10-1-67: Bosox dream delivered

Carl Yastrzemski capped a Triple Crown season by going 4-for-4 in the Boston Red Sox's 5-3 victory over Minnesota on Oct. 1, 1967, that clinched them their first American League pennant since 1946.

Cy Young Award winner Jim Lonborg pitched a complete-game seven-hitter, allowing only one earned run, in Boston's    5-3 American League pennant-clinching win over Minnesota on Oct. 1, 1967.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  Much ado was made of the night of Sept. 28, 2011, the close of that year's regular major league baseball season, headlined as "Best. Night. Ever" in a Sports Illustrated article (https://www.si.com/vault/2011/12/12/106139348/best-night-ever). Four games were played that night with do-or-die implications, for the Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays.

  But here's the thing. All that night's drama resolved only who was going to make it into the postseason, which meant at one least more round, possibly two for teams to get past before even making it to the World Series. Of the survivors that 2011 night, the Cardinals won both their division series and championship series to advance to the World Series, while the Rays were eliminated in the division series.

  Before 1969, only one team out of eight (before 1961) or 10 (1961-68 American League, 1962-68 National League) moved on to the postseason -- the one and only World Series. These were true pennant races, and when they came down to the final day of the regular season, it was truly do-or-die baseball.

  And there was perhaps was never so much doing or dying going on as in the 1967 AL pennant race. Of the 10 most dramatic pennant races in history recounted in a Baseball Egg article by Dan Holmes (http://baseballegg.com/2012/09/22/the-nine-most-dramatic-pennant-races-in-baseball-history/ ), six involved two teams, three involved three and one involved four -- AL '67 with the Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins and Boston Red Sox.

  Three teams were tied for first place and the fourth was a half-game back Sept. 18, and going into Wednesday of the final week the four were within 1 1/2 of each other. Then the White Sox went into the tank, losing five straight to 10th-place Kansas City and sixth-place Washington. But the other three were at each other's throats right to the final hours. Boston and Minnesota met in a regular-season finale in Boston tied for the league lead, while because of previous rainouts Detroit, a half-game out, had to host a doubleheader with California. The Tigers needed a sweep to force a playoff with whatever team won in Boston. The Tigers split, leaving it all up to the Red Sox and Twins, before 35,770 (capacity listed at 33,524 at the time) on Sunday, Oct. 1.

  And the Bosox, who'd placed ninth the year before and hadn't had a winning season since 1958, captured the pennant for the first time since 1946 with a 5-3 win. Their season was dubbed "The Impossible Dream" (a popular song from the 1965 hit musical "Man of La Mancha"), and they capped it in true fashion with a five-run sixth inning to overcome a 2-0 deficit.

  Triple Crown winner Carl Yastrzemski, who'd hit a three-run homer the day before in a 6-4 Red Sox win, continued a phenomenal late-season tear in which he batted .522 (23-for-44) by going 4-for-4 with a run scored and 2 RBIs. But sharing hero honors on this day was Cy Young winner Jim Lonborg, who threw a complete game seven-hitter and gave up only one earned run.

  It was Lonborg, who'd gone 0-3 against the Twins in '67 coming into the game, who got the Red Sox started in the sixth with a bunt single. From the Society for American Baseball Research Games Project article (https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-1-1967-red-sox-complete-impossible-dream: “The bunt was my own idea,” he told The Associated Press. “It was the first thing I thought about when I went to the plate.”

  The Red Sox loaded the bases on back-to-back singles by Jerry Adair and Dalton Jones, and Yastrzemski broke up Dean  Chance's shutout and tied the game with a single to center field that scored Lonborg and Adair. Jones made it 3-2 Red Sox as he beat out shortstop Zoilo Versalles' throw home on Ken Harrelson's high bouncer. That brought on Al Worthington in relief of Chance, the 1964 Cy Young winner who went 20-13 in 1967. Worthington uncorked a pair of wild pitches that brought Yaz around. After George Scott struck out and Rico Petrocelli grounded out, Reggie Smith reached on a misplay by first baseman Harmon Killebrew, allowing pinch runner Jose Tartabull to score and make it 5-2.

  The Twins cut the margin to 5-3 in the eighth on singles by Killebrew, Tony Oliva and Bob Allison with two out. Killebrew scored on Allison's hit, but Yaz, making up for an earlier transgression in the field, gunned down Allison trying to stretch his hit, sending the Twins back into the dugout two runs shy.

  After a leadoff infield single by Ted Uhlaender in the top of the ninth, Lonborg got Rod Carew to hit into a second-to-first double play. (Carew, a career .328 hitter with seven batting titles, beat out Smith for '67 AL Rookie of the Year with a .292 average, but on this day went 0-for-4 out of the No. 7 slot in the lineup.)

  Pinch hitter Rich Rollins popped up to a backpedaling Petrocelli at shortstop to end the game. Lonborg, who completed a 22-9 season with a 3.16 ERA, nearly had his shirt torn off by Red Sox fans in the postgame celebration.

Delirious Boston fans at Fenway Park nearly rip the shirt off pitcher Jim Lonborg's back after the Red Sox clinched their first American League pennant since 1946.

  The Red Sox, who were led that year by Dick Williams in the first season of a 21-year Hall of Fame managerial career, then went into their locker room to await the result of the twin bill nightcap in Detroit. The Angels won 8-5, sending Boston into the Series. 

