A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (60 page)

The first greatly anticipated Yankees-Dodgers World
Series had not happened. In the odd 1959 season, Los Angeles never
looked to be a real contender until they won at the end, while the
Yankees stumbled for their only loss of the pennant in what would
be the span of a decade. Throughout all of 1962, the battle of
titans, Broadway vs. Hollywood, had been built up to fevered
anticipation.

Drysdale and Snider would return, along with the
hated O'Malley, and the prodigal son, Koufax. The Yankees' trips to
Los Angeles to play the Angels, and their princely reception at
"Johnny Grant parties," had served as build-up for the eventual
arrival of the Bronx Bombers at Dodger Stadium for actual World
Series games.

Dodger visits to the Polo Grounds for series with the
Mets had served a similar purpose, whetting the appetite of their
legion of Brooklyn fans, now spread throughout the tri-state area
in the aftermath of "white flight."

The surprise ending to the season, resulting in San
Francisco's victory, had shocked many. It had taken much of the
country, including most New Yorkers, a few days to get used to it.
The first game of the World Series had been played less than 24
hours after game three of the play-offs, and there had been no time
for the press to build up the battle of an inexorable object vs. an
impenetrable force.

But game four at the Stadium changed all that. It was
a classic with classic moments that live on in Series memory. The
fact that a great October duel was occurring played itself before
the eyes of New York on October 8. Suddenly ,the realization that
the Giants vs. the Yankees had every bit as much
panache
as
the Dodgers vs. the Yankees eased into the conscience of the sports
world. It was, in fact, the New York Giants, not Brooklyn who first
opposed the great Yankees in the 1920s and 1930s, and in the
beginning at least they gave as well as they got.

Suddenly, memories of Giant glory flooded across.
1951: Joe DiMaggio's "last hurrah," the rookies Mickey Mantle and
Willie Mays debuting on the world stage, the shadow of Leo Durocher
looming larger than life over the proceedings. 1954: the Giants
beating Cleveland for the World Championship, with Mays making The
Catch, as memorable a moment as any before or since.

After all, Yankees fans suddenly asked themselves,
what was so great about
Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati
anyway? Boring middle American villages. Sure, L.A. had those
"Johnny Grant parties," but San Francisco was built in the image of
New York City. It had been that way since the Trans-continental
railroad was completed. Its citizenry, its skyline, and now its
baseball team were
paeans
to Manhattan. What was not to like
about a place that practiced imitation, the sincerest form of
flattery?

Plus, they had
Willie Mays!
It was occurring
to these New Yorkers that for all the love they exuded for Mantle,
and all the traditions of Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio, it was
possible, just possible, that the very best of them all was the San
Francisco center fielder.

The game four starters had the ring of a true
classic: Marichal vs. Ford. How many times in baseball history have
two Hall of Fame pitchers faced each other in the World Series? It
has happened; it has not happened often.

Up until game four, the Giants tended to respond to
enemy scores, but this time they staked the "Dominican Dandy" to a
2-0 lead in the second inning. Marichal seemed completely recovered
from his September injuries and dominated New York bats with a
two-hit hit shutout through four innings. Watching Juan's high kick
and unhittable deliverance of spheres, the Yankees realized that
they were in for the fight of their lives; in this game and in the
Series, which suddenly seemed inevitably headed back to the West
Coast, where anything could happen because in 1962 it already
had!

Then in the fifth Marichal tried to bunt and took an
inside pitch from Ford on his hand, clutching the bat. The Giants
did not score. Dark looked askance at Marichal, who somehow was
still suspect in his eyes. He blamed the pitcher for getting hurt,
too much it seemed. Sal Maglie, in Dark's view, would have pitched
through it, but it was the end of the line for Juan and Bob Bolin,
a flame-thrower but no Marichal, took over in the fifth.

The 23-year old was inexperienced and the Yankees
circled him like hungry wolves, the tension getting thicker by the
minute. Bolin pitched in and out of a tough jam, but in the sixth
he got wild, walking Mantle and Maris, leading to the Yanks tying
the game. At that point, hope was hard to keep afloat for the San
Franciscans, minus the great Marichal; trying to stem the legion in
unfriendly territory. The fans, who had slowly built up momentum,
now were into it, realizing for the first time that their team
needed them.

