In 1975, for example, there were 49 extra inning homers hit. On two occasions the teams with the extra inning blasts lost; on two other occasions, both teams had extra inning roundtrippers.

Home runs have been hit in all extra innings up to and including the 22nd. On June 24, 1962, Jack Reed, a third-string outfielder with the Yankees, hit his only major league homer off Phil Regan of the Tigers in the 22nd inning, giving Jim Bouton a 9-7 win. On July 17, 1914, Babe Adams of the Pirates set a record by not giving up a walk in a 21-inning game; however, he did give up a 2-run homer to Larry Doyle of the Giants and lost 3-1.

You’d think a roundtripper in the 20th would be a game winner. Tommy Harper hit one for Seattle on July 27, 1969, but Joe Lahoud of the Red Sox hit one with a man on in the bottom of the 20th and they won.

Of the several other late, late home runs, two should be mentioned because they were hit by players usually identified as pitchers. On August 17, 1882, Providence beat Detroit 1-0 in 18 innings when Charles Radbourn, playing rightfield that day, hit one out of the park. Monte Ward pitched the distance and won. On May 24, 1918, Smoky Joe Wood, also playing the outfield, hit one in the 19th to give the Indians a 3-2 win over George Mogridge of the Yankees.

When it came to hitting grand slam home runs in extra innings, no player hit one later than the 16th. The only one to do that was Clyde Voilmer of the Red Sox in 1951. His was one of 73 grand slam homers hit in overtime since 1900. Four players did it twice: Cy Williams, Roger Mans, Tommy Davis, and Cookie Rojas. Here is the full list since 1900:

*Assisted by David Ross

Players Hitting Extra-Inning Grand Slams 

While some players scored a flock of overtime runs with grand slam homers, other players divided up the honors. On May 2, 1964, the Minnesota Twins bombed the Kansas City A’s into submission with 4 consecutive homers in the 11th inning. They were hit by Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall, and Harmon Killebrew. The pitching victim of the first three was Dan Pfister. On June 8, 1965, the Braves got into the act in the 10th inning with 4 homers against the Cubs. In that inning, Joe Torre, Eddie Mathews, Henry Aaron, and Gene Oliver delivered the goods.

There have been three occasions when players hit 2 extra inning homers in the same game. In 1943, Vern Stephens connected for the Browns in the 11th and 13th innings; in 1963 when Willie Kirkland was with the Indians, he hit homers in the 11th and 19th innings; and in 1966, Art Shamsky, inserted as a sub for the Reds in mid-game, hit one in the 10th and another in the 11th, to give him 3 for the game.

When it came to hitting fourbaggers in extra innings, the real star was Willie Mays. He connected in overtime in 22 games. His first was a 3-run shot in 1951 when Willie was a 20-year-old rookie and his victim was 42-year-old Dutch Leonard. In June 1967 Willie walloped a grand slam in the 10th at the Astrodome. His most memorable was a swat in the 16th off Warren Spahn in July 1963, which gave Juan Marichal a 1-0 squeaker over the Braves’ great southpaw.

Here is a rundown on all 22 of Mays’ overtime homers.  

Mays has a wide margin over other home run leaders when games go beyond the regulation 9. In comparison, Babe Ruth hit 16 in overtime, and Frank Robinson 15. Robby connected either in the 10th or 11th, while Mays was the only player to hit in each overtime frame up to the 16th. Here is a breakdown of the leaders.

Batters Hitting Most Homers in Extra Innings

*Leader

Pitchers have also joined in the act of hitting extra inning home runs. It has been done 37 times since 1900, occurring all the way up to the 14th inning. Two pitchers did it twice: In 1911 Jack Coombs connected once in the 11th inning and once in the 14th. Dizzy Dean put his bat where his mouth was and hit 10th inning homers in both 1934 and 1935.

When it comes to extra inning homers, however, pitchers are usually viewed from the other end of the delivery system. What pitcher served up the most extra inning homers? Was it Robin Roberts, who gave up a record total of 502 homers in his career? Or Warren Spahn? Or Early Wynn? It was none of these. Roberts gave up only 7 overtime homers; Spahn 6, and Wynn 5. In the first place, Roberts and Wynn were starting hurlers who did not pitch much in overtime. Spahn did pitch more in extra innings, but seemed to get stronger as he went along.

Who then pitches in extra innings? Relief hurlers, of course! The pitcher most frequently victimized by extra inning homers was El Roy Face. He is way out ahead of other pitchers with 21 overtime booboos. Here is the rundown on Face.

Although Willie Mays hit the most extra inning homers, 22, and El Roy Face gave up the most, 21, and they played against each other for 15 years, Willie never connected in overtime off the forkball ace of the Pirates.

Ranking some distance behind Face in giving up boundary belts in extra frames were Hoyt Wilhelm, Lindy McDaniel, Johnny Sam, and Dick Radatz. Radatz is the surprise, giving up 12 extra inning roundtrippers in his short career. Sam split his career as a starter and reliever. The only full-time starter on the list is Gaylord Perry, and he pitches more extra innings than any of the current starters.