  Earlier on Oct. 1, the Twins took a 2-0 lead with unearned runs with two out each time on errors by normally sure-handed fielders. Killebrew, after he'd walked, scored on a throwing error by Scott after Oliva doubled to left in the first. After Cesar Tovar walked in the third, he scored when Yastrzemski committed an error on Killebrew's single to left.

  The Red Sox got only one runner into scoring position and hit into two double plays before knocking out Chance in the sixth.

  Yastrzemski went 7-for-8 in the final two games to finish the season at .326 with 44 homers and 121 RBIs.

  Yaz and Lonborg continued their success in the Series, a rematch of the 1946 Fall Classic won by the Cardinals 4-3, this one won again by St. Louis 4-3. Yastrzemski batted .400 with 3 homers and 5 RBIs. Lonborg won Game 2 (5-0) and Game 2 (3-1) before being bested in Game 7 by Bob Gibson, as the Cardinals won 7-2. Lonborg had a 2.62 ERA in the Series.

  Gibson was the main reason the Cards prevailed. He won three complete games, one a shutout, and had a 1.00 ERA. This gave him five straight complete-game wins in the Series, coming on top of the Cardinals' 4-3 triumph over the Yankees in 1964. Gibby added two more complete-game wins in 1968, giving him seven in a row, before falling to Mickey Lolich and the Tigers 4-1 in Game 7.

  As for the Red Sox, their 1967 season sparked a love affair that's continued virtually unabated since. They drew a record 1,727,832 to Fenway that year, almost doubling their attendance from the year before and their highest since 1960, Ted Williams' last year. They've been above 1 million ever since, and above 2 million for the most part since 1977.

  As for the product on the field, although the Bosox stumbled a bit after '67, they were back in the World Series in 1975, and since '67 they've won 10 division titles and made 17 postseason appearances, six in the World Series. After more Fall Classic frustration in 1975 and 1986, they've won their past four Series, starting in 2004, their first world title since 1918.

  And it all really and truly started with the Impossible Dream of 1967. It wasn't a mirage.

   Sources: The basic play-by-play was provided by the Retrosheet account at https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1967/B10010BOS1967.htm. Filling in the details was the Society for American Baseball Research Games Project account at  https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-1-1967-red-sox-complete-impossible-dream. A long-form view of the game and the season can be found at https://slkelly.org/2017/06/04/the-year-the-impossible-was-not-just-a-dream/?fbclid=IwAR0t_PdsAwE5NfiDmEVarb_FtBt1YQIm27ZCg8wVJ0fH9VVtoVyKzWzHWqo
More background was provided by a pennant race roundup at http://baseballegg.com/2012/09/22/the-nine-most-dramatic-pennant-races-in-baseball-history/ , and various sources on the Retrosheet and SABR Biography Project sites, as well as baseballreference.com. 

9-29-59: Dodgers top Braves once again

From left, Hank Aaron, Wes Covington and Felix Mantilla in the Milwaukee Braves locker room in 1957. Two years later, Mantilla's throwing error from shortstop let the winning run in as the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Braves 6-5 in 12 innings to win the 1959 National League tiebreaker playoff.

Mantilla replaced Johnny Logan at shortstop after the four-time All-Star was knocked out of the game while completing a double play in the seventh inning. He was carried off on a stretcher.

Norm Larker knocked Logan out of the game while breaking up a double play and had two hits in the Dodgers' 6-5, 12-inning victory that won them the National League pennant on the way to a World Series title.

