1969 World Series: Tom's Terrific 10

After giving up four runs in five innings of the New York Mets' opening-game loss in the 1969 World Series, Tom Seaver was once again in command in Game 4. The 1969 National League Cy Young Award winner and future Hall of Famer allowed six hits over 10 innings as the Mets took a 3-1 lead in the Series with a 2-1 victory.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  This was more like it. More like Tom Terrific.

  The Tom Seaver who'd been so dominant for most of 1969 but was missing so far in the postseason was back in "drop and drive" force for Game 4 of the World Series.

  The Baltimore Orioles got the full dose of Tom Terrific, 10 innings worth, as the New York Mets took a 3-1 advantage in the Series with a heartstopping 2-1 victory before 57,367 at Shea Stadium.

  It took a controversial bunt play in the 10th, and spectacular defense by right fielder Ron Swoboda in the ninth and first baseman Donn Clendenon in the third, for the underdog Mets to pull it out. They were now within one win of toppling an Orioles team whose 109-regular season wins were the most since the 1961 New York Yankees. The main reason was Seaver kept New York in contention throughout with a six-hitter, striking out six, walking two and allowing one earned run.

  Seaver, who was in the third season of a 20-year career culminated by selection to the Hall of Fame in 1992, didn't allow an extra-base hit. According to an article by Tom Verducci in Sports Illustrated, the only two other pitchers to manage this feat were fellow New York legends Christy Mathewson in 1913 and Carl Hubbell in 1933.

  This was the Seaver who'd been unyielding in the last part of the regular season, going 10-0 with a 1.34 ERA in his last 11 starts. Not the one who'd given up five runs in seven innings of the Mets' 9-5 win over Atlanta in Game 1 of the first-ever National League Championship Series. Not the one who'd given four runs in five innings of a 4-1 loss in Game 1 of the Series in Baltimore. Seaver had taken three days off from running before that Game 1 after he'd strained a leg muscle shagging flies. "I just ran out of gas," he said of his abbreviated stint in which he'd given up three runs in the fourth inning.

  But this time, even pitching on short rest, Seaver was at full throttle for the most part. And when the Orioles threatened, he bowed his back and fought through, leaving runners at third in two innings to keep Baltimore at bay.

  And he needed every bit of resiliency to match Orioles' left-handed screwballer Mike Cuellar in a battle of two 1969 Cy Young Award winners. This was a repeat of Game 1 in which Cuellar, in his first season with Baltimore after coming over from Houston, had prevailed. Cuellar, who would tie with Denny McLain for the AL Cy Young, held the Mets to one earned run and seven hits over seven innings, with no walks and five strikeouts.

  The Mets, whose 100-62 regular-season record was their first winning season since joining the NL as an expansion team in 1962, pushed across the winning run against two Orioles relievers in the 10th. Jerry Grote set the stage with a leadoff double to left field off new pitcher Dick Hall. Don Buford lost Grote's fly ball in the sun, and it dropped just beyond the reach of eight-time Gold Glove winning shortstop Mark Belanger, who'd given chase into Buford territory.

  "Mark Belanger went about as deep as you'd ever see a shortstop go out for a pop-up," NBC announcer Curt Gowdy said.

 Leonard Koppett, in chronicling the Series in "The New York Mets: The Whole Story" (excerpted in the Series anthology "Glory in the Fall"), deemed this Turning Point No. 9, ticking off the breaks that just seemed to keep coming the Mets' way, and/or that they kept making.   

  Rod Gaspar was sent in to run for Grote. Al Weis, the Mets' No. 8 hitter who'd gone 2-for-3 in the game --- a lifetime .219 hitter who would hit .455 in the Series -- was intentionally walked to set up a force play.

This throw from Baltimore Orioles pitcher Pete Richert is about to hit New York Mets pinch hitter J.C. Martin on the left wrist after Richert fielded Martin's bunt in the 10th inning. The ball ricocheted into right field, allowing the winning run to score as the Mets defeated the Orioles 2-1 in Game 4 of the 1969 World Series.

  That brought up Seaver's spot in the order, and Mets manager Gil Hodges sent up left-handed hitting J.C. Martin.

  Billy Hunter, who was managing for the Orioles since Earl Weaver had been ejected in the third inning, countered by bringing in left-hander Pete Richert. (Actually, it was pitching coach George Bamberger who visited the mound and waved in Richert.)

  Martin hit only .209 during the season and .222 lifetime but had delivered a two-run pinch single in the Mets' opening win in the NLCS. But with nobody out, Hodges wanted to get the runners into scoring position and ordered a bunt.

  Martin dribbled it in front of the plate between Richert and catcher Elrod Hendricks. Richert picked it up and went to Boog Powell at first. The throw hit Martin in the left wrist and ricocheted into right field, allowing Gaspar to score the winning run from second. The Orioles argued to no avail that Martin had interfered by not running outside the baseline as required.

  Koppett wrote: "Photographs that evening showed that Martin, indeed, had run well in fair territory when hit by the ball; he should have been out." But in home-plate umpire Shag Crawford's judgment, "Martin had touched the foul line with his right foot." Turning Point No. 10.

  Amid all the twists and turns, the big constant was the presence of Seaver, who would go on to win three Cy Young Awards.

  The Orioles had the go-ahead run perched at third base in the top of the 10th, but Seaver escaped. Dave Johnson led off the inning by reaching on an error at third by Wayne Garrett, who'd just been inserted into the game. After Belanger popped out foul to the catcher Grote, pinch hitter Clay Dalrymple sent a single to center, putting runners at first and second. Johnson went to third on Buford's fly out to deep right field.

  Seaver kept the score at 1-1 by striking out Paul Blair on his 150th pitch of the day.

New York Mets right fielder Ron Swoboda makes a diving catch on a line drive off the bat of Baltimore's Brooks Robinson in Game 4 of the 1969 World Series, with the Mets leading 1-0. Frank Robinson tagged up and scored on the catch, but Swoboda possibly prevented the Orioles from going ahead, as instead of  two runners on and one out, Baltimore had two out and one on. The Mets went on to win the game 2-1 in 10 innings.

