The Sensational ’60s

Sandy Koufax had the top three pitching seasons in the major leagues in the 1960s.

Frank Robinson's Triple Crown season in 1966, in his first season after being traded from Cincinnati to Baltimore, topped all major league hitters in the 1960s.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  I’m continuing my “study” of the top seasons and players of the decade in Major League Baseball by taking a look at the 1960s.

  The “study” consisted of pulling out a Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia and looking over the listing of league leaders in several categories for each year. The top five were listed in some instances, the top four in others – don’t ask me how that line was drawn. The major categories almost all included the top five. In a couple instances just the top three were listed. Sometimes less than two. I think a large number of players tied had something to do with less than four, and space limitations came into play. I gave five points for the top ranking, four for second and so on down. Where just four were listed, it went 5-4-3-2. If there was a tie, I divided the total number of points between the rankings by the number of players who were tied. Example: Three players tied for second – 4+3+2=9 divided by 3=3 points for each player.

  The categories: hitting -- batting average, total bases, hits, runs, slugging average, RBIs, walks, doubles, homers, steals, homer-percentage, triples; pitching  – winning percentage, saves, hits/nine innings/, strikeouts/nine innings, ERA, strikeouts, shutouts, innings pitched, wins, complete games, walks/nine innings, games pitched.

  What I came up with I think gives a fairly representative presentation of the top players and seasons. There are enough categories included to give a balance between the counting stats that reward durability and reliability and the rate stats that address pure performance. Offense takes in power, speed, batting eye and contact; pitching -- power, control, durability and dominance (i.e., shutouts). Mind you, the numbers, other than the rankings I assigned, don’t matter here, just how the players ranked in comparison with their peers. Which I think is the best way to rate players, how they rate relative to others. The 52 homers Willie Mays hit in 1965 to lead the National League don’t matter any more than the 32 Tony Conigliaro hit, also in ’65, to lead the AL; they were simply the best over their peers in that particular year in that particular category.