Here is a breakdown of those pitchers who have given up the most home runs in extra innings.

While the 7-homer trick was turned as far back as 1886, the 1939 Yankees were the first team to have 8 home runs in one game. On June 28, 1939, Joe DiMaggio and Babe Dahlgren connected twice in the first game of a doubleheader and 4 other players hit one apiece. The Yankees hit 5 more homers in the 2nd game (scoring 23-2 and 10-0 wins) to set the doubleheader record of 13 homers. The Yankees, in the first game, became one of the 6 teams to hit as many as 7 homers and score 20 or more runs in the same game. The 8-homer feat has been performed 4 more times since then, by the 1953 Milwaukee Braves (3 homers by Jim Pendleton), the 1956 Cincinnati Reds (3 homers by Bob Thurman), the 1961 San Francisco Giants (4 homers by Willie Mays), and the 1963 Minnesota Twins.

Several different player-patterns are noticeable in the big team-homer games. The Baltimore 1967 game is the only major league game where 7 teammates homered in the same game – and each player hit exactly one! Ironically, Carl Yastrzeinski of the opposition Red Sox hit 2 home runs! A contrasting situation is the Pittsburgh 1947 game where Ralph Kiner hit 3 home runs and Hank Greenberg and Billy Cox had 2 apiece. Whitey Kurowski of the St. Louis Cardinals had 2 homers himself in the game to make this the only instance in major league history where 4 players hit 2 or more homers in the same ball game.

In 6 of the 28 games listed, a pitcher connected — the last being Ferguson Jenkins of the Chicago Cubs in 1970. Jerry Denny, a 19th century third-baseman, hit the only home run for the opposing team in each of the first two 7-homer salvos. Walt Dropo, an American League first-baseman in the l950’s, connected in 2 successive American League 7-homer games – for the 1950 Boston Red Sox and the 1955 Chicago White Sox. The two teams each scored 29 runs in the games — to share the modern major league record. Yogi Berra drew the short straw for the Yankees in 1961, when Mantle, Maris, and Skowron each had 2 homers in a game and poor Yogi had only one!

In another oddity, the 7-homer trick has never been turned in September or October, but no fewer than 10 of the 28 games have been played in June! The Washington Senators’ 7 homers in a 10-inning game vs. the White Sox in Chicago in May 1949 marked the only extra-inning game where a team reached the 7-homer mark. The Senators were helped by an artificially shortened fence installed by White Sox General Manager Frank Lane at the start of the1949 season. Two days after the Senators’ splurge, the fence was torn down, but not before White Sox third-baseman Floyd Baker looped one over the fence for his only major league homer in over 2000 lifetime at-bats!

A rule was then passed prohibiting the changing of home run distances during the season. As a result, the Pittsburgh Pirates were not permitted to remove their shortened fence when they traded Ralph Kiner to the Chicago Cubs in June 1953. The fence remained up in August 1953 to help the Milwaukee Braves to their 8-homer game, which was the first such game in National League history. The Pirates’ 7-homer tilt in 1947 (described earlier) had also been aided by that special fence (called “Greenberg Gardens” or “Kiner’s Korner”). New York’s old Polo Grounds and Chicago’s Wrigley Field each witnessed 3 ML games where a team had 7 or more homers, and Philadelphia’s old Shibe Park (later called “Connie Mack Stadium”) and Boston’s Fenway Park each witnessed 3 AL home run explosions of this sort.

The Giants hit 7 or more homers in one game the most times with 6 such games — with the last of those big games taking place after the team had moved to San Francisco. The 1939 Giants were the only team to do it twice in one season, with a pitcher connecting in each game. The Yankees were the only AL team with 3 such games – and they had different personnel each time (1932, 1939, and 1961). Surprisingly, the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950’s, one of baseball’s most authentic power-hitting teams, never hit as many as 7 homers in one game. In fact, the only time that the Brooklyn club hit 6 homers in one game was the night of June 1, 1955 at Ebbets Field vs. the Milwaukee Braves. Duke Snider hit 3 of the homers (before doubling off the fence in a narrow miss of #4) and Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, and Jackie Robinson had 1 apiece to lead the Brooks to an 11-8 victory.

The accompanying table lists the 28 games where a major league team hit 7 or 8 homers in one game. Included are the date, the opposing teams, the score, and all home runs hit by both teams.

NATIONAL LEAGUE TEAMS HITTING 8 HOMERS IN ONE GAME

AMERICAN LEAGUE TEAMS HITTING 8 HOMERS IN ONE GAME

Metropolitan Stadium: Memorable Games at Minnesota’s Diamond on the Prairie
Edited by Stew Thornley
Associate editors Len Levin, Bill Nowlin, and Carl Riechers
Publication Date: March 28, 2022
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-970159-67-7, $9.99
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-970159-68-4, $34.95
8.5″ x 11″, 287 pages

Metropolitan Stadium was right on time. It wasn’t built too early, using a cantilever construction that eliminated the need for posts between decks. It wasn’t built too late, staying ahead of the much-maligned “cookie cutter” multi-purpose stadiums of the 1960s.

