Through July 3, 1972, in Major League Baseball, per the July 10, 1972, Sports Illustrated:
OAK 43-23 CHI 39-27 MINN 35-29 KC 31-33 CAL 31-37 TEX 27-38
DET 36-28 BALT 35-29 NY 28-34 BOST 27-34 CLEV 27-36 MIL 26-37
PITT 40-25 NY 41-26 CHI 37-29 ST. L 34-33 MONT 29-38 PHIL 24-42
Oh, my, Padres manager Don Zimmer is ejected in the bottom of the third, arguing a Ball 4 call on a bases-full, full-count held swing by Jim Fregosi. Bud Harrelson, who had singled with two outs against Clay Kirby, walks home to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.
ReplyDeleteKirby walks Ed Kranepool (and Wayne Garrett home), and it's 2-0, Mets. With Zimmer relegated to the clubhouse, it's Padres pitching coach Roger Craig who is coming out to yank Kirby, whom Lindsey Nelson said a couple of innings ago is considered to be one of the National League's top right-handers. This struck me as odd because I always think of Kirby as a scrub, given my first memory of him is his looking glum about being traded from Cincinnati to Montreal on a 1976 Topps card. Anyway, Clay's out in the third inning of this start, so maybe Lindsey Nelson was wrong and I was right all along about this dude.
ReplyDeleteRest in peace, Clay Kirby.
ReplyDeleteThrough five innings, the Mets still lead, 2-0, and now here's a word from the Bunkers encouraging the potential home buyers among the WHN listeners to write for a free guidebook from the still-new U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
ReplyDeletePer the great Wikipedia, HUD "is a Cabinet department in the Executive branch of the United States federal government. Although its beginnings were in the House and Home Financing Agency, it was founded as a Cabinet department in 1965, as part of the 'Great Society' program of President Lyndon Johnson, to develop and execute policies on housing and metropolises." Among HUD's recent milestones (in 1972) was the Brooke Amendment, "which capped rent in public housing projects at 25% of tenant’s income. It amended section 2(1), paragraph two, of the US Housing Act of 1937, and was enacted on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1969. The Brooke Amendment became the first instance of the benchmark to measure housing affordability, which became known as the '30 percent rule of thumb' in 1981 when the 25 percent cap was raised to 30 percent of tenant income."
Tom Seaver is not having his most terrific season. He has 10 wins and is among the National League leaders in strikeouts, but today was his first in six starts in which Seaver did not yield a first-inning run.
ReplyDeleteHe's jamming today, though, and finishes the Padres fifth by striking out Dave Roberts, who was the first overall pick in the major-league draft less than one month ago. One day after he was selected out of University of Oregon on June 6, Roberts made his Padres debut.
Willie Mays leads off the bottom of the fifth with a single to left, and then he advances to second on a passed ball. Ralph Kiner on the call: "Takes a wi-i-i-de turn, comes to a screeching halt ... goes back to second ... Willie Mays putting on a little for the holiday crowd here this afternoon!"
ReplyDeleteSports Illustrated really hasn't been running the offseason NFL on its covers all this spring and summer 1972. SI put Willie Mays on its cover when he was traded to the Mets about six weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteMays was still one of the absolute studs of the N.L. West-champion Giants of MLB71, and he was definitely believed to still be a big part of San Francisco's plans for MLB72.
ReplyDeleteBut after a slow start (for the Giants overall and Mays specifically), San Francisco in May swapped him to New York for a rookie pitcher, Charlie Wililams. Met Mays's first opponent was his old team. The opposing pitcher was Sam McDowell, a big offseason acquisition from Cleveland for Gaylord Perry. In Mays’s first Met at-bat, as the leadoff hitter, McDowell walked him—then walked Bud Harrelson and Tommie Agee, and then allowed a grand-slam home run to slumping Rusty Staub, a big offseason pickup for the Mets.
ReplyDeleteNew York was leading the N.L. East at this point, ahead of Philadelphia and Montreal.
A month later, the Giants shipped Williams back to the minors (in exchange for Billie Jean King's brother, Randy Moffitt) and were fighting with the San Diego Padres for the cellar of the N.L. West.
ReplyDeleteMays, meanwhile, has turned out to be an even more important pickup than the Mets imagined. Injuries have plagued New York as it struggled to keep pace with hot-hitting Pittsburgh, the defending World Series champion. Agee, Staub, Cleon Jones and Dave Marshall were among the key Met sluggers who are injured and unavailable for the July 4 game with the Padres, for example.
