Baseball in the 1960's

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

First In Their Hearts, Sixth In The American League; The Angels

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Dan Taguchi of Los Angeles, CA who correctly stated The dubious honor Roberto Clemente had in 1960 was to lead the NL in double plays grounded into. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

NEW TRIVIA CONTEST: By answering the TRIVIA QUESTION CORRECTLY you are automatically entered into a weekly drawing for a Starbucks Gift Card. YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN. Don't forget to put your mailing address in with the answer so if you win we can send you the gift card in the mail.

Just a note to add; If you look at the top right hand corner of the side bar you will see a link to daily sports scores. We made an agreement with Baseball 24 in a mutual sharing situation. Hope its helpful to fans of several sports.

===============================================================
NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: In the mid-1960's the Angels had a player who nearly every year was the model of versatility, playing three of the four infield positions and catcher. Who was he?

ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Roberto Clemente in 1960 led the NL in double plays grounded into.

What made the 1966 Los Angeles/California Angels so interesting they would finish in sixth place in the American League but still finish first in attendance? While the team closed out the 1966 season 80-82, 1,400,321 fans went through the turnstiles of Anaheim Stadium. Bill Rigney's team did not have a .300 hitter or a batter with at least 20 homers. Aging Joe Adcock led the club with 18 in only 83 games. The club's leading hurlers each won 13 games (George Brunet and Jack Sanford) and ace Dean Chance was 12-17. So why did the fans turn out?

The team was never in danger of winning the pennant. They rarely won or lost more than five in a row. Their highlight was in mid-June when they won 11 of 13 and were seven games over .500. They were still eight games back of the Orioles but they were in fourth place. Then they dropped three in a row to Baltimore, another to Detroit and despite a four game winning streak which followed shortly thereafter, the season was essentially lost.

They still played good baseball overall, and by the end of July they were still over .500. However they were 14.5 games back of first place Baltimore. Perhaps it was the fact the Angels, despite looking up to see down trying to overcome the Frank Robinson led Birds, never gave up. On July 30th Chance pitched the Angels to a 2-1 win over Cleveland to put the west coast team into its only day in second place. They were 13.5 back. It lasted 24 hours.

Brunet, always the hard luck pitcher would face even more hard luck in 1967 when the Angels competed for the pennant, Fregosi continued to play well and alongside Bobby Knoop they were among the best double play duos of the era. Chance would become an outstanding pitcher, especially after being traded to Minnesota. The Norm Siebern/Joe Adcock platoon was replaced by Don Mincher the following season.

It was the slugging Adcock's final season and leading the team in homers at age 38 was pretty indicative of the 1966 Angels. Let's face it, this was a team of lovable players who were at a crossroads in a region hungry for a winner not named the Dodgers. They Angels were no match for the pennant winning team led by Sandy Koufax in his final season, Don Drysdale and fav's such as Wes Parker and Lou Johnson.

They really were every bit as talented as the Dodgers but were just not ready to eclipse the upper tier of the American League. The Orioles, the Red Sox and the Tigers were way too difficult for the team from Anaheim. They were never more than 3 games under .500, and as the 80-82 record indicated they played pretty evenly through the year. They had 9 walk off wins and 9 walk off losses which is pretty darn even.

This was a club of lovable characters. There were new kids on the block like Rick Reichardt, Paul Schall, Jim McGlothlin, Jackie Hernandez, Clyde Wright and Minnie Rojas. There was a mix of real fan favorites such as Adcock, Bubba Morton, Lew Burdette, Jimmy Piersall, Jack Sanford and Ramon Lopez.

Perhaps a real indication where this team of aging vets and young stars trying to shine is how they finished. One of the clubs best games was on Sunday October 2, facing Luis Tiant and the Indians. Knoop's 2-run triple in the bottom of the eighth plated the only runs of the game to back the 5-hit pitching of Jorge Rubio (WHO?). In the ninth, facing four batters, Rubio did not allow a fair hit ball. He walked Rocky Colavito and struck out Leon Wagner, Bill Davis and Fred Whitfield.

Rubio finished his career the following season with a 2-3 lifetime record in ten total career games. The Angels were a team waiting to happen with a fan base eager to see it happen. Or so one would think. The following season they were in the race for much of the year and finished 84-77 in 5th place. Attendance: Dropped off to fourth in the American League, down to
1,317,713. Some people just can't stand a winner.