For the Giants, some act of surprise, of great
consequence, needed to occur in order to stop the bleeding, reverse
the momentum, and keep them in the World Series. They looked to
their most likely heroes; Mays, Cepeda, McCovey were all curiously
slumping, but the hero would be the most unlikely of all.

In the top of the seventh, with Ford out of the game,
the Giants loaded the bases on a pinch-hit double by Matty Alou
sandwiched in between two walks. Chuck Hiller and his three 1962
home runs stepped to the plate against Marshall Bridges. Hiller,
who had struck out with men on in the fifth, got something he could
sink his teeth into and lifted a fly ball towards the right field
fence.

A famed photograph taken from beyond right field
tells the story. The look on Hiller's face, as he drops his bat and
heads out of the box, is one of hope and astonishment at what he
may have just done. Catcher Elston Howard looks
worried
. The
fans seated in the expensive box seats behind the screen have that
same weary I've-seen-it-all expressions that capture the time and
place; the Madison Avenue haircuts, the sunglasses, the mink
stoles. But these modern Roman senators are also just realizing
that the gladiator, slated to die before thine eyes, has instead
won the day against their chosen favorite.

Hiller, with 21 total homers in eight years, hit a
grand slam and suddenly the Giants led, 7-3. Larsen was the winning
pitcher six years to the day after his 1956 perfecto and now,
whether the Yanks had left their hearts in San Francisco or not,
they were returning there, looking for another ring.

With momentum on their side, the key fifth game was
San Francisco's golden opportunity to swing things around some
more, giving them the all-important 3-2 lead heading back to
Candlestick. But it was the ability to quell just such threats that
had always marked the Yankees, and it was to be on October 10.

The 1962 Series produced a series of classic October
photos, and in game five it was Willie McCovey stretching the full
length of his 6-4 frame while Bobby Richardson slides safely into
first base. Richardson later scored. The Giants made the mistake of
handing the unsentimental Yankees a chance to get back in the fifth
game. Bailey just missed a tying two-run homer by 15 feet.

Sanford struck out 10, but a wild pitch in the
fourth and passed ball in the sixth led to two New York runs in a
5-3 Yankee win. Tresh, establishing himself as a hero in a Series
that increasingly saw little out of Mantle, Maris, Howard, Berra or
Richardson, hit a three-run homer and Terry earned the win, his
first in five post-season tries.

"I'm not particularly happy about it," said Dark. "I
would have been happier if we won three in a row here."

Unlike the play-offs, each Series game had been taut
and filled with professional tension. Each club showed not merely a
desire to win, but the right to victory, which had not marked the
final pangs of the N.L. pennant race and play-offs. Each game had
been decided by a key, game-of-inches play; important strikes
delivered, a double-play just missed; and it appeared obvious that
these were indeed the two best teams in baseball. A classic finish
was in the offing.

Nobody on the Left Coast said anything about "global
warming" when a freak Pacific storm laid siege to San Francisco
just as the two teams were getting ready for the sixth game. There
were no games between Wednesday, October 10 and Monday, October 15.
The massive storm hit Northern California with hurricane force
winds, caused five deaths, knocked out power lines, ravaged
property all the way to the Oregon border, and dropped nearly two
inches of rain on The City. Commissioner Ford Frick post-poned the
games until the weather abated. Both teams trekked to the
hinterlands to practice and wait it out. Dodger executive Fresco
Thompson quipped, "Why call the game? When we play it's wetter than
this."

Local and national pundits had ample time to
extrapolate on the fate of the Giants, and the increasing awareness
that the '62 Fall Classic may indeed be one for the ages. It was
the media's opportunity to say all the things they were originally
unable to say because of the short time frame between the play-offs
and the Series. Many posited the notion that Yankee victory would
add to their smugness, but ultimate victory would result in a
horn-blowing Market Street celebration, drawing rubes from the
outlying provinces of Marin County, San Mateo and Oakland, all to
the consternation of the sophisticates.

"Total triumph is unsettling," wrote Charles McCabe,
the resident "oracle of Mission Street."

