Friday, August 26, 2022

60 YEARS AGO/124: REDS FALL DOWN, GO BOOM

We'll bury the lede to permit Dodger fans to revel in yet another rout of the New York Mets at the Polo Grounds in 1962. After the 16-5 laugher was over, Willie Davis (who'd hit yet another homer in the game) was heard to say: "We should schedule these guys more often."

Pete Richert was the beneficiary of a ferocious Dodger attack, which used all of the offensive weapons (two homers, the second by backup first baseman Tim Harkness, who'd be a Met in '63; four stolen bases--three of them by Maury Wills, who upped his season total to 72) and a good bit of defensive fortune as well (five errors by the Mets resulted in twelve of the sixteen Dodger runs scored on 8/26 to be categorized as unearned). Of the starters for LA, only Richert and the recently de-mothballed Duke Snider failed to get a hit.

Richert pitched seven strong innings, but gave ground in the eighth, allowing three runs, two of them scoring on Joe Christopher's homer. Up by thirteen at the time, it hardly mattered. Phil Ortega stumbled around in the ninth, but his wildness (three walks) didn't amount to much. Final score: Dodgers 16, Mets 5.

IN Philadelphia, Willie Mays got (most of) the day off: he was in a mini-slump. The Giants went to work early without him: Orlando Cepeda hit his 30th homer with a man on in the top of the first, and before you knew it, SF had a 6-1 lead after four. Jack Sanford, continuing to pitch on the days when his teammates' hitting was lusty, faded in the sixth, but the Giants got an insurance run in the eighth when Mays came off the bench to draw a walk, take second on a grounder, and score on Tom Haller's single to center. 

Bobby Bolin took over the closer's role for Stu Miller and blanked the Phils for two innings to earn his fourth save of the year. Final score: Giants 7, Phillies 4.

OVER in Cincinnati, Reds manager Fred Hutchinson was feeling confident as his team faced the lowly Colts. His Reds had won 19 of 21 games at home against teams with less than a .500 record, the best figure in the league. 

Which is why he tore up the Reds' locker room a few hours later, when his team had dropped both games of their doubleheader to the first-year "wonders." Lefty George Brunet, just beginning his wayward travels through the major leagues, outdueled Jim Maloney, limiting the Reds to just five hits as the Colts won the opener, 2-1. Rookie catcher Jim Campbell, like Brunet recalled from the minors a month earlier, slapped a two-run homer off Jim O'Toole in the second inning of the nightcap and scored again in the seventh to give the Colts a 4-2 lead.

The Reds rallied in the bottom of the inning to tie, but their ex-teammate Johnny Temple singled in two runs off reliever Ted Wills in the top of the ninth to seal the double-dip of doom for Cincy and their clubhouse (which the wrath of Hutchinson hit like a typhoon). Final score: Colts 6, Reds 4 (game two). The Reds had been just three games out of first when the day began; a week later they'd find themselves seven and a half back. 

SEASON RECORDS: LAD 85-46, SFG 82-48, CIN 81-51