By Phil Ellenbecker  With two World Series titles, five pennants and two near pennants, the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers rank as the team of the 1950s in the National League.
 But the Milwaukee Braves weren't far behind, winning one World Series, two pennants and tying for another. And finishing second, third, second and second in the four years preceding their pennants of 1957 and 1958. The three years they finished second they were behind the Dodgers, and in 1956 they were one game out.
  The Braves lost out on one last chance of putting their stamp on the '50s when the Dodgers defeated them 6-5 in 12 innings in Game 2 of the 1959 tiebreaker playoffs Tuesday, Sept. 29 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. That gave Los Angeles, which had finished two games out of the cellar the year before in their first year in LA,  a sweep of the series en route to a world title they won by defeating the Chicago White Sox in the Fall Classic.
  The '59 NL playoffs, brought about when the Dodgers and Braves each finished the regular season 88-64, were perhaps decided in the bottom half of the seventh inning of Game 2. That's when the Dodgers' Norm Larker threw a body block on Braves shortstop Johnny Logan trying to break up a double play. Logan successfully completed the twin killing but was hurt on the play and carried off on a stretcher.
 Larker, who had emerged as a top hitter this year with a .289 average, was also known as a hard-nosed player.
 "If he isn't killing you with his bat, he's hurting you on the basepaths with his fierce running," said an article on Larker in Baseball 1961 magazine, the year after he'd finished runner-up in NL batting with a .323 clip.
  Felix Mantilla moved over from second base to take Logan's spot. Logan, a four-time All-Star, was one of the most accomplished shortstops in the game during the 1950s, three times leading NL shortstops in fielding  percentage in the early part of the decade. He fielded .975 with 18 errors in 138 games at short in 1959 and .965 over 1,380 games at short in a 12-year career.
  Mantilla fielded .929 with eight errors at short in '59 and .951 over 180 games at short in an 11-year career that was about evenly divided between short, third and outfield when he wasn't playing second base.
  So the Milwaukee defense was compromised after Larker took out Logan, and indeed Mantilla committed two errors over the final five innings after taking over at short. The first didn't cost the Braves. The second was fatal.
  With two out in the bottom of the 12th, the Dodgers put runners at first and second with a walk to Gil Hodges and a single to left field by Joe Pignatano off Bob Rush. When Carl Furillo grounded up the middle, Mantilla threw wildly, allowing Hodges to score the winning run.  "Furillo hit a ground ball past the mound and over second base," Harold Friend wrote in an article for Bleacher Report. "Mantilla fielded the ball. He probably had no real chance of getting Furillo, but he made a desperate throw toward first base that hit the Dodgers' first-base coach (Greg Mulleavy). Hodges scored the run that gave the Dodgers the pennant." “When the ball came over the pitcher’s head, I thought I could pick it up and step on the bag," Mantilla said in an article by Rick Schabowski at the Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project website. "When I got it, I was past the bag and I knew I had to throw to first. I never thought of not throwing to first because I could’ve gotten him with a good throw. I was off balance when I threw, and that’s why it bounced away.”   Braves manager Fred Haney said of Mantilla, “He did the only thing he could, he didn’t make a bad play. He was lucky to stop the ball at all.”
  Furillo was credited with a single on the play but no RBI.   The two teams squeezed out of bases-loaded jams to take the game into the 12th.
  In the top of the 11th, Eddie Mathews, who'd homered earlier in the game, drew a walk from Stan Williams with one out and was forced at second on a grounder to short by Hank Aaron. Aaron advanced on a passed ball by Pignatano. After an intentional walk to Joe Torre, pinch hitter Al Spangler filled the bases by looking at an unintentional walk.
  But Williams escaped by drawing a fielder's choice grounder to short from pinch hitter Joe Adcock.
  Pignatano was hit by a pitch and Furillo reached on a bunt single to put runners at first and second against Joey Jay for Los Angeles leading off its half of the 11th. After Jay got Maury Wills and Ron Fairly to both to fly out to left, Jim "Junior" Gilliam, the league leader in walks that year, coaxed a base on balls to put runners at first, second and third.
  Rush relieved Jay and got Charlie Neal, who'd tripled and homered in his first two at-bats, to ground out to third.
  Williams retired the Braves in order in the top of the 12th and earned the victory, evening his record at 5-5. Rush took the loss and finished the year 5-6.
  The extra-innings drama capped a topsy-turvy game in which the Braves were in control much of the way. It took a three-run ninth for the Dodgers to stay alive.
  Los Angeles loaded the bases with back-to-back-to-back singles by Wally Moon, Duke Snider and Hodges starting the inning. Don McMahon, who finished second in the NL in saves and first in games finished in '59, relieved starter and league-leading 21-game winner Lew Burdette and surrendered a two-run single to left by Larker. That made the score 5-4.
  McMahon then gave way to Warren Spahn, the third-winningest left-hander of all time and tying teammate Burdette that year for the league lead in victories. He was pitching in relief for the fourth time of 1959. Furillo delivered a sacrifice fly to right, bringing in Hodges with the tying run. After Spahn gave up a single to Wills that put runners at first and second, Jay came on and got out of the inning by coaxing a fielder's choice grounder by pinch hitter Ron Fairly and a fly out by Gilliam.

  But it took some nifty defense from Aaron in right field to keep the Dodgers from winning it right then and there. Gilliam took Aaron to the fence, but Bad Henry "loped over to the fence, stuck up a glove and speared it with one hand as if it were fungo practice," as reported by Murray Olderman in the 1960 issue of Sports All Stars Baseball magazine.

   Milwaukee jumped on top right away on Torre's two-run single with one out in the first. After the Dodgers answered with a run on Neal's triple and Moon's single in their half of the first, Burdette singled in Logan to make the score 3-1 in the second. Mathews made it 4-2 with his solo homer off LA starter Don Drysdale in the fifth, countering Neal's solo shot in the fourth.

  Mantilla, who emerged with the Boston Red Sox with 30 homers in 1964 and an All-Star selection in '65, gave the Braves a 5-2 advantage in the eighth with a sacrifice fly off Chuck Churn to score Del Crandall. Crandall had tripled with one out.
  (Churn was pitching his 25th game in a three-season major league career, which ended with a two-thirds inning stint in the World Series that year in which he yielded two earned runs).
  The Braves might have missed Logan's bat as much as his glove. Before he was knocked out he'd gone 2-for-3 with a line-out in his other at-bat. Joining him with multi-hit games for Milwaukee were Mathews and Aaron, each 2-for-4. Aaron was the NL batting champ that year at .355 while Mathews led in homers with 46.

   Moon went 3-for-6 for the Dodgers. Neal (soon to be a World Series hero with a .370 average and two homers), Hodges and Larker added two hits apiece.

  For the Braves, this was their final hurrah as a prime contender in the NL in Milwaukee. They finished second next year but seven games behind Pittsburgh, then placed fourth, fifth, sixth and sixth through 1965 before they were headed to Atlanta.
  The Dodgers, meanwhile, after recording the worst pennant-winning record until division play began in 1969, were just getting started on the Left Coast as a top power. After beating the White Sox in six games in the '59 Series, they slid back the next two years, lost a tiebreaker playoff to San Francisco in 1962 and then won pennants in 1963, 1965 and and 1966, winning the World Series in '63 and '65.

Sources:

Box score and play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1959/B09290LAN1959.htm.

