A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (56 page)

A chant began:
"We want Mays! We want Mays!"
But Willie had found a cab to take him to his peninsula home.
Somebody suggested to "throw 'em Boles," his look-alike, but Boles
wanted none of it. He literally feared for his safety.

Chub Feeney said that he had never seen anything like
it in New York. "It certainly wasn't this way when we won in 1951,"
he exclaimed.

"But that was all in hysterical New York, not sedate
San Francisco," said Art Rosenbaum sarcastically.

The event certainly suggested something about The
City that nobody ever quite realized before that; exactly what is
still not sure, but its image did change somewhat from its
sophisticated reputation.

The bus made its way out of the parking lot, but
Feeney ordered it to stop at a nearby motel. Because of the late
hour, rental cars were hard to come by, and due to the strange
events normal plans were askew. Feeney figured that the motel was a
good place for players to arrange for rentals rather than at
Candlestick, which is off the beaten path.

It was after midnight, the team had to play the
Yankees in less than 12 hours, and "We're walking along the
highway, across this empty field, in total darkness," recalled
Feeney. "I thought to myself: here we are. Here come the champions
of the National League."

****

In 1962, the Giants and Dodgers played each other 21
times, with San Francisco winning 11 and Los Angeles 10. 1 million
fans (including the play-offs) watched those games in person, while
TV ratings reached 70 percent, plus three-quarters of the radio
listening audience. A Bay Area phone service provided a paid
service, providing play-by-play to 25,000 callers per day.

The Giants finished 103-62, followed by the Dodgers
at 102-63, one game back. Cincinnati was 98-64, three and a
half-games behind. Pittsburgh (93-68) trailed by eight. The Braves
( 86-76) were 15 and a half back, the Cardinals at 84-78 trailed by
17 and a half, followed by Philadelphia (81-80), Houston (64-96),
Chicago (59-103), and at 60 and one-half games back, the lowly New
York Mets (40-120).

Orlando Cepeda finished with 35 home runs, 114 RBIs,
a .306 average, and 191 hits. Chuck Hiller batted .276 and Jose
Pagan .259. Jim Davenport won a Gold Glove while batting .297 with
14 homers. Felipe Alou hit .316 with 25 homers and 98 runs batted
in. Willie Mays had one of the best seasons of his career,
finishing with a .304 batting average, a league-leading 49 home
runs, 141 RBIs and a .615 slugging percentage (third in the N.L.).
Harvey Kuenn batted his customary .300 (.304). Rookie Tom Haller
batted .261 with 18 homers, while Ed Bailey contributed 17 home
runs. Playing part-time, Willie McCovey hit .293 with 20 homers and
54 RBIs in 229 at-bats.

San Francisco's ability to match the Dodgers arms
was ultimately what kept them in the race. Billy O'Dell was 19-14
with a 3.53 earned run average. Jack Sanford was nothing less than
spectacular, finishing 24-7 with a 3.43 ERA. Juan Marichal's injury
prevented him from winning 20, but he finished with 18 victories
and a 3.36 ERA. Billy Pierce, thought to be an American League
re-tread after his bad spring, was unbeaten at home and 16-6 with a
3.49 ERA on the season. Stu "the Killer Moth" Miller finished with
19 saves and avoided the "goat horns" that he would have been
forced to wear after his second play-off-game performance. Mike
McCormick would take years to reach his potential and finished 5-5.
Hard-throwing Bob Bolin was 7-3 and hard-partying Don Larsen was
5-4. Gaylord Perry was 3-1 but in Dark's "dog house," considered
timid on the mound after failing to throw out the lead runner at
third base on a bunt in a key play-off situation.

Dodgers statistics for 1962 are some of the most
pleasing-to-the-eye in the club's history. Many, many Dodgers teams
that went all the way could not match the overall numbers of the
1962 squad.

Ron Fairly batted .278 with 14 homers and 71 RBIs.
Larry Burright hit .205. Maury Wills batted .299 with 208 hits in
695 at-bats, and an all-time base stealing record of 104. He won a
Gold Glove and was voted the National League's Most Valuable Player
in a year in which some of the greatest names in baseball history
competed against him in their primes. Jim Gilliam batted a .270.
Frank "Hondo" Howard's hot summer helped spur his overall .296
average with 31 homers and 119 runs batted in. Willie "Three Dog"
Davis established himself as one of the best defensive center
fielders in baseball while hitting .285 with 21 homers, 85 RBIs and
34 stolen bases. Tommy Davis's numbers were simply astonishing: a
league-leading .346, 230 hits and 153 RBIs, along with 25 homers,
356 total bases, nine triples, and 18 stolen bases. It was one of
the finest non-MVP seasons in history. John Roseboro hit .249 and
earned kudos for stellar work behind the plate. Wally Moon batted
.244. Duke Snider, on his "last hurrah," batted .278 with no power.
Doug Camilli batted .284.