ReplyDeleteHere, however, the 41-year-old Mays is thrown out at third, trying to advance on Harrelson's deep fly out to San Diego right-fielder Clarence Gaston.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, 1972 me belatedly congratulates Willie Mays on his recent marriage late last year, and 2018 me belatedly wishes a happy 87th birthday to "The Say Hey Kid," for whom there is apparently no hard feelings with the Giants.
ReplyDeleteHeaded to bottom of seventh ... still 2-0, Mets ... Seaver is now up to 10 strikeouts, and he's got a no-hitter going ...
ReplyDeleteIn what has become a beloved-by-me annual tradition at the HP, I must now mention that I got out a scorebook and actually scored, from the first pitch on NBC, Jack Morris's no-hitter against the White Sox on April 7, 1984.
ReplyDeleteBoom. That's right, ladies. Too bad, though--I'm taken.
In the eighth, Kiner notes that Harrelson is Seaver's best friend among the Mets and that the two players room together on the road. I love learning and thinking about stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteEleven strikeouts for "Tom Terrific" now ... he walked former teammate Larry Stahl, and now it's pinch-hitter Garry Jestadt up with two out ...
Another walk ... Derrel Thomas, the leadoff hitter, now ... he's tried twice to bunt his way on today ...
ReplyDeleteOut! "They're standing, clapping again for Tom Seaver!"
ReplyDeleteAnd now we have a chipper commercial for Canada Dry ...
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to throw a party,
throw it right!
This is well-timed. Now that we've tipped past June 25, I'm starting to turn my attention to Christmas. My wife and I, in fact, did some Christmas shopping in a hospital gift shop just last week
By the way, that was Bob Murphy the last few innings, not Ralph Kiner. Now we have Ralph Kiner on WHN. It was Lindsey Nelson early, Bob Murphy through middle innings and now Ralph Kiner.
ReplyDeleteA man is on first, and here comes Seaver in the bottom of the eighth. It's only 2-0, and the 2-3-4 of San Diego's batting order is coming up in the ninth. But, of course, Yogi Berra isn't about to pinch-hit for Seaver.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, the Mets manager is now Yogi Berra.
ReplyDeleteSuper Wikipedia: "On the afternoon of April 2, 1972, Easter Sunday, Hodges was in West Palm Beach, Florida completing a round of golf with Mets coaches Joe Pignatano, Rube Walker and Eddie Yost when he collapsed en route to his motel room at the Ramada Inn across the street from Municipal Stadium, then the spring training facility of the Atlanta Braves and Montreal Expos. Hodges had suffered a sudden heart attack and was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital where he died within 20 minutes of arrival. Pignatano later recalled Hodges falling backwards and hitting his head on the sidewalk with a 'sickening knock', bleeding profusely and turning blue. Pignatano said 'I put my hand under Gil's head, but before you knew it, the blood stopped. I knew he was dead. He died in my arms.'"
There's about 20 minutes in two parts of silent footage from the Gil Hodges funeral on YouTube, and it's really moving to watch. Rest in peace, Gil Hodges.
ReplyDeleteHere we go, top of the ninth ...
ReplyDeleteDave Roberts grounds out to second-baseman Wayne Garrett ... one down ...
ReplyDeleteBROKEN-BAT, FIRST-PITCH, BLOOP SINGLE TO LERON LEE ENDS THE SEAVER NO-HIT BID!
ReplyDeleteAnd now the Padres have the tying run at the plate in Nate Colbert, a big slugger who Bob Murphy or Ralph Kiner or Lindsey Nelson told us has always hit Seaver well ...
ReplyDeleteDOUBLE PLAY! Mets win! One-hitter for Seaver. Wow, that was fun!
ReplyDeleteThe second game of this double-header is a good one, too. San Diego has just broken a 2-2 tie in the top of the ninth on Derrell Thomas's double scoring Jerry Morales and Enzo Hernandez.
ReplyDeleteWell, the bottom of the ninth cut off with two out and no Mets on, so I'll have to find out if the Padres held on. Anyway, what fun it is to listen to those old games! Thank you, YouTube user "Classic Baseball on the Radio!"
ReplyDelete