Baseball in the 1960's

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

The Dead Art of the Bunt

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Craig McGraw of Middletown, DE, who correctly found it was Wayne Causey who led the A's in many offensive categories including BA. 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.

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NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: Only twice during full seasons did Nellie Fox not lay down at least 10 sacrifice bunts. How many did he have in his MVP season?

ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Wayne Causey led the 1964 A's in many offensive categories including BA.

The art of the Sacrifice Bunt has become a lost art in major league baseball. The last time a big league player had at least 20 Sac Bunts was 2009. That pales in comparison to the "golden" days of baseball when even sluggers gave themselves up by laying down a bunt. Believe it or not one of the most bizarre statistics in baseball came in 1927 when Lou Gehrig showed his true worth as a New York Yankee.

Playing for the greatest team of all time Gehrig hit .373, 52 doubles, 18 triples, 47 home runs, 173 RBI, 218 hits, 149 Runs Scored, 109 Walks, only 84 K's, a .765 Slugging Percentage and led the majors in Total Bases with 447. Yet, he still had time to lay down 21 Sacrifice Bunts!!! The questions is with lead-off man Earl Combs batting .356 and Babe Ruth hitting .356 with 60 home runs; who was Gehrig sacrificing for? Amazing.

But this is a column about the 1960s and the top mark of the 60s was set by Houston shortstop Sonny Jackson in 1966. Jackson, a notorious singles hitter, would have his best year in "66, batting .292. It was his rookie season and his 27 bunts lead the majors. However, his total sacrifice bunts that season was nearly half his career number of 57. He never laid down more than eight after that.

The previous season the Dodgers first baseman, Wes Parker led the league with 19. Parker actually had SH's in double figures four times in the decade and he more than once hit at least 10 homers. Aside from the 1968-1969 seasons when Phil Niekro and Jim Merritt led the majors, hitters rather than pitchers were first in the SH stats.

Nellie Fox did it twice with 15 in 1961 and 20 in 1964. He used a big barrel bat which certainly made it easier to lay the ball down. Fox had at least 10 in 14 different seasons ending with 208 for his career. Fox and Maury Wills top all players from the 1960s in SHs (Fox with 72 in the decade, Wills with 90). In the modern era only Tom Glavine (216) and Ozzie Smith (214) have higher all-time numbers. Campy Campaneris had 199 but only 27 were in the 1960s. He led the majors with 40 SHs in 1977.

The all-tme leader is Eddie Collins with 512 far ahead of second place Jake Daubert with 392. Gehrig by the way finished with 106, six times laying down at least 10 bunts. Ironically, Fox played his final seasons in Houston, alongside Jackson. Maybe it rubbed off or maybe Fox gave the young Jackson some well defined tips.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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