April 24, 1967: Dodgers finally knock out Cardinals’ Jaster; Dick Egan gets his only big-league win

“Oh, no, not Larry Jaster.” Many Dodgers players probably mumbled that and more when they found out that the 23-year-old left-hander for the St. Louis Cardinals would be starting against Los Angeles on April 24, 1967.

Jaster faced the Dodgers five times in 1966 and racked up five shutouts. He had already seen them once in 1967 and while he did not throw another shutout, he lasted eight innings, allowed three runs, and earned the win. (St. Louis swept the two-game set April 14-15 at Busch Stadium.) Thus far in his young career, the Michigan native had a 6-0 won-lost record and 0.50 ERA vs. Los Angeles and a 10-5 mark and 4.09 ERA against everyone else.

Walter Alston, the Dodgers manager, sounded confident that his team could finally handle its nemesis. “I think the percentage is on our side against Jaster [tonight],” Alston said in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “We were starting to hit him the last time.”1 Los Angeles infielder Jim Lefebvre insisted that getting a few runs off Jaster left him with little consolation. “I don’t give a damn about scoring runs off the guy,” Lefebvre said. “I want to beat him.”2

The Dodgers got at least some redemption in this latest matchup. They chased Jaster in the fourth inning after he gave up four runs. The game went back and forth in the early going, and the Dodgers won 6-5 in 13 innings. Joe Hoerner took the loss in relief. Dick Egan, a journeyman left-hander, got the only win of his big-league career.

Los Angeles starter Don Sutton also struggled in front of the 15,932 fans at Dodger Stadium. The slender right-hander was now in his second season with the Dodgers. As a rookie, he went 12-12 with a 2.99 ERA, and finished seventh in the National League with 209 strikeouts.

The Dodgers won the NL pennant in 1966 but lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series and were now without Sandy Koufax. The great left-hander retired in December, citing an arthritic condition in his pitching elbow. Koufax told the assembled press at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on November 18, “I don’t want to take the chance of disabling myself.”3

The 1967 Dodgers boasted a starting staff of former National League Cy Young Award winner Don Drysdale and the veteran Claude Osteen, acquired in a trade with the Washington Senators after the 1964 season, plus Sutton and Bill Singer, a 23-year-old fireballer from nearby Pomona.

St. Louis finished in sixth place in 1966 with an 83-79 mark but was just two years removed from a World Series championship over the New York Yankees. The Cardinals began the 1967 campaign with six straight wins before losing to the San Francisco Giants, 7-5, and heading to Los Angeles.

Bob Gibson won a duel against Drysdale, 3-1, in the opener of the three-game series on Saturday night. The Dodgers took the second game, 9-3. Ron Fairly drove home five runs.

Jaster and Sutton met in the rubber game Monday evening, and St. Louis grabbed an early 1-0 lead. Lou Brock led off with a base hit and stole second. Curt Flood singled to put runners on first and third, and Brock scored on Roger Maris’s groundout. This was Maris’s first season in St. Louis. The Cardinals had traded for the single-season home-run champion in December and sent third baseman Charley Smith to the Yankees.

The Dodgers went ahead in the bottom of the first on Lefebvre’s two-run homer that also scored Jim Hickman, who reached base on a two-out double.

Both teams put across one run in the second inning. St. Louis scored on Brock’s triple that brought home Jaster, who had singled with two outs. Los Angeles jumped in front, 3-2, when Lou Johnson homered into the left-center-field seats.

Jaster’s evening ended after he allowed two baserunners in the third inning. Gene Michael led off by hitting a single into left field and Hickman walked with one out. Nelson Briles, a promising young right-hander, entered the game in relief. Lefebvre greeted him with a run-scoring single. Fairly popped out and Johnson grounded out to end the inning.

Jaster said he was surprised that Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst took him out. “I actually thought I was throwing better than I did the last time I pitched against LA,” he told reporters.4 Schoendienst disagreed: “Jaster just hasn’t been able to put the ball where has wanted to in any of his three starts.”5

Sutton, meanwhile, got into trouble again in the fourth. Second baseman Julián Javier knocked a one-out single, and his double-play partner, Dal Maxvill, punched a base hit into right field. Bobby Tolan’s RBI single made the score 4-3, Dodgers.

Two innings later, Javier drew a leadoff walk, and Alston replaced Sutton with right-hander Phil Regan. Nicknamed The Vulture, Regan fanned Maxvill but not before Javier stole second base. Dave Ricketts singled, advancing Javier to third. Brock’s groundout brought Javier home and tied the score, 4-4. Flood flied out, retiring the side.