The Met followed the trend of other post-war stadiums, sprouting in open areas that were well-served by highways and surrounded by plenty of parking. It became apparent to Minneapolis business and civic leaders that a new stadium would be needed to join the other cities luring major-league baseball to their areas. By the time the Met opened in 1956, the first wave of shifting teams had passed, and Minnesota was snubbed by the New York Giants. The parent team of the minor-league Minneapolis Millers — the stadium’s first tenant — the Giants bypassed Minnesota by switching coasts completely. Eventually, expansion came to the majors and with it the relocation of the Washington Senators, rechristened the Twins.

Ultimately, Met Stadium served the Millers for five years and the Minnesota Twins for 21. In this book, 45 different authors chronicle the significant, memorable, and unusual games that took place in a ballpark that grew out of a cornfield in a southern suburb of Minneapolis. Outdoor baseball in Minnesota often meant postponements and delays because of rain, snow, and even a tornado. (A list of postponements of games for the Millers and Twins is one of the features in this book.) But delays were caused by other reasons, including a bomb threat and a drunk fan climbing the foul pole, and those games are also covered in these pages, as well as memorable performances on the field from players such as Jim Kaat, Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, and Bert Blyleven, as well as Cesar Tovar, Camilo Pascual, Tony Oliva, Bob Allison and many more.

• E-book: Click here to download the e-book version of Metropolitan Stadium for $9.99 from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB/Kindle formats.
• Paperback: Get the paperback edition of Metropolitan Stadium from the SABR Store ($34.95 includes shipping/tax; delivery via Kindle Direct Publishing can take up to 4-6 weeks.)

SABR Biography

 Harmon Killebrew takes a swing at Metropolitan Stadium (Courtesy of Howard Thornley)

Click here to read the SABR biography of Metropolitan Stadium at the Baseball Biography Project

Game Recaps

Contributors: Rich Arpi, Nathan Bierma, Thomas J. Brown Jr., Frederick “Rick” Bush, Ralph Caola, Alan Cohen, Richard Cuicchi, Greg Erion, T.S. Flynn, Brian Frank, Gordon J. Gattie, Steve Ginader, Gene Gomes, Bruce Harris, Tom Hawthorn, Paul Hofmann, Mike Huber, Sarah Johnson, Norm King, Dave Lande, Len Levin, Dan Levitt, Mike Lynch, Jim McKernon, Tom Merrick, Dave Mona, Chad Moody, Bill Nowlin, Joe O’Connell, Tim Otto, J.G. Preston, Carl Riechers, Joel Rippel, Bill Schneider, Peter Seidel, Andrew Sharp, Doug Skipper, Steve Smith, Mark S. Sternman, Bob Tholkes, Stew Thornley, Bob Webster, Steve West, Gregory H. Wolf, Bob Wood, Brian Wright, and Dana Yost.

Up the Hudson a few miles, at West Point, relatives and friends of the 1870 Class were grateful that the planning committee, in arranging for tomorrow’s graduation ceremony had selected a shady, grassy plot rather than the customary treeless parade ground. Today the cadets would stage their last drill.

But for most Manhattanites, those who were sports-minded at least, the doings up the Hudson were of little moment. The big story for them was the battle scheduled to take place in the city across the East River, sleepy old Brooklyn.

It was a glorious day for a game of ball and Patrolman Wilson, of the 28th Precinct, was unquestionably the only baseball addict in the bustling city of a million and a half souls whose blood didn’t race through his veins at the thought of the big doings that lay ahead. Officer Wilson had other thoughts on his mind, for last night, according to James Gordon Bennett’s Herald, a cowardly sneak thief, entering his bedroom at 111 Prince Street, stole his pants, his shield (No. 1,530), his fire alarm key (No.6), and $7 in cash. Wilson, who had intended going to the ball game (his off-duty day), was destined to spend the morning and most of the afternoon making out reports and attempting to regain his status symbols-along with his trousers. For the rest of New York’s ball fans, there was but one thing to do and that was to make tracks for the Capitoline Grounds in Brooklyn. The Cincinnati Red Stockings-the mighty Reds were in town and scheduled to cross bats with the once mighty Atlantics.

Nothing like the Red Stockings had ever happened to baseball before. Organized in 1869 as the first avowedly all-professional baseball club, they had proved a remarkable success on the field and become the greatest gate attraction the game had known.

When the English-born Harry Wright sat down with his club directors in the winter of 1868-69, he proposed to get the very best players in the country, many of whom were in the status of what was subsequently called semiprofessional players—those who shared in gate receipts but worked outside baseball for a living—and turn them into outright professionals, drawing regular salaries which would enable them to do nothing all summer except play baseball. But how much would it cost, the directors asked. Harry had it all figured out and, if he could get the players he wanted, he told them the payroll would come to $9300.

Top salary would go to Wright’s younger brother George, who in 1868 was playing with the Unions of Morrisania, a region of Westchester County then, since absorbed by the Bronx. George would go west for a wage of $1400, and they say he was worth every cent of it, inasmuch as he was the outstanding player of his day. Harry himself would draw $1200 for managing the club and playing the outfield (and managing the club entailed all the duties that are now delegated to the general manager, the manager, and the road secretary, as well as the scheduling of games).