Don Drysdale's season is looked back upon with
melancholy. It was the best of his career, or close to it, with a
league-high 25 wins and 232 strikeouts against nine losses and a
2.83 earned run average, good for his only Cy Young award (which in
those days was awarded to only one pitcher in both leagues) but is
remembered as the year he lost control emotionally, failing to win
clutch games when his team needed him most. Big D would have gladly
traded his gaudy statistics and honorary hardware for a World
Series ring. Johnny Podres was a solid 15-13 with a 3.81 ERA. Stan
Williams was 14-12 with a 4.46 ERA. Sandy Koufax was so close, yet
so far. His 14-7 record included no victories (and two losses)
after the finger injury that shelved him at mid-season. His 2.54
earned run average still led the National League. Like Drysdale,
Koufax failed in the clutch and had not completely thrown the
stigma of his early years; that of a pitcher lacking inner fire. Ed
Roebuck's 10-2 record and 3.09 ERA was overshadowed by his ninth
inning failings in the third play-off, as was Ron Perranoski's 20
saves and 2.85 ERA. Larry Sherry was 7-3 with 11 saves and a 3.20
earned run average, but had not come through when he was given the
chance to be the hero as he had been in 1959. Young Joe Moeller,
returning in lonely solitude to Manhattan Beach after each home
game, or to a single hotel room after each road contest, finished
6-5.

A look at the National League in 1962 reveals that
it was indeed a golden age of Hall of Famers, veterans and youth,
perhaps unequalled. Cincinnati's Frank Robinson, who at .342 was
better than his MVP-lead-the-Reds-to-the-pennant year of 1961,
followed Davis's .346. The great Stan Musial of St. Louis did not
slow down, hitting .330. Ex-Giant Bill White of the Cardinals
batted .324. Milwaukee's Hank Aaron batted .323.

Frank Robinson led the league with a .624 slugging
percentage. Aaron's 45 homers trailed Mays, followed Robinson with
39, Chicago's Ernie Banks (in his initial year as a first baseman
after breaking in as a shortstop) with 37, and Cepeda with 35.

Davis's 153 RBIs led Mays (141), Robinson (136),
Aaron (128), and Howard (119).

Jack Sanford's .774 winning percentage was second to
Bob Purkey of Cincinnati (.821), followed by Drysdale (.735) and
Pierce (.727). Koufax's 2.54 ERA led Bob Shaw of Milwaukee (2.80),
Purkey (2.81), Drysdale (2.83), and Bob Gibson of St. Louis
(2.85).

Drysdale's 25 wins led Sanford (24), Purkey (23),
another Red (Joey Jay with 21), Art Mahaffey of the Phillies and
Billy O'Dell (both with 19).

Elroy Face, the veteran reliever of the Pittsburgh
Pirates, led the National League with 28 saves, followed by
Perranoski with 20 and Miller's 19.

Drysdale's 232 strikeouts were followed by Koufax's
216, Gibson's 206, Dick Farrell of Houston (203), and O'Dell at
195.

Milwaukee ace Warren Spahn, still going strong at
age 42, managed a league-leading 22 complete games. O'Dell had 20,
Drysdale 19, and despite his late-season injury, Marichal had
.18

Ken Hubbs of Chicago won the Rookie of Year award,
but later would meet a tragic fate when he drowned.

****

Roger Angel returned from the third and final
play-off game to his hotel in Los Angeles on October 3. An art
exhibit of life-size pastel portraits of Dodger heroes were
arranged in a semi-circle, each elegantly framed and bearing a gold
identifying plate. A velvet rope surrounded it, "like the new
Rembrandt in the Metropolitan Museum," he wrote, guarded by a
uniformed Pinkerton.

It was not unlike a portrait given to Brooklyn
manager Charley Dressen mid-way through September of 1951 bearing
the inscription, "To the manager of the 1951 National League
champions."

"No one was looking at the pictures," wrote Angell
of the 1962 art exhibit. Angell then made his way to the airport
and departed on that special United Airlines flight reserved for
the media, transporting them from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The
citywide party was still going strong when
The New Yorker
scribe arrived in . . . The City. The faces of fans "all had the
shiny-eyed, stunned, exhausted expression of a bride at her wedding
reception," wrote Angell.