Top 10 pitching seasons

1. Sandy Koufax, 1965, 44

2. Sandy Koufax, 1963, 39 1/2

3 (tie).  Sandy  Koufax, 1966, and Bob Gibson, 1968, 38

5. Juan Marichal, 1966, 34

6. Dean Chance, 1964, 32 1/2

7. Luis Tiant, 1968, 31

8. Denny McLain, 1968, 30

9. Sam McDowell, 1965, 29 1/2

10. Jim Kaat, 1965, 28

Top 10 batting seasons

1, Frank Robinson, 1966, 45

2. Carl Yastrzemski, 1967, 40 1/2

3. Hank Aaron, 1963, 41

4 Frank Robinson, 1962, 35 1/2

5. Reggie Jackson, 1969, 32

6 Willie Mays, 1962, 31 1/2

7. Hank Aaron, 1961, 30 1/2

8. Willie Mays, 1965, 30

9 (tie). Mickey Mantle, 1961, and Harmon Killebrew, 1967, 29 ½

 Among my admittedly nonauthoritative observations and conclusions:
n  Boy, does Bill DeWitt look bad. DeWitt was the Cincinnati Reds general manager who traded Frank Robinson for, essentially, Milt Pappas in between the 1965 and 1966 seasons, sensing Robby was headed downhill, “an old 30” as he termed it. All  Robinson did in 1966 was win the American League Triple Crown. He also led the league in slugging average, runs scored, homer percentage and total bases, was second in hits, and third in walks and doubles. That all added up to 45 points under this system, the highest total in the two decades I’ve surveyed so far.
n  It took another AL Triple Crown the next year, by Carl Yastrzemski, for the second-highest total of the decade. The only other back-to-back years for Triple Crowns were 1934 (Lou Gehrig in the AL) and 1933 (Jimmie Foxx in the AL, Chuck Klein in the NL).
n  Robinson pops up again in the No. 4 spot with his 1961 season in Cincinnati.
n  Figuring out the best season for Mr. Consistency and former all-time (some say current) homer champ Hank Aaron is a tough chore.  But 1963, when he tallied 41 points for the No. 3 spot on this list, may be the one. Aaron, 1961, also had the seventh-best season . Robinson, Aaron and Willie Mays (sixth, 1962, and eighth, 1965) had the multiple seasons on this list with two apiece.
n  By looking at the best pitching and hitting seasons, it’s little wonder the National League went 11-1 in All-Star games in the decade (two games apiece for the pension fund in 1960 and 1961). Dominant players make for All-Star dominance.  NL pitchers had the top five seasons, followed by five from the AL. Six of the top 10 batting seasons came from the NL.
n  Not surprisingly, Sandy Koufax dominated the pitching lists as surely as he dominated National League hitters during ’60s, putting together perhaps the best consecutive  six-season stretch on the mound in history – good enough to get him into the  Hall of Fame despite a career that came to an end at the age of 30 because of elbow problems. Koufax had the top three seasons in this survey with 44 points in  1965, followed by 39½ in 1963 and 38 in 1966, tied with Bob Gibson’s 1968. Those seasons dwarfed the top ’50s mark of 31 by Robin Roberts. Juan Marichal was fifth with 34 in 1966. It took Dean Chance’s 32 1/2 in 1964, good for sixth, for an AL pitcher to land a spot in the top 10.
n  I was somewhat surprised to see Reggie Jackson’s 1969, with 32, emerge as the fifth-best hitting season of the decade. Reggie was in just his second full season in the majors. That was the first year I started following baseball and I remember him being on a Babe Ruth homer pace early in the season before leveling off to 47.
n  Sudden Sam McDowell, ninth among pitchers at 29½ in 1965, is an example of a pitcher not having to pile up big win totals to rank high. McDowell was fourth in wins that year with a 17-11 record, but was first in ERA, strikeouts, strikeouts per nine innings and least hits per nine innings, and second in innings pitched and complete games (tied). He was a workhorse, and efficient with that workload, and it paid off in points. McDowell was a 20-game winner only once in his career.
