60 YEARS AGO/9: DISASTER AT CROSLEY FIELD + "HALLER v. BAILEY"

After splitting their initial skirmishes at Candlestick Park, the Giants and Dodgers moved east. For Walt Alston's team, it was a reminder that the back end of their starting rotation was more than a bit shaky.

19-year old Joe Moeller got the start at Cincinnati's Crosley Field, which had a "terraced outfield" capable of more than occasional mischief, particularly for visiting players. For young Moeller, however, the outfield wasn't really the problem--it was a combination of his shaky control and Vada Pinson. The "teenage monster" issued two walks before Pinson slammed a three-run homer in the bottom of the first. 

It wasn't until the second inning when the slanted outfield came into play, when Frank Howard misplayed Johnny Edwards' liner into a double. Things fell apart rapidly for Moeller, who got little help from Ed Roebuck, who proved incapable of stranding the men Moeller had left on the basepaths when Alston gave him a not-quick-enough "quick hook." It was 6-0 Reds after two innings, and things went further downhill for Roebuck and his successor Phil Ortega.

Tommy Davis' two errors in center field convinced Alston that he needed to put the other Davis--Willie--back into the field. (Willie was still being held out against lefties at this point, and the Reds had started southpaw Jim O'Toole, who was mowing down the beleaguered "boys in blue" on this evening.) Tommy would start only three more games in center field during the course of the '62 season. 

O'Toole wound up with nine strikeouts and allowed only four hits. Final score: Reds 14, Dodgers 0.

THE Giants were in Milwaukee, where Henry Aaron emerged from his slump (his second HR of the year) and Willie Mays continued to struggle (0-for-4, hitting just .219). Still, the Giants had a 4-3 lead going into the eighth thanks in part to a two-run homer by rookie catcher Tom Haller, who would emerge as manager Al Dark's favorite over the course of the season.

But Stu Miller, who'd been virtually invincible in 1961 (14-5 record in relief, 2.66 ERA, 12th in MVP voting), had a nightmarish eighth inning, finally surrendering the go-ahead runs via a single from light-hitting second baseman Frank Bolling. Final score: Braves 6, Giants 4.

Dark's championing of Haller over veteran Ed Bailey is one of those hard-to-explain "insider baseball" scenarios that would seem to defy any form of analysis. Despite a poor year in 1961 split between the big club (where he hit .145) and AAA (where he hit .205), Dark kept Haller as his #2 catcher in '62 ahead of another seemingly more promising prospect (Johnny Orsino, who'd hit over .300 in AAA). 

But whatever Dark saw in Haller panned out, at least offensively: he would massively exceed expectations at the plate in '62, winding up with a OPS just under .900, and he would supplant Bailey as the starting catcher, despite the fact that the Giants won much more frequently in '62 when Bailey was the starting backstop. Consider: in Bailey's 69 starts at catcher during 1962, the Giants posted a 51-18 record; with Haller as the starting catcher, their record was just 44-39. (Bailey would have one of his best seasons in 1963, only to get traded to the Braves along with Felipe Alou as part of the systematic self-sabotage that would plague the Giants in the mid-to-late 1960s. It's even more bizarre to note that Bailey was actually reacquired by the Giants after the '64 season, only to be jettisoned again in mid-1965 after a slow start.)

As my old pal Gary Daer would say: go figure.

SEASON RECORDS: SFG 6-3, LAD 5-4.

60 YEARS AGO/8: A MORE PEDESTRIAN SLUGFEST

April 17th occurred on a Tuesday in 1962, and for the Dodgers and Giants it was a day game in San Francisco following a night game where run scoring had gotten seriously out of control (27 total runs, as noted in our previous installment). This Tuesday afternoon would see a more pedestrian, commonplace slugfest, where the teams combined to score 15 runs.

That total seems rarely paltry in comparison, to be sure, but just how "commonplace" are such games? We know that 25+ total run games are exceptionally rare, accounting for just two-tenths of one percent of all games played (that's not 2%; it's 0.2%). Games where 15+ runs are scored turn out to be much more common, but are still relatively rare; as our patented "time-grid table"™ at right shows, the percentage of such games since 1900 (122 seasons' worth) is 11.7%.