  Baltimore broke up Seaver's shutout in the ninth, but Swoboda kept the Orioles from possibly moving ahead with a diving catch on Brooks Robinson's sacrifice fly that scored Frank Robinson. Frank had singled with one out and went to third on Powell's single to right off Eddie Watt, who'd come on in the eighth after Hunter pinch hit for Cuellar.

  "I'm running out of gas, but I still have a few pitches left in me," Seaver told manager Gil Hodges during a mound conference after Powell's hit, according to Verducci in SI.

  Brooks Robinson then sent a line drive into short right, barely over Weis at second, on which Swoboda made a sprawling, backhanded, belly-flopping grab, with Frank Robinson tying the game when he crossed the plate.

  "Swoboda, the right fielder, could have played it safe," wrote Thomas J. Brown Jr. in an article for the Society for American Baseball Research's Games Project. "The conservative approach would have been to concede the run and play the ball on a hop. Instead, Swoboda practically knocked himself out with an extraordinary catch that would go down as one of the best in World Series history. Swoboda ran at full speed and dived at the last minute to make the catch inches above the ground."

  Frank Robinson, according to Verducci, later called Swoboda's decision to dive for the ball stupid because it risked having both runners score.

  But he caught it, so instead of two runners still on and one out, the Orioles had one on and two out, and Hendricks then lined out to Swoboda, who nearly overran the ball according to Koppett, to end the inning.

  (By scoring, Baltimore ended a string in which Seaver had gone the entire season without giving up a run or an extra-base hit in the ninth inning, Verducci reported. Only Virgil Trucks in 1949 among starting pitchers had done that before.)

  Swoboda's catch was seen not only as a game changer but a back breaker, a Series scene shifter.

  "Swoboda’s catch made the Mets and their fans start to believe that they might actually win the Series," Brown wrote. "Many of those who saw the catch consider it even more momentous than Willie Mays’ famous catch in the 1954 World Series."

The headline in the New York Daily News proclaims another improbable victory for the New York Mets. J.C. Martin's game-winning bunt and Ron Swoboda's catch are highlighted from the Mets' 2-1 victory over Baltimore in Game 4 of the 1969 World Series.

  The omens started early as Seaver, who'd given up a homer to Buford on his first pitch in Game 1, indicated this day was going to be different by striking out Buford and Powell in the first inning. But he ran into trouble in the third when the Orioles, with the Mets up 1-0, put runners at second and third. Belanger, after Weaver had been tossed for arguing balls-and-strikes calls with Crawford, led off the inning with a single, and Cuellar followed with another single. Buford grounded to Clendenon at first for a fielder's choice that retired Cuellar at second and moved Belanger to third.

  The Mets had been playing in for a bunt when Buford hit a one-hop liner that Clendenon "speared like a hockey goalie," Koppett wrote.

  Blair then sacrificed Buford to second, bunting the ball down the third-base line to move up Buford while Belanger held.

  But Seaver got the ever-dangerous Frank Robinson to pop out foul to first. He then retired 16 of the next 17 batters he faced from the fourth through the ninth before the Orioles rose up to tie the game.

  Clendenon had given the Mets the early lead with a solo homer leading off the second. It was his second of three homers in the Series as he won MVP honors.

  The Mets threatened in the third when Weis bounced a grounder off Brooks Robinson's chest at third for a single and went to third on Tommy Agee's single with one out. Cuellar squeezed out of it by getting Bud Harrelson and Cleon Jones to ground out.

  New York didn't get any runner into scoring position from there until the ninth, when Jones and Swoboda singled, Swoboda completing a 3-for-4 day at the plate with his two-out hit. But pinch hitter Art Shamsky grounded out, bringing on extra innings, and more gritty pitching by Seaver. And the winning run on a walk-off bunt, only the second one in postseason history, according to an article by Paul Casella at MLB.com. The first was in Game 3 of the 1914 World Series when the Boston Braves swept the Philadelphia Athletics.

  That 1914 Boston team was called the Miracle Braves because they rallied from 15 games out on July 4 to win the NL pennant. 

  The 1969 National League team in New York, while popularly called the Amazin' Mets, has also been known as the Miracle Mets, for like those '14 Braves they seemingly came from nowhere, from 10 games behind Chicago on Aug. 13 to overtake the Cubs and win the National League East by eight games. And then a sweep of the Braves in the NLCS.

  And following Tom Seaver's terrific outing on Oct. 15, 1969, and after a 5-3 victory in Game 5 the next day, the Mets, believe it or not -- those Mets who had won only 40 games their first season and whose previous best was 73 wins in 1968 -- were World Series champions.

Sources:

Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1969/B10150NYN1969.htm and  https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-15-1969-seaver-s-pitching-swoboda-s-defense-help-mets-win-game-4

Seaver's 1969 season: https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/10/23/tom-seaver-1969-mets-world-series

1969 World Series: "Glory in the Fall," 2010, Sterling

Video of game-winning play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMewGQK28RY

Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com. 

  

Magic Royals moments, 8-7-77: 'Duck' and 'Duke' deliver for surging KC

Spot starter Marty  "Duck" Pattin came up big for the Kansas City Royals on Aug. 7, 1977, with a complete-game six-hitter in a 3-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox. The Royals drew within 1 1/2 games of the American League West-leading White Sox and would go on to win the division by eight games.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  It would be hard to pick out any one game in the Kansas City Royals' winningest season as being pivotal -- a turning point in a year in which they won the American League West by eight games over Texas with a major-league best record of 102-60.

  But it took them a while to take over, and the Chicago White Sox did give them a lot of trouble over the summer of 1977, so if I had to pick out one game, I would go with the Sunday afternoon of Aug. 7 at Royals Stadium, when Kansas City completed a sweep of the White Sox with a dramatic 3-2 victory.

  Pinch hitter John Wathan singled in the winning run with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning before a crowd of 40,237, second-largest to see the Royals in K.C. that season.

  It was the Royals' fifth straight win as they pulled from 5 1/2 games behind the ChiSox to 1 1/2 back in that span. By Aug. 20, as the Royals were in the middle of a 10-game win streak, they'd taken over first place for good.

  Although the Royals had their share of hitting in these days, this game illustrated how solid their pitching was -- they led the league in ERA this year at 3.52 -- and what a handy guy Martin Pattin was to have around.