Bars and restaurants in San Francisco had
been filled to capacity during game three of the play-off. When it
ended, Market Street resembled V-J Day, with cars honking,
orange-and-black confetti hung out windows, strangers shaking
hands, hugging, and in the case of men and women, some doing a
little more than that.

A matinee playing of
Oliver
was broken up by
transistor-tilting theatergoers shouting with glee. A restaurant
owner poured champagne on the sidewalk, clubhouse-style. Handel's
"Hallelujah Chorus" broke out at Grace Cathedral.

As the night wore on, the sense of religious
deliverance turned into something ugly, with the cops called out to
deal with drunk driving, fighting, and vandalism that caused
tremendous property damage. Cable cars were tilted and rolled over,
roads were closed, and numerous arrests were made.

The San Francisco bar scene was in full swing well
past midnight. All of Northern California celebrated the Giants'
monumental victory. It was more than just a great win for the
Giants over the Dodgers. For the strange, schizophrenic
superior
-San Franciscans-with-an-
inferiority
-complex,
it meant much more than that.

Los Angeles, Southern California, the Southland, La
La Land, Tinseltown, Hollywood . . . the city that wasn't, they
called it, but it was. They had everything; better weather, movie
glamour, gorgeous girls, famed nightclubs, the endless strand, a
bigger population, political and economic clout, better stadiums
filled with more fans, and better teams at every level . . . high
school, college and professional. The Trojans and Bruins had little
regard for the Golden Bears and the Indians, reserving their
emotions for a national rival like Notre Dame. Cal's reaction was
to
sue
USC, which made them look even more pathetic.

But now . . . finally, they had
beat L.A.!
In
so doing, they had validated, confirmed their superior,
narcissistic view of themselves as "gents," not "rubes"; as
"sophisticates," not "yokels." The great dragon of Los Angeles, not
just the Dodgers but the very
idea
of L.A., had been slayed.
It was a cultural, socio-political victory; a victory for clean air
and water over smog; of cable cars over traffic jams; of literature
and poetry over celluloid trickery. Allen Ginsberg over John Wayne.
Rudolf Nureyev over Shirley Temple. Liberalism over
conservatism.

This all seemed to carry forward when, one month
later, San Francisco's liberal Democrat, Edmund "Pat" Brown
defeated Los Angeles's conservative Republican, Richard M. Nixon
for Governor. At the time, it seemed to be Nixon's political
obituary, which could not come too soon for San Francisco Lefties.
The north had its revenge over the south. They had validation.

Hannibal had crossed the Alps. Laying in wait was the
Roman Empire of sports, the Yankees, who represented a city - the
Big Apple, New York - that posed a whole new challenge. San
Franciscans thought they lived in The City. New Yorkers knew they
lived in
the
city!

Meltdown

"Let's wait a few minutes before you come in. It's
pretty grim in there. The guys are kind of in a daze."

- Duke Snider advising the writers not to come into
the locked Dodger clubhouse after the game three play-off loss

While the City of Angels contemplated what might have
been, a drama, a war, a meltdown for all times, was still occurring
and would continue for hours in the Dodger Stadium home clubhouse.
It would last all night and expand to the Sunset Strip, to the San
Fernando Valley, and other locales.

The Dodgers' team policy was to allow immediate
press access to their clubhouse. They played mostly night games and
writers needed to fill their stories under late deadlines. This had
been a day game, but they were still clambering outside the locked
doors. 20 minutes passed before Duke Snider emerged. He had lost in
1951, and he had lost again 11 years later.

"Let's wait a few minutes before you come in," he
told the press. "It's pretty grim in there. The guys are kind of in
a daze."

The writers strained to hear accusatory shouts,
whimpered cries and shattered beer bottles from inside. Snider went
back in and Wally Moon replaced him. "How the hell would you feel
if you'd just lost $12,000?" he asked.

The press was not let in until an hour had passed.
Many Dodgers were gone by then. Those still there were drunk or in
shock. The stadium crews had not moved all the champagne. Bavasi
heard about it and called down an order that if anybody drank any
of it they could not expect a contract offer over the winter. The
response to this riposte was too foul to repeat, and what was left
was consumed by the players without any care what Bavasi told them.
Then equipment manager John "Senator" Griffin delved into his
private stock of whiskey. The Dodgers were not in a beer drunk;
they were in a vicious whiskey-mixed-with-champagne drunk, consumed
on empty stomachs after playing a day game, on top of a day, a
week, a season of intolerable tension.