TRIVIA CONTEST; After reading this column you can enter the weekly trivia contest for a chance to win a Starbucks Gift Card. Enter via the following email. Send 1) your answer to the trivia question at the top of the column, 2) your name, address and email so where we know where to send the card if you win 3) any comment you have on the column. One winner will be selected at random each week based on correct answers with the odds being based on the number of correct entries. Please cut and paste or enter the following email into your email system.

SEND YOUR ANSWERS TO; brillpro@gmail.com
==========================================================
Need to get out of a baseball hitting slump, or a golf swing slump? Order my new book "Beating the Slump; An athlete's guide to a better career." See it on Amazon for only $5.99. That is for the Paperback, you can also order Kindle on that link. You can also order paperback copies directly from me via the email below for my other books.

You can get a signed paper back copy of the above book "Tales of My Baseball Youth - a child of the sixties" for $15 Shipping Included

Use PayPal to brillpro@prodigy.net or contact us at the same email for other payment.

Thank you to those of you who purchased my book after reading this column.

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Pirates and Braves Head to Head 1960

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Tim Fealy of Punta Gorda, FL who correctly stated Tony Cloniger hit two grand slams in one game. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

===============================================================
NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: Roberto Clemente was one of the greatest players to ever play the game but in 1960 he led the NL in one dubious category. What was it?

ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Tony Cloniger hit two grand slams in the same game on July 3, 1966.

Sometimes in the big leagues you can beat up on everyone of the other teams but if you can't beat the team which turns out to be the "best" that particular season, the rest doesn't matter. Consider the case of the Milwaukee Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960. All baseball fans know the Bucs won the championship in 1960. And while the Braves finished second, seven games back of Pittsburgh, it was the Pirates they just couldn't beat during the season.

The Braves had a winning record against all the other teams that season, except Pittsburgh and the Dodgers. They were 16-6 against the Phillies and 15-7 against the Cubs. Aside from the 10-12 record playing Los Angeles, the Braves could only muster 9 wins against the Pirates. The sad thing for Braves fans is their team won four of those games in the last seven games.

Pittsburgh would score more than 100 runs against every team except Los Angeles and scored 99 off of the Cardinals. The Braves did the same except instead of the Cardinals, the Braves failed to score 100 against the team from the Steel City.

The two teams records were pretty close when it came to "team" marks. Each team had a 20 game winner (Warren Spahn 21 with the Braves, 20 for the Buc's Vern Law). The Braves excelled with the long ball 170-120 as sluggers Eddie Mathews (39 homers) and Henry Aaron (40) and Joe Adcock (25), far outpaced Pittsburgh whose lone "big man" was Dick Stuart with 23.

The Pirates led in BA .276 to .265. While they did have a pair of hitters batting .298 the Braves failed to have a .300 hitter. The Pirates had two; Roberto Clemente (.314) and NL MVP Dick Groat (.325). One run games were close but the Pirates were a come from behind team. It could be the reason the club excelled due to a "never give up" attitude. Emphasized by walking off 11 wins compared to the Braves 6 in the 1960 season.

Tuesday, July 20, 2021

The Braves Last Home Game in Milwaukee

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Glenn Schubert of Bradenton, FL who correctly stated Jim Bunning had four 19 game winning seasons. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

===============================================================
NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: Braves pitcher Tony Clonigar became better know for a hitting feat than his pitching. What was that feat and when was it accomplished? ?

ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Jim Bunning had four 19 game winning seasons.

September 22, 1965 saw what was a meaningless game for the two teams involved, but not for the fans. While the Milwaukee Braves were headed for a fifth place finish and the Los Angeles Dodgers were on their way to the National League pennant, for the fans, it was the end of an era.

(BRAVES WORLD SERIES REUNION HIGHLIGHT)

All 12,577 faithful turned out to see the great Sandy Koufax square off against Wade Blasingame in a battle of lefty aces. Blasingame would win 16 games in 1965, Koufax would win 26. They didn't get to see much of the two pitchers. The Braves scored five runs off of an unusually shaky Koufax and Blasingame gave up six runs in 4.2 innings to the lackluster hitting Dodgers.