  Spot starter Pattin, a compact 5-foot-11, 180-pound right-hander, threw a complete-game six-hitter as he improved to 4-2.

  Pattin put on a masterful display of pitching to contact, retiring 12 White Sox on ground balls, 11 on fly outs, two on pops and one on a live drive as he needed only one strikeout while walking two. He retired the Sox in order in five innings, and with a double play had six three-batter innings.

  Twice Patton, known as "Duck" for his Donald Duck impersonations and "Bulldog" for his tenacity, retired seven straight batters. He was working on his second such string when Oscar Gamble homered deep to right field leading off the ninth inning, tying the score at 2. It was Gamble's 20th homer of the season.

  Ken Kravec was pitching a pretty solid game of his own for the White Sox, but when he walked Amos Otis leading off the bottom of the ninth, Chicago manager Bob Lemon summoned Lerrin LaGrow. Al Cowens moved Otis to second with a sacrifice bunt that went first-to-pitcher.

  John Mayberry was then intentionally walked, bringing up Joe Zdeb. Royals manager Whitey Herzog called on Joe Lahoud to pinch hit, and Lemon countered by calling on left-hander Randy Wiles.

John "Duke" Wathan's single in the ninth inning drove in Amos Otis and made a winner out of Marty Pattin and the Kansas City Royals as they prevailed 3-2 over the Chicago White Sox on Aug. 7, 1977.

  So Herzog sent up right-handed hitter Wathan, who hit .328 in 119 at-bats in 1977 in his first full year in the major leagues. Known as "Duke" for his John Wayne impersonations, the future Royals manager singled to left to score Otis and end it.

  Krakow fell to 7-3 as he allowed five hits and three runs, all earned, while walking two and striking out four.

  Cowens, who finished second behind Rod Carew in AL MVP voting this year, led the Royals offense, going 2-for-3 with two doubles and scoring both K.C. runs before the ninth.

  Mayberry singled in Cowens with two out in the fourth to give the Royals a 1-0 lead.

  The White Sox tied it on a single by Ralph Garr and double by Jorge Orta leading off the sixth.

  Cowens started K.C.'s seventh with a double and scored on Zdeb's single, making it 2-1 Royals.

  Pattin pitched the first of his four complete games on the season and was in the middle of an eight-game winning streak from June 16 to Sept. 9, including nine innings of shutout relief July 1 against Cleveland. He finished 10-3 with a 3.58 ERA. He was fifth on the team in wins and starts with 10 each as Herzog filled in around his top four of Dennis Leonard, Jim Colborn, Paul Splittorff and Andy Hassler. Pattin led the team in winning percentage with a career-best .769.

  Krukow had a final record of 11-8 with a 4.10 ERA, best among the White Sox starters.

  The White Sox led the AL West or were tied for first from June 19 through Aug. 19, topped by a 5 1/2-game margin, which they enjoyed after splitting a doubleheader with the Royals on July 31 before a season-high crowd of 50,412 at Chicago's Comiskey Park. But one week later it had shrunk to one-half game over Minnesota and 1 1/2 over K.C. By Aug. 20 the Royals had moved in front in a tight race, Chicago and Texas one-half game back and Minnesota one behind. The White Sox eventually faded to third place with a final record of 90-72, 12 games behind the Royals and four behind Texas.

  The 1977 White Sox became known as the "Southside Hit Men" for their homer-hitting propensities, thrilling obnoxious Comiskey crowds who would greet home-team rallies with chants of "Na, Na, Hey, Hey…Goodbye," resurrecting a 1969 No. 1 hit song from a fictitious group known as Steam.

  The ChiSox run proved to be fiction. They finished second in the major leagues in homers with 192 behind Boston's 213, led by Gamble with 31 and Richie Zisk with 30. They were third in the AL in runs scored. But their pitching couldn't keep up, as their 4.28 overall ERA was eighth-best in the league.

Al Cowens' 1977 performance earned him second place in American League MVP voting and the cover of this issue of The Sporting News. He went  2-for-3 with two doubles and two runs scored in the Kansas City Royals' 3-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Aug. 7, 1977.

  Meanwhile, the Royals had the fifth-highest scoring team in the AL, built around line-drive hitting, and combined with their league-leading pitching they became a runaway freight train in August and September with a 45-16 record in those two months, including 16 straight wins from Aug. 3 to Sept. 15.

  The Royals led the majors in both doubles and triples, with Hal McRae's 54 two-baggers the most in the major leagues during a 43-year span -- going back to Stan Musial's 53 in 1953 and up to John Olerud's 54 in 1993.

  K.C. could pulverize teams by pounding the gaps, going 31-13 in games decided by more than five runs for a .636 percentage, comparable to its overall .630 clip.

  But as their Aug. 7 victory illustrates, the Royals were even better at pulling out the tight ones -- 31-13 for a .705 percentage.

  Combining all facets, many Royals fans say the '77 team was their finest ever. They just didn't have the postseason success to show for it. They blew a 2-1 lead in the AL Championship Series and lost 3-2 to the dreaded New York Yankees, the second of three straight years they lost to the Bronx Bombers in the ALCS. It took them until 1980 to finally beat the Yankees and get to the World Series, and until '85 to finally win a Series.

  As for Pattin, who'd been the Opening Day starter and winner for the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969, he continued pitching for the Royals through that 1980 World Series appearance. For his 13-year major league career he had a 114-109 record, led by 17 wins with Boston in 1972, with a 3.62 ERA topped by 2.49 with K.C. in '76. He had 224 starts, 64 complete games, 119 games finished and 25 saves.

  And he was capable of a stellar outing any time he took the mound, such as on Aug. 7, 1977.