From New Jersey came Doug Allison and Irish-born Andy Leonard; from New Hampshire, Charlie Sweasy, whose name through the years has been misspelled more ways than any other ballplayer’s including Carl Yastrzemski. Cal McVey hailed from Montrose County, Iowa, and, except for Cincinnatian Charley Gould, was the only midwesterner on the club. The other four regulars, the Wright brothers, Asa Brainard, and Fred Waterman, came from New York State. The locales of substitutes Hurley, Fowler, Bradford, and Taylor are not known.

Because Gould was the only Cincinnati native on the team there were some critics who insisted on calling it an “eclectic” nine (“all-star,” future generations would term it). These critics predicted some terrible things would come of such an arrangement, a team whose motivation was pecuniary rather than civic. (The same dire sentiments have more recently been directed toward George Steinbrenner’s “eclectic” nine.)

The Reds swept the baseball scene literally from coast to coast in 1869, defeating all comers and arousing such interest that by the spring of 1870 every city of any size had organized its own team of professionals to beat the Reds when they dared to come to town. From that point on there was no question as to which way baseball was going. Gone was the heyday of the amateur and semiprofessional teams, except as feeders for the play-for-pay game.

As the Reds invaded New York in 1870, they were riding a two-year winning streak of90 games. And only yesterday they’d trounced the Mutuals to make it 91.

The Capitoline, the first enclosed baseball grounds, lay between Nostrand Avenue on the west and Marcy Avenue on the east, and between Putnam Avenue on the north and Halsey Street on the south. It was located on part of a farm leased from the Lefferts family, who had owned the land since Revolutionary days, by Reuben s. Decker’s father. Reuben Decker it was who, along with H. A. Weed, built the stands in 1862. (Later, in 1879, the original farm was forced into physical oblivion as Jefferson Avenue and Hancock Street were cut through the ballpark by the city. Today this four-city-block area is part of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section, much in the news in recent years.)

Many years later Decker’s daughter recalled the 1870 scene for the writer.

Sheds and stables were located about half the length of the Putnam Avenue side, beginning at Nostrand Avenue. In front of these were permanent buildings housing the restaurant, bandstand, private rooms for the families of the proprietors, sitting rooms for the ladies on the second floor and, on the first floor, lockers and storage rooms for the baseball teams. In addition, bleachers for the accommodation of 5,000 persons were erected along the Nostrand Avenue and Halsey Street sides of the grounds. The entrance was on Nostrand about 200 feet south of Putnam.

The field was known formally as the “Capitoline Skating Lake and Base-Ball Ground.” In November the grounds were flooded from a city main at the corner of Haley and Nostrand and used for skating all winter, as well as baseball matches on ice featuring many of the stars of the field. Come spring, the water was drained off and the grounds turned over first to Phineas T. Barnum for his circus, and then prepared for the baseball season.

If you were a baseball fan in 1870 and lived in Manhattan you crossed the East River to Brooklyn on the ferry. Construction work on the Brooklyn Bridge had just started and wouldn’t be finished until 1883; indeed, so little progress had been made that, stare as you might while crossing the river, you could see nothing that indicated a bridge was being built.

In your horsecar, you then followed Fulton Street in a southerly direction through the heart of downtown Brooklyn (population 419,921, 1870 census), and turned eastward for a ramble through the countryside. The total distance from the ferry slip to the ball field was three and a quarter miles. You left the horsecar at the corner of Fulton and Nostrand and walked north a few hundred feet to the Capitoline.

One street west of Nostrand is Bedford Avenue, and if you had left the car at the corner and followed Bedford Avenue south exactly one mile you would have found yourself at the future site of another ballpark that figured large in baseball history—Ebbets Field.

On this second day of the Reds’ 1870 invasion of the metropolis the fans sensed the possibility of an Atlantic victory. They flowed toward the Capitoline from all directions, starting shortly after noon, until the field was engulfed with humanity. The grounds were jammed to capacity and many hundreds stood on the field itself, along both foul lines and behind the outfielders.

Harper’s Weekly estimated the crowd to be between 12,000 and 15,000 shoehorned into a park that could seat at best 5,000. Said the New York World: “Hundreds who could or would not produce the necessary fifty-cent stamp for admission [Harry Wright always insisted on that fee although twenty-five cents was the norm of the period] looked on through cracks in the fence or even climbed boldly to the top, while others were perched in the topmost limbs of the trees or on roofs of surrounding houses.”

The cause of this wellspring of optimism isn’t quite clear. Only the day before, the Red Stockings had mauled the Mutuals, 16 to 3. Yet on their previous visit to New York they had eked out a 4-2 win—an unprecedentedly low score for the time, at this level of play—over these same Mutuals—before moving on to clobber the Atlantics by 32-10. On comparative records, then, the visitors appeared likely to overwhelm the Brooklynites.