n  Getting away from the Top 10, I’m wondering how many players in history have broken in the way Tony Oliva did. He led the AL standings his rookie season and finished second then third the next two seasons. He won the batting title his first two seasons. Alas, continuous injuries and surgeries probably kept him from a sure berth in the Hall of Fame.
n  As seemed to be the case from time to time, players’ top seasons came immediately before or after the seasons they’re known for. In Roger Maris’ case, his best year was 1960 – 27 points. In 1961, when Maris with 61 homers broke Ruth’s record, he finished third with 25½.
n  And has also seemed to be the case, seasons looked on as primo and even historic didn’t rate No. 1 in this survey. Denny McLain, going 31-6 in 1968, became the first 30-game winner since Dizzy Dean in 1934. But Luis Tiant beat him out that year, 31-30.
n  The year 1967 in NL pitching was notable for how little dominance there was. Cy  Young winner Mike McCormick and Jim Bunning tied for No. 1 with 12 apiece. Three other hurlers with 10 or 11 filled out the top five. This is somewhat ironic since the year before and after included three of the top five pitching seasons. But Koufax was gone in ’67, Gibson’s season was cut short by a fractured bone in his right leg courtesy a line drive off the bat of Roberto Clemente (although he came back to win three games in the World Series), and Marichal also struggled with injuries.
n  Chicago reliever Eddie Fisher finished third in the AL in 1965 despite relievers  usually filling only two of the 12 pitching categories. How did this happen? Well, besides finishing first in games pitched and second in saves, he also was second in ERA and hits per nine innings, and fourth in winning percentage with a 15-7 mark. And how did Fisher manage starter-like numbers to rank so high? Well, he pitched 165 innings, three more than the qualifying number of innings. That’s in 82 games, none of them starts. Obviously, way before the day of the one-inning closer.
n  Camilio Pascual, although he didn’t crack the pitching top 10, deserves mention for leading the AL in three straight years, 1961-63, tying with Ralph Terry in 1962. That made it No. 1 in four of five seasons for Pascual, who also led in 1959. McLain was the other multiple league leader among AL pitchers in the decade with back-to-back No. 1s in 1968 and ’69.

Willie Mays had four straight National League-leading seasons in the 1960s, including two seasons among the top 10 for the decade in the major leagues.

Camilio Pascual led American League pitchers in three straight seasons in the early 1960s and four of five seasons extending back to 1959.

n  Speaking of league leaders, Mickey Mantle, by topping the AL lists in 1960 and ’61 (tied with Maris in ’60) made it six No. 1s in seven seasons, with Harvey Kuehnn’s 1959 interrupting that stretch. This gives some strength to the argument that has been advanced by some, including Bill James, that Mantle was the better ballplayer than Mays in their primes. While Mantle, who broke in the same year as Mays (1951), led the AL in six seasons during the ‘50s and ‘60s, Mays led the NL five times.
n   But Mays truly shined in the ’60s with four straight league-leading seasons while Mantle faded away.
n  Such was the reputation Mantle had built up that he won  the MVP award in 1962, despite missing 39 games and hitting 30 homers and 89 RBIs, not quite up to his high standards of the past few years. His five points rated 11^th in the AL, led by Harmon Killebrew’s 24. Mantle had finished second in MVP voting in ’60 and ’61.
n  Yastrzemski joined Mantle as multiple AL league leaders in the ’60s with two seasons. He topped the league in 1963, when he won the first of his three batting titles and also led in hits and doubles.
n  Joining Mays as multiple league leaders among NL batters were Aaron with three, in 1960, ’63 and ’67 (tied with Mays in ’60) and Willie McCovey in 1968 (tied with Pete Rose) and ’69.

