October 4, 1964: Baseball's Greatest Season Concludes

October 4, 1964, 60 years ago: Perhaps the greatest season in Major League Baseball history comes to a close.

Why did I choose this one as the greatest? It was well after the re-integration of the game. There were still several of the classic old ballparks left, but, as yet, no domes, and no artificial turf. There were as many all-time legends of the game active as we are ever likely to have -- on the field, and in the broadcast booth. And both Leagues' Pennant races came down to 3 teams on the last weekend.

I submit this knowing that I was not born yet, and also knowing that my team did not win the World Series that season, although it came very close.

In the American League, the New York Yankees finished 1 game ahead of the Chicago White Sox, and 2 ahead of the Baltimore Orioles. The Yankees won their 29th Pennant, all in the last 44 seasons. As it turns out, it is the last in their Dynasty.

The Yankees had clinched the day before, so it did not matter that, on this last day, they had lost to the Cleveland Indians, 2-1 at Yankee Stadium. No usual Yankee starter was in the starting lineup, although as the game went on, most appeared as pinch-hitters, but Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris got the whole day off.

The starting pitchers were Jim Bouton for New York and Luis Tiant for Cleveland, and neither got into the 7th inning. Both of them would go on to be viewed by the baseball establishment as weird, though for different reasons.

Tommy John pitched 2 innings in relief of Tiant, who had hit a home run in his own cause. Stan Williams allowed the winning run in the top of the 13th inning, on a groundout by Leon Wagner. Sam McDowell, usually a starter, pitched the 12th and the 13th, and was the winning pitcher.

This was also the last game as a Yankee broadcaster for Mel Allen, who was fired after 26 years. No reason was given. Rumors abounded: He was an alcoholic, he was a prescription drug addict, he'd had a nervous breakdown, he was gay. Most likely, none of these were true.

Apparently, though, in this era when sponsors still had an iron grip on broadcasting, the real reason was that Ballantine beer, the Yankees' sponsor and beneficiary of Mel's calling home runs "Ballantine blasts," saw their sales dropping, and they blamed Mel, the greatest salesman they ever had.

The National League race remained undecided going into this last day, thanks to the Philadelphia Phillies' nosedive, and the surges of the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Phillies bombed the Reds, 10-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Jim Bunning went the distance to finish 19-8, and NL Rookie of the Year Richie Allen -- later to insist on being called Dick Allen -- went 3-for-5 with 2 home runs and 4 RBIs. For the Reds, Frank Robinson went 2-for-4, and Pete Rose went 1-for-4.

In those pre-Internet, pre-satellite TV days, the 2 teams then joined forces, and sat in the visitors' clubhouse at Crosley, listening to a radio (which was appropriate, since longtime Reds owner Powel Crosley made his fortune selling radios), hoping that the Cardinals would lose to the New York Mets at Busch Stadium in St. Louis (the 1st of 3 ballparks to have now had that name, it was named Sportsman's Park from 1909 to 1952), which would keep both teams alive, and force a 3-way tie for the Pennant.

Since the possibility had already arisen in 1956, when the Reds, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Milwaukee Braves had a close race -- the Dodgers ended up beating the Braves by 1 game and the Reds by 2 -- a plan for such an eventuality was already in place.

It wasn't a head-to-head tiebreaker. If it had been, the Cards would have had the edge over the Phils (13-5), the Reds would have had the edge over the Phils (10-8), and the Reds and Phils would have split (9-9). Overall, the Cards would've been 21-15, the Reds 19-17, and the Phils 14-22.

NL President Warren Giles -- who would have to remain neutral, despite having once been the Reds' general manager -- would have drawn lots. The team whose name was written down on the 1st slip of paper he pulled out of a hat or box would be designated "No. 1," followed by "No. 2" and "No. 3." The schedule would have been as follows: No. 1 would have hosted No. 2, then No. 2 would have hosted No. 3, and No. 3 would have hosted No. 1. In other words, all 3 teams would have played each of the other 2 teams, and all 3 teams would have had 1 home game.

If 1 team ended up 2-0, with another 1-1 and another 0-2, the 2-0 team should have been declared the Pennant winner. Instead, the 0-2 team would have been eliminated, and Giles would have drawn another lot to determine home field for a 1-game Playoff. But if all 3 finished 1-1, they would do it all over again.

That's what would have happened over the coming days if the Mets had beaten the Cardinals on October 4, 1964.