Sources:

Play-by-play: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA197708070.shtml  and https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1977/B08070KCA1977.htm

Marty Pattin biography: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/f9610f42  

"Southside Hit Men": https://whitesoxpride.mlblogs.com/throwback-thursday-a-tribute-to-the-south-side-hitmen-b4290d5ef636 

Not-so-magic Royals moments, 5-15-73: KC Ryan's first no-no victim

Nolan Ryan threw the first of his record seven no-hitters May 15, 1973, leading the California Angels past the Kansas City Royals 3-0 at Royals Stadium. Ryan struck out 12 batters and walked three.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Any given night arrived May 15, 1973, for the Kansas City Royals and Nolan Ryan.
  Ryan, who proved himself capable of throwing a no-hitter in almost any game he took the pitching mound in his record 27 years in the major leagues, notched his first career no-no that Tuesday night at brand-new Royals Stadium, leading the California Angels to a 3-0 victory before a crowd of 12,205.
  As it turned out, Ryan, who improved his record to 5-3, was just getting started, despite taking some time to get there. This was his sixth full year in the big leagues. He would go on to throw six more no-hitters, putting some distance between him and previous record holder Sandy Koufax's four.
  “I’m not record-conscious and I don’t have any special career goals,” Ryan told Fred Down of United Press Internatonal when asked that night how many no-hitters he would throw. “I must take the wins and losses as they come.”      
  Ryan took on a little more than he was able to the previous July 31 in Anaheim, California, against the Royals. That night he had a no-hitter through seven innings before Steve Hovley broke it up with a leadoff single in the eighth. The Royals won the game 1-0 on Amos Otis' fourth-inning steal of home, set up when Ryan threw wildly trying to pick off Otis at first base, allowing him to reach third.
  This night Hovley broke up a perfect game, you could say, when he drew a walk as the second man up to bat in the top of the first. Hovley then stole second. But Ryan, who'd struck out Fred Patek to open the game, fanned Amos Otis and John Mayberry to erase that threat. The only K.C. batters to reach base from then on were Carl Taylor in the third and Paul Schaal in the eighth, each with walks. And both stayed at first base.  
  Ryan struck out 12 batters, which was pretty much a day at the office for him in a season in which, with 383 Ks, he broke by one the previous record of -- guess who? -- Koufax in 1965. It was Ryan's fourth double-figure strikeout game of the season. He had 23 double-digit strikeout games in his 39 starts in 1973, with a high of 17.  
  Every batter but Cookie Rojas in the Royals lineup struck out at least once, led by Mayberry with three. Patek and Schaal each fanned twice. Ryan recorded a strikeout in every inning.  
  When the Royals, who would finish second in the American League in runs scored in 1973, weren't striking out, they were frequently getting under Ryan's offerings. Eight outs were recorded on fly balls, two on pops.  
  Getting under, and not getting around. Six of the fly outs came from right-handed batters to the right fielder -- three putouts each by former Royal Bob Oliver and Ken Berry. Berry, a two-time Gold Glove winner who was born in Kansas City, Mo., was inserted for defensive purposes in the seventh inning.  
  Meanwhile, Pinson didn't have a chance in left, while Al Gallagher at third and Rudy Meoli at shortstop had one assist apiece.  
  Meoli saved the no-hitter with two outs in the eighth when he made an over-the-shoulder catch on a blooper by Gail Hopkins that appeared headed to drop between Pinson and center fielder Bobby Valentine. The left-handed hitting Hopkins was batting for Taylor and made an opposite-field bid for a base hit.   
  “Sandy Alomar (second baseman) told me to back up a couple of steps,” Meoli told Don Merry of the (Long Island, Cal.) Independent, according to a Society for American Baseball Research Games Project article. “If I hadn’t, I don’t know whether I would have been able to reach it.”
  After surviving that close shave, Ryan got Patek to pop out foul to first and Hovley to strike out for the first two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Otis then drove a pitch to the warning track in right, where Berry gathered it in to complete the gem.  
  "I felt the pressure building on a no-hitter,” Ryan said to Merry. “I didn’t really feel it tonight until the ninth inning, and then I was nervous."
  As for winning the game, the Angels eased some nerves by scoring all the runs Ryan needed in the first inning.

Bob Oliver, a former Kansas City Royal, went 2-for-4 with two RBIs, two runs scored and a homer against his former team to support Nolan Ryan's 3-0 no-hitter over the Royals on May 15, 1973.

  Vada Pinson, who would come over to the Royals in 1974 for the final two seasons of a distinguished 18-year career, led off the game with a single off Bruce Dal Canton. He advanced to second on Sandy Alomar's sacrifice and to third on Valentine's fly to right. After Frank Robinson walked, Oliver delivered an RBI single. Gallagher made the score 2-0 with a single that drove in Robinson.  
  Oliver rounded out the scoring with a solo homer in the sixth with one out. He finished the game 2-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs scored.  
  The Angels threatened further in the sixth with singles by Gallagher and Meoli. But Gene Garber relieved Dal Canton, got the final out and finished up with 3 1/3 innings of three-hit, shutout relief.  Dal Canton gave up eight hits and three runs, all earned, while walking one as his record fell to 2-2.  
  Pinson joined Oliver with multiple hits for the Angels, going 2-for-5.  
  Ryan threw 132 pitches, 80 of them strikes, in a game that took 2 hours, 30 minutes to complete. All the Royals could do afterward was rave.  
  “That man can bring it,” Mayberry told Sid Bordman of the Kansas City Times. “[He] throws the ball harder than anyone I ever saw.”
  “(Ryan) has the best stuff in the league," Lou Piniella said. "He throws so hard, and his curve is just about impossible to hit.” 
  Ryan's catcher this night, Jeff Torborg, had his own unique perspective. While with the Los Angeles Dodgers he'd caught Koufax's perfect game in 1965 and a no-hitter by Bill Singer in 1970.
   “Nolan has thrown this hard before,” Torborg told Dick Miller of The Sporting News. “But you get to the point where it is humanly impossible to throw any harder. He was very fast, really great, and his curve was excellent.”  
  Besides his record number of strikeouts, Ryan finished 1973 with a 21-16 record and 2.87 ERA. He was in his second season with the Angels after being traded from the New York Mets, for whom he'd gone 29-38 as he battled control problems.   
  “(The Angels) let me do the thing I wanted to do most,” Ryan told UPI. “They let me pitch.”    It took exactly two months for Ryan to pitch another no-hitter in 1973, on July 15 at Detroit. That was the night he struck out 17 and also the night the Tigers' Norm Cash infamously walked up to the plate with two out in the ninth with a table leg, regular bats having proved futile against the Ryan Express.  
  Ryan threw another no-hitter in 1974 in his final start of the season. When he tossed another on June 1, 1975, he had four no-hitters in a span of 84 starts.  
  Before breaking through with a no-hitter in 1973, Ryan had previously thrown complete-game one-hitters April 18, 1970 with the Mets in his first start of the year with 15 strikeouts, and July 9, 1972. (Ryan had also allowed one hit against the Royals in that July 31 game the year before, when he'd no-hit them through seven innings, but he was relieved after the eighth inning.)