Magic Royals Moments, 1976: Leo flips The Bird

Dennis Leonard won more games than any other American League right-hander for the Kansas City Royals between 1975 and 1981. On the night of July 9, 1976, he got the best of Detroit Tigers rookie sensation Mark Fidrych, winning 1-0.

Mark Fidrych, known for his kooky antics, is shown manicuring the mound.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  In the summer of 1976, the 200th birthday of the United States, as the country rolled through Independence Day, rookie Mark ("The Bird") Fidrych was hotter than a firecracker, especially at Tiger Stadium where Detroit was drawing 40,000- and 50,000-plus (capacity 54,400) on the nights he pitched for a downtrodden team that would win only 74 games, whose attendance for the year averaged 18,338.

 But on Friday night, July 9, the Kansas City Royals' Dennis Leonard doused those fireworks somewhat by outdueling Fidrych, 1-0, before 51,041 faithful stuffed inside the venerable old ballyard at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull avenues.

  The battle of bulldog right-handers matched the Tigers' upstart against a third-year Royals' pitcher who was just coming into his own and would emerge from 1975 to 1981, with 130 wins, as the winningest right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball.

   Leonard certainly solidified his status this night, throwing a four-hitter with eight strikeouts and no walks. He retired 18 of the final 19 batters he faced, including five of six by strikeout in the seventh and eighth innings.                                                                                                     Fidrych, who had won eight straight starts and nine of 10 coming in with a 1.87 ERA over that span, was certainly no chump this time out, pitching well enough to win most times. Aided by three double plays, he scattered nine hits, struck out two (he was a pitch-to-contact hurler) and walked one. Only a fourth-inning hiccup cost him, and only because Leonard was so unyielding.

  "My father-in-law, God bless him, flew to Detroit to meet us," Leonard said as reported in "100 Things Royals Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die," by Matt Fulks. "The night before I was to pitch, we were in a little piano bar – I was drinking water – and I told him, 'Fidrych, my ass, I’m going to beat him tomorrow.' ”

  Said longtime Royals announcer Denny Mathews in the book: "You had the feeling at the outset that this game could be something special. And it was. Fans hung on every pitch because it meant something. Not many baseball games give you something compelling like that."  Two Royals in their prime and one on his way out brought K.C. the win. After Amos Otis grounded out leading off the Royals' fourth, George Brett and John Mayberry, in the No. 3 and 4 spots, had back-to-back singles to right field. Hal McRae followed with a single to left that scored Brett.

  And that was enough for Leonard.

  Brett and McRae would finish 1-2, respectively, in the American League batting race that year. Mayberry, coming off a year in which he finished second in the AL MVP voting, plummeted from 34 to 13 homers and hit .232. Although he hit 20-plus homers the next four seasons, he never again approached the '75 form that saw him drive in 106 runs to go with a .291 average and the 34 homers.

  But even as he struggled Big John was still a threat to deliver, as he did on this night.

  Meanwhile, Leonard was lights out from the fourth inning on after allowing three runners into scoring position in the first three frames. None of those Tigers reached farther than second base, and catcher Buck Martinez helped out by nailing would-be base stealer Alex Johnson in the second.

  The Tigers got one more base runner in scoring position after the third when Rusty Staub singled and stole second leading off the seventh. But Leonard bore down to strike out Jason Thompson, Johnson and Aurelio Rodriguez.

  Leonard ran his record to 9-3 on his way to a 17-10 season with a 3.51 ERA, tying for eighth in the league in wins and strikeouts. He reached 20 or more wins in three of next four seasons.

  The Royals ended up reaching the playoffs for the first time with a 90-72 record to win the AL West. That was the first of three straight division titles, each of which ended with losses to the Yankees in the AL Championship Series.

  The always-a-bundle-of nerves Bird, known as much for his on-the-mound antics ("talking to the ball," manicuring the mound) as his stellar pitching, dropped to 9-2. He finished the year 19-9 with a league-leading ERA of 2.34. He was second in the AL Cy Young voting and obviously Rookie of the Year. He also led the league in complete games with 24 and in WAR, was third in hits plus walks per nine innings, fourth in wins, and fifth in walks per nine.

