September 30, 1962: Willie Mays’ late homer forces 3-game playoff for NL pennant

The Los Angeles Dodgers held a four-game lead over the San Francisco Giants with eight games left in the 1962 regular season and were cruising to a National League pennant. However, by the end of the next-to-last day of the season, Los Angeles had lost two to Houston and two to St. Louis and the Giants had narrowed the lead to a single game. Yet, needing only a win, the Dodgers still controlled their own destiny.

Houston manager Harry Craft, whose expansion club was finishing its first season, reflected on his team’s recently completed three-game series with the Dodgers in which the Colt .45s won two of three games. “Golly, they were tight,” said Craft, “tight and tired.”1

After their series with the Dodgers, Houston went to San Francisco for a season-ending series with the Giants. The teams split a Saturday afternoon doubleheader. San Francisco won the opener, 11-5, and Houston came back to win the nightcap, 4-2. The Giants needed a win to have any hope of extending their season.

Houston started the hard-throwing veteran right-hander Turk Farrell (10-19, 3.04 ERA). Before the game a confident Farrell promised to end the Giants’ season and told reporters, “I don’t intend to lose.”2 The Giants started 19-game winner Billy O’Dell. The left-handed O’Dell was attempting for the second time to win his 20th game of the season.

The game-time temperature at Candlestick Park was 70 degrees, the wind blowing out of the northeast at just 5 MPH, and the skies were fair when O’Dell delivered the game’s first pitch to Houston center fielder Carl Warwick.

The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the fourth, as both pitchers navigated their way through the opposing team’s lineup. O’Dell gave up two singles and issued two walks over the first four innings. Farrell worked around two doubles, a single, and a walk in his first three innings of work. Farrell retired Willie McCovey on a popout to third to start the bottom of the fourth. Giants catcher Ed Bailey then hit a fastball over the right-field fence fair, just after hitting one foul. “He threw me the same pitch again,” said Bailey after the game. “Needless to say, I was grateful.”3 It was the five-time All-Star’s 17th home run of the season.4

Houston mounted a quick threat in the fifth. J C Hartman singled to lead off the inning and stole second. However, he was stranded there when O’Dell retired the next three Houston batters. Farrell put the Giants down in order in the bottom of the inning.

Houston tied the score in the top of the sixth. Román Mejías opened with a single to left. He remained at first when first baseman Norm Larker popped out to shortstop. Mejias took second when Bob Aspromonte lined a single to left, his second hit of the game. Left fielder Jim Pendleton followed with a single to center to drive in Mejias.

The Giants threatened in the bottom of the seventh. Chuck Hiller and José Pagan hit back-to-back one-out singles. With runners at first and third, rookie Tom Haller, batting for O’Dell, flied out to right and Pagan advanced to second. The Giants loaded the bases when Harvey Kuenn was hit by a pitch. Farrell escaped unscored upon when Matty Alou popped out to second baseman Johnny Temple and ended the inning.

Right-handed junkballer Stu Miller came on in relief in the top of the eighth. Miller had pitched in both ends of a doubleheader the day before, working six scoreless innings as the teams split the first two games of the series.5 Miller picked up where he left off and retired Larker, Aspromonte, and Panamanian Dave Roberts, who was pinch-hitting for Pendleton.

Willie Mays stepped to the plate to lead off the bottom of the eighth. The Giants center fielder, who had drawn a first-inning walk off Farrell and was 0-for-2 for the afternoon, “had played himself into nervous exhaustion” over the season’s final two weeks as the Giants desperately chased the Dodgers.6

Farrell, working very carefully, sprinkled in some off-speed pitches in an attempt to keep the Giants star off-balance. Mays “took an easy swing at the curve ball” but was late on the pitch and sent it far down the right-field line, “foul by perhaps 30 feet.” Then came Farrell’s signature fastball, “down the pipe, perhaps a little higher than Farrell wanted it.” Mays’ 400-foot blast cleared the wire fence in left field and “hit the bleacher wall some 50 feet farther back” to give the Giants a 2-1 lead. The home run was Mays’ 47th of the season, giving him one less than American League leader Harmon Killebrew.7 Farrell retired the next three Giants batters, and the game headed to the top of the ninth.

Miller, who had an up-and-down year while sharing late-inning duties with the veteran right-hander Don Larsen and young side-armer Bobby Bolin, came through when it counted most.8 Miller retired Houston catcher Hal Smith on a fly ball to left. Merritt Ranew, who batted for Hartman, lofted a popup that Bailey handled in foul territory. With the Colt .45s down to their final out, Craft sent in veteran Billy Goodman to pinch-hit for Farrell. Miller closed the game by striking out Goodman.9

Miller earned the victory and improved to 5-8, lowering his ERA to 3.88. Farrell took the loss, his 20th during Houston’s inaugural campaign. He became just the fifth pitcher to be selected to an All-Star team in the same season in which he went on to lose 20 games.10 Three others have subsequently joined this small group of hurlers.11 The time of the game was 2 hours and 28 minutes.

After the victory, the Giants retreated to the clubhouse to listen to the Cardinals-Dodgers game on the radio. Mild pandemonium broke loose after the final out of the Cardinals’ 1-0 victory over the Dodgers, “and the happiest of all were Mays and manager Alvin Dark.”12

With the Giants’ victory and Dodgers’ loss, the two teams finished with identical records of 101-61 and headed to a best-of-three playoff that would determine the NL pennant winner.

The Giants won the first game 8-0 as Billy Pierce went the distance and the Giants got to Sandy Koufax early. Mays hit two home runs, off Koufax in the first inning and Larry Sherry in the sixth.

The Dodgers took the second game, 8-7, when Ron Fairly lined a walk-off sacrifice fly to center that scored Maury Wills.

The Giants captured the National League pennant with a 6-4 victory in the third game. However, in one of the closest votes ever, Wills edged out Mays for the National League Most Valuable Player Award.13

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also relied on Baseball-reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN196209300.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1962/B09300SFN1962.htm

NOTES

1  “A Giant Shot That Forced a Playoff,” Sports Illustrated, October 10, 1962. Retrieved from www.vault.si.com/vault/1962/10/08/a-giant-shot-that-forced-a-playoff.

2  “A Giant Shot That Forced a Playoff.”

3  “A Giant Shot That Forced a Playoff.”

4  Bailey was an All-Star again in 1963.

5  Warren Corbett, “Stu Miller,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/stu-miller/.

6  Bill Becker, “Wallop by Mays Downs Colts, 2-1; 400-foot homer in eighth puts Giants in playoff – Miller Pitching Star,” New York Times, October 1, 1962: 42.

7  Mays hit two more home runs in the three-game playoff against the Dodgers to finish the “regular” season with 49 home runs.

8  Corbett.

9  This was the final at-bat of Goodman’s career. He played in 1,623 games in his major-league career, collecting 1,691 hits and a lifetime batting average of precisely .300.

10 David Skelton, “Turk Farrell,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/turk-farrell/.

11 As noted by David Skelton, besides Farrell, those pitchers are Hugh Mulcahy, 1940 Philadelphia Phillies; Edgar Smith, 1942 Chicago White Sox; Ken Raffensberger, 1944 Phillies; Bob Rush, 1950 Chicago Cubs; Sam Jones, 1955 Cubs; Mel Stottlemyre, 1966 New York Yankees; and Steve Rogers, 1974 Montreal Expos.

12 Bill Becker.

13 Despite Mays’ 10.5 WAR compared with Wills’ 6.0 WAR, Wills outpolled Mays 209 votes to 202.