That figure, of course, has oscillated over time based on the ebb and flow of run scoring levels. The chart shows us that the 15+ total run games mostly correlate to periods of high offense (1920s/1930s, 1990s/2000s), and it shows us how such games nearly vanished in the 1960s due to the strike zone change.

It also shows us that 1962's percentage is almost identical to the one for major league baseball history as a whole.

Oddly, the Dodgers played in more 15+ run games in '62 than the Giants (24 to 20). That would change in the years to follow...

But back to our daily game. Don Drysdale and Mike McCormick both make brief appearances in the 1962 thriller Experiment in Terror, but this is not the game that was filmed for its frantic denouement. (For one thing, those scenes were from a night game; for another, McCormick didn't stick around long in this one enough for any filmmaker to get much footage.) Drysdale was the one who was scored on first, however, as he ran into the buzzsaw named Felipe Alou, who tripled in two runs in the bottom of the first. (Alou would go 2-for-4 in the game with 3 RBI, and would raise his early-season BA to .484).

Drysdale and McCormick pitched poorly in their outings on 4/17/62,
but not this poorly...

But Walt Alston had some potent tea leaves that he was sifting over the Dodger dugout. Opting to leave Willie Davis on the bench against the lefty McCormick, he shifted Tommy Davis to center, put righty-hitting Lee Walls in left, and decided that he'd liked the way rookie Tim Harkness had swung the bat the night before in his pinch-hitting appearance (despite the fact that Harkness was a lefty swinger).

His hunch paid off in the top of the second when Harkness hit a two-run homer off McCormick, tying the score. The Dodgers added one more run that inning when Maury Wills tripled home Drysdale; in the third, Frank Howard's first homer of the year (he'd wind up with 31 to lead the team), a mammoth shot to center, knocked McCormick out of the game and gave the Dodgers a 5-2 lead. They'd add three more in the fourth off Jim Duffalo when Tommy Davis hit a bases-clearing double after Orlando Cepeda's throwing error had extended the inning.

But Drysdale soon began to fritter away that 8-2 lead. Ed Bailey hit a solo homer in the bottom of the fourth; Alou's infield single in the fifth brought in another run. And when Cepeda hit his own bases-loaded double in the bottom of the seventh, the Dodger lead had shrunk to 8-7.

Cepeda had made a baserunning gaffe on the play, however, and was put out--which proved decisive when Jim Gilliam made an error later in the inning, putting the go-ahead run on base. Reliever Larry Sherry needed just two outs instead of three--but had to face two familiar names as pinch-hitters: Willie Mays and Willie McCovey. Sherry struck out Mays, and induced McCovey to fly out to left, ending the Giants' threat.

Giants' manager Al Dark, so concerned about conserving his pitchers the night before, did a 180 and had reliever Don Larsen pinch-hit to start the eighth. (This wasn't as wacky as it might sound: Larsen was an excellent hitter, having hit .311 the previous year.) Sherry struck him out anyway. In the ninth, the Giants had the potential winning run at the plate with two out: the batter was Mays, who'd stayed in the game after his unsuccessful pinch-hitting experience. Sherry, in his third inning of relief, still had his stuff, however: he induced Mays to pop up to third baseman Daryl Spencer. It may have been a "more pedestrian" slugfest, but the outcome had been in doubt until the very last pitch. Final score: Dodgers 8, Giants 7.

SEASON RECORDS: SFG 6-2, LAD 5-3

60 YEARS AGO/7: HIGH-SCORING HIJINX AT THE STICK

April 16th fell on Monday in 1962, and it fell all over the Dodgers as they traveled to Candlestick Park for the first of what would turn out to be 21 games against their arch rivals. The result was the second highest scoring game of the entire 1962 season, one of only four games in which the combined number of runs scored equaled or exceeded 25.

We can label these as "extreme high scoring" games. They are strange anomalies in a "system" that mostly produces results where teams combine to score less than ten total runs in any given game. (For the record, the percentage of such games--9 total runs or less--over all games played since 1900 is just under 62%).

"Extreme high scoring games" show up more often in high-scoring environments, occasionally associated with extreme ballparks like Coors, or others that have capricious weather conditions (think Wrigley Field "when the wind is blowing out"). One strange feature of today is an uptick of such games even as run scoring has begun to settle underneath historical norms. 

Our patented "time grid" chart™shows the yearly incidence of these games. The overall average is about seven games per year. As you can see, the 1960s proved to be the time frame in which such games were particularly scarce.

