A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (61 page)

The decisions that were made doubtfully would be
made today: leave Terry in, don't intentionally walk McCovey, and
pitch to him. McCovey stepped in, a left-handed threat against the
right-handed Terry. The odds seemed to favor Willie Mac, but then
again . . . these
were the Yankees!

Terry threw a slow curve, down and away, hoping to
fool the slugger. McCovey hit what at first looked like the last
out, a fly ball to Maris in right. Then the wind got ahold of it
for a three-run game-winning home run . . .except that at the last
second the wind pushed it foul.

The crowed was shocked . . . up, down. Standing,
imploring, they watched McCovey pick up his bat and get back into
the box. Next was a fastball, Terry challenging him. McCovey leaned
into it and hit one on the screws, a searing line drive. Richardson
moved just a step to his left, stuck his glove up as much to
protect himself as anything, and caught it. The impact knocked him
to his knees, where the devout Christian bowed before jumping up to
join his teammates in celebration of the Yankees' 20
^th
World Championship in 39 years.

"I hit that ball as hard as I could," said McCovey.
"I wasn't thinking about anything when I connected, but when you
hit it good, you assume it's going to be a hit."

Photos of the post-game scene show kids with "flood"
pants, varsity jackets, and various officials wearing visors, a
popular item of the day, surrounding the celebrating Yankees, who
carried Terry off the field on their shoulders

"I said it would go seven, because you don't beat
the Yanks in less than seven," said Dark,

"I was afraid I was going to faint when McCovey hit
that ball," said Terry. "I probably would have fainted if it had
gone through . . . A man rarely gets the kind of second chance I
did . . . I was real thankful I had a chance to redeem myself in
the seventh game of the World Series, because I'd been the loser in
the seventh game at Pittsburgh in 1960."

"This was the best pitched Series game I've ever
seen," said Joe DiMaggio. "In fact, the pitching was great all
Series."

"It may be noted that the Yankees are the least
popular of all baseball clubs, because they win, which leaves
nothing to 'if' about," wrote boxing writer A.J. Liebling, in San
Francisco during the last two games for a prize fight.

There was plenty to "if" about for the Giants. "What
ifs?" cropped up about the length and sogginess of the outfield
grass;
if
not "a foot either way" McCovey's liner would have
won it, although replays showed Richardson could have gone much
further than that to spear it.

Dark was asked if Mays would have scored from second
had McCovey's liner gone to the outfield. Dark replied that Willie
would have been dressed by the time the Yankees got the ball home,
an ode to his instincts as a baserunner and speed.

"I'm just as proud of my players as if they had won
the Series," said Dark. "They played just great. When you go down
to the last out and the Series is decided by maybe one foot on a
line drive, you've battled all the way."

It was the most time-consuming Series since the 1911
Fall Classic lasted 13 days.

"It was a crazy Series, but it was a crazy season,"
said Dark. "You never forget a year like '62."

Horace Stoneham threw a party in the stadium club,
which included 400 people and all the players. In those days, rings
only went to the winners. He bought the players solid gold money
clips reading "San Francisco Giants - 1962 National League
Champions," with crossed bats and balls. Each player's name was
carved on the bat, personalized. McCormick said he carried his for
years, but stopped because "I think its value is probably too
great" to risk theft or loss.

In the end, all the star power on both sides failed
to live up to their ultimate billing in a Series dominated by great
pitching. Terry was the Series MVP and Outstanding Pitcher, but
with a few lucky bounces those honors could just as easily have
gone to Jack Sanford, whose hard-luck 1-2 record was accompanied by
a 1.93 earned run average in 23 1/3 innings pitched.

"We were told he was a six or seven inning
pitcher," Mantle said of Sanford. "We figured if we kept it close,
Sanford would lose his stuff by the eighth."

"We learned a lot of things about the Giants
in the Series, but we were wrong about Sanford," said Houk. "He's a
heck of a pitcher."