More game info: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1128581-felix-mantilla-threw-the-1959-pennant-to-the-los-angeles-dodgers, http://www.thisgreatgame.com/1959-baseball-history.html, Mantilla's Society for American Baseball Research Biography Project bio at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/4fd05b60 and articles in Baseball 1961 magazine and Sports All-Stars Baseball 1961, Maco Magazine Corporation.

The name of the Dodgers' first-base coach was provided by a Wikipedia entry at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Los_Angeles_Dodgers_coaches#First_base_coach.  Background was mainly supplied by various sources on the Retrosheet and SABR Biography Project sites, as well as baseballreference.com.

8-6-52: Old Satch spins a gem at 46

Topps couldn't get his named spelled right on his 1952 baseball card, but Satchel Paige put a spell on the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 6, 1952, with a shutout at age 46 for the St. Louis Browns.

Virgil Trucks, who threw two no-hitters and a one-hitter for the Detroit Tigers in 1952, allowed six hits and no runs over nine innings but had nothing to show for it in a 1-0 loss to the St. Louis Browns on Aug. 6, 1952. That was typical of the hard luck Trucks had in a 5-19 season.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Holy Mother of Methuselah!

  Satchel Paige, that ageless wonder of baseball, may have been at his most wondrously ageless on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 1952, when at age 46, he threw a seven-hit, 12-inning shutout with a major league career-high nine strikeouts in a 1-0 decision over the Detroit Tigers.

  Only 6,162 were on hand at Sportsman's Park to witness one of the few highlights Browns fans had to savor, perhaps the highlight, of their last few years (excepting perhaps the midget Eddie Gaedel coming up to bat in 1951) before they moved out of town after the 1953 season.

  The smattering of fans watching the American League's two worst teams were treated to a pitcher's duel between Paige, by this time existing mainly on guile, and Tigers' flamethrower Virgil Trucks, who was in the midst of one of the most hard-luck seasons in baseball history.

  The teams' major metro newspapers gushed about what they'd witnessed, as told by Gregory H. Wolf in his lively account of the game carried on the Society of Baseball Research's Baseball Games Project website.

  “Never was Paige more tantalizing,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said. “(He) wins games (and) entertains in the process.  He whirled his arm twice in a full windup; sometimes just once. His slow ball ... seemed to hang in the air, as though manipulated by wire.”

  “[Paige] unwound his ancient right arm,” said the Detroit Free Press, and “proved himself the master.”

  Of besting Trucks, the Free Press said of Paige, "He outpitched one of the standouts of the decade."

  The game was decided when Bob Nieman, a career .295 hitter, delivered a two-out, bases-loaded single in the bottom of the 12th to score Bobby Young.

  It's a good thing the Browns managed that run when they did. Otherwise, Paige's masterful performance would have gone as a no-decision. That's because Browns manager Marty Marion pinch hit for Paige in the 12th after Young's leadoff single, a carom off the glove of second baseman Al Federoff, and a sacrifice by Fred Marsh.

  Al Zarilla stepped in for Paige and looked at an intentional walk from Hal White, who'd relieved Trucks after Trucks was pinch hit for in the 10th. Gordon Goldsberry grounded into the second out of the inning on a slow roller, with Young and Marsh advancing to third and second and setting up another intentional walk, this one to Ray Coleman.

  Nieman, who led Browns regulars at .289 in '52 with career highs in homers (18) and RBIs (74) in the rookie season of a 12-year career, then came through with the game-winner, a rope over shortstop Neil Berry's head, ending the game in 3 hours, 1 minute.

Bob Nieman, in his rookie season, singled with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 12th inning to give Satchel Paige and the St. Louis Browns a 1-0, 12-inning shutout of the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 6, 1952. Nieman batted .282 that year and .295 in a 12-year major league career.

  It took every bit of that Old Satch Magic to take the game this far after the Tigers loaded the bases with no outs in the 10th. Cliff Mapes got things started with a double, the only extra-base hit Paige allowed. A walk to Joe Ginsberg and a bunt single by Federoff then soaked the sacks.

  Johnny Pesky, picked up from Boston this summer after a standout eight-year career at shortstop and third base with the Red Sox, batted for Trucks and sent a sharp grounder to Young at first, who went home to catcher Clint Courtney for the force-out. Paige, dubbed "Old Mr. Unbelievable" by the United Press," then coaxed another fielder's choice grounder, this one from Johnny Groth going from Jim Dyck on a hard bouncer to third to Courtney. Berry then looked at a third strike, and Satchel had survived.

   “Three very fast, sharp breaking curves,” wrote the Post-Dispatch of Paige's face-off with Berry. “Each one started for Neil Berry’s chest, then broke right over the heart of the plate.”

  "(Paige) broke the Tigers' spirit," the Post-Dispatch said of the way the wily right-hander had squeezed out of the jam.

  Paige, in the longest outing of his major league career, retired the Tigers 1-2-3 in the last two innings as he ran his record to 8-6. He allowed only one runner into scoring position in the first nine innings. Besides the seven hits, he allowed only two walks, displaying what the Free Press described as "unusually bafflng control."

  Paige was helped out by Courtney, who besides going 3-for-5 threw out would-be base stealers in each of the first two innings. It was generally a poor day for base running, as the Browns had a runner caught stealing and picked off and neither team had a successful stolen-base attempt.