  Alas, knee and arm miseries limited him to 10 wins over the next four years before he was out of baseball. He died on April 13, 2009, at age 54, in an accident as he worked underneath a truck.  What a tragic, sad ending  for a humble, down-earth guy who'd taken Detroit and America by storm in 1976.

  Fortune didn't smile on Leonard, either, although he didn't have nearly the bad luck that Fidrych did. Limited by knee problems after 1981, he won but 24 games over his final four seasons before retiring after the 1986 season.

  But on that magical Friday night of July 9, 1976, Leo and The Bird were about as good as it got.

Ted Williams, always on base: Streaking from sickbed in ’57

Ted Williams hadn’t played in a game since Sept. 1 when he went on a steak in which he reached base 16 consecutive times from Sept. 17-Sept. 23 in 1957. He hit home runs in his first four official at-bats starting off the streak.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  Former Kansas City Royals general manager John Schuerholz once said,  “George Brett could roll out of bed on Christmas morning and hit a line drive.”
  With my limited Googling skills I couldn’t find any other citations, but I’d venture to say similar quotes have been uttered about other outstanding hitters. And in 1957, Ted Williams figuratively rolled out of bed and started hitting home runs, or taking a walk, or throwing in a single here or there. Whatever he did when he took his turn at bat, pitchers weren’t getting him out.
  When Williams stepped up to the plate on Sept. 17, he hadn’t seen action in a game since Sept. 1, having been plagued by a chest cold that kept him in bed until Sept. 9.
  “He went back to the Somerset Hotel and rested and stoked himself with vitamin pills and prescriptions and some potions of his own choosing, and browsed through his baseball and fishing literature, and tied a few fishing lines,” Edwin Pope wrote of Ted’s confinement in “Ted Williams: The Golden Year 1957.”
  Williams returned to workouts Sept. 12 and suffered a slight relapse before recovering enough to pronounce himself ready to pinch hit five days later against the Kansas City A’s at Fenway Park.
  Red Sox manager Pinky Higgins called on Williams to bat for pitcher Murray Wall leading off the eighth inning. Williams slugged his 34th homer of the season.
  Thus began a string in which Williams reached base 16 consecutive times, including homers in his first four official at-bats.
  Among many heroic feats in Williams’ career on and off the baseball diamond  — including crash-landing a fighter jet as a Marine during the Korean War — this has to rank right up there and was a fitting climax to a stupendous season in which Williams became the oldest batting champion of all time — with an average of .388, which is the third-highest to lead a league since Williams became the last player to hit .400 at .406 in 1941. He’s tied with Rod Carew in 1977, behind Brett (.390, 1980) and Tony Gwynn (.394, strike-shortened 1994.)
  The four homers in four straight at-bats ties with several other players for the major league record. His 16 consecutive times on base falls one short of the record set by Earl Averill Jr. in 1962 and Piggy Ward in 1893.
  But we know Averill wasn’t out for a spell before beginning his streak and have to suspect Ward wasn’t, although we have no records to show it. Nevertheless, neither one accomplished their streaks at the ripe old age of 39 as Williams did, having turned that age Aug. 30.
  (And Averill did benefit by reaching on an error and a fielder’s choice, to go with seven hits and eight walks. Ward reached on eight hits, eight walks and one hit by pitch, while Williams’ streak included six hits, nine walks and a hit by pitch.)
  Here’s the rundown on Williams’ streak appearance by appearance:
  Sept. 17: Williams deposited a 2-1 pitch from Tom Morgan into the seats to tie the game at 8-8, and the Red Sox went on to win 9-8.
  Sept. 18: Summoned off the bench again in the eighth, Williams batted for pitcher Frank Sullivan and was intentionally walked with a runner on first, two out and the A’s leading 2-1. Billy Consolo then ran for Williams. Boston didn’t score, and Kansas City’s lead held up as the final.
  (The A’s flip-flopped consonants on pitchers of record this day, as a day after Tom Morgan was the losing pitcher for K.C., Tom Gorman was the winning pitcher this day, throwing a complete game. The pitching firm of Morgan and Gorman was together for this one year in Kansas City, and both were members of the New York Yankees during 1952-54. And according to LinkedIn there’s a nonprofit organization management professional named Morgan Gorman in Evansville, Wisconsin.)
  Sept. 20: After the Red Sox had the day off and then traveled to Yankee Stadium, this time Williams came off the bench leading off the ninth, again batting for Wall, and he homered off Hall of Famer Whitey Ford. Williams sat on a 2-2 high fastball for his second pinch hit homer in three trips to the plate since coming back. It started a four-run inning that was too little, too late in a 7-4 loss.
  “It was the only one he ever gave me,” Williams said of the pitch he received from the 5-feet-10 Ford, who usually kept the ball low and away from Ted. “And the only reason he put that pitch there at all was because he was tired and had lost a good deal of his control.”
It was the only homer Williams had off Ford in 45 at-bats against him over his career, although Ted did have a .378 average.
  Sept. 21: Inserted into the starting lineup in left field for the first time since Aug. 31, Williams reached the seats in right off Bob Turley for a grand slam his second time up, after being intentionally walked in the first. Williams connected in a six-run second on a 2-0 pitch for his 15th career grand slam. Williams had two more grand slams in his career and is tied for seventh all time with 17.
  So that made two homers in two straight at-bats off the Yankees’ prime hurlers. Turley was 34-13 with a 2.86 ERA in 1957 and 1958 and was the major leagues’ Cy Young Award winner (only one winner in both leagues at that time) in 1958.
  Williams walked his next two times up and then left for a pinch runner in Boston’s 8-3 win.
  Sept. 22: After drawing yet another walk in the first, Williams made it four homers in four straight at-bats with a shot off Tom Sturvidant in the fourth that gave the Red Sox a 1-0 lead. But that was it as the Yankees prevailed 5-1.
  Williams finally kept the ball in the park after his fourth-inning homer with a single to right in the sixth, then walked in the eighth.
  Sept. 23: In the opening game of a series in Washington, Williams singled to left field in the first and scored on a Dick Gernert’s single, giving the Red Sox a 2-0 lead on their way to a 9-4 win. He walked his next three times up, scoring twice, and was hit by a pitch before leaving for a pinch runner.
  Sept. 24: The Senators’ Hal Griggs finally got Ted out, retiring him on a grounder to second in a 1-2-3 first inning. But Williams homered his next time up, leading off the fourth inning for his 38th and final homer of the season, to give the Red Sox a 2-0 lead. That proved to be the difference in a 2-1 win. Williams was called out on strikes and walked his final two times up.
  Besides stopping his streak, the fact Griggs was able to get Williams looking in the sixth appears quite notable considering the number of walks Ted had been drawing and the respect he had from umpires on ball and strike calls (or perhaps how much he had said umps bamboozled).
  This was Griggs’ first start of the year after a September call-up. With a final 6-26 four-year record and 5.50 ERA, his face-downs with Williams this day, homer aside, might rank as a career highlight besides a two-hit shutout he had in 1959. (Williams was 5 for 11 off Griggs lifetime for a .455 average.)
  Williams went 2 for 3 the next day and was 3 for 6 over Boston’s next three and final games, giving Ted his final mark of .388. He was 6 for 6 during his streak and 6 for 12 after that, giving him an average of .667 from Sept. 17 on.