Sources:

Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1973/B05150KCA1973.htm  and  https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/may-15-1973-just-matter-time-nolan-ryans-first-no-hitter
Single-season strikeout leaders: https://www.baseball-almanac.com/pitching/pistrik3.shtml
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.  

9-16-75: Bucs' Stennett stings Cubs with 7-for-7

Pittsburgh's Rennie Stennett connects with a pitch from the Chicago Cubs' Paul Reuschel on his seventh at-bat Sept. 16, 1975. Stennett was bidding for his seventh hit of the day. (YouTube screen grabs)

Stennett is headed for second on his way to a triple.

Stennett accepts congratulations from Pirates third-base coach Bob Skinner after tying a major league record with seven hits in seven at-bats in Pittsburg's 22-0 walloping of the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  "The Lumber Company" had its buzz saws blazing, and baring the sharpest teeth was Rennie Stennett.
  The Pittsburgh second baseman tied a major league record by going 7-for-7 as the Pirates lived up to their 1970s nickname, denoting their appetite for swinging the bat, by boring through the Chicago Cubs 22-0 on Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 16, 1975, at Wrigley Field.
  Stennett, a Panama native who grew up in the same neighborhood as fellow second baseman Rod Carew, a Hall of Famer, became the first player in 93 years to get seven hits in a nine-inning game. He equaled the record set by Wilbert Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles in 1892. And he did it in eight innings, leaving for a pinch runner after his final time up.
  Johnny Burnett of Cleveland has the mark for most hits in an extra-inning game with nine in 1932.
  From his leadoff spot in the batting order, Stennett led a 24-hit Pittsburgh attack with a triple, two doubles and four singles, scoring five runs and driving in two, backing up a three-hit shutout by John Candelaria and two relievers.
  The fifth-year Pirate did it by slapping the ball over the park. He had four opposite-field hits to right -- two singles, a double and the triple. His two other singles went to center. His other double went to left -- the only thing he pulled.
  Stennett wasn't even guaranteed to play, but there was no stopping him once manager Danny Murtaugh inserted him into the starting lineup. And his first at-bat indicated the direction he was headed, according to his Society for American Baseball Research biography.
  “I got to the ballpark and I wasn’t supposed to play that day. I had twisted my ankle and it was badly swollen,” said Stennett, who had played both ends of a doubleheader the day before but sat down after the seventh inning of the second game. “But I taped up the ankle and I played. The first time up I hit a ball between (Cubs) first baseman Andre Thornton and the bag, and in my mind that told me that day I was gonna do good because as a right-handed hitter, when I’m hitting the ball to the right side, I know I’m hitting good.
  "That was a shot, and it triggered something. I felt all I had to do was make contact and I was going to get a hit.”
  He kept making contact, and finding holes. Stennett told team trainer Tony Bartirome to tell Murtaugh to remove him from the game because of his ankle. But Murtaugh refused until Stennett made an out.
  “I wanted to rest him,” Murtaugh said, “but he kept getting hits.”

Rennie Stennett tied the major league record for hits in a nine-inning game by going 7-for-7 in the Pittsburgh Pirates' 22-0 rout of the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 16, 1975, at Wrigley Field. Stennett had a triple, two doubles and four singles, scoring five runs and driving in two.

  Here's an at bat-by-at bat rundown of Stennett's record-setting day:
  First inning: Stennett scorched a double down the right-field line leading off the game against Rick Reuschel, triggering a nine-run inning. He scored on Richie Hebner's single. Later in the inning he singled to right off new pitcher Tom Detore to score Frank Taveras, then scored his second run of the inning on Willie Stargell's single, making the score 9-0.
  Third inning: He singled to center leading off the inning with one out off Detore and scored on a homer deep onto Sheffield Avenue in right by Hebner, which opened an 11-0 lead.
  Fifth inning: Leading off against Detore, he doubled to the gap in right and crossed the plate on Al Oliver's single, starting a six-run inning. He capped it with a two-out single to right off Oscar Zamora that drove in Manny Sanguillen, a fellow Panama native whom Stennett had pitched to in sandlot ball. That inflated the margin to 18-0. Dave Parker had the big blow in the inning with a three-run homer.
  With his two hits in an inning twice in a game, Stennett tied a record shared by Max Carey, Sherman Lollar and Johnny Hodapp, according to an SABR Games Project article.
  Seventh inning: Guess who led off this inning? Stennett singled to center off Buddy Schultz and scored on Parker's single as the Pirates padded the lead to the final margin.
  Eighth inning: With two out, Stennett tripled to right off Paul Reuschel, Rick's brother, as the ball skipped by a charging Champ Summers. He then gave way to pinch runner and future New York Yankees fixture Willie Randolph, a rookie at the time.
  Stennett came within one of tying the modern record for runs scored in a game, set on eight occasions. Guy Hecker has the all-time record with seven, set with Louisville of the American Association in 1886.
  The 22-0 final was the largest-ever margin of victory by shutout, topping 21-0 blowouts by the 1901 Tigers and 1939 Yankees.
  Beyond Stennett, the Pirates fully lived up their "Lumber Company" moniker. Stargell was 3-for-4 with three RBIs and two runs scored. Taveras, a relative lightweight at No. 8 in the Bucs' batting order with a .212 average on the year, was 3-for-3 with three runs and three RBIs. Parker went 2-for-4 with five RBIs and three runs scored, including his 24th homer of the year. Hebner had his 15th homer while going 2-for-7 with three runs and RBIs each. Sanguillen and Richie Zisk also had two hits.
  Ironically, one of the most lethal members of the "Lumber Company," line-drive machine Oliver -- a .303 lifetime hitter -- was largely silent on this day, going 1-for-4.
  The Pirates mounted their assault on the Cubs largely by stinging them to death with singles. Stennett with his double and triple had their only extra-base hits besides the homers by Parker and Hebner.
  Every Pittsburgh starter in the lineup — including Candelaria — hit safely, scored at least once and drove in at least one run.