BUT let's get back to the Stick, that now-demolished beautiful eyesore commemorating a jauntier, more innocent form of graft. It certainly looked as though things were tilting the Dodgers' way when Tommy Davis, their cleanup hitter who'd wind up with 153 RBI for the year, strode to the plate with the bases loaded and no one out. But Giants starter Billy O'Dell wiggled his way out of the scoring threat by getting Davis to fly out to shallow right. Lee Walls then popped to second base, and Ron Fairly lofted a fly ball down the right field line that Felipe Alou caught in foul territory.

That moment of deflation did not immediately set the Dodgers on course toward the ruin that was to follow. Stan Williams looked sharp in the bottom of the first, but after O'Dell had picked Johnny Roseboro off to end the Dodger half of the second, the roof began to collapse in stages. Stage 1: Felipe Alou, the hottest hitter in the NL, hits a homer. Three batters later, after pesky Jose Pagan singles, steals second and goes to third on catcher Roseboro's throwing error, Jim Davenport homers. It's 3-0 Giants.

The Dodgers get a run back when Tommy Davis--currently the second hottest hitter in the NL--singles in Wills. But shapeshifting Stan Williams brings out his evil cousin in the bottom of the third: he proceeds to walk the first three batters he faces. Alston replaces him with the reliable middle reliever Ed Roebuck, who would go on to fashion a ten-game winning streak  as the Dodgers' "third man" behind Ron Perranoski and Larry Sherry. 

But Roebuck walks Orlando Cepeda, and then ties an unbreakable record by allowing two sacrifice flies in a single inning (think about it). He also gives up a single, which when you read it this way doesn't sound so bad...and yet the Giants score four runs in the inning to take a 7-1 lead.

Alston decides not to waste Roebuck in such a lopsided game, and bats for him in the top of the fourth. But this means that he'll need to go deeper into his bullpen: enter "mop-up man #1", Phil Ortega, a wild young righthander that the Dodgers were portraying to the media as a Hispanic when, in fact, he was actually a Native American. Naturally, Ortega loaded the bases (a single, two walks) with two outs. Jim Gilliam then unleashed a wild throw that allowed two more runs to score: 9-1 Giants.

We can't find a baseball card for Willard Hunter, but this
photo of him as a Dodger is almost as scarce...

Ortega has a scoreless fifth; Alston bats for him in the top of the sixth. But that means he must go even deeper into his bullpen...cue "mop-up man #2," Willard Hunter, a wild lefty whom the Dodgers had converted into a reliever in hopes of solving his control problems. (It hadn't worked.) But here he was, making his big league debut...and Hunter was about to get captured by the game.

Bottom of the sixth: Willard has put the first two Giants on base (walk, single). Up strides Willie Mays. First pitch: BOOM! Over the left-center field fence. It's 12-1 Giants.

Willard retires the next three batters, and the Dodgers show some signs of life in the top of the seventh, scoring twice. But the bottom of the seventh was probably still playing out in Hunter's mind when he passed away in 2021: it's one of those consummately messy innings where a combination of maladroit and malodorous forces congeal into a fright-wig-adorned nightmare. 

Ten Giants came to the plate; seven of them scored. The most unseemly event in this entire miasma came late in the action, when the score was already 17-3: for reasons known only to him, Orlando Cepeda stole home. (Oddly, Felipe Alou, the runner on first, did not break for second base on the play, indicating that it was entirely the Baby Bull's idea.)

Hunter's pitching line for his turn in the Monday night funhouse: 2 IP, 6 H, 10 R, 9 ER, 4 BB, 1 K. The score was now Giants 19, Dodgers 3.

As you might suspect, Willard Hunter's debut for the Dodgers was his swan song for them as well. He was sent back to Spokane, and late in May he was shipped off to the New York Mets, where he fit right into Casey Stengel's cockeyed caravan.

Alston decided to give Perranoski some work in the bottom of the eighth, and that looked more like what you'd expect: one inning, one hit, one strikeout.

In the top of the ninth, however, we witness one of the major differences between today's game and what went on sixty years ago. There is no way that any present-day starting pitcher is going to be around in the ninth inning of a game like this; they are likely to have been gone by the sixth inning. And even sixty years ago, many managers would pull their starter in such a lopsided game.