(The next morning, in his column for the Los Angeles Times, Jim Murray wrote about Sutton and how he “is too young to have as good a curve ball as he does.” Sutton admitted, “I throw the curve ball when I’m behind the hitter. Most guys just want to get that ball into the strike zone. So, they throw the straight ball. My trouble is, I’m so in love with my curve ball I may over-use it.”6)

Both teams put up zeros over the next several innings. Finally, St. Louis scored a run in the top of the 13th.  Joe Moeller, in relief of Perranoski, issued a leadoff walk to Eddie Bressoud, who advanced to second on Hoerner’s sacrifice. After Moeller intentionally walked Brock, Flood singled Bressoud home and put the Cardinals ahead, 5-4.

Alston lifted Moeller and replaced him with Egan. Baserunners led off from second and third. Maris popped out, and Egan walked Orlando Cepeda. The next batter, Phil Gagliano, grounded out to end the inning.

Jim Campanis pinch-hit for Michael to lead off the Dodgers’ half of the 13th and doubled to left field for his first major-league hit. Alston said afterward, “The kid saved our necks.”7 Campanis, the 23-year-old son of Dodgers executive Al Campanis, had recently been promoted from the Spokane Indians of the Pacific Coast League.

Hoerner then did to Hunt what so many pitchers did: He hit him with a pitch. Hunt spent much of his career black-and-blue. Pitchers plunked him 243 times in his 12-year career, the sixth-highest figure in big-league history.8

Hickman bunted toward third, where the Cardinals’ Gagliano made an error. The bases were loaded. Lefebvre lifted a sacrifice fly to bring home the tying run. The player nicknamed Frenchy, a graduate of Morningside High School in nearby Inglewood and a former Dodgers batboy, now had four RBIs in the game.

Fairly followed Lefebvre and popped out foul to short right field. With two outs, the Dodgers’ Lou Johnson provided the game-winning hit. His bloop single scored Wes Parker, who had run for Hunt. Johnson said he choked up and “just slapped at it,” adding, “That was tough because it’s not my style of hitting.” Alston had told Jonnson, “Don’t try to hit it too far. Just get it over the infield.”9

The Dodgers improved to 4-6 in the young season, while the Cardinals fell to 7-3. The game lasted 4 hours 6 minutes and already was the Dodgers’ third extra-inning affair of the season, all of them at home. They split a pair against the Cincinnati Reds.

In the Long Beach Press-Telegram, Jack Lederer joked that Egan “got a large charge” out of his first big-league win. It seems that when Egan tried to start his car afterward, the battery was dead, and he was forced to call for help.10

Egan was now 30 years old and in his 10th season of professional baseball. He pitched two years for the Detroit Tigers (1963-64) and one with the California Angeles (1966) before being traded to the Dodgers before the 1967 season. His only other decision was a loss while pitching in relief for the Tigers in 1963.

The local newspapers did not include any comments from Alston about Egan’s performance. Concerning Jaster, though, the manager said, “All I can say is that he had it coming. His stuff wasn’t as good this time.” Speaking of jinxes like Jaster’s, he said, “Those things go on just so long and then you break loose.”11

Jaster lasted seven seasons in the big leagues and was done at 28 years old. Besides the Cardinals, he pitched for the Montreal Expos and Atlanta Braves and compiled a 35-33 career won-lost record with a 3.65 ERA (93 ERA+). The 6-foot-3-inch hurler went 9-5 and had a 2.81 ERA while facing the Dodgers.

He suffered his first losing decision against Los Angeles later in the 1967 season, on August 25 at Dodger Stadium, although he pitched a solid game, going six innings and allowing two runs. The home team squeaked out a 2-1 win. A headline in the Los Angeles Times proclaimed, “Dodgers End Jaster Jinx.”12

Acknowledgments 

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

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN196704240.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1967/B04240LAN1967.htm

Notes

1 Neal Russo, “Shannon to Start Tonight,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 24, 1967: 36.

2 Charles Maher, “Dodgers Win, but Still Can’t Beat Jaster,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1967: 38.

3 Alex Kahn (United Press International), “Dodgers Work on Task of Replacing Koufax,” Redlands (California) Daily Facts, November 19, 1966: 6.

4 Charles Maher, “Dodgers Win, but Still Can’t Beat Jaster.”

5 Neal Russo, “Cards Pass (sic) Chances, Gets Passed.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 24, 1967: 37

6 Jim Murray, “Too Young for Curves,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1967:  37.

7 Neal Russo, “Cards Pass (sic) Chances, Gets Passed.”

8 https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/HBP_career.shtml

9  George Lederer, “Egan Gives Dodgers Charge, Then Left Dry,” Long Beach Press Telegram, April 25, 1967: 19.

10 Lederer, “Egan Gives Dodgers Charge, Then Left Dry.”

11 Neal Russo, “Cards Pass (sic) Chances, Gets Passed.”

12 Dan Hafner, “Dodgers End Jaster Jinx,” Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1967: 22.