Pittsburgh Pirates rookie pitcher John Candelaria had plenty of support but didn't really need it as he shut out the Chicago Cubs on three hits over seven innings of a 22-0 victory Sept. 16, 1975. Candelaria left the game after reaggravating a back injury.

  And Candelaria didn't need all that much help, from himself or his teammates, as he improved to 8-5.
  Candelaria, a rookie who'd won a starting rotation spot just before the All-Star break, held the Cubs to three hits over seven innings and allowed only one Cubs base runner to reach scoring position. He retired them in order in four innings. He didn't walk a batter while striking out five.
  When Candelaria reaggravated a back injury, Ken Brett and Ramon Hernandez finished up with one inning apiece of scoreless 1-2-3 relief.
  Meanwhile, the Pirates continually roughed up Cubs pitching until Paul Reuschel shut them out the final two innings.
  In contrast, younger brother Rick, who had a 3.49 ERA coming in and was a three-time All-Star in the 1970s, was shelled for eight runs, all earned, six hits and two walks in getting only one batter out in the first inning as he fell to 10-16.
  Jose Cardenal in the second and Andre Thornton and Dave Rosello in the fifth singled for Chicago's only hits.
  The Pirates became known as "The Lumber Company" in 1971, when they led the National League in runs scored and won the World Series title. During that year on Sept. 1, Stennett was part of the first all-black starting lineup in baseball history.
  By 1975 the Bucs weren't quite so fearsome with the bat but still finished third in the league in runs scored and batting average. From 1972 to 1976 they finished third in the league in runs scored four times and fourth the other year.
  With the help of a 3.42 ERA, second-best in the league to Los Angeles' 3.26, Pittsburgh won the NL East in '75 with a 92-69 record, 6 1/2 games over Philadelphia. Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine" swept the Pirates 3-0 in the NL Championship Series en route to the first of two straight world titles.
  Although they were no match for the Pirates this day, the Cubs did tie Pittsburgh for third-most runs scored in the NL in '75. But they were also last in the league in ERA at 3.81 and finished fifth in the East at 75-87, 17 1/2 behind Pittsburgh.
  Stennett raised his average from .278 to .287 with his 7-for-7 outburst, and he stayed on a tear the next two games. The next night, he got three more hits at Philadelphia to set a new mark for most hits (10) in consecutive nine-inning games. The next evening, he collected two more hits, giving him 12 hits in three consecutive nine-inning games, tying a record.
Stennett, who'd hit .291 the year before, finished 1975 with a .286 average and career highs of 89 runs scored and 62 RBIs. He was also drawing respect with his aggressive style of play.
  “There hasn’t been a player in baseball, not even Pete Rose, who has hustled more than Stennett," Pirates general manager Joe Brown told The Sporting News.
  Stennett took that gung-ho attitude into the batter's box, which fit right in with the Pirates' free-wheeling approach to hitting.
  “I am a .300 hitter,” Stennett said. “I’ll always be aggressive at the plate. That’s my style. Maybe I’m not flashy. Mainly, I swing, and I’ve been getting an awful lot of hits on first pitches."
  Or, as Cincinnati catcher Johnny Bench put it, “He hits everything we throw him."
  Stennett tailed off to .257 in 1976, but was working on his best season in 1977 when he was lost for the year to injury, and he was never the same after that. On Aug. 21 he fractured a bone in his right fibula and dislocated his right ankle sliding into second base against the Giants. He was hitting .336 at the time, which ended up placing him second in the NL behind Parker's .338.
  His ankle continued to bother him in 1978 and he lost his starting position to Phil Garner. He was largely a nonfactor in the Pirates' world championship run of 1979, totaling only one at-bat in the postseason.
  Stennett opted for free agency, a five-year, $3 million contract and San Francisco for the 1980 season, but never got untracked with the Giants, running into problems with manager Dave Bristol. He was released in April 1982. Save for an aborted comeback attempt with the Pirates in 1989, he finished up his career in the Mexican League in 1982 and the Triple A American Association in 1983, retiring at age 32.
  For his 11-year major league career, Stennett batted .274, with 41 home runs, 1,239 hits and 432 RBIs. After 1977, he never hit higher than .244.
  But nobody ever hit higher in a day than Stennett's 7-for-7 on Sept. 16, 1975.

Sources:

Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1975/B09160CHN1975.htm and https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-16-1975-rennie-stennett-leads-pirates-rout-record-seven-hits
Stennett biography: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/95f220e9
Hits records: https://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/hits.shtml
Runs scored records: https://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_runs1.shtml
"The Lumber Company": http://baseballegg.com/2012/09/04/pittsburghs-lumber-company-paced-team-to-success-in-1970s/
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.

x
  

Swoonin' A's, 5-2-64: Twins KO KC in 11th

Sweet-swinging rookie Tony Oliva homered twice, including as part of  record-tying four straight Minnesota Twins who cleared the wall in the top of the 11th inning of a 9-4 victory over the Kansas City Athletics on May 2, 1964.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  The Minnesota Twins of the early 1960s were a powderkeg waiting to explode, and they detonated with suddenness and finality on the Kansas City Athletics on May 2, 1964.

  With the two teams tied 3-3 heading into the 11th inning that Saturday afternoon at Kansas City's Municipal Stadium, Minnesota's first four batters unloaded home runs, breaking open what had a tight, back-and-forth ballgame as the Twins made off with a 7-3 victory.

  The four consecutive homers tied a record accomplished twice previously, but this was the first time it had been done in extra innings. It remains the only extra-inning occasion among the nine times teams have hit four straight in an inning.

  The Twins would go on to hit 221 homers in 1964, at the time tied for the third-most by a team in a season. And it was the Twins who had the second-best mark of 225 in 1963, behind the New York Yankees' record of 240.

  (Those marks have since been obliterated by the recent homer record-smashing, juiced ball times. The Twins themselves now hold the all-time record with 307 in 2019, edging by one the number the Yankees hit last year. Of the top 10 marks, five were set in 2019 and the most recent was in 1996).

  Tony Oliva, who would be winning the American League batting title in this his rookie season with a .323 average, set off the Twins' 11th-inning eruption in 1964 with a leadoff homer off Dan Pfister. Oliva's blow, his second homer of the game, capped a 4-for-5 afternoon with three RBIs and two runs scored.