Add to this the fact that the Atlantics had already suffered defeat three times in 1870, due mostly to trouble within the ranks—trouble so acute that it was freely predicted that Dickey Pearce and other stars would not play in the game with the Reds. Tactless Bob Ferguson, captain of the Atlantics, was in the midst of a feud with the baseball writer of the New York Herald. A lively discussion between these worthies had ended with the writer charging the other with running off his best players by his insolence, and Ferguson countering with an offer to do some dental work on the scribe without benefit of a forceps.

As a result, the Herald man refused to cover the Atlantics-Cincinnati game, although he had reported the previous day’s Mutual match with a thousand word story. And so, while other papers gave the game of June 14 full coverage, the Herald man stayed at home and devoted just 200 words to a critique of the game and the unruly nature of the crowd. And his paper didn’t even print a box score of the greatest game of baseball played up until that time.

That the gamblers did not expect a home team win is shown by what the racing people call the morning line. Before the game, betting was 5-1 on the Red Stockings—and when Cincinnati moved ahead in the early innings, 3-0, the odds zoomed to 10-1 with few takers.

The Atlantics, however, had patched up their differences and their strongest team took the field, nattily attired in long dark blue trousers (with a light cord down the outer seams), shirts with the initial letter of the club name embroidered on the chest, and light bufflinen caps. The Reds wore their customary knickerbockers and bright red stockings. They had an Old English “c” on their shirt panels. During the day George Zettlein, the hard-working pitcher of the home team, deviated somewhat from the uniform of the day: he worked much of the game stripped to a silk undershirt and his uniform pants.

Every newspaper commented on the boisterous and unruly conduct of the spectators. “As the Red Stockings entered the field,” said one paper, “a few of the toughs in the assemblage attempted to hiss them, but at once a round of applause greeted the strangers. . . . ” Another reported that “the visitors were annoyed throughout by catcalls, hisses, and jeers, their misplays being applauded, and their finest efforts received in silence.”

As the opponents squared off, the batting orders looked like this:

CINCINNATI: George Wright, ss; Charley Gould, 1b; Fred Waterman, 3b; Doug Allison, c; Harry Wright, cf; Andy Leonard, lf; Asa Brainard, p; Charlie Sweasy, 2b; Cal McVey, rf

ATLANTICS: Dickey Pearce, ss; Charles Smith, 3b; Joe Start, 1b; John Chapman, lf; Bob Ferguson, c; George Zettlein, p; George Hall, cf; Lipman Pike, 2b; Dan McDonald, rf

The Reds lost no time once the game got under way, George Wright singling down the left field line and after the next two men were retired, scoring on singles by Allison and Harry Wright. On the latter’s blow there was an error by McDonald, and Allison also crossed the plate. The Reds increased their lead to 3-0 in the third with hits by George Wright and Waterman proving the decisive blows. Dickey Pearce ended the threat of a big inning by coming up with Allison’s sharp grounder and starting a fast double play.

The Atlantics, meanwhile, could do nothing with Brainard’s delivery. Pitchers in 1870 worked from a distance of only forty-five feet from home plate but were restricted by the rules to an underhand “pitch.” The wrist snap needed to throw curveballs would not be legalized until 1872, so pitchers had to rely on nothing except speed and a change of pace.

Cincinnati was at its defensive best this day. Henry Chadwick, baseball editor of the New York Clipper, was fascinated by the style in which the fielders moved about as the different batsmen took their turns. A model display, he thought. “In fact,” said Henry, “Harry Wright would at one time be seen playing almost back of second base, while Sweasy would be nearly a first base fielder, and so they changed about, coming in nearer or going out further,just as they judged the balls would be sent to the different batters. It is in the lack of judgment like this that our outfielders show their inferiority to the skillfully trained Red Stockings.”

Zettlein, greatest fastballer of his day, was the first line of defense for the Atlantics, who were noted more for their batting prowess than for their fielding finesse. The Reds had never seen Zettlein before, but fastball pitching didn’t usually bother them. The previous year, when the Reds clobbered the Atlantics, they pounded Tom Pratt, a fastballer, from pillar to post.

Singles by Pearce, Start, and Ferguson and a two-base overthrow by Waterman gave the home team lads two runs in the fourth. In the sixth, the Atlantics’ slashing drives handcuffed Sweasy and Waterman to account for two more, sending them into the lead for the first time.

Cincinnati had not scored in three innings, but as soon as they found themselves trailing they resolutely hammered out a new lead. Brainard, Sweasy, and the irrepressible George Wright pounded out clean hits in the seventh, the younger Wright’s hit driving in his fellow Reds.

But the boys in blue weren’t licked yet. With one out in the eighth, Smith tripled to deep left field and Start (first player to earn the nickname “Old Reliable”) clouted viciously down the right field line. Cal McVey, traveling at top speed, made a brilliant catch and threw quickly to the plate. Smith, holding third until the catch, tried to score but McVey’s spectacular throw had him beaten. And then, in this most crucial moment, Allison muffed the ball. The crowd really let loose as Smith crossed the plate with the tying run.

