September 19, 1958: Dodgers rookies take center stage

“[I]t certainly was a fine day for the Dodgers’ No. 1 farmhand from the Texas League: Ralph Mauriello.” — Chicago Tribune1

It was one of those late-in-the-season games that meant little in the standings. The Dodgers, in their first year in Los Angeles, had had a disappointing season. They brought a 67-79 record into a Friday afternoon contest at Chicago against the perennial second-division Cubs, who also had a 67-79 record. The teams were tied for sixth place, with only the Philadelphia Phillies behind them. Only 3,254 fans were in the stands at Wrigley Field.

Rookie Ralph Mauriello, after six seasons in the Dodgers farm system, had gotten a late-season call-up and was making his second start with the big club. In his first start, he had failed to escape the first inning in a loss to Pittsburgh at Forbes Field. John Briggs was the pitcher for the Cubs. He came into the game with a 5-4 record for the 1958 season.

Rookies dominated the Dodgers’ starting lineup. Only infielders Charlie Neal and Don Zimmer and catcher John Roseboro were on the club when they packed their bags for Los Angeles after deserting Ebbets Field. Roseboro was still technically a rookie, having played in only a handful of games in 1957.

In the top of the first, the Dodgers, with a couple of the rookies contributing, broke out in front. Bob Lillis (who went on to have three hits for the day) and Don Miles singled. Rookie Ron Fairly forced Miles at second with Lillis advancing to third on the play. A passed ball by Cubs catcher Cal Neeman allowed Lillis to score from third. There was no further scoring by either team during the first five innings, as Mauriello and Briggs matched zeroes.

Although the Cubs were scoreless in the early innings, there was one pivotal moment in the bottom of the first inning. After Alvin Dark walked, Ernie Banks, playing in his 336th consecutive game, rifled a line drive toward third base that Zimmer was able to grab for the out. Zimmer tried to double Dark off first base, but his errant throw wound up advancing Dark to second, which was as far as he got.

Mauriello was particularly impressive, striking out the Cubs’ leadoff batters in each of the first three innings. In those innings, the Cubs went hitless.

In the top of the fourth inning, one of the Dodgers rookies, Frank Howard, suffered a setback. While racing from first to third on a single to center field by Roseboro, he pulled a ligament. Howard was thrown out at third by left fielder Bobby Thomson and was replaced by Don Demeter, another rookie, with one out in the bottom half of the inning.2 Demeter’s playing experience, prior to 1958, had included three games with the Dodgers in 1956.

The Cubs threatened in the fourth inning but came up empty. Walt Moryn opened the inning with a single, the first hit off Mauriello. Dale Long then hit into a 3-6-3 double play. With two out, Jim Marshall walked and stole second base. On a grounder to third by Thomson, who was credited with a single on the play, Marshall attempted to score and was thrown out at home by third baseman Zimmer.

In the sixth inning, Fairly hit his second homer of the season and, after Jim Gentile lined out, Demeter hit his third homer to extend the Dodgers lead to 3-0.

After Lillis led off the top of the seventh inning with a single, the Cubs made a pitching change, bringing on lefty Taylor Phillips to replace the right-handed Briggs. Dodgers manager Walter Alston countered by sending up the right-hand-hitting Gino Cimoli to hit for lefty Miles. Phillips struck out Cimoli on a 3-and-2 pitch. Lillis, who was running on the play, was thrown out at second base by catcher Neeman. Phillips then struck out Fairly to end the Dodgers’ at-bat.

Through seven innings, Mauriello, who had been known to have stretches of wildness in the minors, was in total command. Roseboro set the target and Mauriello hit it. He had limited the Cubs to fourth-inning singles by Moryn and Thomson and a sixth-inning double by Banks. In the fifth inning, Mauriello had worked out of trouble after his roommate, first baseman Jim Gentile, made a throwing error on a roller by Neeman.

The Cubs, in their half of the seventh, went down in order. They brought in a new pitcher, Don Elston, in the eighth inning, as manager Bob Scheffing had sent up a pinch-hitter, Gabe Gabler, for Phillips in the seventh. Gabler became Mauriello’s fifth strikeout victim.

