A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (59 page)

This may well have been what made them so effective.
For decades, National League teams that clinched the pennant early
would spend an inordinate amount of time staring at the mounting
Yankee forces, and soon they were defeated Gauls slain at the feet
of the Roman Legion. Better to know death up close and quick,
rather than see it marching toward you over the horizon, across the
valley, into their very homes and villages . . .

Angell was shocked when he got a gander at
Candlestick Park, especially after spending two days in Taj
O'Malley and a pleasant evening in the salons San Francisco cafe
society. Candlestick was
nooooo
Dodger Stadium, Angell
noted, "with its raw concrete ramps and walkways and its high,
curving grandstand barrier, it looks from the outside like an
outbuilding of" - yes, Angell got it the very first time he saw the
place - "Alcatraz. But it was a festive prison yard during the
first two Series games here."

The Giants used 12 pitchers in the play-offs, and the
Yankees were well-rested. The only advantages the Giants had was
that it opened at Candlestick and they were tired, which
was
a strange advantage.

"Man, I'm tired," said Mays. "Man. We're all tired."
Yes, they were exhausted, but they had
adrenaline
.

They also had the advantage of surprise.

"It's funny, we spend a week going over the Dodger
hitters and here I am pitching against the Giants," said 33-year
old Whitey Ford.

When San Franciscans got a glimpse of the
New
York Yankees
they felt like Belgians watching the victorious
Americans arriving, but these larger-than-life icons were not there
to liberate them. It was like somebody had hauled the statues from
center field at Yankee Stadium and now they were come to life,
walking about Candlestick Park. There is a truth about the Yankees;
it existed then and it exists now. They
do
still have Babe
Ruth and Lou Gehrig in their line-up. Those guys are
not
dead
.

As if Ford, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Roger
Maris needed Ruth and Gehrig; these guys broke those guys' records.
In 1962, there were a very small handful of people walking the
Earth who were a bigger deal than Mickey Mantle and company. Dwight
Eisenhower and John Glenn. Doug MacArthur, maybe. The only guys
bigger than the Yankees, it seemed, were
former Yankees
, and
in this a conundrum was posed. "Joltin' Joe" DiMaggio, San
Francisco's own, the pride of North Beach, was unquestionably
rooting for the Bronx Bombers.

This being 1962, it was before the Super Bowl;
before Larry and Magic and Michael; and baseball still reigned
supreme, the
World Series
a near-religious event, its
day-games-played-during-school-days giving off a slight Holy Ghost
quality, to be seen by kids whose fourth period teacher had a TV
and let them watch; whose fifth period teacher did not. Snippets
from the radio, 12-year olds who were fans feeling superior to
clueless classmates who were not.

The West Coast games started at noon to avoid late
afternoon winds, which for the Giants, whose trip from LA. to San
Francisco and subsequent scramble for cabs, rental cars and
hitch-hiked rides home, meant little sleep. They would need to rely
on that adrenaline, which can often propel one to greater heights
than standard preparation, at least in the short term.

The crowd arrived early, bearing picnic hampers for
much gin-and-tonic tailgating. It was a polite, cheerful,
well-dressed gathering, as if they were attending an outdoor opera
concert, or "a country horse show," wrote Angell.

The fans watched the great Yankees take batting
practice. A sense of creeping Doubt began to
replace the cheerful optimism engendered from the Dodger Stadium
heroics. Mickey Mantle slammed four straight balls over the fence,
causing one man to turn to his wife and say, "Well, at least we won
the pennant." Berra, Maris and Ellie Howard put on a pre-game show.
The sight of Whitey Ford confidently heading to the bullpen for
warm-ups caused further shudders. At that point in his career, not
only was Ford unbeatable in October play, he seemingly could not be
scored on!

When the game started fans were in a perpetual state
of worry, as in "uh oh, here comes Berra," or "don’t relax,
Mickey's comin' up this inning." New York jumped out to a 2-0 first
inning lead and the crowd feared a blowout. When Mays faced Ford in
the second inning, they sensed that a great Hall of Fame treat had
been offered them, that all the ups and downs of the crazy season
were now well worth it. Mays singled and came around to score,
breaking up Ford's World Series record of 33 2/3 consecutive
scoreless innings. Ford, who dispatched teams like an executioner,
could not get Mays out and knew it.