Future defeat was seen as a fatal virus, and "Giant
fans, like all neurotics, are unappeasable," wrote Angell. "I can
see it now - the Dodgers should have won the pennant." L.A., after
all, was the "city that could," where champions resided; the 1952
Rams, 1954 Bruins, 1959 Dodgers and1962 Trojans; victory mostly
attained on the backs of opponents from Berkeley, Stanford and San
Francisco who ranged from losers to worthy challengers.

When the rain finally stopped, bad drainage on the
Candlestick playing surface post-poned game six an additional 24
hours Three helicopters were brought in to buzz the field, but the
grass remained soggy. Frick called it "miserable conditions," but
play resumed October 15. One man who could not wait for the rain to
stop was Horace Stoneham, dismayed to see his booze supply depleted
in the hospitality room of the Sheraton-Palace Hotel, where
hundreds of writers had nothing to do but get drunk.

The Yankees, in typically smug fashion, made return
plane reservations for the night of the sixth game. Instead, Billy
Pierce tossed a sweet three-hitter. He was perfect until Maris
homered in the fifth, but coasted to a 5-2 win over Ford, now human
for the first time, it seemed

The rain had allowed the Giants to rest, and to get
their arms lined up. First and foremost, that meant ace
right-hander Jack Sanford, the game seven starter. He allowed only
a single by Tony Kubek in the first four innings. His opponent was
up to the task. Ralph Terry retired the first the 17 batters he
faced.

In the fifth, the Yanks opened with two singles and
a walk. Kubek then hit a 6-4-3 double-play grounder, but Moose
Skowron scored and it was 1-0, Yankees. Tresh made a marvelous
catch of a long drive to left field by Mays. Another classic photo
shows Tresh fully extended, the ball "snow coned" on the tip of his
glove.

Billy O'Dell relieved Sanford with the bases loaded
in the eighth but pitched out of the jam. It all came down to the
excruciating bottom of the ninth inning, with San Francisco
trailing 1-0, hoping to get to Mays and McCovey, scheduled fourth
and fifth up in the inning.

It looked promising when pinch-hitter Matty Alou's
bunt single led off the inning. It was Matty whose hit of Ed
Roebuck started the fateful ninth inning rally in the game three
play-off with the Dodgers. Alou's drag bunt hit was only the third
of the afternoon against Terry.

Terry was working hard and had much on his mind. He
had given up Bill Mazeroski's "walk-off homer" to lose the 1960
World Series to Pittsburgh and certainly did not want to be the
"goat" again. The crowd was pleading, hope against hope, a wall of
sound and violent, anguished cries. Bearing down, Terry struck out
Felipe Alou and Hiller while Matty stood forlornly at first
base.

Now, the moment all had been waiting for, the Giants
raison d'être
; what San Franciscans had expected since the
Giants came west: Willie Mays with everything on the line. Baseball
does not get better than this!

Terry worked Mays low and way, which may have been
an old scouting report. Mays, reacting to the Candlestick winds,
had adjusted his power towards right field. Terry thought he put
"real good stuff on it, but Willie opened up and just hit it with
his hands." He wristed the ball, powering a shot into the right
field corner.

Matty Alou had speed and at first it seemed that he
could score the tying run from first base, but Mays's double got
stuck in the soggy grass. Roger Maris got to it, whirled and made a
good throw. Coach Whitey Lockman held Alou at third base. To this
day, the decision is disputed, but replays seem to indicate that
Lockman made the right call.

"I'd make the same decision 1,000 times out of
1,000," Lockman insisted. Dark agreed. Both Maris and the cut-off
man, Bobby Richardson, had strong, accurate arms.

"Matty would have been out by a mile," said Ralph
Houk.

"Roger Maris was playing me to pull, and he cut the
ball off before it could get to the fence," recalled Mays. "If that
field was dry, the ball rolls to the fence, Matty scores, and I'm
on third."

Instead, Mays was on second, Alou was on third, and
McCovey was coming to the plate. Leading 1-0 with two outs, Houk
came to the mound to confer with Terry and Howard. McCovey had
scorched a triple in a prior at-bat and had hit a homer in an
earlier Series game. First base was open but Terry felt, "I could
get McCovey out. I felt I had a pretty good line on him . . . Maybe
I was overconfident."