  Paige hurt his best chance at getting himself some runs in regulation by hitting into a first-to-catcher-back to first double play on a sharp grounder to Walt Dropo with none out and the bases loaded in the second. The Browns had only one base runner in scoring position after that until the 12th.

  In the postgame aftermath, Paige said, "I told Marty that I had 100 outs in my arm last night and I sure used them all up. I made up my mind that there wasn’t gonna be no morning workout," he continued, making reference to manager’s Marion’s practice of holding early-morning practices after losses.

    "This is the greatest baseball thrill I have had in many years," said Browns owner Bill Veeck, who'd brought Paige into the major leagues at age 42 as owner with Cleveland in 1948 and brought him back, after the Indians had released Paige, in 1951 when Veeck bought the Browns.

  “I was thinking of ‘Old Burrhead’ (Paige’s pet name for Veeck) when I was going through those extra innings,” Paige said of perhaps his biggest booster.  

  Meanwhile, the Tigers' Trucks was left to ponder once again what more he had to do. He allowed six hits, struck out nine and survived six walks in his nine-inning stint as he took a no-decision.

  At least it wasn't a loss, something "Fire" inhaled far too often in a 5-19 season. Amazingly, his five wins included two no-hitters and a one-hitter. In his other two wins, he allowed two hits in 7 2-3 innings and six hits in 9 innings. The Tigers scored 0, 1 or 2 runs in 15 of his starts. (Despite all this, Trucks' ERA was a none-too-sparkling 3.96 on the year.)

  As for Leroy Robert Paige, Old Satch finished the season 12-10 with a 3.07 ERA, his most productive major league season. He  added a shutout on Sept. 9, the last of his four whitewashings in the major leagues. Earlier in the season he had a 27 1/3 scoreless-inning string over 12 relief appearances, May 8-June 11.

  Paige went 3-9 with a 3.53 ERA in 1953, his final year in the majors except for a three-inning scoreless stint at age 59, in a publicity stunt for the Charley Finley-led Kansas City A's in 1965.  Paige had stayed active in the minor leagues after '53, and his last year in organized baseball was 1966.

  The Negro League legend, who most assuredly threw and won more games than anybody in baseball history, went 28-31 with a 3.29 ERA in six years in the majors, with All-Star selections in '52 and '53.

   All in all, a truly amazing career, and perhaps he was never more amazing than on Aug. 6, 1952. 

  

  Sources: The Retrosheet account of the game at https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1952/B08060SLA1952.htm provided he basic play-by-play of this story, enhanced by the detailed account by Gregory H. Wolf  for the Society for American Baseball Research Games Project at  https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/august-6-1952-satch-turns-back-time-spin-12-inning-shutout-against-tigers. Background was mainly supplied by various sources on the Retrosheet and SABR Biography Project sites. 

9-30-51: Dodgers not dead yet

Jackie Robinson saved the season for the Brooklyn Dodgers on Sept. 30, 1951, with a diving catch with the bases loaded in the 12th inning, and the game-winning homer in the 14th to sink the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-8.

Bud Podbielan picked up the victory with 1 1/3 innings of shutout relief, just his second win in four decisions on the year for the lifetime 25-42 pitcher. 

By Phil Ellenbecker

  Say what you want about how the Brooklyn Dodgers may have choked in 1951, blowing a 13-game lead on the New York Giants at the close of play Aug. 11 and a 4-1, ninth-inning lead on the Giants in the third game of their National League tiebreaker playoff.

  But there was nothing choky about their performance on Sept. 30, the final day of the regular season. With their season on the line and the Giants checking on their progress on a train back from Boston to see whether there would be a playoff, the Dodgers pulled out a 14-inning, 9-8 victory, with Jackie Robinson at the forefront, in what has to rank as one of the Dodgers' best clutch performances ever.

  And considering the seesaw nature of the contest, and the way it extended into the night, this has to rank as one of the all-time regular-season concluding games, with heroic deeds on both sides.

  Most heroic of all was Robinson, four years removed from his historic color-line breaking season and two years removed from an MVP season. If ever there was a performance that proved Jackie's value as a baseball player, period, this was it.

  Robinson decided the game with his two-out solo homer in the top of the 14th inning. He made that possible with a spectacular diving catch up the middle from his second-base position on a line drive by Eddie Waitkus, with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 12th.

  The overtime session was also notable for the yeoman pitching work in relief of aces Don Newcombe for the Dodgers and Robin Roberts of the Phillies. Newcombe, who'd pitched a seven-hit shutout the day before, allowed no runs, one hit and walked none over 5 2/3 innings. He retired six of the first seven batters he faced in extra innings before the Phillies loaded the bases in the 12th.

  Roberts, who'd allowed two earned runs over eight innings in taking a loss the day before, allowed only the earned run on Robinson's homer in 6 2/3 innings. Before Robinson's belt, Roberts had retired 13 of the past 14 batters he'd faced, including 10 in a row.

  But neither of those stalwarts figured in the final decision. Instead it was Bud Podbielan, who got the win when he relieved Newcombe after consecutive walks with two out in the bottom of the 13th. Podbielan coaxed Eddie Pelagrini to fly out to center field to set up Robinson's decisive blow into the left-field stands in the 14th on a 1-1 count, his 18th homer of the year.

  But the Phillies had one last chance in the bottom of the 14th. Podbielan, who got his second win on the year in four decisions, took care of it. After Richie Ashburn (4-for-6 on the day) led off with a single and advanced on Willie "Puddinhead" Jones' sacrifice, Podbielan retired Del Ennis on a pop-up to first and Waitkus on a fly out to center.