"It doesn't matter what you throw him," Ford
said. "Willie can hit it."

When Mays later drove in the tying run the crowd
seemed more relieved than happy, as if they had half-expected their
heroes to fall flat on the national stage. The Giants had nine hits
against Ford through six innings, but could not put him away.

"Ford stands on the mound like a Fifth Avenue bank
president," wrote Angell. "Tight-lipped, absolutely still between
pitches, all business and concentration, he personifies the big
city, emotionless perfection of his team."

Nevertheless, Mays's success against him and the
flurry of hits by the home team did have the effect of
demonstrating the possibility, at least, that the Giants could
compete. O'Dell had better stuff and racked up strikeouts, but his
control suffered. In the seventh Clete Boyer homered. New York
added two more runs in the eighth and another in the ninth. The
Giants also made mental and physical errors, "clustering under pop
flies like firemen bracing to catch a baby dropped from a burning
building," and making base running blunders.

"Ford retired the Giants on a handful of pitches and
left the mound as if on his way to board the 4:30 to Larchmont,"
wrote Angell of Whitey's six scoreless innings after the Giants
scored in the third, posting a 6-2 victory.

"I'll never forget that homer," Clete Boyer said of
his leadoff blast in the seventh, which broke up the 2-2 tie and
was the game-winner. "I never got a hit against that guy when he
was with the Orioles."

"The big play of the game was Ford," said Dark.

The night before the second game, Jack Sanford nursed
a heavy cold while going over the Yankee hitters with O'Dell and
Billy Pierce, two former American Leaguers.

"I need all the help you can get," said Sanford.
"The Yankees scare the hell out of you." The game featured 23-game
winner Ralph Terry vs. the 24-game winner Sanford.
Nursing his cold and with antihistamines, using a handkerchief
constantly, Sanford was brilliant blending a sneaky fastball, a
deceptive slider, a sharp curve and pinpoint control to hurl a
three-hit shutout, evening the Series at one in
a classic
October pitcher's duel, 2-0.

McCovey's monster homer off of Terry in the eighth
made the score 2-0 and, in this game at least, it seemed like 10
runs. Scoring almost appeared to be against the law. In the seventh
and eighth, McCovey's homer, three singles, a walk, two sacrifice
bunts and a Yankee error produced just the one run. Terry pitched
three-hit shutout ball until Bud Daley relieved him in the
seventh.

"Our staff was in terrible shape but Jack fixed it
today," said pitching coach Larry Jansen. "The name of the game is
pitching. That's why we're still in it."

"When you pitch a Series victory against the
Yankees, you can't complain about anything," said Sanford. "I just
kept blowing my nose and pitching strikes. I guess I did pretty
good for a dumb Irishman."

"
Jack's always had good
stuff, but today he had perfect control," said Jansen. "He kept the
ball low and he wasn't afraid to go with his slider when he fell
behind."

"We know we're in the Series," said Dark. "We played
good ball in both games. We're every bit the pros the Yankees are
supposed to be."

Giants fans filed joyously out of Candlestick Park
filled with hope.

When the Series shifted to New York City, it took an
entirely different tone. There was none of the hopeful joy of San
Francisco. The Big Apple more resembled General MacArthur's forces,
having been dealt a blow, re-grouping for the final surge,
confident of victory and entirely aware precisely how to attain it;
the methodology and the cost. They were in the
business
of
winning. It was not a contemplated possibility; rather, Series
victories were accomplished past acts.

The Yankees were like a veteran writer of books, the
Giants a first-time novelist. The veteran scribe knows precisely
how and when he will finish his book because he has so much
experience and has done it many times. He is confident of his
ability because there is no mystery in how he achieves his
goals.

The first-time novelist, on the other hand, is armed
with a great idea and inspiration, but is beset by writer's block
and procrastination, doubts about his ability, alarmed by the
looming deadline. Nevertheless, the Giants were filled with talent
and it could not be denied.

The Yankee crowds were a total 180 from Candlestick.
Photo shots reveals fans that more resembled bankers; or Sam
Giancana lookalikes, gangsters and their molls in sunglasses, suits
and mink stoles. There was little cheering or pleading. They almost
looked like foreigners dispassionately watching a game they did not
comprehend.