Not Al Dark, however. Even though it was clear that O'Dell was pitching on fumes (and barely noticeable fumes at that...), the man who is a finalist in the "Most Inappropriate Nickname" competition (look it up!) just let the ninth inning churn on as O'Dell failed to retire five of the first six batters he faced. Even Dodger scrubeenies such as Doug Camilli and Tim Harkness smacked the ball around. O'Dell finally induced Maury Wills and Larry Burright to make the final outs, but not before the Dodgers had scored five runs. 

That left O'Dell with one of the ugliest complete game pitching lines that you're likely to see: 9 IP, 15 H, 8 R, 6 ER, 4 BB, 4 SO. He faced a mind-blowing 47 batters--enough for two starts based on today's usage patterns.

But, then again, without Dark's coma-at-the-controls approach, we'd have one fewer "extreme high scoring" game for 1962, and the Giants would've had none for the year. (The Dodgers had another one of these a bit later--we'll leave it to you to guess which team it might be. Clue: the Dodgers were on the winning end in that one.) Final score: Giants 19, Dodgers 8.

SEASON RECORDS: SFG 6-1, LAD 4-3.

60 YEARS AGO/6: A DUO NOT QUITE READY FOR THE HOF

WHO are the Hall of Famers on the 1962 editions of the Giants and the Dodgers? 

For San Francisco, you have Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal; for  Los Angeles, you have Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. 

But you have four pennants and three World Series titles for the Dodgers in the years 1959-1966, as opposed to one pennant and no World Championships for the Giants.

That's the long-standing context for why Koufax, with just 165 lifetime wins, and Drysdale, with only 209, are in the Hall. More evidence for that can be seen in the table below that shows the top 20 pitchers in the National League from 1959 to 1966 (minimum of 750 IP, sorted by ERA+):

(Pitchers in the HOF have orange shading; those who pitched for the Giants or the Dodgers in time frame have yellow shading. Pitchers shown in grey ink did not pitch for either team in 1962. Probably everyone but Brock Hanke has forgotten that prolific reliever Lindy McDaniel pitched for the Giants in 1966; and many have forgotten about Bob Miller, who was rescued from the Mets after a 1-12 season in '62 and became a solid swingman for the Dodgers the next year. Stan Williams, who was traded after the '62 season due to his erratic performance, still managed to rank #20 on this list.) 

As you can see, over those eight years, Koufax is #1 in ERA+ and #3 in IP; Drysdale is #7 in ERA+ (#5 for those with more than 1000 IP) and #1 in IP by a wide margin (over Larry Jackson). Jim Bunning, arriving in the NL in 1964, burnished his case for the HOF with some stellar pitching for the Phillies, which drops Juan Marichal to #3 in ERA+.

ON SUNDAY, APRIL 15, however, neither Marichal nor Koufax were in Hall of Fame form. (It would be interesting to track the number of times that the two of them pitched on the same day, and how many times they both lost when they did so--yet another research project.) In San Francisco, Marichal's first-inning wildness put two runners on ahead of Vada Pinson and Frank Robinson, and the Reds scored twice; in the third, two errors behind him resulted in Marichal surrendering two unearned runs. 

Cincinnati's Bob Purkey, who would go on to post a 23-5 record in 1962, stranded Giants baserunners heroically for seven innings, but finally gave way in the eighth; Frank Robinson and Roy McMillan saved the game for the Reds when they caught Jim Davenport taking too wide a turn at first after singling and threw him out, capping the Giants' rally at just three runs. In the bottom of the ninth, Cepeda's towering fly ball just stayed in the park and was caught at the wall by Marty Keough for the final out. Final score: Reds 4, Giants 3.

Down in LA, Henry Aaron (who entered the game hitting .056) finally awakened in the fifth inning as the Braves took it to Koufax, who'd thrown four innings of one-hit, six-strikeout ball to that point and took a 3-0 lead into the inning. As it was, though, Aaron's single was a tapper in front of the plate that came to rest on the chalk of the foul line; Eddie Mathews followed with a two-run single to tie the game. Aaron would homer off Koufax in the seventh, driving him from the game. 