Only three men faced each pitcher in the ninth. Pike closed out the Reds by taking George Wright’s hot grounder and converting it into a double play, and Andy Leonard retaliated in the last half with a great catch of Hall’s line drive.

Entered at this point the rules book. Several of the Atlantics’ directors, reasoning that a tie with the invincible Red Stockings was better than a probable loss, even an extra-inning one, instructed Captain Ferguson to take his team off the field. Exactly opposite reasons prompted Cincinnati to play it out; Harry Wright was so ordered by president Aaron B. Champion.

As the Brooklyn players began to “stack bats” preparatory to leaving the field, the crowd, uproarious all afternoon, swarmed over the field. President Champion clambered onto a bench and announced that the Reds would claim the game by forfeiture if Brooklyn refused to continue. He pointed to Rule 5, which plainly stated that in case of a tie score at the end of nine innings the game should be continued “unless it be mutually agreed upon by the captains of the two nines to consider the game as drawn.”

And now Father Chadwick got into the action. Henry was the supreme expert on the rules and the author of several of them. Year after year he served on the rules committee, where his voice was the most respected of all. “How about it, Henry?” asked Harry Wright, and Chadwick agreed that the visitors were right. It was the first time the Reds had been forced into extra innings.

Some of the Atlantics had already reached the clubhouse but they were hastily recalled, the field was cleared with some difficulty, and the game resumed.

Cincinnati was easy in the tenth and the Atlantics were turned back once more by George Wright. With one out McDonald and Pearce singled in succession. Smith lifted a high fly to shortstop; Wright, playing the ball so as to catch it close to the ground, intentionally dropped it, thus forcing the runners to leave their bases. This, of course, was the play whose abuse in later days led to the adoption of the infield fly rule to protect the helpless baserunners. At that time, there being no infield fly rule, Wright scooped up the ball and started an easy double play.

Years later Albert G. Spalding, writing the first large-scale baseball history, jumped to the conclusion that this was the origin of the trapped-ball play, and present day writers relied upon Spalding for the dope. Spalding, however, was wrong: When the Reds beat the Mutuals in 1869, Fred Waterman, Cincinnati third sacker, pulled an identical play after the New Yorkers had tied the score in the ninth inning, and there’s no reason to imagine that this was the first instance of the trapped-ball maneuver.

The Red Stockings cast deep gloom over Flatbush by tallying twice in the eleventh, apparently sewing up the old ball game. After Leonard was retired, Brainard doubled to right center. Sweasy lifted one in the same direction and Hall was about to make the catch when McDonald, cruising over from right field, ran into him. McVey also hit into Hall’s territory, but this time his mates gave him plenty of room and he grabbed it, Brainard scoring easily from third after the catch. The poisonous George Wright then singled to score the second run of the inning, making the score 7-5.

Charley Smith, who had batted into the spectacular double play to end the tenth inning, led off for the home team in its last chance at bat. If that sounds a bit peculiar, take a look at the 1870 rules. Rule Three, Section 2, specified that: “Players must strike in regular rotation, and, after the first inning is played, the turn commences with the player who stands on the list next to the one who was the third player out.”

Now, while Smith had hit into the double play in the tenth he had not been put out: McDonald and Pearce were the victims of Wright’s skullduggery. Pearce was the third player put out, and Smith followed Pearce in the batting order. An odd consequence of this rule was that Pearce, the Atlantics’ lead-off man, batted only five times while the next three men-Smith, Start, and Chapman each batted six times.

Smith opened the eleventh by punching a sharp single toward left field. He went all the way to third on a wild pitch. The crowd really came alive when Joe Start slammed a drive to deep right field that landed in the fringe of the crowd. McVey was on the ball in an instant, but as he bent to pick it up a spectator leaped on his back. By the time McVey could fight his way clear and hurl the ball to the infield, Start, representing the tying. run, was on third and the complexion of the game had changed.

Now, that’s the way the story has always been told. Everyone who has attempted to recount the story of the great game of 1870 has reported the naughty behavior of the Brooklyn crowd and every sportsman-reader has, presumably, responded with “tch! tch!” and rolled his eyes piously heavenward. Not so, said McVey, shortly before he died. Cal told a newsman that he remembered the play very well and that no one climbed his back. He said that he encountered some difficulty in digging the ball out of the crowd, but that no one deliberately interfered with him.

At any rate, Chapman, the next batter, hit hard to third, but Waterman handled the ball well, held Start at third, and threw the batter out.

If the Atlantics had learned anything at all it was that George Wright could do nothing wrong today. And so, with the object of keeping the ball out of Wright’s grasp, Ferguson, a right-handed batter, went up to the plate to hit left-handed. This seems to be the first recorded instance of a batter switching, although the New York Clipper, leading sports weekly of the day, suggested it was not the first time he had done so, remarking that Ferguson “can use one hand as well as the other.”

That stratagem worked. Ferguson ripped the ball past the second baseman and scored Start with the tying run.

Zettlein kept the rally alive with a torrid smash to Gould’s right. The first baseman couldn’t handle it, and when he did recover the ball he flung it to second in a desperate attempt to force Ferguson. The ball, however, was in the dirt and Sweasy missed it completely, the sphere scooting into the outfield. As Ferguson stretched his legs and raced for home base all Brooklyn went mad.

