends, Cliff Cook, a failed slugger dropped on their doorstep by the Reds, who would hit all of .188 while doing hard time in the Polo Grounds. (The real Mets "legend of '62" had also just come aboard after being spirited out of Baltimore in the dead of night: we're speaking of "Marvelous Marv" Throneberry, a man that Casey Stengel had pined for after the Yankees had traded him away in 1959. Marv went 0-for-5 on this evening, and Ol' Case would soon stop pining for him even while Mets' fans made him into a cult figure.)

One last Met hero in yet another losing cause didn't even start the game--Felix Mantilla replaced Elio Chacon at shortstop (Elio apparently needing to prepare for his upcoming one-round bout with Willie Mays--more on that later...) and promptly went 4-for-4 with four RBI. Strangely enough, this performance did not earn "Felix the Cat" a start the following evening in San Francisco. Could Stengel have really slept through a game that produced a total of twenty-five runs?! Final score: Dodgers 17, Mets 8.

SEASONAL RECORDS: SFG 30-14, LAD 28-15

NL RBI LEADERS: Cepeda, SF 47; Tommy Davis, LA 43; Pinson, Cin 36;  Mays, SF 35