May 6, 1962: Solly Hemus draws Mets’ first ejection in extra-inning win

Solly Hemus’s place in New York Mets history is exceedingly small by most measures. He served as a coach under Casey Stengel for the Mets’ first two seasons, 1962-63, during which the expansion team set a twentieth-century record for losses in a season.1

Hemus, formerly the scrappy player-manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, holds one distinction in the Mets’ record book. On May 6, 1962, in the Mets’ 20th regular-season game, he became the first Met player, coach, or manager to be ejected.2 His departure came as the result of an ill-considered wisecrack to future Hall of Fame umpire Jocko Conlan in the 12th inning of a game against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Hemus’s ejection added a note of low comedy to a long, sloppy, rain-delayed game in which the Mets used 20 players, Phillies pitchers walked 12 batters, and the Phillies’ Don Demeter changed positions three times. When the blizzard of managerial moves eventually subsided, the New Yorkers had hung on for a 7-5 win.

The Mets made their first-ever visit to Philadelphia to start a four-game weekend series on May 4. The expansion team had won only three of 19 games to that point, but two of those wins had come against the Phillies. The Mets and Phillies split a four-game series at the Polo Grounds from April 27 through 29, including the Mets’ first shutout, thrown by rookie Al Jackson in the first game of an April 29 doubleheader.3

The Phillies claimed the first two games of the rematch at Connie Mack Stadium, winning 6-5 on May 4 and 2-1 on May 5. The teams were scheduled to play a doubleheader on Sunday, May 6, though the second game was eventually postponed. Gene Mauch’s Phillies entered the May 6 game with an 11-9 record and a five-game winning streak.

Stengel’s starter on May 6 was 24-year-old rookie righty Bob Moorhead, appearing in his seventh big-league game and making his first start. The Mets had picked him up from the Cincinnati Reds in the Rule 5 draft in November 1961. Moorhead entered with no decisions and a 4.02 ERA. He’d worked in relief against the Phillies on April 27, throwing 2⅔ shutout innings in a game the Phillies won 11-9.

Mauch tapped another rookie righty, Jack Hamilton, who was making his sixth big-league appearance and fifth start. Hamilton had a 2-2 record and a 5.67 ERA. In his debut, on April 13, he’d pitched a complete-game 3-2 win against the National League’s other expansion team, the Houston Colt .45s. Hamilton had pitched once against the Mets, on April 28, giving up a homer to Gil Hodges and a walk and being charged with two runs in one-third of an inning.4

With 28,215 fans on hand – the largest crowd to watch the Mets thus far5 – the New Yorkers jumped out to a lead in the first. Another Mets rookie, Jim Hickman, drew a leadoff walk. One out later, he stole second base when Phillies catcher Clay Dalrymple threw high on a pitchout.6 Charlie Neal’s double scored Hickman for a 1-0 lead. Ed Bouchee, formerly a Phillie, dropped a two-out bunt single that moved Neal to third, but Gus Bell’s weak groundout ended the rally.

The home team rebounded in the third, starting with an infield single by Rubén Amaro. One out later, Tony Taylor drew a walk, and Ted Savage’s double past third base scored both runners.7 Savage later reached third, but Dalrymple ended the frame with a fly out.

The Phillies added another run in the fourth. Demeter, starting at third base, led off with a flared double into right that dropped between three Mets.8 He scored on Frank Torre’s single for a 3-1 Philadelphia lead.

The Mets got one of those runs back in the sixth. Félix Mantilla led off with a double, then moved to third on Neal’s groundout. Frank Thomas, whose 94 RBIs paced the ’62 Mets, brought Mantilla home with a sacrifice fly to make the score 3-2.

The visitors tied the game, and ended Hamilton’s day, in the seventh. Once again the runs occurred at the start of the inning: Don Zimmer walked and Hobie Landrith’s double to left scored him to bring the score to 3-3. Bobby Locke replaced Hamilton, completing a walk to pinch-hitter and former Phillies star Richie Ashburn.9 A bunt moved the runners to second and third with one out. But John DeMerit, running for Landrith, was thrown out at home trying to score on Mantilla’s grounder to shortstop, effectively ending the threat.10

The see-saw game swung back in the Phils’ direction in the bottom half. With righty reliever Bob L. Miller11 taking over for Moorhead, Savage hit a one-out triple that hit the 447-foot sign in center field on one bounce.12 He then scored on a wild pitch.13 Johnny Callison drew a walk and moved to third when Miller picked up Wes Covington’s potential double-play grounder and threw it into center field.14 Dalrymple’s fly to center scored Callison for a 5-3 Phillies lead. After a walk to Demeter, Ken McKenzie came on to retire Torre.

With Demeter moving from third base to left field,15 the back-and-forth scoring battle continued in the top of the eighth. Thomas began the rally with a triple to center field, whereupon a rain delay put the game on hold for 56 minutes. When play resumed, Bouchee grounded to Torre, who threw wildly to Locke covering first for a run-scoring error; Bouchee took second. Jack Baldschun came in to pitch. Bell’s bunt moved pinch-runner Rod Kanehl to third. Jim Marshall, batting for Zimmer, delivered a single through a drawn-in infield to tie the game, 5-5.16 It was the last Mets game for both Marshall and Zimmer, who were dealt away in separate trades the next day.17

The Phillies mounted a two-out rally in the bottom half off new Mets pitcher Craig Anderson. Taylor singled, stole second, and took third on a passed ball. Savage walked and stole second. Callison, up next, couldn’t capitalize: Anderson struck him out.

Anderson held the Phillies at bay in the 10th and 11th while his teammates wasted opportunities – a runner at second with none out in the ninth, a runner at third with two out in the 10th. Demeter and Savage swapped positions in the 10th, as center field became Demeter’s third position of the day.