In the eighth inning, the Cubs broke into the scoring column, due in part to a touch of wildness by Mauriello. After Mauriello struck out Jerry Kindall, Dark and Banks had back-to-back singles. During the first pitch of Long’s at-bat, the ball slipped out of Mauriello’s hand, rolling only a few feet, and he was charged with a balk by home-plate umpire Jocko Conlan.3 This was followed by a wild pitch. Dark scored, and Banks advanced to third base. Alston advanced to the mound, as the potential tying run was at the plate. Johnny Podres was called in to protect the lead, and he struck out Long on a 2-and-2 pitch.

The Dodgers tacked on two runs in the top of the ninth inning. By this point, Elston was in his second inning of work. With two out, Podres singled as did Lillis. A single by Gino Cimoli scored Podres and advanced Lillis to third base. Fairly then singled to score Lillis.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, the Cubs, after a one-out single by Thomson, sent up three pinch-hitters and came up empty. It brought their number of pinch-hitters for the game to seven (Bobby Adams was the only one to get a hit), tying the National League record. Chicago used 19 players in the game. A little over a year later, the Dodgers broke the record, sending up nine pinch-hitters in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals on September 22, 1959.

The final score was 5-1 in favor of the Dodgers. Mauriello received credit for the win, the only one of his three-appearance big-league career. The loss put Briggs’s record at 5-5. After the season, he was traded to the Cleveland Indians. His career record, in parts of five seasons, was 9-11 in 59 appearances.

Many of the Dodgers rookies who appeared on September 19 went on to successful careers. Fairly played for 21 seasons (the first 12 with the Dodgers). He had 1,913 hits, of which 215 were homers.

Four of the rookies found success elsewhere. Gentile was traded to Baltimore prior to the 1960 season. In 1961 he had his best season, hitting 46 home runs and posting a league-leading 141 RBIs. Howard won the National League’s Rookie of the Year Award in 1960 and was traded to the Washington Senators before the 1965 season. He twice (1968, 1970) led the American League in home runs (44 each time) and led the league in RBIs with 126 in 1970. Demeter, after batting only .246 in parts of five seasons with the Dodgers, was traded to the Phillies during the 1961 season. His best season with Philadelphia was 1962, when he batted .307, hit 29 homers, and drove in 107 runs. Lillis was chosen by Houston in the National League expansion draft and was a fixture in the team’s infield in the early years of the franchise.

Two of the rookies played only in 1958 – “cup of coffee” players. The single by Miles in the first inning was the last of his four big-league hits. He appeared in only eight games and went 4-for-22. For Mauriello, who appeared in only three games with a 1-1 record, his postgame comments were prophetic. After receiving the game ball from Roseboro, he said, “I’m going to put it in a safe place. I may never win another one.”4

The Cubs finished the year with a 72-82 record, tied for fifth with the St. Louis Cardinals. Their shortstop, Banks, who had his 22nd double of the year in the fifth inning on September 19, went on to lead the National League with 47 homers and 129 RBIs and win the first of two consecutive MVP awards. His consecutive-game streak ended at 717 on June 22, 1961.

The Dodgers went on to finish the season in seventh place and were below .500 (71-83) for the first time since 1944, when they finished seventh with a 63-91-1 record. From 1945 through 1957, the Brooklyn Dodgers had never finished lower than third place. During the game on September 19, Charlie Neal and John Roseboro had stolen bases, bringing the Dodgers’ count for the season to a league-leading 69. By season’s end they wound up with 73, the most in the league since the Dodgers swiped 79 in 1955.5 A year later, the Dodgers won the World Series.

Acknowledgments

This article 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 Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Mauriello, Ralph. Tales Beyond the Dugout: The Zany Antics of Baseball Players of the Fifties (Los Angeles: Mauriello Publishing Company, 2017), 192-193.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN195809190.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1958/B09190CHN1958.htm

Photo credit: Courtesy of Ralph Mauriello.

Notes

1 Richard Dozer, “Dodger Rookies Humble Cubs, 5-1,” Chicago Tribune, September 20, 1958: 2-1.

2 Frank Finch, “Rookies Sparkle in 5-1 Dodger Win,” Los Angeles Times, September 20, 1958: 2-1.

3 Charlie Park, “Drysdale Out to Fatten Dodger Lead Over Cubs,” Los Angeles Mirror, September 20, 1958: 7, 10.

4 Park: 7.

5 George Lederer, “Fairly Paces Dodgers Win,” Long Beach (California) Independent, September 20, 1958: B-2.