With his hot hitting at the end of 1957, Ted Williams (left) overtook Mickey Mantle (right) for the American League batting title and became the oldest player ever, at age 39, to win a batting title. However, Mantle won the MVP award in a controversial vote.

  Williams had been at .376 on Sept. 1, one point behind Mickey Mantle. With his time off and hot hitting once he came back, Ted was able to finish 23 points ahead of Mantle in the batting race. Besides winning his fifth batting title, Williams, who played in 132 games, also won his ninth slugging average crown (.731) and was second in homers,
  It wasn’t enough to win him the MVP, though. Mantle took the honors, his second straight MVP and second of three, with six first-place votes and 233 balloting points to five first-place votes and 209 points for Williams. Two of the voting writers (neither one from Boston) placed Williams ninth and 10th on their ballots.
  The results met with disparagement from Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey and others, but this wasn’t the first time Williams might have been robbed of an MVP. He finished second to Joe DiMaggio in his 1941 .406 season and also was runner-up to DiMaggio after winning the Triple Crown in 1947. And he was runner-up to Joe Gordon after winning the Triple Crown in 1942. In 1947 one Boston elector didn’t even include Williams in his top 10.
  The fact was, Williams’ strained relationship with writers probably cost him more than a couple MVPs. Six times he was the league leader in WAR (wins above replacement), the modern metric meant to measure a  player’s overall value (and this includes defensive ability, for which Ted was not noted).
  Williams was named the Sporting News’ player of the year for 1957, and MVP or not, the season was a remarkable one by his or anybody else’s standards, coming at ages 38-39 and just three years removed from the end of his career in 1960.
  And it was more than Ted bargained for.
  “His thoughts centered on making this his last year,” Pope wrote in “Golden Year.” “‘I hope I can just start 100 games,’ Ted was quoted, ‘and maybe play in 125, and hit .325 or a little higher.
  “‘If anybody had even asked me three years ago if I would be in uniform in 1957, I’d have to say no. Sometimes, I guess, when you think you’re beginning to slip, you feel like packing up your bag and saying the hell with it. But when you get older, you think better of the game.”
  Ah, the hell with it Ted, why not just go out and hit .388?
Truly Golden
  As you can see, besides my usual sources — retrosheet.org and baseballreference.com — I relied on Edwin Pope‘s “Ted Williams, The Golden Year 1957” to flesh out this account. I had this sitting around because I was flipping through some early 1970s issues of The Sporting News a couple years ago when I came across an ad for the book. I thought, “That looks like it would be a good book, I wouldn’t mind having it.”
  I remember when I used to look through old issues of magazines and come across stuff I’d like to order and thinking I could actually order it. But of course I couldn’t because THE MAGAZINE WAS 15 OR 20 YEARS OLD.
  But that’s not the case anymore, thanks to the miracle of the internet and Amazon. If I wanted that book, by golly I could have it, right Amazon? Yes, they did have it. And it looks like they still do.
  And for those of you who think you’ve read everything there is worth reading about Ted Williams, you might want to add this to your list. Pope seems to be one of those writers who did have a good relationship with Ted, and this gives the book some insight you might be missing elsewhere. And Pope, a Miami Herald legend who just died in January at age 88, did pick a heck of a season to write about, besides giving you a good overall view of Williams’ career and persona.

Sources

For consecutive times on base streaks: http://www.gammonsdaily.com/earl-averill-jr-the-batter-who-reached-base-17-straight-times/; http://bleacherreport.com/articles/934773-ranking-the-most-unbreakable-mlb-player-streaks-and-consecutive-game-records
For general information: retrosheet.org and baseball reference.com
For information on Ted Williams’ 1957 season: “Ted Williams, The Golden Year 1957,” Edwin Pope, Prentice-Hall, 1970 (available at amazon.com)

Willie Mays: There’s The Catch, and then there’s The At-Bat

Willie Mays ranks a home run in a 10-pitch at-bat in a key pennant race game between the San Francisco Giants and Houston Astros in late 1965 as his most memorable.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Great baseball players may be known by their careers, by their seasons, by their games.  
  Willie Mays was known for all. But perhaps more than anything, Mays is known for his moments — moments that produced great plays, at bat, on the bases, in the field. Like The Catch, his over-the-shoulder grab that robbed Vic Wertz of extra bases and the Cleveland Indians of their soul in the 1954 World Series.
  That’s his best-known moment, but there are countless ones sprinkled throughout his career and throughout “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend,” by James S. Hirsch, the most comprehensive biography of Mays. Normally I don’t like it when baseball biographies get bogged down in play-by-play details, but in Mays’ case it’s pretty much essential, because he was so much about the plays, the moments.
  One moment I wasn’t aware of before I read the book but that comes through as one of his finest was, for our purposes here, what I’ll call The At-Bat.
  It came on Sept. 14, 1965, against the Houston Astros before a crowd of 15,415 at the Astrodome, the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” which had opened at the beginning of that season. Mays’ San Francisco Giants entered the game with a 2 1/2-game lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers for first place in the National League.
  The Astros led 5-2 entering the ninth inning. Orlando Cepeda struck out opening the Giants’ turn at bat. Bob Burda, batting for Warren Spahn, then drew a walk and gave way to pinch runner Tito Fuentes. Astros starting pitcher Bob Bruce was relieved by Claude Raymond, a native of St. Jean, Canada, nicknamed “Frenchy.” Raymond got Dick Schofield to ground out to first baseman Lee Maye, with Fuentes advancing to second.
  The Giants drew within 5-3 when Jesus Alou singled to center field, driving in Fuentes.      That brought up Mays.

Claude Raymond challenged Willie Mays with fastballs, and the legendary Hall of Famer tied the game with a homer on a 3-2 pitch to help the San Francisco Giants defeat the Houston Astros in a key game late in the 1965 season.