The impossible had happened! Cincinnati had lost!

A Pennant for the Twin Cities: The 1965 Minnesota Twins
Edited by Gregory H. Wolf
Associate Editors: James Forr, Len Levin, and Bill Nowlin
Publication Date: October 14, 2015
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-943816-08-8, $9.99
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-943816-09-5, $39.95
8.5″ x 11″, 404 pages

This SABR Digital Library volume celebrates the 1965 Minnesota Twins, who captured the American League pennant in just their fifth season in the Twin Cities. Led by an All-Star cast, from Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Zoilo Versalles, and Mudcat Grant to Bob Allison, Jim Kaat, Earl Battey, and Jim Perry, the Twins won 102 games, but bowed to the Los Angeles Dodgers and a herculean performance by Sandy Koufax in Game Seven of the World Series.

Included are the life and baseball stories of all 35 roster players, the coaches, and manager of the 1965 Twins, plus team owner Calvin Griffith; broadcasters Herb Carneal, Halsey Hall, and Ray Scott; and sportswriters Dick Gordon and Max Nichols. A comprehensive summary of the regular season, as well as meticulous essays highlighting important games and the All-Star Game played in Minnesota, an overview of the 1965 Dodgers, and thorough summaries the World Series games are included. Chapters about how the Griffith family built its pennant winner, the fate of the Twins after 1965, Metropolitan Stadium, and the 1965 season “by the numbers” round out the book.

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• E-book: Click here to purchase the e-book version of A Pennant for the Twin Cities: The 1965 Minnesota Twins for $9.99 from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB/Kindle formats.
• Paperback: Get the paperback edition of A Pennant for the Twin Cities: The 1965 Minnesota Twins from the SABR Store ($44.95 includes shipping/tax).

Below: Find player biographies and memorable game stories from A Pennant for the Twin Cities:

Biographies

Game Stories

Contributors include Marc Z. Aaron, Mark Armour, Peter C. Bjarkman, Alan Cohen, Tracy J.R. Collins, Rory Costello, Jeff English, Greg Erion, Dan Fields, Jan Finkel, Chip Greene, Kevin Hennessy, Jack Herrman, Jimmy Keenan, Norm King, Ben Klein, Patrick Lethert, Daniel R. Levitt, Bill Nowlin, J.G. Preston, Joel Rippel, Frank Russo, Rick Schabowski, Steve Schmitt, Doug Skipper, John Swol, Stew Thornley, Tom Tomashek, Joseph Wancho, Steve West, and Gregory H. Wolf.

The first home run was hit by Art Wilson of the Chicago Whales in a Federal League game on April 23, 1914. Wilson connected off Kansas City’s George (Chief) Wilson, sending the ball over the left-field wall with a man aboard in the second inning. The Whales went on to win 9-1 before 15,000 fans. It was the inaugural game at the Clark and Addison ballpark, which was constructed at a cost of $250,000 by Charles 0. Weeghman as a home for his Whales.

Two years later the Federal League folded and Weeghman headed a 10-man syndicate that purchased the Chicago Cubs. Gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. was a member of Weeghman’s group.

The Cubs moved from their West Side Grounds, located at Congress and Loomis, for their gala opener on April 20, 1916 at Weeghman Park. The team, managed by Joe Tinker, beat the Cincinnati Reds 7-6 on an 11th-inning single by Vic Saier. But the first National League homer at the North Side park was hit that day by the Reds’ John Woolf Beall with none on in the sixth inning off Claude Hendrix.

For the record, the first official Cub homer was hit by little Max Flack, who knocked the ball over the right-field wall off the Reds’ Gene Dale in the sixth inning with one on base on April 22, 1916.

Weeghman resigned after the 1918 season and Wrigley became the majority stockholder. Weegham Park then became known as Cubs Park. It wasn’t until 1926 that the stadium was renamed Wrigley Field.

Over the years, the most productive homer slugger at Wrigley Field was Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, with 290. Rounding out the top are Billy Williams, 241; Ron Santo, 212; Hank Sauer, 118; Gabby Hartnett, 115; Hack Wilson, 109; Bill Nicholson, 91; Rick Monday, 68; Andy Pafko, 67, and Jim Hickman, 65.

The longest homer at Wrigley Field? Roberto Clemente hit one to the left of the scoreboard, Bill Nicholson just off to the right, while Sauer and Randy Jackson both hit buildings across the street on Waveland Avenue. But our vote goes to Dave Kingman when he was a member of the New York Mets on April 14,1976.

It was the second game of the season and the Mets were leading the Cubs 3-2 with one on and two out in the top of the sixth inning. Cub manager Jim Marshall strolled to the mound to discuss strategy with reliever Tom Dettore. There was a 20-miles-per-hour jet stream blowing from the plate to left-center and first base was unoccupied with Kingman at bat.

Dettore insisted on pitching to Kingman. Marshall gave his OK, patted the hurler on the rump and departed for the dugout. Dettore worked the count to a ball and a strike. The next pitch was a fast ball. It exploded off Kingman’s bat and soared high into the wind. There was no question about it leaving the ballpark.