  This has to rank as the career highlight for Podbielan, who went 25-42 with a 4.49 ERA in nine years in a major league career that was otherwise distinguished by the franchise-record 13 walks he dealt for Cincinnati on May 18, 1953, in a 10-inning game against, ironically, the Dodgers.

  While Roberts sailed through the Dodgers' lineup, Newcombe needed some help from his defense for the game to keep going.

  In the 11th, after a two-out walk to Granny Hamner,  "Andy Seminick then laced a shot to left-center that appeared to be ticketed for two bases," wrote C. Paul Rogers III in an article for the Society for American Baseball Research Games Project. "Running with two outs, Hamner would have scored easily to end the game, but Andy Pafko in left made a running, game-saving catch to keep the Dodgers alive."

  Then in the 12th, the Phillies loaded the bases on a walk to Roberts, a sacrifice bunt by Pellegrini on which both runners were safe when Roberts beat the throw to second, and an intentional walk to Jones. Robinson then came through by diving to spear Waitkus' smash to the right side of second base, "reaching across his body with his glove hand inches above the ground," Rogers wrote. "He landed hard with the ball in his glove and immediately rolled over and weakly tossed the ball toward second base, as if he were attempting to get a force out there, before collapsing on the infield."
 Before the game settled into a scoreless duel in OT, there had been plenty of offensive fireworks on both sides. The Phillies were mostly in control of a rematch of the Oct. 1, 1950, regular-season finale won by Philadelphia 4-1 in 10 innings in Brooklyn, which clinched the Phillies' first pennant since 1915.

  This time, before 31,755 at Connie Mack Stadium, it took a three-run eighth inning for Brooklyn to survive and make possible the marathon finish.

  Gil Hodges got the Dodgers started in the eighth by beating out a grounder to shortstop for a single out of his No. 7 slot in the lineup. Billy Cox sent Hodges to third with a bloop single just inside the right-field line. Rube Walker, batting for Carl Erkine, the fourth of seven Brooklyn pitchers on the day, drew the Dodgers within 8-7 by doubling deep to left on an 0-2 count, bringing in Hodges and Cox. After Roberts relieved Karl Drews and became the third and final Phillies pitcher of the day, Carl Furillo delivered a single to left that drove in pinch runner Don Thompson and tied the score.

  It appeared early that the Phillies might be easing the train-riding Giants into a pennant by taking a 6-1 lead through three innings. Tommy Brown's leadoff homer and Ashburn's two-run infield single bracketed a four-run second that chased Dodgers starting pitcher Preacher Roe. Phillies starting pitcher Bubba Church's two-run single (Church batted .256 during the season) off Ralph Branca gave them a 6-1 lead in the third.

  Chipping away, Brooklyn drew within 6-5 with a three-run fifth punctuated by Robinson's RBI triple.

  Philly responded with two runs in the fifth including a bad-hop RBI triple by Hamner, one of four three-baggers the two teams combined for in the first five innings.

  In the bottom of the sixth, the scoreboard posted that the Giants had defeated the Braves 3-2, letting the Dodgers know it was do or die.

  Besides Ashburn, others with multi-hit games included Pee Wee Reese, 3-for-6, and Robinson, 2-for-6, for the Dodgers and Hamner, 2-for-5 for the Phillies.

  Other odds and ends from the game:

  -- Roy Campanella's fourth-inning triple was his only three-bagger of the year.

  -- Dick Sisler, the hero of the Phillies' pennant-clinching win over the Dodgers the year before with his three-run homer in the 10th, didn't appear in this game, although he had played in the Phillies' past few games in left field. Ennis was in left this day.

  -- Roberts finished the year with a 21-15 record and a 3.30 ERA after taking the loss for the second straight day. This was the second of six straight 20-win seasons for the hard-throwing right-hander with outstanding control who was the premier pitcher in the NL in the 1950s.

  -- Newcombe finished the year 20-8 with a 3.28 ERA, the first of three 20-win seasons he had in four years. (He missed 1952 and 1953 because of military service).  

  -- Although Roe, who finished that year with a 22-3 record, and Church, who had 15 wins on the year, were the starting pitchers, this game ultimately duplicated the season-ender of the year before with a reverse result. In the 1950 game, Roberts had outdueled Newcombe, with both pitchers going the 10-inning distance and Roberts making his third start in five days. Roberts finished the year 20-11, Newcombe 19-11.

  -- There was some doubt as to whether Robinson actually caught Waitkus' liner up the middle in the 12th.

  "The Phillies to a man thought he trapped the ball," Rogers wrote. "Russ Meyer was so vocal from the Phillies bench that he was almost ejected. Roberts believed that Robinson’s wild toss of the ball from a prone position toward second showed that Jackie thought he had trapped the ball and was desperately trying for a force at second.
   "That offseason Roberts saw Robinson at a winter banquet. He said, 'Jackie, you didn’t catch that ball that Waitkus hit.'
  "Roberts recalled that Robinson grinned at him and said, 'What did the umpire say?' ”

Sources:

The Retrosheet account of the game at retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1951/B09300PHI1951.htm provided the basic play-by-play of this story, enhanced by  C. Paul Rogers III's detailed account for the Society for American Baseball Research Games Project at https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-30-1951-jackie-robinson-saves-day-and-season-dodgers. Background was mainly supplied by various sources on the Retrosheet and SABR Biography Project sites.