  “Mays usually didn’t try for homers, but this situation was different, and everyone knew it,” Hirsch wrote. “Though he led the league in home runs (Mays hit a career high 52 that year), Raymond didn’t want to walk him, which would bring up (Willie) McCovey, the go-ahead run. So he challenged Mays with fastballs.”
  And Raymond, although not imposing at 5-foot-10, 175 pounds, was equipped to do so, with a good moving fastball that helped him finish in the NL’s top 10 in saves four times in the 1960s and earn an All-Star selection in 1966.
  Mays worked the count to 3-2, swinging so hard he twice went to his knees. With Alou now running on the pitch, Mays managed to stay alive by fouling off the next four pitches.
  “I kept waiting for a breaking ball,” Mays said. “A curve, a slider — something other than a fastball. But that’s all he threw. Nothing but fastballs.”
  And here came another, on the inside part of the plate. And out it went, a line shot deep into the left-field bleachers on the 10th pitch of the at-bat.
  “TILT” went the huge scoreboard in the outfield, the flashing letters accompanying a ticking time bomb that always greeted a homer by the visiting team at the Dome.
  Tilt, indeed, as the momentum had swung in the Giants’ favor, and they went on to win 7-5 in 10 innings, with Jim Davenport’s two-run single in the top of the 10th providing the final margin. Bob Bolin, relieving for Masanori Murakami (the first Japanese-born player in the major leagues) with runners on first and second, got the final two outs to nail down the win.
Mays’ homer just missed being not only dramatic but a milestone. The night before he’d hit the 500th homer of his career, leading off the fourth inning to tie the game at 1-1 in a 4-1 win.
  (At the time Mays was just the fifth player in history to hit 500, trailing only Babe Ruth’s 714, Jimmie Foxx’s 534, Ted Williams’ 521 and Mel Ott’s NL-leading 511. Twenty-two others have passed 500 since. Mays finished with 660, fifth all time.)
  So that’s the story, as Hirsch tells it. But digging a little deeper reveals that Mays and Raymond remember it differently. They remember not a 10-pitch at-bat, but 13, and other details don’t match.
  Renowned baseball author Roger Angell wrote in a May 27, 1991, New Yorker article, “When I asked him to remember a home run,” Willie said, ‘Home run against Claude Raymond, in the Astrodome. Somebody was on first, and it tied the game. Jim Davenport won it for us in the eleventh or twelfth inning. Raymond threw me thirteen fastballs, and I fouled them off. The ball went over the fence in left-center field. What year? You’d have to look it up. Ask Claude Raymond — he probably knows it better than I do. That was the only dramatic type of home run I ever hit.’”
  Thirteen fastballs? Raymond, when contacted by Angell, agreed.
  “I threw Mays thirteen straight fastballs,” he said in the Angell article reprinted on the https://punkyg.wordpress.com website. “And he fouled off thirteen. Jay Alou was the base runner on first, and Mays was up there to hit a home run. All those fouls were nicks or little ticks back to the screen — nothing close to a base hit. Then I threw one more, a little inside, and Willie bailed out but opened up on the ball at the same time, the way only he could do, and it went out. I remember Paul Richards, our general manager, came up to me afterward and said how happy he was I’d gone fastball all the way. He said it was a great duel.”
  So we have 10 pitches versus 13 pitches, and left field (Hirsch) vs. left-center (Mays). And four foul balls vs. 13. In the same Angell article the author quotes a Giants media person as saying Mays fouled off four pitches before “sending the ball soaring four hundred feet over the center-field fence.”
  Since Hirsch devoted enough research to fill 560 pages, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt over Mays and Raymond. Players’ recollections have a history of being iffy, as noted baseball writers and analysts Bill James and Rob Neyer have made a habit of showing. Neyer wrote a whole book (“Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, the Lies, and Everything Else”) based on refuting such remembrances.
  Hirsch, in his notes, did cite Angell for his account of the homer, and included Raymond’s quote on Willie’s turning on the pitch.
  In a 2004 San Francisco Chronicle article by Charles Einstein, the writer says the count went to 2-0, then Raymond threw seven straight fastballs, two for swinging strikes, four for fouls, before Willie unloaded. And since Einstein was to Willie Mays as Boswell was to Samuel Johnson, and since this squares with Hirsch, maybe we should go with this.
But 13 pitches, 13 straight fastballs? That sounds good.
  Regardless, it was quite a momentous moment, evidently so if it’s the homer that came up when queried by Angell. (But maybe Mays forgot the one he hit leading off the 16th inning to end a historic pitcher’s duel between Juan Marichal and Spahn on July 2, 1963, winning the game 1-0.) (And Einstein brings up a tiebreaking homer in Mays’ last at-bat in the last regularly scheduled game of 1962 that pushed the Giants and Dodgers into a three-game playoff, leading to a Giants-Yankees World Series.)
(Speaking of World Series, the Giants fell short of that in 1965 when the Dodgers overtook them in the final week of the season and won the pennant by two games.)
  When a grand celebration of Mays’ 40th birthday, with 700 in attendance, was held at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco in 1971, Giants announcer Russ Hodges’ call of Mays’ homer that night in 1965 “was dramatically played to a tearful audience,” Hirsch wrote.
So it was pretty special, even when ranked among many other special Mays moments.
  And that was the magic of Mays. Any given game, any given inning, at bat, on base, in the field, you didn’t know what kind of awe-inspiring, slap-upside-the-head moment he might produce. And if you had to put a price on which player in history you’d pay to watch, of  any player in history, many would say Willie would fetch the highest.          