Meanwhile, the Dodgers, who'd gotten three runs early off young lefty Bob Hendley, managed just one more hit over the final six innings as the Braves finally got into the win column for the first time in 1962. Final score: Braves 6, Dodgers 3. (Koufax and Hendley would have a much more memorable matchup three years later when the two lefties combined to allow only one hit in an entire game--that game, of course, which occurred on September 9, 1965, was the one in which Sandy orchestrated his fourth no-hitter, his perfect game against the Chicago Cubs.)

SEASON RECORDS: SFG 5-1, LAD 4-2.

60 YEARS AGO/5: A LAUGHER AND A SQUEAKER

THE Giants and Dodgers kept winning on Saturday, April 14, 1962, but the means of victory in their respective games proved to be quite different.

At Candlestick Park, "young Gaylord Perry" (a phrase that seems completely inappropriate given Perry's now-famous grizzled personality and indelible veteran guile) did not have either a spitball or a greaseball at his disposal, and was forced to make a quick exit in his first big league start.

None of that fazed his teammates, who broke a 4-4 tie in the bottom of the third with a six-run outburst aided by the Reds' fifth and sixth errors in the game. (The defending NL champs settled down after that, and wound up with "just" six errors in the game...)

The Giants' hottest hitters, Orlando Cepeda and Felipe Alou, each hit two homers, while Harvey Kuenn upped his average to .438 by going 3-for-3 and driving in four runs rom the leadoff slot. Don Larsen followed Perry with 6 1/3 innings of solid relief as San Francisco laughed its way to its fifth straight win. Final score: Giants 13, Reds 6. 

DOWN in Los Angeles, the Dodgers scored single runs off Warren Spahn in each of the first three innings, but Johnny Podres had back-to-back shaky innings in the fourth and fifth, allowing the Braves to take the lead, 4-3. The slumping Wally Moon tagged Spahn for a homer in the seven, tying the score. 

Milwaukee manager Birdie Tebbetts stayed with his ace into the ninth inning, but Spahn could get no one out in the inning, surrendering a walk-off RBI single to platoon player Lee Walls after loading the bases with two singles and an intentional walk. 

Frank Howard made his first start of the season and went 1-for-4, but it was his baserunning that shocked the Dodger Stadium faithful: manager Walt Alston had the big man on the move in a hit-and-run play that worked when Daryl Spencer rolled a single into right field and Big Frank lumbered all the way to third, scoring when Norm Sherry beat out what at first looked like a double play ball when it left his bat.

Jim Gilliam had three more hits for the Dodgers, raising his early-season batting average to .400. Larry Sherry (yes, Norm's younger brother) threw three shutout innings in relief of Podres and got the win. Final score: Dodgers 5, Braves 4.

SEASON RECORDS: SFG 5-0, LAD 4-1.

60 YEARS AGO/4: STRONG "#4 STARTERS" KEEP THINGS ROLLING

IT was Friday the 13th in April 1962, but no bad luck surfaced for the Giants and Dodgers that day. The two teams brought their "#4 starters" into play, creating a quirk that might be unique: the two pitchers in question (Billy Pierce and Don Drysdale) combined to win 420 games in their respective big league careers. 

Pierce had been acquired over the 1961-62 off-season in a trade with the White Sox that also brought them veteran righty Don Larsen (of World Series perfect game fame) in exchange for reliever Eddie Fisher and three now-obscure prospects whose major league careers proved to be negligible (pitchers Dom Zanni and Verle Tiefenthaler; first baseman-outfielder Bob Farley, who'd hit .307 at AAA in '61 but who would hit just .163 in the majors). The 5-10, 160 lb. lefty would be a key to the Giants' success in 1962, posting a 16-6 record despite lingering arm problems necessitating irregular usage throughout the season (including missing a month from mid-June to mid-July). 

But on this Friday the 13th, Pierce was in fine form, allowing only two hits over 7 1/3 innings and supported by a Giants offense that came alive in the fifth inning behind homers from Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda. Light-hitting second baseman Chuck Hiller also contributed three hits and two RBI from the #8 slot. Final score: Giants 6, Reds 2.

IN Los Angeles, the Braves brought their three-game losing streak to Dodger Stadium, suffering from a run drought prompted in part by uncharacteristically slow start from Henry Aaron. The immortal Braves slugger would eventually hit 45 HRs in 1962, but his woes at the plate continued on Friday the 13th as he went 0-for-3, lowing his season mark to .067.

