Baseball in the 1960's

Monday, May 23, 2022

Gopher Ball City - The A's of 1964

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Glenn Schubert of Bradenton, FL, who correctly found it was Bases on Balls which separated Jim Wynn and Rusty Staub in one key statistical category. 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 what would be his best year ever, which infielder led the 1964 A's in several offensive categories including Batting Average?

ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Rusty Staub and Jim Wynn were separated by just 31 Bases on Balls.

When a team loses 105 games there are a lot of facets to look at but when it comes to the 1964 Kansas City Athletics you only need to look as far as the single pitch known as the "gopher ball." The home run delivered by a pitcher and for the A's of 1964, there were plenty of them.

To be fair, the A's didn't hit either. They only batted .239 as a team but did collect 166 home runs from the hitters (third in the AL), scoring 3.8 runs a game. However, when it came to giving up those home runs, A's pitchers allowed 220 for last in the 10 team American League. Coincidentally, it's where the club finished in 1964; last. The clubs 4.71 ERA also ranked 10th.

(At least the A's of 1964 & 65 had Charlie O. This Charlie O.)

When a pitcher gives up one home run every nine innings it's considered on the cusp. For A's pitchers in 1964, it was very, very bad. Leading the way was ace Orlando Pena who pitched 219 innings and finished 12-14. However, in those 219 innings he allowed an amazing 40 home runs to opposing batters. That is 1.6 homers per nine innings.

He wasn't alone. Diego Segui gave up 30 in 213 innings, John O'Donoghue 24 in 173 innings, John Wyatt 23 in 128, Moe Drabowsky 24 in 168, Dan Pfister 10 in 41, Vern Handrahan 9 in 33, Aurelio Monteagudo 11 in 31, Blue Moon Odom 5 in 31, Jack Aker 6 in 16 and the team allowed an astounding 1.4 per nine innings.

Ted Bowsfield, Wes Stock and Jose Santiago defied the odds and were all at 1.0 per nine innings or less. The damage was already done by the time these three got into the game. When your top three starters give up almost 100 home runs in 600 innings, you are not going very far. At least you didn't in 1964. Either way it was not enough to offset the 34 hit by Rocky Colavito or the 28 belted by Jim Gentile.

The situation improved a year later. In 1965 the homers the pitching staff allowed dropped from 220 to 161 with Fred Talbot leading the way. He only gave up 25 in 198 innings and the team average of 1.0 was right where it needed to be. It still wasn't great and only good for 9th in the AL. The team ERA did improve to 4.24. When you only score 3.6 runs per game, you are going to lose more than you win.

The hitting didn't improve and actually dropped substantially. With Colavito gone and Gentile limited to 10 homers in 38 games, Hawk Harrelson led the team with 23. The club hit 110 for 10th in the American League. Not surprisingly, Kansas City again finished in 10th place but only lost 103 compared to 105 the previous season. They were 43 games back of pennant winning Minnesota while in 1964 they finished 42 back of the Yankees.

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  An athlete's guide to a better career." . 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."Beating the Slump;See it on Amazon for only $5.99

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.

Monday, May 16, 2022

Begging For A Hit; 1968 Astros

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to David Hubert of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, who correctly identified Jeff Torborg as the catcher who replaced Johnny Roseboro after Roseboro was hit with a bat by Juan Marichal. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

===============================================================
NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: Rusty Staub and Jim Wynn are separated by only 31 in one specific offensive category. Name the category.

ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Jeff Torborg was the catcher who replaced Johnny Roseboro after Roseboro was hit with a bat by Juan Marichal.

It's been said a great pitching staff can win a pennant. That may be true but you need to have a few hits along the way. The 1968 Houston Astros are a case in point. In the year of the pitcher, the Astros were right there with the rest of the league. In some cases they were better than the rest of the NL. The club led the league in strikeouts, was third in complete games and second best in home runs allowed. Still, the club finished 10th in a ten-team league and was 18 games under .500 and 25 games out of first.

In fact, the two most exciting things which happened at the Astrodome in 1968 were the above (see the video) 24 inning game between the Astros and Mets and the March college basketball game between Houston and UCLA.

Dave Giusti 11-14, Larry Dierker 12-15, Denny Lemaster 10-15, Don Wilson 13-16 and Mike Cuellar 8-11 all were solid starters. None of the had an ERA higher than 3.31 and Cueallar 2.74 and Lemaster 2.81 were even better. Between them they competed 49 games and tossed 10 shutouts. Their WHIPs were solid and aside from Dierker's 20 Wild Pitches, there was nothing to complain about. Even the bullpen was solid if not spectacular.