The San Francisco women had been elegant, and in
this regard the New York women looked similar in their expensive
coats and coifed hair, but there was none of the noise, no
excitement despite the fact that the crowd was a standing room only
71,431. The only emotion seemed reserved for Maris, who was booed
lustily.

"C'mon, bum!"

Radios were tuned to a New York Giants football
game. Conversation seemed more concerned with the latest Wall
Street events, or advertising trends. This was the New Rome at the
height of
hubris
. The athletes below were merely paid
gladiators brought forth for their amusement. In sixth inning,
large clusters of businessman-fans started to leave, "preserving
their ticket stubs to the persevering verticals," Angell wrote, so
they could "tell their friends they had been to a Series game."
The New Yorker
columnist suspected that many of the fans
were not even New Yorkers; but rather out of town business execs
whose tickets were perks.

Despite the lack of enthusiasm, however, those
athletes on the green plains below engaged in an astonishing brand
of great baseball; the building October tension that marks it as
the very best of all sports. For six scoreless innings, Billy
Pierce and Bill Stafford matched each other in dominating form.

In the sixth, Maris came to the plate, a tragic hero,
unloved despite incredible accomplishments. Had he led Cleveland,
or Kansas City, or St. Louis into a similar situation, he would
have been elevated to the worshipful status of Rocky Colavito or
Stan "The Man" Musial, but in New York all he was not the Mick.
Ignoring the flack, like a bomber intent on hitting the target
regardless, Maris delivered a clutch single to drive in two runs,
breaking up the deadlock.

"We didn't want to give him anything good to hit,
but I missed with a fastball and put it down the middle and Maris
had his hit," said Pierce. The Yankees added a third run. Pierce
was gone, replaced by Larsen, another oddly unheroic Yankee
returning to his scene of triumph.

Stafford had a shutout until Ed Bailey's two-run
homer closed the gap to 3-2 in the ninth. What was left of the
crowd looked on, sure that "the Major," manager Ralph Houk, would
quell the rebel uprising in time for the cocktail hour. Houk
visited Stafford.

"I didn't see any blood on the mound, so I decided
to leave Bill in," the grinning skipper said. "He was pitching a
great game and I didn't want to deprive him of a chance to go all
the way."

Houk left, the fans and his team supremely confident
that any battlefield decisions he made were infallible. When
Stafford got the last out with little trouble their confidence was
now full arrogance. There seemed no stopping the Bronx Bombers from
wrapping up the Series at home, winning in five as they had done in
dispatching over-matched Cincinnati the previous year.

The fourth game was "sink or swim" for the Giants. To
lose and fall behind, three games to one, giving New York the
chance to close it out at home, would be an impossible hole to
crawl out of. The crowd also transformed itself from the tourists
of game three, replaced by real fans, a fair number of whom were
rooting for the Giants. These were the same people who had been
witnessing the Giants getting slaughtered at the foot of pinstriped
hegemony since their last triumph, when manager John McGraw,
pitcher Art Nehf and infielder Frankie "the Fordham Flash" Frisch
led the club to victory over Babe Ruth's Yankees in 1922. At that
time, the Giants were the kings of baseball, the Yankees mere
upstarts who rented the Polo Grounds and had never won a World
Series.

Beginning in 1923, when the Yankees moved into Yankee
Stadium, "the House That Ruth Built," they had won 19 World
Championships, the Giants just two. Angell described the Giants
rooters as "filled with the same pride, foreboding, and strong
desire to avert one's eyes that was felt by the late General
Pickett." For the first time, the full resonance of what this World
Series really was hit home.

It was an East-West Fall Classic. For most of the
season, the New York fans and media mentally prepared for the
Dodgers and the first re-match of "Subway Series" opponents from
the 1940s and 1950s. It was the Dodgers, more than the Giants, who
dominated the last decade of three-team baseball in the Apple, and
it was the Dodgers whose exodus brought on the most tears, the
greatest angst, and now the most yearning. It was the Dodgers,
above all others, who seemed to inspire the new Mets, whose line-up
was chock full of the former
Boys of Summer
.