  

The Scintillating ’70s

Tom Seaver had the best season in the major leagues in the 1970s, three of the top 10, and led National League pitchers five times according to a points system that rates players according to how they ranked in 12 categories.

Jim Rice had the best season among major league hitters in the 1970s, ranked in the top 10 twice and led American League hitters twice. 

By Phil Ellenbecker

  My latest look the top seasons and players of the decade in Major League Baseball delves into the 1970s.

  Here’s the drill: 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 48 homers Willie Stargell hit in 1971 and Dave Kingman hit in 1979 to lead the National League don’t matter anymore than the 32 that four different players hit to lead their leagues; they were simply the best over their peers in that particular year in that particular category.

Top 10 pitching seasons

1. Steve Carlton, 1972, 39

2 (tie). Tom Seaver, 1973, and Ron Guidry, 1978, 33

4 Tom Seaver, 1975, 32 1/2

5 (tie). Ferguson Jenkins, 1975, and Jim Palmer, 1975, 31

7 (tie). Tom Seaver, 1971, Andy Messersmith, 1975, and J.R. Richard, 1979, 30

10. Vida Blue, 1971, 29 1/2

Top 10 batting seasons

1. Jim Rice, 1978, 41

2. George Foster, 1977, 35

3. Dick Allen, 1972, 33 1/2

4. Dave Parker, 1978, 32 ½

5. Reggie Jackson, 1973, 31 1/2

6 Rod Carew, 1977, 30 1/2

7. Carl Yastrzemski, 1970, 30

8 (tie). Willie Stargell,  1973, and Mike Schmidt, 1974, 29

10 (tie). Jim Rice, 1979, 28 1/2

     Among my admittedly nonauthoritative observations and conclusions:

n  Tom was indeed Terrific during the 1970s. Tom Seaver posted three of the top 10 pitching seasons – tied for second in 1973, fourth in 1975 and tied for seventh in 1971.

n  Steve Carlton’s stupendous 1972 season, when at the age of 27 with 27 wins he had 46 percent of Philadelphia’s 59 wins, rates as the top season of the decade with 41 points, three points off Sandy Koufax’s 1965 that is the top mark in the three decades I’ve surveyed. Carlton easily outdistanced Seaver’s ’72 and Ron Guidry’s ’78 with 33, and Seaver’s 32 ½ in 1974.

n  While some have doubted Jim Rice’s Hall of Fame bona fides (he was not elected by the writers until his 15^th and final year of eligibility), these lists show he was clearly a premier hitter in the 1970s. He had the best season in the major leagues of the decade with 41 points and also had the 10^th best. George Foster’s 1977 came in second at 35 followed by Dick Allen’s 1972 at 33½. Foster was helped by a 52-homer season in 1977. That was the first 50-homer season in the major leagues since Willie Mays’ 52 in 1965.

n  Rice and Rod Carew had two league-leading seasons apiece to top the American League. Carew, who never hit more than 14 homers in a season,  shows you don’t have to be a power hitter to rate high. He had the seventh-best season in the majors in the ‘70s, in 1977, when he tied his career high in homers while hitting .388, highest in the majors since Ted Williams’ .388 in 1957.

n  Billy Williams and Mike Schmidt had two league-leading seasons each to lead the NL. Williams’ came in 1970 and 1972, years in which Johnny Bench won the NL MVP Award and strong arguments were made for Williams. In fact Williams was named the Sporting News’ Major Player of the Year and NL Player of the Year in ’72. Schmidt’s league-leading ’74 established him as a player to watch for years to come after  a rookie season in which he’d batted .196.

George Foster's 1977 season ranked second in the major leagues in the 1970s, helped by a 52-homer season, the first 50-homer season since Willie Mays' 52 in 1965.

J.R. Richard led National League pitchers in 1978 and 1979, tying for the seventh-best mark in the decade with his '79. His career tragically ended midway through the next season when he suffered a stroke.

n  Seaver led the NL in points five times in the decade, including three straight at one stretch. J.R. Richard was the other multi-NL leader with two seasons back-to-back closing out the decade. His 1979 tied for seventh on the majors' top 10 list. Sadly, Richard suffered a stroke midway through the 1980 season, prematurely ending what looked to be an all-time great career.

n  Nolan Ryan was the AL’s league leader three times. No other AL pitcher led more than once.

Willie and/or The Duke

Willie Mays, a center fielder virtually his entire career, moved over to right field in the 1956 All-Star Game, giving way to Duke Snider in the fifth inning.

Duke Snider, like Willie Mays a center fielder most of his career, moved to right in the 1954 All-Star Game when Mays entered the game in the fourth inning and took over center.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider (Willie, Mickey & the Duke in Terry Cashman's song "Talkin' Baseball"). That was the raging argument facing New York baseball fans in the 1950s, stating their case for which center fielder was the best in the city.

  While that was a tough one to settle orally -- they were about equally dominant over their peers -- it was resolved, in a sense, between the two National League center fielders in the mid-'50s at the ballot box for the All-Star Game, then controlled by the fans. And whom did they pick? The People's Cherce (as Brooklyn fan favorite Dixie Walker was referred to in the '40s) in 1954 and 1955 was the Dodgers' Snider, chosen to start both years over the Giants' Mays. Then in 1956 both gave way to Cincinnati's Gus Bell, as Reds fans set the stage for their next year's ballot-box stuffing by voting in five players. All eight Reds position players were voted in for the '57 game. (Commissioner Ford Frick stepped in and replaced three Reds with Mays, Hank Aaron and Stan Musial).

