September 20, 1961: Hurricane Sandy strikes the West Coast

As people awoke on Wednesday, September 20, 1961, and settled down for their morning coffee, some saw a front-page headline much like the one in the New York Daily News: “Esther Due Thursday.”1

But the baseball fans on the West Coast had been dealing with their own “hurricane” since the start of the 1961 season.

For the first six seasons of his major-league career, Sandy Koufax had a rather nondescript statistical line of 36 wins, 40 losses, and a 4.10 earned-run average. Then at the start of the 1961 National League season, the left-hander from Brooklyn, New York, found something in his pitching that would turn him into one of the most feared pitchers in baseball.

After spending their first four years in Los Angeles playing at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the Dodgers began the 1962 season at brand-new Dodger Stadium. For their last game at the Coliseum in 1961, Koufax was the starting pitcher, and he pitched all 13 innings, throwing a remarkable 205 pitches, as the Dodgers escaped with a walk-off victory, one that a Los Angeles sportswriter said they eked out “the hard way.”2

The crowd of 12,068 boosted the season’s home attendance to over 1.8 million, but there was no victory celebration since first-place Cincinnati won again to protect its commanding five-game lead.3 In 77 games at the Coliseum in 1961, the Dodgers had 45 wins and 32 defeats.

Koufax entered the game with a record of 17 wins and 11 losses with a 3.73 earned-run average. The Dodgers entered the game with 83 wins and 61 losses and trailed the first-place Reds by five games. The Dodgers had lost the first two games of the series with Chicago, 5-3 and 7-3.

Chicago was in the first year of its two-year experiment with a College of Coaches replacing the traditional manager. Lou Klein was at the helm, the fourth Cubs “head coach” after Vedie Himsl, Harry Craft, and El Tappe. As his starter, Klein chose left-hander Dick Ellsworth, who was in his third major-league season. Ellsworth was 8-11 with a 4.12 earned-run average.

Richie Ashburn led off the game with a single for the Cubs. Koufax struck out Don Zimmer and Ernie Banks. Ashburn stole second base but was left stranded as George Altman fouled out to end the inning.

In the bottom of the inning, Wally Moon walked with two out but Ellsworth struck out Gil Hodges to end the first inning.

Koufax allowed a two-out single to André Rodgers in the second inning but struck out Cuno Barragan. For the Dodgers, Ron Fairly and Gordie Windhorn singled. Fairly took third when Charlie Neal’s groundball forced Windhorn at second base, and scored on catcher Norm Sherry’s grounder to third. Koufax’s groundout ended the inning with the Dodgers leading 1-0.

In the third inning, Koufax gave up a one-out single to Ashburn and Ellsworth allowed a one-out single to Jim Gilliam, but there was no scoring. In the Cubs’ fourth, Billy Williams was hit by a Koufax pitch and Ron Santo followed with a two-run blast over the left-field screen to put Chicago ahead 2-1.

Over the next four innings Ellsworth surrendered just a single to Neal and a walk to Gilliam while Koufax allowed a two-out single to Zimmer in the fifth and a single to Barragan in the seventh, while adding four strikeouts which gave him a total of 10 whiffs after seven innings.

In the top of the eighth, Altman singled with two outs and went to second on Koufax’s wild pitch with Billy Williams batting, but Koufax struck out Williams to end the inning.

Sherry’s 251-foot home run down the oddly shaped (for baseball) Coliseum’s left-field foul line leading off the Dodgers eighth tied the game, 2-2. Neither team scored in the ninth inning, and it was on to extra innings. Don Elston had replaced Ellsworth on the mound in the bottom of the ninth inning; Koufax continued to toe the rubber for the Dodgers.

Koufax struck out Altman and Williams in the 11th inning and got Santo to pop up to second. The Dodgers’ 11th inning began with a single by Gilliam, who was sacrificed to second base by Moon. Norm Larker pinch-hit for Hodges and was intentionally walked. Fairly singled to right field, and Altman’s strong throw home nailed Gilliam trying to score. Larker and Fairly each moved up a base on the throw. After Duke Snider was intentionally walked, Elston retired Neal on a fly ball to right, ending the Dodgers’s threat.

Al Heist pinch-hit for Elston with one out in the Cubs’ 12th; Koufax struck him out, his 15th whiff of the game. Catcher Sherry pounced on a ball hit in front of the plate by Dick Bertell and threw him out at first, ending the half-inning. New Cubs pitcher Barney Schultz walked the Dodgers’ Maury Wills with two outs in the Los Angeles 12th, but Wills was caught stealing. In the top of the 13th inning, the Cubs got two walks (one intentionally, but couldn’t get a run across.

Schultz struck out Gilliam leading off the Dodgers 13th. The next batter, Moon, singled to center field and reached second on Larker’s grounder back to the pitcher. With Fairly batting, a passed ball by catcher Bertell allowed Moon to advance to third base. Then, on a 1-and-2 count, Fairly grounded a single past Schultz into center field, giving the Dodgers a walk-off 3-2 victory.

Fairly led the Dodgers’ offense with three hits with Sherry and Gilliam each adding a couple of hits. In gaining his 18th win of the season Koufax allowed seven hits while walking three and striking out 15.

Over the next six seasons Koufax put together one of the greatest stretches of pitching in major-league history. During that time, he had a record of 129 wins and 47 losses with a 2.19 earned-run average. He pitched four no-hitters, including a perfect game, and won three Cy Young Awards and one Most Valuable Player Award.

Koufax’s triumph had not been over more than a minute before workmen had pried the pitching slab loose from the mound in the first step toward dismantling the baseball fixtures that had transformed the Coliseum, designed for watching football, into a baseball venue.4

The Coliseum drew two very large crowds for exhibition games. Though he never played for the Dodgers in Los Angeles, on May 7, 1959, there was a benefit game held for Roy Campanella, who had been paralyzed in an automobile accident January 28, 1958. The Yankees defeated the Dodgers, 6-2, with 93,103 fans in attendance. On March 29, 2008, the Los Angeles Dodgers hosted the Boston Red Sox in an exhibition game, drawing a reported 115,300 fans who saw the Red Sox win, 7-4.5

The Dodgers finished the 1961 season 89-65, in second place, four games behind the pennant-winning Cincinnati Reds. As for their record at the Los Angeles Coliseum, they were 39-38 in 1958, 46-32 in 1959, 42-35 in 1960, and 45-32 for an overall record of 172 wins and 137 losses.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources listed below, the author used data from Baseball Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN196109200.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1961/B09200LAN1961.htm

Photo credit: Sandy Koufax, Trading Card Database.

NOTES

1 “Esther Due Thursday,” New York Daily News, September 20, 1961: 1.

2 Frank Finch, “Dodgers Beat Cubs in 13th, 3-2,” Los Angeles Times, September 21, 1961: C1.

3 Finch.

4 “Dodgers Beat Cubs in 13, 3-2,” Chicago Tribune, September 21, 1961: D1.

5 Associated Press, “Red Sox Beat Dodgers 7-4 Before 115,300 Fans at Los Angeles Coliseum,” foxnews.com, March 30, 2008. https://www.foxnews.com/story/red-sox-beat-dodgers-7-4-before-115300-fans-at-los-angeles-coliseum.