The Yankees hit .199, the third lowest for a winning
team ever. The Giants outhit them by 27 points and out-scored them,
21-20, but it was a reversal of fortune from 1960. The
batting averages were: Tresh (.321), Clete Boyer (.318),
Mantle (.120 on three-for-25), Maris (.174), Howard (.143), Pagan
(.368), Mays (.250), Cepeda (.158), and Kuenn (.083). Much of the
post-Series anguish was directed at Orlando Cepeda, who disappeared
against the Yankees.

"
I know better than anybody
else how terrible I was," said Cepeda. "I do nothing right. I try
everything but nothing helps. I feel bad because I let the others
down. It's terrible when you're not doing your share. I'm very
tired. Between here and Puerto Rico, I play 300 games this year.
That is too much."

The Giants thought about trading him. "He
just couldn't get his bat around," said Stoneham. "Sometimes he was
missing pitches by six inches. That's not what he's being paid
$47,000 a year for."

In the Series, Felipe Alou hit third, second, first,
sixth, third, and first. His .269 average included a hit in every
game but the third and the seventh. San Francisco lost both by a
run.

"Davenport surprised me more than any other
Giants," said Ralph Terry. "We didn't think he was that good and
even though he didn't hit too high, he hit the ball real well."

Charles Schulz, a Bay Area resident, Giants fan, and
creator of the "Peanuts" cartoon strip, may have captured San
Francisco's sense of longing as well as anybody. In three panels,
Charlie Brown sits quietly in a near-catatonic trance, then burst
into tears, cursing to the Heavens: "Why couldn’t McCovey have hit
the ball just three feet higher?"

The
brink

"We're eyeball to eyeball and the other fellow just
blinked."

- Secretary of State Dean Rusk

On Sunday, October 21 President Kennedy
asked if the Air Force could take out all the missiles. The reply
was, "Only the ones we know about." The President then asked about
casualties, both civilian and military. The answer was 10 to
20,000. This influenced Kennedy's decision to forego an air strike
and set up a blockade around Cuba.

Another
U-2
flight discovered bombers being rapidly assembled
and cruise missile sites being built on Cuba's northern
shore.

The press learned there were offensive
weapons in Cuba and questioned Kennedy. The President asked the
reporters not to break the news until he informed the American
people on network television the next evening. If they denied him
the element of surprise, he warned, "I don't know what the Soviets
will do."

The public phase of the crisis began on
Monday, October 22. When Senate leaders were told about the
missiles in Cuba, they called for air strikes, but Kennedy stood
firm on his decision for a blockade. Great pressure was placed on
Kennedy, particularly from Joint Chiefs Chairman General Maxwell
Taylor - a close personal friend of Robert Kennedy's - and Air
Force General "bombs away with" Curt LeMay, a staunch Republican
not predisposed to agreement with the Democrat President.

U.S. ships prepared for
the quarantine. Marines reinforced the base at Guantanamo Bay. The
military alert was raised to DEFCON 3. Instructions were given to
be ready to launch missiles within minutes of the President's
speech. In response, Castro mobilized all of Cuba's military
forces.

On Wednesday, October 24, Soviet ships
approached the quarantine line. EX-COMM wondered if Nikita
K
hrushchev had had enough time to instruct the
ship captains. Later that day, they got their answer. Soviet ships
stopped dead in the water after receiving a radio message from
Moscow.

"We were eyeball to
eyeball and the other guy just blinked," said Secretary of
State
Dean Rusk.

The crisis was not over. Throughout America,
public and private bomb shelters were built. Students were taught
to "duck 'n' cover" under their desks.
On
October 25 the military alert was raised to DEFCON 2, the highest
ever in U.S. history. The military could, at a moment's notice,
launch an attack on Cuba or the Soviet Union.

U.S. Ambassador
Adlai Stevenson
confronted the Soviets at the
United Nations. When they "stonewalled" him, Stevenson stated he
was "prepared to wait until hell freezes over" for an
answer.

