A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (54 page)

San Francisco pitching was seen as the primary
reason for the club's success, and in this regard they had
benefited from three starters - Sanford, Pierce and O'Dell - who
had come over from other teams, in some cases as reclamation
projects. "Sometimes a change of atmosphere helps," says Dark. "It
certainly didn't hurt our pitchers."

"
Wanted, one nearly new 1962 National League
pennant, slightly soiled with tear stain in center," wrote the
great Jim Murray. "Last seen blowing toward San Francisco . . .
Warning: if you return pennant to Dodgers direct, be sure to tape
it to their hands."

****

After everything, there was still more baseball to be
played before the National League could send a representative
against the rested, waiting, all-conquering New York Yankees. A
coin toss determined that the play-offs would open at Candlestick,
then switch for the second and, if needed, third game at Dodger
Stadium. Dark, Jansen, Lockman, Westrum, Mays . . . Durocher,
Snider . . .

The Yankees had to cancel their flight to Los
Angeles. Ralph Houk was concerned that they had been scouting the
Dodgers and now they might be facing the Giants, but at least he
did not have to deal with Mickey, Whitey and company spending three
or four days in Hollywood with nothing but "Johnny Grant parties"
to keep them busy. They headed to San Francisco's Towne House Hotel
to wait it out. 11 years to the day after the "shot heard 'round
the world" the teams started again. It was the fourth best-of-three
play-off in Dodgers history.

Matty Schwab went to work on the basepaths. He had
already warned the drivers of cars on Fan Appreciation Day not to
park on the infield dirt because they would "sink to their
hubcaps." Schwab kept it up all night on Sunday. When Wills and
company arrived Monday they were again beside themselves, totally
psyched by it.

Dodgers public relations director Red Patterson tried
to lodge a protest with Warren Giles, who made himself scarce. He
then appealed to umpire Jocko Conlan, who approached Dark, who
assumed an uncooperative, hard-line stance. Conlan found Schwab,
ordering him to dry up and solidify the basepaths. Conlan ordered
it rolled, as was the custom at Dodger Stadium, and Dark exploded,
saying it was because O'Malley ran the league.

"His word is law," said Dark, as if his knowledge of
his own team's cheating should not have been allowed.

The Dodgers were mollified and encouraged by the
October weather, which tends to be the best the Bay Area has to
offer; warmer than the summer, mid-70s, no wind, perfect for
sailing (a popular pastime).

Koufax started but struggled, allowing a two-out
double to Felipe Alou. Mays hit a "Candlestick shot" over the
right-center field fence. He had learned to adjust his swing for
opposite field power so as to avoid hitting straight into the wind
blowing from left field, instead "going with the flow" towards
right. An inning later, when Jim Davenport homered and Ed Bailey
whistled a single past Koufax. Sandy was sent to the showers, his
season over.

"I can't be the same after two months off," said
Koufax. "My finger is okay, but I felt like the third week of
Spring Training."

The Dodgers "displayed the muscle, the
frightfulness, and the total immobility of a woolly mammoth frozen
in a glacier; the Giants, finding the beast inert, fell upon it
with savage cries and chopped steaks and rump roasts at will,"
wrote the fabulous Roger Angell, who had in the spring detailed the
extraordinary popularity of the expansion Mets when the Dodgers and
Giants made their initial visits to the Polo Grounds. His great
works initially appeared in
The New Yorker
, and later were
memorialized in
The Summer Game
.

Billy Pierce breezed past L.A., tossing a three-hit
shutout with six strikeouts. "It was the most satisfying game I
ever pitched," said Pierce, who upped his record to 12-0 at
Candlestick Park and 16-6 on the year. Pierce thanked Conlan
afterwards, possibly a peace offering after the pre-game
consternation over the infield rolling. "I congratulated him on
calling an excellent game and he congratulated me - sort of a
mutual admiration society." L.A.'s scoreless streak was now 30
innings and they had not threatened in any way to break it.

In the opening play-off contest, Mays walked,
singled and hit two homers in four at-bats. The Dodgers played
dirty, knocking him down a couple of times, but it only steeled his
resolve. His second home run came after Sherry brushed him back.
The crowd seemed to adopt him at that very moment. It was the line
of demarcation in his relationship with the fans.

"I think it was the moment where the San Francisco
fans finally took him to heart," said Pierce.