Drysdale, a good hitting pitcher, kicked off the Dodgers' decisive five-run rally in the fifth with an RBI double (he was 2-for-3 at the plate that night, in addition to his 11-strikeout complete game). Tommy Davis began what would be a remarkable season in terms of now-prosaic statistics (batting average and RBI) with a three-run homer to cap the fifth-inning run skein. 

The Dodgers scored their first run in the second inning via means that would become the slogan for their offense later in the decade: Maury Wills walked, stole 2nd (his first steal in a year where he'd eventually set a new record...), went to third on a throwing error, and scored thanks to a sacrifice fly by Jim Gilliam. (It would be interesting to determine just how many of these "runs without a hit" the Dodgers scored over these years--we'll try to research that for you as this retrospective rolls on.) Final score: Dodgers 6, Braves 3.

SEASON RECORDS: SFG 4-0, LAD 3-1.

ADDENDUM FOR 2022: We'll see a no-hitter later on in our '62 retrospective...Koufax will do it late in June against the Mets. After this was posted, a certain amount of controversy erupted on April 13, 2022, when Koufax's present-day incarnation, Clayton Kershaw, threw seven perfect innings against the Minnesota Twins and was pulled from the game after 80 pitches. 

Though our "pal" Joe Pose-nanski went on and on about the game at his blog, it was just more hand-wringing and the wordslinger equivalent of two dozen too many carefully posed  (no pun intended) sidelong glances, accompanied by heavy sighing. What Joe P. didn't mention (along with countless other scribes) is that April 13 would have been the earliest date in major league history for a perfect game, and that there are some good reasons why that is so. (To give some credit to "Pose," he did note that the weather conditions at Target Field yesterday were forbidding--something that unquestionably aided Kershaw throughout his appearance, but that also ensured that he'd come out of the game after a prescribed period of time for his own protection.)

There have been two perfect games thrown in April, both of them achieved by pitchers with less than journeyman careers (Charley Robertson of the White Sox in 1922--lifetime record 49-80; Philip Humber, also of the White Sox, in 2012--lifetime record 16-23). While great pitchers have thrown perfect games, only one-third of them have come from pitchers who are in the Hall of Fame.

We talked about Kershaw being protected by manager Dave Roberts--it's a point that hasn't been followed through to its larger context. One can wonder why Kershaw decided to pitch again after what seemed like a career-ending injury at the end of last season. One reason might be another symptom of how the game has changed in the past twenty years--the inexorable decline (indeed, freefall) of starting pitcher wins (along with the now-casual denigration of that stat by "numerate nabobs"). 

Kershaw may have looked at his 185-win career and decided that he might have enough gas in the tank--and a powerhouse hitting team behind him in '22--to take a crack at getting to 200 wins. (It's probably the same thing that motivated a more elderly pitcher, the Cardinals' Adam Wainwright, to keep going into his 40s after having lost several seasons to injury.) Perhaps, in their minds at least, the 200-win barrier has taken on some kind of significance for them and is pushing them to stay out there. 

Rather than denigrate that total (which seems paltry based on what we'd seen just twenty years ago--with Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine continuing the tradition of 300+ winners), perhaps we should salute these two stalwart veterans for making an all-out effort to defy the odds as they've devolved in the past quarter-century and push to join those pitchers with 200+ wins and a .600+ winning percentage--a combination of achievements that is arguably a marker for enshrinement in Cooperstown. Let's forget about perfect game controversies and focus on rooting for the two of them to achieve those goals--'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

60 YEARS AGO/3: LINING UP THE LINEUPS

"HITTING shoes" for both the Dodgers and Giants on Thursday, April 13, 1962: in Los Angeles, starter Stan Williams came up wild (and possibly woolly), walking four in 1 2/3 innings, setting the tone for a most erratic season that would result in his being traded to the Yankees after the '62 season. (Forgotten fact: Williams would face his former teammates in the 1963 World Series, entering Game One in the sixth inning in relief of Whitey Ford. While Sandy Koufax slashed through the Yankee lineup en route to a then-record 15 strikeouts, Williams got a measure of personal revenge by shutting out the Dodgers for three innings, fanning five. Williams and Koufax were the two Dodger pitchers with 200+ strikeouts in 1961, but their careers then diverged rather dramatically...)