The Mets rallied in the 12th. Kanehl hit a leadoff single – just his fourth big-league hit – and Bell walked. Anderson was up next, and Hemus paused the game for a lengthy talk with him. “The Phils have a play where the third baseman backs up and the pitcher slants over,” Hemus, coaching at third base that season, explained. “I wanted Anderson to bunt back through the middle. That’s my job, to tell him things like that.”18 With the game running long, the umpires ordered Hemus to stop talking. He did – only to have Stengel send up Elio Chacón to hit for Anderson. Chacón brought the episode to an unproductive end by popping up a bunt to third.

Sammy Taylor walked to load the bases, sparking a flurry of managing from Mauch. Art Mahaffey came in to pitch, Jacke Davis entered in center field, and Demeter was sent back to third base. Hodges, who had entered the game in the eighth as a pinch-hitter and stayed in to play first, laced a solid single into left field19 to score Kanehl and Bell for a 7-5 Mets lead.

Between innings, the umpires huddled to discuss Pennsylvania’s Sunday curfew and its impact on the scheduled second game.20 Hemus, always quick with the needle, couldn’t resist shouting: “Who’s doing all the talking now?” Conlan, not amused, gave Hemus the historic heave-ho.21

If the Mets could get three more outs in the bottom of the 12th, they wouldn’t need a third-base coach. New pitcher Roger Craig surrendered a leadoff double to Dalrymple. Demeter flied to left and Davis struck out, but Craig’s wild pitch allowed Dalrymple to take third. Veteran slugger Roy Sievers hit for Amaro. Craig threw a called third strike past Sievers – who later complained that the umpires just wanted the game to end22 – to nail down the win in 4 hours and 56 minutes. Anderson got the win, Baldschun took the loss, and Craig was retroactively credited with the save.

In the New York Times, Robert Lipsyte took a positive view of the Mets’ sloppy win: “The action on the greensward also lent hope for the future, proving that even on days when nearly everything goes sour, when Met pitchers falter and batters fail, they still can win.”23 Hindsight shows Lipsyte to have been optimistic, as the first-year Mets staggered to a 40-120 record.

Hemus was ejected three more times during his Mets tenure – twice more in 1962 and once in 1963. The first Mets player to be ejected was Chacón, thumbed by Al Barlick on May 25, 1962, for arguing a call at second base. Stengel received the team’s first managerial ejection from umpire Stan Landes on September 4, 1962.

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team, and season data and the box scores for this game:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI196205060.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1962/B05060PHI1962.htm

Photo credit: Solly Hemus, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes

1 The Mets went 40-120 in 1962, their first season. In 1963 they “improved” to 51-111.

2 “The Ejections for the 1962 New York Mets,” Retrosheet.org, accessed January 2024, https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1962/TENYN1962.htm.

3 The Mets’ other win to that time had come against the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 23.

4 Hamilton went on to pitch for the Mets in 1966 and 1967. He led Mets’ pitchers in appearances in 1966. Although saves were not an official major-league statistic until 1969, Hamilton was subsequently credited with leading the ’66 Mets in that category as well.

5 This distinction wouldn’t last out the month. The largest crowd to watch the Mets in 1962 was the 55,704 fans who went to the Polo Grounds for a May 30 doubleheader that marked the Los Angeles Dodgers’ first return to New York for regular-season NL play since they left Brooklyn after the 1957 season.

6 Allen Lewis, “28,215 See Mets Stop Phillies in 12th, 7-5,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 7, 1962: 29.

7 Lewis.

8 Robert Lipsyte, “New Yorkers Top Phils in 12th, 7-5,” New York Times, May 7, 1962: 41.

9 The walk was charged to Hamilton. The 1962 season was Ashburn’s last as a player; after retiring, he became a beloved fixture in the Phillies’ broadcast booth.

10 DeMerit’s out at home was the second out of the inning. The next batter, Neal, ended the frame with a fly out.

11 The Mets employed two pitchers named Bob Miller in 1962. They are sometimes distinguished from each other through the use of their middle initials – Bob L. Miller and Bob G. Miller.

12 Dick Young, “Mets Clip Phils in 12, 7-5,” New York Daily News, May 7, 1962: 47.

13 Bob L. Miller threw 12 wild pitches in 1962, leading the Mets.

14 Stan Hochman, “Amaro’s Adieu Lacked ‘Something,’” Philadelphia Daily News, May 7, 1962: 57.

15 Billy Klaus, who had pinch-run in the seventh, came in to play third.

16 Young, “Mets Clip Phils in 12, 7-5.”  

17 Zimmer was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for Cliff Cook and pitcher Bob G. Miller, referenced above. Marshall went to the Pittsburgh Pirates for pitcher Vinegar Bend Mizell.

18 Hochman, “Amaro’s Adieu Lacked ‘Something.’”

19 Retrosheet lists Hodges’ hit as a single to first, but Hochman in the Philadelphia Daily News and Allen Lewis in the Philadelphia Inquirer described it as a solid single to left.

20 Dick Young of the New York Daily News explained the curfew as follows: The second game of a Sunday doubleheader could continue after 7 P.M. only if it started before 6 P.M. A second game started after 6 P.M. would be suspended at 7 P.M., to be resumed on a later date. As it turned out, the scheduled first game on May 6, 1962, ended at 6:41 P.M.; the required 20-minute intermission between games meant that the second game could not be played that day. Young, “Mets Clip Phils in 12, 7-5.”   

21 Young.

22 Hochman, “Amaro’s Adieu Lacked ‘Something.’”

23 Lipsyte, “New Yorkers Top Phils in 12th, 7-5.”