"I think the fans are starting to warm to me," said
Mays, grinning.

"No team can be as bad as we've been," said Alston.
""We've got to snap out of it sometime. I still don't know who I'm
going to pitch in the second."

Alston then announced he was going with Stan
Williams, who had been relegated to virtual obscurity since
allowing a grand slam in a key game. It was an odd movie, hotly
debated by the Dodgers players, brass and media on Electra II's
flight back to Los Angeles.

"What's he saving me for?" complained Drysdale to
anybody who would listen. ""The first spring exhibition game?"

The Giants flew to the City of Angels, checked into
the Ambassador Hotel (in 1968 the sight of Robert Kennedy's
assassination), and some watched young comedian Johnny Carson debut
as host of
The Tonight Show
. Singer Tony Bennett performed
"I Left My Heart in San Francisco."

October 2 was hot and smoggy. A town of notorious
front-runners had given up on their team. Cars drove straight into
the parking lot. Only 25,231 showed up. The Dodgers had set the
all-time attendance mark of 2,755,184 in 1962, eclipsing previous
records by the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Braves.

Snider was in left field, Tommy Davis at third, and
Moon at first. At the last second, Alston went with Big D on two
days' rest. He had nothing and tried to rely on his famed spitball,
drawing warnings from umpire Al Barlick. In the sixth Drysdale ran
out of gas completely. With one out, Haller walked, followed by
Jose Pagan's double, a successful sacrifice bunt by Sanford moving
them along, followed by singles off the bats of Chuck Hiller and
Davenport. The score was 4-0, Drysdale was headed for the shower,
and the sparse crowd began to thin out. All that was left, it
seemed, were Giants rooters wearing orange-and-black hats and gear;
transplanted San Franciscans living in L.A. or those who had driven
eight years on the 101 to be there.

McCovey's RBI single seemed to seal it, and the
remaining Dodger "fans" grumbled, booed, left. Alston's team was as
done as a Thanksgiving turkey. 36 straight scoreless innings
without a peep, they had gone down "not with a bang but with a
whimper," as the poet T.S. Elliot so famously wrote. There was none
of the dramatics of 1951, of heroism in defeat. They were the
French Army in 1940.

"Down in the dugout, manager Walt Alston was poring
over the stagecoach schedules to Darrtown," wrote Jim Murray.

Gilliam's walk to lead off the sixth scarcely caused
a ruffle, but Sanford's reputation was that of a six-inning
pitcher. Additionally, the hard-throwing right-hander, already
tired from the long season, was nursing a head cold and had to run
the bases in the previous inning. Sanford looked "like five miles
of bad road," according to Bob Stevens. Dark overreacted and called
on Miller, instead of saving him for the closer's role.

Miller had nothing. Neither did O'Dell. Dark was now
into his starters, panicking. O'Dell "threw some gas" on the fire
that Miller admitted having started. Larsen came in and the Dodgers
suddenly were scoring at will. The 36-inning shutout streak fell
like the Siegfried Line when George Patton's Army knocked it down.
After Los Angeles poured seven runs across, the Giants could see
the Promised Land evaporating before their eyes.

"By the end of that inning, they were ahead and I
could feel the goat horns sprouting," said Miller.

The sixth inning took an hour and 11 minutes to
play. The seventh lasted 10 minutes. Fans started coming back. In
the eighth, San Francisco scored twice to tie it, and Dodger
frustration was again at an all-time high. Davenport and Mays got
hits, Bailey contributed a pinch-hit RBI single, but Tommy Davis
threw Mays out at third on a bad call. Stan Williams, now in the
game, walked to load bases but pitched out of it. He settled down,
gaining some redemption, and in bottom of the ninth Wills walked.
Bob Bolin was lifted for Dick LeMay. Gilliam walked, Spencer hit
for Snider, and Gaylord Perry came in. Dark gave him instructions
to get the lead man. On the ensuing bunt he had Wills at third but
panicked and went to first. Dark ripped the dugout phone off the
wall and threw it to the end of the bench, stormed to mound,
wordlessly ripped the ball from Perry's hand, and called for
McCormick.

Tommy Davis was intentionally walked to load the
bases. Ron Fairly, who was one-for-31, hit a short pop to center.
Wills took a chance. A good throw by Mays would have nailed him,
but Willie's effort was up the line and Los Angeles won, 8-7.