Young lefty Pete Richert took over for Williams in the second, and had a spectacular outing in relief, striking out seven in 3 1/3 innings (including the first six batters he faced); the Dodgers, down 4-0 in the bottom of the fifth, proceeded to score seven runs in the fifth, netting Richert a win in his first big league appearance. (Richert would struggle in subsequent appearances, however, and in May would be sent back to the minors until August, when he was recalled as the Dodgers tried to fill the vacancy in their starting rotation due to Koufax' famous finger injury.)

The Dodgers amassed 16 hits (three each for Johnny Roseboro and Willie Davis) as they lumbered their way to an 11-7 win. The Reds' bespectacled shortstop Eddie Kasko had a busy but mixed-signal night: two hits, three RBI--and two errors, both in the fateful fifth inning.

IN San Francisco, the Giants did not keep their fans in suspense with respect to the outcome of the game, as another shortstop--the first of many light-hitting types they'd employ at the position, Jose Pagan--slammed a bases-loaded triple to cap a four-run first. (With the strike zone change in 1963, Pagan would find it impossible to keep his OPS above .600, though he did stage an offensive recovery after a trade to the Pirates--and the return of the strike zone to pre-1962 levels at the end of the decade.)

Right-hander Jack Sanford sailed into the eighth inning with a 8-0 lead, but the right-hander lost the bubble quickly, loading the bases and then surrendering a grand slam to Joe Adcock. The crafty, reliable Stu Miller replaced him and put the Braves back to sleep, cementing an 8-4 Giants win--completing a series sweep.

The chart at right shows the starting lineups for the Giants and the Dodgers on April 12, along with the number of games that the players in those lineups would play in those batting order positions over the course of the season. While both teams had far from set lineups/batting orders, it's clear that the Dodgers had many more changes ahead of them. Tommy Davis, making his first start of the season, would soon drop from the third slot to cleanup, as manager Walt Alston curtailed the slumping Wally Moon's playing time and turned over right field to Frank Howard (who would ultimately lead the team in HRs that year). Willie Davis, starting out white-hot in the #8 slot, would be moved into the #3 slot, where he would hit the most homers (21) that he'd ever hit in any year thereafter.

For the Giants, the major uncertainty was exactly where manager Al Dark would bat third baseman Jim Davenport, who would bat #6 and #7 more than twice as often as he did in the #8 slot. As young catcher Tom Haller emerged (in an odd platoon of two lefty hitters), Ed Bailey would shift downward in the batting order. But the top of the Giants' lineup was relatively stable, as you can see.

SEASON RECORDS: SFG 3-0, LAD 2-1

60 YEARS AGO/2: TWO VERY DIFFERENT LEFTIES DOMINATE

As we follow the peregrinations of two teams (Giants/Dodgers) who met in a memorable playoff series sixty years ago, we see that the teams' second game of the year--April 11, 1962--featured very solid starting pitcher performances from two very different southpaws...

In Los Angeles, flamethrower Sandy Koufax took a one-hitter into the ninth inning and scuffled through the final frame (slapped hard by Vada Pinson, Frank Robinson and Wally Post: single-double-single), but was bailed out by a backhanded grab from Jim Gilliam on a hard grounder that was turned into a double play to snuff out the Reds' rally. 

The Dodgers were a single short of the cycle in the third inning against Moe Drabowsky (Maury Wills, triple; Gilliam, homer; Duke Snider, double). In the bottom of the fifth, free-swinging Willie Davis may have had a singular event in his career: a bases-loaded walk (we'll have to research that in bb-ref's event files...will report back on that later). Final score: Dodgers 6, Reds 2. 

In San Francisco, nibbler Billy O'Dell was changing speeds and hitting spots with exceptional precision against the Braves (who'd been shut out the day before by Juan Marichal). O'Dell pitched a four-hit complete game (an occurrence that is now as scarce as those proverbial hen's teeth...), finishing with nine strikeouts--two more than "the Left Arm of God."

Willie Mays hit another first-inning homer--a two-run shot; the Giants added a run in the second and O'Dell made it stand up. Final score: Giants 3, Braves 1.

SEASON RECORDS: SF 2-0, LA 1-1. (They will face each other at Candlestick in less than a week.)

