On 9/7/62, the games get personal: it is my first trip to Dodger Stadium. My uncle, preparing to return to the Deep South where he is working as an associate professor of literature while finishing his PhD thesis, organizes a Friday night expedition to take in "Walter O'Malley's palace" (his words) and lend some(thing akin to) moral support for the home team.
I am still concerned about Sandy Koufax and his finger. The word has been let out (on the radio) that he is almost ready to return to action; given the up-and-down performance of the Dodger pitching staff during his absence, I am not alone in hoping that he would somehow be on the mound. But my hope of seeing him pitch at my first-ever game at Dodger Stadium did not come to pass. (I would see him in person seven times over the next four years, including his perfect game, occurring almost exactly three years later.)
Francis made only one mistake in the game: he threw an 0-2 pitch up and outside to Frank Howard with one out in the second. Howard hit it to the base of the big scoreboard at the back of the right-field bleachers.
But the Pirates got the run back in the top of the third, when Bob Skinner singled home Bill Virdon. Stan Williams settled down, despite being wild, and matched Francis pitch for pitch through seven innings. There was a buzz in the crowd when Duke Snider singled with one out in the seventh; several folks sitting near us, up in the blue "reserved" section past third base, were vocally dismayed when Walt Alston let Williams bat. Stan took a ball from Francis, then hit his 1-0 on a line into right-center, with Snider on the move. But the ball stayed up long enough for Virdon to snag it.
And then the roof fell in on Williams in the eighth. With one out, Roberto Clemente singled. He was running on the 0-0 pitch to Donn Clendenon, who lined it in between the left field line and the lumbering Snider. Clemente raced toward third, and the Duke tried to throw him out--to no avail. Clendenon alertly took second on the throw.
Alston made no move toward the mound, but signaled for what had clearly become his favorite strategic maneuver--the intentional walk (to Pirates' third baseman Don Hoak). And, for the second straight day, this move backfired catastrophically: 1960 World Series hero Bill Mazeroski stepped to the plate and sent Williams' 0-1 pitch flying into the left-field bleachers for a grand slam.
There was another moment of drama, however, in the top of the ninth. From our seats in the reserved section high above the left-field foul line, we had a tough time seeing who was warming up to pitch the ninth for the Dodgers. One of the folks near us suggested that it might be Koufax.
But it wasn't...it was Larry Sherry, who didn't seem particularly enthusiastic to be coming into a game where his team trailed by four runs. That situation changed rapidly--and for the very much worse: two walks, a double, a single, and two errors produced five more runs for the Pirates--and two more RBI for Mazeroski, giving him a total of six for the night. Earl Francis finished strong, striking out Ron Fairly and Frank Howard (his eighth and ninth). As we trudged back to our car in the exceptionally expansive Dodger Stadium parking lot, my dad noted that he'd never seen a game get out of hand so fast as this one had. Final score: Pirates 10, Dodgers 1.
IN San Francisco, Jack Sanford pitched just well enough to win, surviving a four-RBI night from George Altman thanks to a troika of homers (Jose Pagan, Tom Haller, Felipe Alou). Stu Miller bailed out Sanford in the eighth after the Cubs had cut the Giants' lead down to a single run and earned his 17th save. With the win, SF was just half a game out of first place. Final score: Giants 6, Cubs 5.
SEASON REC)RDS: LAD 91-51, SFG 90-51