  Bobby Allison made it 5-3 with another shot off Pfister, and A's manager Eddie Lopat had to come get the right-hander after he gave up another round tripper, this one to Jimmy Hall.

  (By going to the showers Pfister avoided a shot at the ignominy of giving up four straight homers, which had been done the year before by the Los Angeles Angels' Paul Foytack and has been done four times since.)

  The new A's pitcher, Vern Handrahan, fared no better than Pfister, as Harmon Killebrew went deep off him to complete the Twins' grand slam of game-breaking solo shots. Killebrew had homered in his previous at-bat to put Minnesota ahead 3-2 in the ninth.

  Handrahan, who was pitching in his third major league game, brought a halt to the Twins' thunder and lightning by striking out Earl Battey, then retiring Zoilo Versalles on a foul pop and Bernie Allen on a grounder.

  Gerry Aligo surrendered a one-out single to Charlie Lau in K.C.'s half of the 11th but then struck out Jose Tartabull and got George Williams on a fielder's choice grounder, sending home what remained of the 8,159 at Municipal probably wondering what had happened. Or saying, "Well, that's the good old A's for you."

  It had been anybody's game up until then, and the A's had come quite close to winning it in the ninth.

  Rocky Colavito singled in Ed Charles, who had doubled to end the day for Twins starter Lee Stange, with one out to tie the game. After Twins reliever Bill Dailey gave way to Bill Fischer, a passed ball by Battey allowed Colavito to second, and Lau was walked intentionally. Gino Cimoli advanced Lau and Colavito to second and third with a ground out back to Fischer. Again, the Twins went to the intentional walk, pinch hitter George Alusik drawing the free pass to load the bases.

  The Twins continued with their Bill of bullpen fare by bringing in Bill Pleis, who struck out A's pinch hitter Billy Bryan to bring on extra innings.

Dan Pfister surrendered three straight homers to start the 11th inning May 2, 1964, as the Minnesota Twins snapped a 3-3 tie and overpowered the Kansas City Athletics 9-4. Vern Handrahan relieved Pfister and also gave up a homer as the Twins tied the record for consecutive homers in an inning.

  Pfister came on for John Wyatt and kept the Twins in the park and off the scoreboard by retiring them in order in the 10th.

  Aligo became the Twins' fifth pitcher starting the K.C. 10th and gave up a two-out single by Charles, who finished the day 3-for-5. But Doc Edwards went out to second. Then, lights out with Minnesota's brash brigade in the 11th, handing the loss to Pfister in his first decision of the year. He saw his ERA drop to 19.29. (He finished the year 1-5 and 6.53 in this, his last of four seasons in the majors.)

  Aligo got the win to go to 1-0 with a two-inning scoreless stint in which he allowed two hits and struck out two. 

  Oliva gave the Twins the early lead with a two-run homer in the first after Rich Rollins had led off the game with a single.

  Lau, who went 2-for-4, tied the game in the seventh by tripling in Charles and Colavito, Lau's only three-bagger of the season. (Lau, who became a renowned batting coach in the 1970s and '80s, hit .271 in 1964 and .255 lifetime).

  Killebrew regained the lead for the Twins with his solo homer off Wyatt with one out in the ninth.

  Wyatt had relieved starter Aurelio Monteagudo, who allowed five hits and two runs, both earned, over seven innings while walking only one.

  Both starters had solid outings. Stange allowed five hits and three runs, all earned, with three walks and four strikeouts in his eight innings of work.

  At this early stage of the season the Twins found themselves one-half game back of league-leading Cleveland with a 9-6 record. Kansas City was in 10th in the 10-team AL with a 4-8 mark.

  Killebrew and Oliva each hit their third and fourth homers of the year. Allison also hit his fourth while Hall got his third.

  Killebrew finished the season with a league-leading 49 homers. Oliva and Allison tied for sixth with 32, Hall belted 25, Don Mincher added 23 and Versalles had 20.

  All that power didn't equate to overall success as the Twins finished seventh with a 79-83 record, 20 behind the pennant-winning New York Yankees. In 1963 the Twins had finished third with their 225 homers.

  The Twins' homers dropped to 150 in 1965, but with other elements added to their game they won their first AL pennant since moving to Minnesota from Washington in 1961. And they took the Los Angeles Dodgers to seven games in the World Series before falling in Game 7 to Sandy Koufax.

  The Athletics had some power of their own in 1964, with Colavito finishing fourth in the league in homers with 34 and Jim Gentile tied for 10th with 28. But that's about all K.C. fans had to cheer about, as the A's finished 57-105-1, last in the AL, 42 games behind the Yankees and five back of the next-nearest team in the league, the new Washington Senators. These Senators had replaced the old ones who'd moved to Minnesota.

  The A's won 16 fewer games than they had in 1963, and their 52 wins in 1956 were their only lower total in the 13 years they were in K.C., between 1955 and 1967.

Sources:

Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1964/B05020KC11964.htm  

Homer records: https://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_hr7.shtml, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_hr8.shtml  and "The Home Run Story," 1966, W.W. Norton & Co.

Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.

Swoonin' A's, 1962: Granny takes the hill

Granny Hamner pitches in spring training while Philadelphia Phillies manager Mayo Smith looks on in the late 1950s. Hamner was trying to revive his career on the mound after being a mainstay at shortstop for the Phillies most of the decade. Hamner pitched in three games for the Kansas City Athletics in 1962 after being out of the major leagues for three years.   

By Phil Ellenbecker

  How desperate were the Kansas City Athletics by 1962?

  Well, they were willing to give a former "Whiz Kid" whose whizzing days at shortstop were way behind him a chance at pitching for a spell that season.

  Granville "Granny" Hamner -- he despised "Granny," according to his Society of American Baseball Research biography (https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/9a511200) -- at age 23 played shortstop for the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies, called "The Whiz Kids" because of their youth as they captured the team's first National League pennant since 1915. He'd made his major league debut at age 17, beginning a distingushed career in which he was a three-time All-Star Game selection. During professional baseball’s 1969 centennial celebration, fans honored Hamner as the Phillies' all-time greatest shortstop. In 1964 Robert Carpenter, the Philadelphia Phillies president and owner, said, “Granny Hamner was the best clutch hitter we ever had.”