60 YEARS AGO/1: WE FOLLOW THE GIANTS & THE DODGERS

IN honor of sixty years past, we initiate a reminiscence of baseball's lost treasure: the fraught, frenetic pennant race. And sixty years ago, one of the most fraught of all time (until time ran out...) occurred with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants, the two transcontinental vagabonds who helped to usher in baseball expansion and the inexorable, problematic changes that have ensued ever since.

In 1962, April 10th fell on a Tuesday, which is no longer considered to be an appropriate day for the opening of the baseball season. But (as many are wont to say...) times were different, and baseball still had several quaint customs in play that marked how a new season was supposed to start. The previous day, Monday the 9th, was reserved for ceremonial openers in Cincinnati (honoring the advent of the professional game in 1869) and Washington DC (cementing the game's link with the nation's capital, until that link was broken in 1972 when a second Senators team would move elsewhere).

The Reds, defending NL champs, ran into a buzzsaw in their opener, and were routed by the lowly Phillies (who'd gone 47-107 the previous year). The final score was 12-4, with their 21-game winner Joey Jay knocked out in the fourth inning. (The Phillies would improve markedly in 1962, but much of it occurred due to their dominance of the two first-year expansion teams in Houston and New York--they would wind up with a 31-5 record against them.)

In DC, President John F. Kennedy threw out the first pitch, and seemed to bring the second-year Senators luck as they beat the Tigers, 4-1, thanks in large part to a strong complete-game performance from right-hander Bennie Daniels (who would, alas, wind up 7-16 for the year). Later in the season the Senators, who'd lose 100 games for the second consecutive year, would bring up an infielder named...John Kennedy.

***

ALL of this is prologue, of course, to what became the main event in 1962--a topsy-turvy pennant race between former crosstown rivals who'd upset baseball's apple cart by moving to the West Coast four years earlier. The Dodgers and Giants had finished 2-3 behind the Reds in '61; they were teams loaded with young talent, and they would both blossom in 1962, showcasing differing ways to each win 101 games during the regular season. Their head-to-head rivalry was also highly fraught: they went into the third and final playoff game with the series series knotted 10-10.

And so it began, on April 10, 1962...the Giants received a preview of Juan Marichal's emerging brilliance as they beat the Milwaukee Braves 6-0 before 39,177 fans at Candlestick Park (already notorious for its capricious winds). Marichal had allowed only one hit going into the ninth, settling for a three-hit shutout, striking out ten (including Henry Aaron three times). Willie Mays homered off Warren Spahn in the bottom of the first; the Giants would chase the immortal southpaw in the fourth inning with four runs, with the key blow a two-run single by Marichal himself. 

Down in LA, the Dodgers would draw 52,564 to their Opening Day game against the Reds (who'd traveled overnight from Cincinnati and their shellacking by the Phillies). Manager Walt Alston was a bit leery of the ongoing hole he was desperately trying to fill at third base: he was leery of promising young hitter Tommy Davis' ability to handle the position defensively, but his alternatives were not much better defensively and much worse offensively. Davis would watch the opener from the bench as Alston opted for journeyman infielder Daryl Spencer at third and started aging, oft-injured Duke Snider in right field. 

This was the first game played at Dodger Stadium after four years of strangely-dimensioned baseball at the Memorial Coliseum. The problematic backstory of the stadium's creation had been assiduously whitewashed during the year of its construction, and its dazzling setting just northwest of downtown Los Angeles would carry its aura well into the next century. 

But that didn't help the Dodgers on that Tuesday afternoon in April 1962. Don Drysdale had been pushed back due to a lingering leg injury, and southpaw Johnny Podres, the Game Seven hero from the 1955 World Series, got the starting assignment. After five innings, he had a 2-1 lead thanks to a two-run double by Ron Fairly off Reds' starter Bob Purkey, but Podres could not get lefty-hitting Vada Pinson out, surrendering the tying run in the sixth and giving up a three-run homer to Wally Post in the seventh. Pinson wound up going 4-for-4 and scoring three runs as the Reds spoiled the Dodgers' first game in their new home with a 6-3 victory.

One ongoing problem that would emerge quickly for the Dodgers: the drastic change in performance from outfielder Wally Moon, particularly at home. In 1961, en route to a .328 batting average, Moon had hit .382 in the Coliseum. His 0-for-3 day while batting third in the Dodgers' batting order on Opening Day was a harbinger of the struggles he would experience in the new ballpark: over the course of 1962, Moon would hit just .219 at home...