  NL manager Walter Alston in 1954 and '56 found a way to get around having to decide between Mays and Snider and get both in the game at the same time. In 1954 in Cleveland, Alston played musical chairs by inserting Mays in the game in the bottom of the fourth inning and moving Snider from center to right, Musial right to left. 

   Snider finished the game 3-for-4 with two runs scored, Mays 1-for-2 with a run in a game won by the AL11-9.

    In 1956 in Washington, it was a slightly different form of musical chairs with the same players. Mays pinch hit for Bell in the top of the fourth and belted a two-run homer, then moved into center field. Snider batted for starting left fielder Frank Robinson in the fifth, then took over center, with Mays moving to right and Musial from right to left.

  Mays finished the game 1-for-3 with a run and two RBIs courtesy the homer. Snider was 0-for-3. The NL won 7-3.

  In 1955 in Milwaukee, with Mays' manager Leo Durocher in charge, Snider started and was replaced by Mays in the top of the sixth. Mays ended up with more trips to the plate when the game went into extra innings and finished 2-for-3 with two runs scored, while Snider was 0-for-2.

  The NL ended up winning the game 6-5 on Musial's leadoff homer in the bottom of the 12th, capping an NL comeback from a 5-0 deficit.

   Willie took over center for the NL beginning in '57, as Snider didn't play in another All-Star Game until 1963, his penultimate season in the major leagues. Mays --  who according to baseball-almanac.com holds All-Star career records for at-bats, extra-base hits, hits, runs, stolen bases, total bases and triples --  started 14 straight All-Star Games in center from 1957 to 1962, including the two games each year for the players' pension fund from 1959-1962,

  For the record, Snider, according to retrosheet.org,, played only 24 games off center field in his first 12 seasons of an 18-year career, but beginning in 1959 he began to see more time in right and left than in center.

  Mays, meanwhile, didn't play an outfield position other than center field until 1965 (he did have five infield stints in '62 and '63). He finished his 22-year career with only 28 games total at the other two outfield positions, according to retrosheet.org, although he did play 78 games at first base over his final six seasons.
  

Koufax KOs Yanks

Sandy Koufax set a World Series record with 15 strikeouts and pitched a six-hitter in leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 5-2 win over the New York Yankees in the opening game of the 1963 World Series.

John Roseboro gave his batterymate a big lift in the third inning of Game 1 with a three-run homer.

By Phil Ellenbecker

   "How the fuck are you supposed to able to hit that shit?"

   Can't pin this quote down for an exact citation, but I seem to recall it coming from the 1963 World Series, when Mickey Mantle turned around to Los Angeles Dodgers catcher John Roseboro and expressed his exasperation at facing Sandy Koufax.

  The left-hander, amid perhaps the greatest five-season stretch for a pitcher in major league history, had the New York Yankees almost completely bamboozled during that Series, going 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA and 23 strikeouts over 18 innings as the Dodgers upended the mighty Yankees in a four-game sweep.

  Koufax was especially bamboozling in Game 1 at Dodger Stadium, setting a World Series record with 15 strikeouts in a 5-2 Dodger win. He struck out the first five batters he faced, six of the first seven and struck out the side again in the fourth inning as New York went 12 up and 12 down to start the game.

  All but one Yankee position player struck out against Koufax. Only Clete Boyer was able to get bat on ball each time up. Losing pitcher Whitey Ford managed a pop-up, but the three pinch hitters who took his spot in the batting order each struck out, including Harry Bright to end the game.

  Bobby Richadson also struck out three times. That's the Bobby Richardson who struck out only 22 times during the regular season, finishing second in the American League in at-bats per strikeout. He led the league in that stat the following three years.

  Besides all the K's, Koufax coaxed six pop outs out of the Yanks, three in foul territory. That's a clear indication that the Bronx Bombers weren't getting around on Sandy this day, even when their bats grazed Sandy's pitches.

  Koufax did encounter some trouble. With two out in the fifth, back-to-back singles by Elston Howard and Joe Joe Pepiton broke up the perfect game. Boyer then hit a hot shot up the middle, but a diving stab by second baseman Dick Tracewski saved a run, limiting Boyer to a single and leaving the Yankees with the bases loaded when Koufax struck out pinch hitter Hector Lopez.

  Tom Tresh broke up the shutout by unloading a two-run homer in the eighth.

  But regardless of what threats the Yankees made, they were largely moot after the Dodgers built a 5-0 lead through three innings.

  Bill "Moose" Skowron, in his first year with the Dodgers after coming over from the Yankees, whom he helped win seven AL pennants and four World Series titles, got Los Angeles on the scoreboard with one out in the second when he singled in Frank Howard, who'd doubled. After a single by Tracewski, Roseboro bumped the margin to 4-0 with a three-run homer.

  Moose, who'd been traded by the Yankees for Stan Williams, was loose again in the third with a two-out single that plated Willie Davis, making it 5-0.

  More than enough for Koufax, who threw a six-hitter with three walks.

  Sandy came back four days later at Yankee Stadium with another six-hitter, with eight strikeouts and no walks, in a 2-1 Dodgers win that closed out the sweep. 

  P.S. Bob Gibson broke Koufax's record with 17 strikeouts for St. Louis in the 1968 World Series opener. That record still stands.