DODGER STADIUM - September 17, 1966
Last night in 1966 it was the best hitters in baseball against the best pitcher in baseball in a game of huge importance to the National League pennant race.
What a classic confrontation!
The Pirates were in L.A. for the 2nd of a 3 game set. Bucs’ (that’s Pittsburgh’s informal nickname) manager Harry Walker said it was essential for his team to win 2 of the 3 contests.
But after the Bucs lost to Don Drysdale’s magnificent 98 pitch performance 2 nights ago (70 of his 98 pitches were strikes), they had fallen 2.5 games behind, and the only way the Pirates could win 2 of 3 was to beat Sandy Koufax.
The Left Arm of God
Since 1962, winning against Koufax has been a rarity. Sandy has piled up a record of 107 - 33 since the start of the ‘62 season. In addition, Koufax has led the National League in ERA every year from 1962 - 1965, and he’s leading again here in 1966.
It’s no wonder that Sandy Koufax has earned the nickname, “The Left Arm of God.”
But coming into last night’s contest, the Bucs had to think that Koufax was perhaps beatable. The big story in mid-August was that Koufax’s arm was so sore that he was contemplating retirement.
On August 30th, he had his worst outing of the year, giving up 5 earned runs in just 2 innings against the lowly Mets. And Sandy followed that with another un-Koufax like 3 earned runs in 6 innings 4 days later.
Tempering any notion that Sandy’s arm was out of commission, Koufax has pitched scoreless ball in his last 15 innings, including a shutout of the Astros in his most recent outing 6 days ago (which gave him an extra day’s rest going into yesterday’s game).
Late Night Lightning
The Bucs meanwhile have been hitting at a torrid pace all season. As of last Sunday they enjoyed an enormous lead in hitting over all teams in the majors as they were batting .285 as a team.
In comparison, the Baltimore Orioles, in the American League. who boast the best record in baseball were batting just .259.
Moreover, the Bucs starters were batting .303 collectively!
Five of the Bucs were hitting over .300. In all the rest of the majors only 7 other players were hitting over .300, including just 3 in the entire American League.
This nearly unprecedented level of hitting vs. the rest of the majors was a prime reason the Bucs batters had earned the nickname, “Late Night Lightning.”
And their leader is a man they have started calling “The Great One” in Pittsburgh and in Puerto Rico - Roberto Clemente.
Clemente is having his best season. Coming into last night’s game he had a line that made him perhaps the leading candidate for MVP:
25 HRs
110 RBIs
.327 average.
The Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Sandy Koufax in a battle of the 2nd and 1st place teams - a classic at Dodger Stadium.
Pirates’ shortstop Gene Alley was the game’s 1st batter and he drilled a Koufax pitch into center field to the dismay of a capacity crowd of 54,510 fans. Next up, Manny Mota bunted Alley over to 2nd. But then Roberto Clemente and Donn Clendenon both grounded out. Koufax had his 16th consecutive scoreless inning.
Note that batting 4th was not the usual clean up hitter, Willie Stargell, who has 31 homers and is the 7th leading batter in the majors at .318. Harry Walker did not start Stargell against the lefty Koufax because Stargell is just 2 for 23 lifetime against Koufax with 10 strikeouts.
The Pirates sent Bob Veale, their best starter, to the mound in the bottom of the 1st, and he allowed only a walk to Maury Wills who was promptly thrown out stealing.
Both pitchers had an easy time in the 2nd inning.
Dodgers 0 - Pirates 0 - end of 2 innings
There was no scoring until the bottom of the 3rd when the Dodgers mounted a 2 out rally and put up 3 runs on a Lou Johnson homer.
Ahead 3 - 0, Koufax went into lockdown mode. After giving up 2 solid singles in the 1st and 3rd innings, he didn’t give up another bonafide hit in the 4th through 7th innings. He allowed 3 more singles, but all of them were infield hits.
The Pirates did manufacture 1 run in the 7th on a walk, bunt single, another walk and a sacrifice fly. That spoiled the 21 consecutive scoreless innings streak for Koufax. But the Dodgers had already added 2 additional runs.
Dodgers 5 - Pirates 1 - end of 7 innings
No lead is safe with the Pirates penchant for Late Night Lightning. Buc’s fans have witnessed countless spirited comebacks this season. Just the night before the Pirates had threatened in the 9th inning when Clemente and Stargell hit back to back homers off Drysdale.
In the 8th inning, Koufax faced the heart of the order, but he managed to get Clemente, Clendenon and Bill Mazeroski to all fly out.
In the 9th inning, got the 5 - 6 - 7 batters out 1 - 2 - 3, and the game was in the books.
Koufax had retired the last 8 batters in a row.
There was no Late Night Lightning last night.
Most impressively, Sandy Koufax held the Pirates first 4 batters, all of whom are in the top 11 in the majors in hitting, to just 2 for 14 for the game.
And Sandy Koufax notched his 24th victory of the 1966 season.
It was a big one, it knocked the Bucs back to 3.5 games out. That’s the farthest out of 1st the Pirates have been since early in the summer on June 28th.
Echoing his frustration after the game, Roberto Clemente provide his assessment of Sandy Koufax to the Los Angeles Herald Examiner’s Mitch Chortkoff, “Don’t you believe there’s anything wrong with his arm. There’s no man alive who can stand on the mound and do what he does if he has a bad arm. He’s never thrown harder.”
There is still hope for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They have 15 more games to play, and they won’t have to face The Left Arm of God again.
The Sports Time Traveler will continue following the 1966 pennant race day by day.
Below is a picture of Roberto Clemente that appeared today, September 17, 1966, on the front page of the Los Angeles Times sports section.
Sandy Koufax didn’t yield a hit to The Great One and struck him out twice. Perhaps Koufax deserves the MVP.
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