The Dodgers picked up Wills and carried him off
field. It got so out of hand he had to hide in the training room
from teammates, in order to avoid injury. "I didn't want to get
killed," he said. "Those guys were acting crazy."

"The feast continued here for a time yesterday . . ."
wrote Angell. Trailing 5-0, "At this point, the Dodgers scored
their first run in 36 innings, and the Giants, aghast at this tiny
evidence of life, stood transfixed, their stone axes dropping from
their paws, while the monster heaved itself to its feet, scattering
chunks of ice, and set about trampling its tormentors."

It was a total resurrection for Los Angeles.
Williams was the happiest of them all, having redeemed himself
after a month of purgatory. The Giants were filled with remorse at
having blown a sure win. Alston called it "the biggest scrambler
I've ever seen. I've never been in a wilder, woolier one,
personally." There were recriminations about Sanford's effort. "One
fella said to his face that he'd quit on us," O'Dell said.

The game "is best described in metaphor and
hyperbole," wrote Angell, the master of the genre, "for there is no
economy in it." The Mets (40-120), "could have beaten both
teams."

Suddenly it was the Giants who were arguing and
shouting. It looked like all the momentum had swung back to the
Dodgers; shades of 1951, after Brooklyn's Clem Labine tossed a 10-0
shutout to force a deciding game. Game two required 42 players and
took four hours, 18 minutes to play, the longest nine-inning game
ever. NBC lost $300,000 when
The Huntley-Brinkley Report
and
Phil Silvers Show
were both pre-empted. Six years later this
game resonated in the minds of NBC executives, who chose to cut
away just as the Oakland Raiders were staging a last-minute
comeback over the New York Jets in the infamous
"Heidi
game."

Actor Rock Hudson watched game two at a bar in
Universal City: "We've got it made," he announced. "Those Dodgers
will kill them. The Giants won’t have a chance tomorrow. They won't
come close. You wait and see."

Director Alfred Hitchcock, dining at Chasen's,
sounded like Winston Churchill predicting victory over Adolf
Hitler. He said he had "the utmost confidence in the ultimate
defeat of the Giants. The good guys always win in our fair
city."

On Wednesday afternoon the "what have you done for
me lately?" city transformed itself back into a Dodgertown of
loyalists. 45,693 front-runners, including Doris Day, Rosalind
Russell and Frank Sinatra, arrived at Dodger Stadium.

The crowd contrasted with the "embarrassing acres of
empty seats yesterday, when the park was barely half full,"
observed Angell. "Los Angeles calls itself the Sports Capitol of
the World, but its confidence is easily shaken. Its loyalists are
made uneasy by a team that appears likely to lose. Today, with a
final chance at the pennant restored, the Dodger rooters were back,
and there was hopeful violence in their cries. Fans here seem to
require electronic reassurance. One out of every three or four of
them carries a transistor radio, in order to be told what he is
seeing, and the din from these is so loud in the stands that every
spectator can hear the voice of Vic Scully, the Dodger announcer,
hovering about his ears throughout the game."

The modern electronic Dodger Stadium scoreboard
invited the fans to sing "Baby Face" and ordered the battle cry,
"CHARGE!" during rallies. The scoreboard struck Angell, an observer
of baseball for years in the venerable Polo Grounds and Ebbets
Field, as a "giant billboard . .. like a grocer's placard," and
that the "new and impressive Dodger Stadium . . . was designed by
an admirer of suburban supermarkets. It has the same bright, uneasy
colors (turquoise exterior walls, pale green outfield fences, odd
yellows and ochers on the grandstand seats); the same superfluous
decorative touches, such as the narrow rickraff roofs over the top
row of the bleachers; the same pre-occupation with easy access and
with total use of interior space; and the same heaps of raw dirt
around its vast parking lots. There is a special shelf for
high-priced goods - a dugout behind home plate for movie and
television stars, ballplayers' wives, and transient millionaires.
Outside, a complex system of concentric automobile ramps and
colored signs - yellow for field boxes, green for reserved seats,
and so forth - is intended to deliver the carborne fan to the
proper gate, but on my two visits to O'Malley's Safeway it was
evident that the locals had not yet mastered their instructions,
for a good many baseball shoppers wound up in the detergent aisle
instead of the cracker department, with a resultant loss of good
feeling, and had to be ordered to go away and try again."