Here's what actually did happen: The Mets took a 3-2 lead into the 5th inning‚ but the Cards scored 3 runs to regain the lead. The Mets scored once more, but the Cardinals completed their scoring with 3 in the 8th, to win 11-5. Cardinal manager Johnny Keane took no chances: When Curt Simmons was knocked out of the box, he put his best starter, Bob Gibson, into the game, and Gibson was the winning pitcher.

For St. Louis‚ it was their 1st Pennant since 1946, 18 years. For Cincinnati, it was a crushing defeat, as, even though they had won the Pennant just 3 years earlier, they wanted to win this one for their manager, Fred Hutchinson, who was dying of cancer.

For Philadelphia, which hadn't won a Pennant in 14 years, it was even more devastating: The Phils had led by 6 1/2 games with 12 to play, but went on a 10-game losing streak to blow it. The Phillie Phlop would define the franchise for a generation, and even fans who lived long enough to see the titles of 1980 and 2008 remained scarred by it.

To rub it in further, Simmons had been a star on the previous Phils Pennant team, the 1950 "Whiz Kids," but had to miss that year's World Series because his U.S. Army Reserve unit was called to serve in the Korean War just as the regular season was winding down. Now, Simmons had a Pennant, at the Phils' expense. To make it even weirder for the Phillies, the Reds' interim manager, filling in for Hutchinson, was the man whose home run against the Dodgers in the 10th inning of the last game clinched their 1950 Pennant: Dick Sisler, son of Hall-of-Famer George Sisler.

In the end, it was the closest race in NL history: 3 teams within 1 game, 4 within 3, 5 within 5. The Cards won over the Reds and the Phils by 1 game each, the Jints by 3, the Braves by 5, the Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates by 13, the Chicago Cubs by 17, the Houston Colt .45s by 27, and the Mets by 40.

In 1964, the Phillies won 92 games, and lost the Pennant, and were regarded as a failure. In 1980, the Phillies won 91 games, 1 fewer in than in 1964, but it was enough to win the NL East, and they went on to win the Pennant and the franchise's 1st World Series, and they're regarded as the greatest Phillies team ever.

Or, to put it another way: The 1967 Red Sox also won 92 games, but it was enough to win the Pennant by 1 game on the final day, and they're an iconic baseball team for good reasons. The '64 Phils remain iconic for bad reasons.

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October 4, 1964 was a Sunday. These other baseball games were played that day:

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 14-8 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-4 with a walk. For the Senators, the team that started in 1961 and became the Texas Rangers in 1972, Roy Sievers hit his 318th career home run. As it turned out, it was the last for the slugger, who had starred for the "Old Senators," who became the Minnesota Twins in 1961.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Athletics, 6-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Bruce Howard pitched a 2-hit shutout.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Bill Southworth, whose father Billy had managed the Boston version of the Braves to the 1948 NL Pennant, hit his one and only major league home run, in what turned out to be his 3rd and last major league game. Joe Torre went 1-for-4 with 2 RBIs. Neither Hank Aaron, nor Roberto Clemente, nor Willie Stargell played.

Bob Sadowski pitched 8 innings of 2-hit ball, and Warren Spahn pitched the 9th for the save, to finish the shutout. It may have been because the Braves were already trying to move to Atlanta for the 1965 season, and the team wanted Spahn, who started the 1st game at County Stadium in 1953, to pitch the last game. It also explains why Eddie Mathews, whose 1st full season was 1953, and didn't start the game, was put at 3rd base for the 9th inning.

As it turned out, an injunction forced the Braves to stay in Milwaukee for a lame-duck season, and they moved to Atlanta for 1966. Then the Brewers came in 1970, and County Stadium remained open until 2000.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-0 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. The game was called due to rain after 6 innings. Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-3.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Colt .45s, 11-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. This was the last game the Houston franchise played under that name. In 1965, with the Astrodome opening, they became the Houston Astros.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants, 9-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Jimmy Stewart hit a home run for the Cubs. No, not the It's a Wonderful Life actor, who once played a real-life baseball player in The Stratton Story. Ernie Banks went 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs. Willie Mays hit a home run, but Gaylord Perry got knocked out of the box in the 3rd inning.

* And the Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers completed their respective schedules against each other the day before.

Since it was Sunday, there was also professional football. For New York's purposes: The NFL's New York Giants lost to the Detroit Lions, 26-3 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. As the Yankees would the next season, the Giants' best players seemed to get old, or get hurt, or both, all at once. They had won their Division in each of the last 3 seasons, and in 6 of the last 8, but finished this season 2-10-2.

And in the American Football League, the New York Jets and the San Diego Chargers played to a tie, 17-17 at Shea Stadium.