Sources:                                                                                                                                     “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend,” James Hirsch, Scribner, 2010

Claude Raymond information: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/2dfd7bf5; http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/raymocl01.shtml; http://baseballhalloffame.ca/inductees/claude-raymond
San Francisco Giants vs. Houston Astros, Sept. 14, 1965:http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1965/B09140HOU1965.htm;https://punkyg.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/say-hey-happy-81st-birthday-willie-mays/;http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/The-majesty-of-Mays-2767534.php
Career home run leaders: http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/HR_career.shtml
San Francisco Giants’ 1965 season: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SFG/1965-schedule-scores.shtml

Phil Mudrock: He came, he pitched, he kinda conquered

Phil Mudrock, in the only inning he pitched in the major leagues, faced three Hall of Famers and retired two of them as a member of the Chicago Cubs on April 19, 1963.

By  Phil Ellenbecker

  Now here’s one to tell the grandkids.
  About your one game in major league baseball. Your one inning.
When Phil Mudrock, after having spent seven seasons in the minor leagues, was summoned to pitch in the eighth inning for the Chicago Cubs at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on April 19, 1963, with the Giants leading 4-0, he was beginning and ending his major league career. He gave up two hits and one run, earned.
  And then the Cubs broke up the shutout in ninth, on a double by Lou Brock, who would be infamously traded to the St. Louis Cardinals next year. And then Juan Marichal retired the next two batters to end the game and even his record at 1-1 en route to a 25-8 season.
  And that was that for Mudrock in the show. He finished the season in the minor leagues at the AAA level, compiling a 6-13 record with a 3.95 ERA. He was 2-4 in AAA with a 5.70 ERA in 1964. In ’65 he had a 6.00 ERA in AAA with no decision in two games and six innings. Then he was done with professional baseball.
  But Mudrock left baseball knowing that he had cracked the major leagues for one inning, and in that one inning he faced five batters, and three of those batters ended up in the Hall of Fame. And the other two weren’t too shabby.
  And you know what? He didn’t fare too shabbily.
  The first batter Mudrock faced in relief of Bob Will was Jim Davenport, no Hall of Famer but a solid 13-year player and twice an All-Star. He doubled to right field.
  Next came none other than the legendary Willie Mays, who grounded out to shortstop, with Davenport advancing to third base.
  Hall Famer No. 2 was up next, and Willie McCovey made the score 5-0 by singling to right to score Davenport. McCovey moved to second on a balk by Mudrock. (Phil was perhaps victimized by a crackdown on balks in the National League this year, in which 20 balks were called in the first 20 games. Six days earlier, Pittsburgh’s Bob Friend was called for a record four balks. Bob Shaw broke the record with five balks in a game May 4, including three in one inning, also a record.)
  After McCovey came Hall of  Famer No. 3, Orlando Cepeda, who grounded out to third.
Next was Felipe Alou, who before becoming a distinguished manager put together a distinguished 17-year career that included three All-Star selections. He ended the inning by grounding out to second.
  So in his inning of work Mudrock retired two of three Hall of Famers.
  He left a final ERA of 9.00 in the record books, but an asterisk has to be attached to that considering whom it came against.
  Perhaps if you stop in at Mudrock’s Tap & Tavern in Louisville, Colorado, where Mudrock is from, you might run into Phil, and he can tell you how he stared down the likes of Mays and Cepeda. Perhaps. The establishment’s website mentions Phil and the town’s baseball heritage, but it doesn’t say Mudrock is a presence there, nor do the reviews, which are mixed.
  But it looks like they have pretty good food there and a wide selection of beers. And if you do happen to run into Phil, I bet he’d be glad to tell you about the time he faced the Willies and Orlando, and Felipe and Jim.