On October 26 the U.S.
Navy searched the Soviet ship
Marcula
and cleared it to Cuba when
they found only paper products.
EX-COMM
received a letter from Khrushchev in reply to Kennedy's
speech. The letter clearly was painstakingly written. The Soviets
would remove their missiles if Kennedy publicly guaranteed the U.S.
would never invade Cuba. Another
U-2
flight revealed the Soviets were camouflaging the
missiles.

The worst day of the
crisis was Saturday, October 27. One
U-2
flew off course into Russia; another was shot down. A second
letter arrived from Khrushchev.

A
U-2
on a routine mission picked the wrong star to navigate by and
wandered over Russia. In trouble, the pilot alerted the rescue
station which dispatched F-105s. Unknown to the American pilot, the
fighters carried nuclear tipped missiles. If the Soviets had
interpreted this as a final reconnaissance mission before a nuclear
attack, this could have touched off a nuclear war.

Another
U-2
, attempting to get up-dated pictures of the
missile sites, was shot down over Cuba on orders of a Soviet
commander on site. The orders had not come from Moscow. This
worried Khrushchev. Due to poor communication, similar incidents
could occur again, without his consultation.

Khrushchev second letter
to Kennedy raised the price for removing the missiles. In addition
to a public statement about not invading Cuba he also wanted U.S.
missiles removed from Turkey. This suggested that hard-liners had
pressured Khrushchev.
EX-COMM
debated how
to handle this letter.
Robert Kennedy
suggested they ignore it and respond only to the
first.

On
Sunday, October 28,
Khrushchev announced over Radio Moscow that the Soviets would
dismantle their nuclear missiles in Cuba. Khrushchev could have
insisted that the U.S. respond to the greater demands in the second
letter, but he did not. By backing down, Khrushchev ruined his
career but prevented nuclear disaster.

Poor communication had contributed to the
escalation of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962, there was no
direct and immediate link between the American and Soviet leaders.
Once the crisis entered its public phase on October 22, it took
Kennedy and Khrushchev seven days to reach a compromise. They used
various written communiqués and television and radio speeches to
negotiate with one another. This somewhat unreliable and indirect
form of communications nearly led to nuclear war. If Khrushchev had
not agreed to remove the missiles, the U.S. would have invaded Cuba
within days. In that event, the Soviets would have launched their
battlefield nuclear weapons. Then Kennedy would have had no choice
but to launch U.S. missiles at Cuba or, more likely, the Soviet
Union. Realizing how close they had come to disaster, Kennedy and
Khrushchev established the "hot line" between the White House and
the Kremlin so they could speak directly.

Nine months after the crisis, Kennedy and Khrushchev
signed an agreement to ban nuclear testing in the atmosphere. This
marked the beginning of what seemed to be a new willingness to
cooperate and communicate. However, on November 22, 1963, President
Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. 11 months later, Premier
Khrushchev was removed from office by Communist hard liners.

The prospect of nuclear conflagration has
been painted as being nearly unavoidable, but this is probably not
so. Various scenarios have depicted the crisis as an escalating
one, starting with an invasion of Cuba, followed by the Soviets
"moving" on Berlin, followed by an "August of 1914"-style beginning
of the World War III.

The Kennedy's demonstrated leadership above
and beyond the call of duty. They are what they are. Some of what
the Kennedy's are is rather despicable. Some of the things they did
were shining moments in Presidential history. This was one of
them.

****

Khruschev's tape-recorded memoirs, smuggled
to the West and published in 1970 after his death (further
installments followed in 1974 and 1990), shed some doubt on Bobby
Kennedy's role in the process. Kruschev did not believe that
Kennedy was facing a near-mutiny within his own military. This was
the "dilemma" that has been painted more and more frequently by
those who prefer to think the American military was a rogue outfit
bent on overthrowing and assassinating the attractive young
Democrat in the White House. The fact that this is a lie is
knowledge possessed by millions. The "cabal" was supposed to be led
by General Maxwell Taylor, who was apparently so willing to usurp
the Democratic process through military takeover that Bobby later
named one of his children after him.

"President Kennedy said that in exchange for
the withdrawal of our missiles, he would remove American missiles
from Turkey and Italy," Kruschev's posthumous memoirs recalled.