  But Hamner, whose brother Garvin had played with the Phillies in 1945, hadn't appeared in a major league game in almost three years to the day when he took the pitching mound for the A's on July 28, 1962, in the second game of a twinight doubleheader at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. The Orioles completed a sweep with a 7-1 victory after shutting out the A's 3-0 in the opener.

  Hamner's last action in the big leagues had been July 26, 1959, at third base in a game for Cleveland. Since then, he'd become a manager in the minor leagues and had taken up pitching, becoming good enough as a knuckleballer to earn a look from the A's, having gone 10-4 with an Eastern League-best 2.03 ERA so far in 1962.

  (Hamner, seeing his career as an infielder with the Phillies on the decline because of shoulder problems in the late 1950s, had already dabbled in pitching at that time, with four games on the mound in 1956 and '57).

  He handled himself well in this initial outing with the A's. Summoned in relief of former Oriole Jerry Walker to start the sixth inning, with Baltimore leading 3-0, Hamner allowed no runs on one hit with two walks over two innings. He worked around a walk in the sixth, and a single by Jerry Adair and a walk in the seventh, retiring the Orioles on three ground balls and three pop-ups.

  Hamner's turn at bat came up in the eighth, and manager Hank Bauer pinch hit for him with Wayne Causey. A's relief ace John Wyatt came on in the bottom of the eighth and gave up four runs, and that was pretty much the ballgame.

  (Causey, the man who hit for Hamner, had a .252 batting average that year and .252 lifetime, while Granny hit .262 in his 17 years. Of course, he hadn't swung a bat in a major league game in three years on this day.)

  Hamner’s next time out of the bullpen didn’t go so well. In fact, it was a disaster, and this time it was critical, or at least as critical as the A’s could get. Coming on four days later to replace Danny McDevitt with two out and two on in the ninth inning of the first game of a doubleheader, Hamner faced four batters and didn’t retire a one, while throwing a wild pitch. The Tigers pushed across the tying and winning runs, saddling Granny with the loss. His line for the game: zero innings, two hits, one earned run, two walks.

  He was back out again in the nightcap Aug. 1 -- Bauer hanging him out to dry -- and didn’t fare any better, giving up five runs, three earned, seven hits and two walks in the final two innings as Detroit won 9-1.

  And that was it for Granny’s comeback. His 1962 totals: 0-1, 9.00 ERA, 10 hits and six runs allowed, four earned, over three games and four innings, with six walks and no strikeouts.

 "Within a week Hamner again abandoned his pitching pursuits and retired as an active player," David E. Skelton wrote in his SABR biography of Hamner.

Dick Hall shut out the Kansas City Athletics on six hits and struck out a career-high 12 in the Baltimore Orioles' 7-0 victory in the second game of a doubleheader July 28, 1962 in Baltimore.

Over-Halled

  About the only other thing noteworthy in the second game July 28 besides Hamner's appearance, in a twin bill between two teams headed nowhere, was a dominating pitching performance by Baltimore's Dick Hall in his first start of the season. He struck out a career-high 12 batters while walking none and allowing six hits. A control artist, Hall had finished third in the AL in walks per nine innings pitched in 1960 at 1.9 and would have ranked higher in other years if he'd have met qualifying standards.

  Hall had a shutout until former Southwest Missouri State basketball teammates Jerry Lumpe and Norm Siebern, who'd also both come to the A's from the New York Yankees in separate deals, combined to spoil it. Lumpe doubled with two out in the ninth inning, and Siebern followed with a single.

  (Speaking of basketball, Hall stood 6-foot-6 and was a two-time all-conference selection on the hardwood at Swarthmore College. He started his baseball career as a position player, including some time at second base, and was surely one of the tallest players ever at that position).

  Hall improved to 4-2 while lowering his ERA to 2.05. He finished the season 6-6, 2.28, in 43 games, six of them starts. He walked 19 batters in 118 innings -- 1.4 per nine innings.

  Ironically, Hall had come to the Orioles from Kansas City with Dick Williams in a trade that sent Walker and Chuck Essegian to the A's. Walker saw his record fall to 8-8 this day, allowing five hits and three runs, two earned, with six walks in five innings.

  Walker, who'd been part of the Orioles' "Kiddie Corps" of pitchers developed in the 1950s and had gone 11-10 with a 2.92 ERA in 1959, was in his second season with K.C. and on a downward slide in his career. He was 8-9 with a 5.90 ERA in 1962 and out of the majors after 1964 with a final ledger of 37-44, 4.36.

  But it was Wyatt, an overall bright spot for the A's during this time, who had the most damage done to his ERA this game after giving up his four runs without retiring a batter, capped by a three-run homer by Jim Gentile.

  Wyatt was two years away from setting a major league record for appearances in a season with 81. He was in the top 10 six times in the AL in appearances in the decade and five times in saves.

  Gentile's homer was his 26th of the year. He'd finish with 33, fifth in the league, with 87 RBIs. The year before he'd hit 46 homers, third in the AL behind Roger Maris' record-setting 61 and Mickey Mantle's 54. He'd led the league in RBIs with 141. He joined the A's in 1964.

  Other big bats in the game for the Orioles were Adair, 3-for-5, and Jackie Brandt, 2-for-5 with three RBIs. No A's players had more than one hit.

  K.C. was 44-49 after getting swept, ninth in the 10-team American League, 18 1/2 games behind the first-place New York Yankees. Baltimore improved to 53-50, in fourth and 9 1/2 back.

  The Orioles, who'd finished third the year before with a 95-67 record, slid to seventh by the end of 1962 at 77-85, 19 behind the pennant-winning Yankees. But they were back up to fourth the next year, third the next two and in 1966 captured the first pennant and World Series title for Baltimore.

  The A's finished 1962 at 72-90, still in ninth place, 24 games back. That was their most wins in four years and their fourth-highest in the 13 years they were in Kansas City between 1955 and 1967.

  Still, pretty much another humdrum year for the A's, enlivened perhaps a bit by the appearance of one Granville "Granny" Hamner on the pitching mound for a three-game stint.

Sources:

Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1962/B07282BAL1962.htm 

Hamner biography: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/9a511200
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.