However, the pitching can be great but if you can't score runs, you lose. The pitchers only allowed 68 more runs than the hitters produced. Aside from Rusty Staub's .291 BA and Jim Wynn's 26 Homers, this was a team doomed to fail. (Staub was coming off a year where he hit .333 with 44 doubles). Wynn clubbed 26 of the team's 66 home runs! That means the other 25 hitters smashed 40 dingers between them, and four of them had six each. The list includes Staub. After Wynn, not one batter hit more than six! The Astros finished at, or near the bottom in 13 offensive categories including 9th in stolen bases with 44.

Even Harry "the Hat" Walker couldn't inspire this club to hit. Walker took over from Grady Hatton in mid-June with the club 23-38. Walker would take them to 49-52 the rest of the way. They immediately went on a 9-4 run but it was short lived. They could never put together more than a two game win streak until mid-August when they won 9 of 10. Houston actually moved up to 7th place. Then they hit a losing streak of 7-17 and it was pretty much all over. It was back to last and onto 1969.

Monday, May 9, 2022

Now Batting; Juan Marichal

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Kel Kissamis of Hampshire, IL, who correctly identified the highly touted Jim Brosnan book "The Long Season" as the book we were asking about. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

===============================================================
NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: Who came in to replace Johnny Roseboro when he went out after being hit by Marichal with a bat?

ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Jim Brosnan's highly touted book we were going for was "The Long Season."

To say Juan Marichal was an enigma is an understatement. In the 10 years of the 1960's he started and completed 197 games for the San Francisco Giants. Six times he won 20 or more games including 26 in 1968 and 25 in 1963. Three times he pitched over 300 innings and twice more hit marks of 299 and 295. From 1963-1969 his ERA never exceeded 2.76 and twice it was in the 2.1 range (2.13 and 2.10).

Five times the man with the most varied pitches in his arsenal, completed at least 20 games and pitched 30 complete games in 1968. Five times he issued less than 50 walks and six times he struck out over 200 batters. Amazingly his WHIP was under 1.0 four times during the stretch. He never lost more than 13 and in 1965 he tossed 10 shutouts. He would throw at any angle and speed.

Yet, despite all of this he is best remembered for the time he took an outrageous turn and smacked the Dodger's Johnny Roseboro over the head with a bat, while standing in the batters box.

It was a Sunday afternoon on August 22, 1965 and my father and my God Father and I were on our way to the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles to see wrestling. My father was a major fan of "wrastlin'" and the Olympic Auditorium was the place to be for that sort of thing. We were listening to the Dodger game on the radio and were appalled and shocked at what we heard as we pulled into the parking lot.

Up in the Bay Area, the Giants were hosting the Dodgers with Sandy Koufax facing Marichal. Two of the best pitchers of the era and of all-time as it would turn out, in a game both teams wanted to win as they battled it out in the closing days of the 1965 NL pennant race.

The game started off tense. Maury Wills laid down a bunt single and the second time around, Marichal decked him. Koufax returned the favor by sending Willie Mays to the ground with a high fastball. When Marichal decked Ron Fairly, umpire Shag Crawford warned both teams. An ejection was coming the next time a pitch was too tight.

What happened next is documented by both players. It was such an important game for both teams, both sides were making sure their pitcher would not be the one ejected for throwing at a hitter. They were not. It was Marichal and it came as a hitter.

In the third inning Koufax sent a pitch inside. Roseboro dropped the ball on purpose to get a good angle on Marichal who was at the plate. He positioned himself and whipped a throw back to Koufax which came dangerously close to Marichal's face. The Giant's ace said it actually did clip his nose.

Juan confronted Johnny and the two had heated words. Roseboro moved closer. Then it got ugly. Marichal clubbed Roseboro over the head with his bat. Roseboro went down and both benches emptied. A bloodied Roseboro went after Marichal and kept the pounding up until Mays came out and restrained him, bringing some peace to the party. Marichal, bat in hand, was tackled by the umpire.

"I was afraid he was going to hit me with his mask, so I hit him with my bat," Marichal said in an apology a day later.

No one was in a forgiving mood. Bat versus mask. Hmmm. Doesn't seem like a match. Roseboro got 14 stitches, Marichal was fined $1750 and was suspended for 10 games. Roseboro did sue and the case was eventually settled for $7500.

As for the game itself, a visibly shaken Koufax gave up four runs to the Giants, including homers by Mays and Cap Peterson. The final was 4-3 but Marichal was not the recipient of the win. Ron Herbal was. The Dodgers would go on to win the pennant and the World Series over the Twins.

Believe it or not the two men later became friends. When Roseboro died in 2002 at age 69, Marichal was one of the pallbearers and a speaker at the funeral. Marichal actually spent his last season at age 37, with the Dodgers in 1975.

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.

Followers