However, none of that mattered to the fans who were there to see the Braves last game ever as the home team in Milwaukee. The team was moving to Atlanta for the 1966 season after moving to Milwaukee from Boston in 1953. While in Milwaukee they won two NL pennants and one World Series title. Their fortunes would be better in Atlanta. In Boston they did win two World Series and three pennants dating back to 1876 when they were the Boston Beaneaters. Milwaukee was their shortest stay by far.

It was an interesting game which featured no less than six Hall of Famers, four of them on the Braves. Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Phil Niekro and Joe Torre were the Braves while Koufax and Don Drysdale were the Dodgers. Drysdale did not pitch in the game, but he did pinch-hit. He was recognized as one of the best hitting pitchers in the history of the game although he grounded out.

It was an ominous start for the Braves who saw the Dodgers open up a 1-0 lead in the first. In the second, singles by Torre, Gene Oliver and Mathews loaded the bases for light hitting Frank Bolling. Bolling belted a Koufax pitch for a grand slam to give the Braves a 4-1 lead, stunning the Dodger left-hander.

It must have really shaken the usually unshakable Sandy because he gave up a solo shot to Mack Jones to lead off the third followed by a single to Aaron, and manager Walt Alston had seen enough. Howie Reed came in to relieve Koufax. After Torre hit into a double play, Oliver hit one to left which Lou Johnson could not handle and the not-so-speedy Oliver rounded the bases for an inside-the-park home run. The Braves led 6-1.

In the fourth, rookie second sacker Jimmy Lefebvre homered with a man aboard to cut the lead to 6-3. In the fifth the roof caved in on Blasingame. Perhaps he was tired after hitting a double himself the inning prior and remaining at second base for what seemed like an eternity. He was stranded there and walked to the mound to take on L-A in the fifth.

It was typical of the Dodgers to score low in 1965 and this time they put it all together in Dodger fashion. Three walks, a pair of stolen bases and two singles combined for three runs and it was tied. Blasingame left with two out, giving way to Billy O'Dell.

Dodger relief ace, Ron Perranoski came in to pitch the fifth. Usually reserved for the eighth or even the ninth, Alston called on his closer to give rest to a beleaguered bullpen. All Perranoski did was pitch six (YES SIX) scoreless innings, giving up three hits and walking four.

Over the last two of those innings he faced a very young Phil Niekro. Niekro pitched two scoreless as well and they went into the 11th tied at six. Chi-Chi Olivo couldn't hold Los Angeles. After Drysdale grounded out, Maury Wills laid down a beautiful bunt and legged it out. He stole second. Jim Gilliam was intentionally walked and Olivo gave way to Dick Kelley. Kelley quickly got Willie Davis to fly out but Lou Johnson singled up the middle to score Wills and the Dodgers led 7-6.

The Braves had a chance in the bottom of the inning. Bob Miller came in to save it. With one out Jones hit an infield single bringing Aaron to the plate. He hit a sharp drive to center and the quick Davis grabbed it and doubled up Jones at first to end the game.

It was the last time the Milwaukee faithful would see the Braves in County Stadium and it was fitting the great Henry Aaron would be the guy who would turn out the lights. Eleven days later the Braves would close out the season, again against the Dodgers but this time in Los Angeles. It was another loss, 3-0 with Milwaukee getting only three hits. Aaron did not play and the final recorded out by a Milwaukee Braves player was by Mike de la Hoz.

It also pretty much marked the end of the line for slugger Frank Thomas. He went 1-4 for the Braves in that final game and was released at the beginning of the 1966 season. Signed by the Cubs he appeared in five games as a pinch-hitter, going 0-5 with a strikeout. He was released in June and retired. He hit 286 homers with a lifetime .266 batting average for eight NL teams including the Milwaukee Braves twice. A fitting end.

Milwaukee would be without a team until 1970 when the Seattle Pilots, nearly bankrupt after one season, shuttered the stadium in the great northwest and headed off to the Midwest where they became the Milwaukee Brewers. Braves players who continued a few years of stardom in Atlanta of course were Aaron, Niekro, Torre, Jones, Felipe Alou, Tony Clonigar, Denny Lemaster and many more.

Followers