The usual gang of kids was waiting outside with gloves poised. But the ball sailed over their heads. They turned and started running north on Kenmore Avenue. The ball struck the porch of the third house from the Waveland Avenue corner and was caught on the rebound by Richard Keiber.

How far did the ball travel? Some say 600 feet. The Cubs went on to win 6-5, but Kingman’s king-sized blow took center stage. Many agreed it was the longest homer ever hit at Wrigley Field. Others say if Kingman could have straightened it out, the ball would’ve hit the scoreboard.

No. Nobody ever homered off the present-day scoreboard. But golfer Sam Snead once hit one over it. He teed off from home plate and sent a golf ball over the scoreboard moments before the Cubs’ 1951 season opener. While there is much debate over the longest homer, there is little doubt about the shortest. It was hit by Rocky Nelson of the St. Louis Cardinals on April 30, 1949. The ball traveled about 220 feet and was dubbed the “inside-the-glove-homer.”

The Cubs were leading the Cardinals 3-2 with two out and one on in the top of the ninth inning when pinch-hitter Nelson strode to the plate, facing Bob Rush. Rocky hit a sinking liner to short left center. Center fielder Andy Pafko ran in, dived for the ball and made a game-saving catch. The Cubs won.. . but wait.

Umpire Al Barlick, standing near second base, ruled that Pafko had trapped the ball. Andy came running in, holding the ball aloft in triumph, while the Cardinal runners raced around the bases.

Pafko then looked at Barlick in disbelief and started to argue. It wasn’t until Nelson was a few steps from home plate that Pafko threw the ball. Nelson was safe and the Cardinals won 4-3 on the shortest homer in Wrigley Field history.

Of the 19 World Series homers (six by the Cubs), none could equal Ruth’s “called shot” in the fifth inning of the third game of the 1932 classic. Ruth had already hit a three-run homer for the New York Yankees in the first inning when he stepped to the plate to face Charlie Root. The Cub bench jockeys were riding the Babe and that made him fume. With one strike on him, Ruth yelled to the Cub dugout that he was going to belt a homer. Root then fired another strike and the Cub players increased their heckling.

Ruth then pointed his bat toward the center-field bleachers, letting them know what he had in mind. Root wound up and delivered and Ruth connected. He sent the ball sailing high and far to the spot he had designated for one of the most dramatic homers in World Series history.

The Cubs’ most dramatic homer was hit by Hartnett on September 28, 1938. It was the famous “homer in the gloamin” against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates led the Cubs by a game-and-a-half when they opened a crucial three-game series at Wrigley Field.

In the first game, manager Hartnett went with sore-armed Dizzy Dean and he escaped with a 2-1 victory, cutting Pittsburgh’s lead to a half-game. The following day, the skies were cloudy and gray. And the outlook was gloomy as the Pirates led 3-1 after six innings and 5-3 after 7½. But the Cubs put two runs across to tie the score 5-5 after eight innings. It was growing so dark that the umpires had agreed to call the game after the Cubs had batted in the ninth. Burly Pirate reliever Mace Brown retired the first two Cubs. Hartnett was the next batter.

Brown whipped home two quick strikes and was gloating. Brown, figuring Hartnett couldn’t hit what he couldn’t see, wound up and let loose with a fastball. The pitch wasn’t seen by many, but it was heard as Hartnett rocketed the ball into the left-field bleachers for a 6-5 Cub victory.

Gabby had to fight his way around the bases and was greeted by hundreds at home plate. The Pirates were done, and the Cubs went on to clinch the 1938 pennant.

The new generation of Cub fans, however, rate Banks’ 500th homer over Hartnett’s as the most dramatic. On Saturday, May 9, 1970, Banks hit his 499th homer. That set the countdown for No. 500. The following day, a crowd of 40,000 jammed Wrigley Field to see Mr. Cub experience his magic moment against the Reds.

In his first at bat, Banks received a standing ovation. He responded by lining the ball off the top of the ivy vines in left field. Banks started churning the bases. He rounded third, but that was as far as his 39-year old legs would take him. He puffed back to third base as the ball was relayed home. He had to settle for a triple.

On Monday, Banks remained a triple threat with another three-bagger. And Tuesday hardly seemed like a day for heroics. A fog rolled in and out and was replaced by a morning downpour. The skies were murky and it was damp, but the show went on against the Atlanta Braves. This time there was only a smattering of applause from the slim crowd of 5,264 as Banks faced the Braves’ Pat Jarvis in the second inning.

With the count one-and-one, Jarvis delivered a fastball, chest high and a bit inside-and Banks swung. The ball was hit deep, but had a low trajectory. Would it clear the 12-foot high fence? Left fielder Rico Carty went back, back-and then stopped. The ball landed in the first row of the bleachers. Banks ran as fast as he could to first base before he stole a glance, heard the crowd noise and then broke into his familiar home run trot. He doffed his cap as he crossed home plate, and repeated his act as he headed towards the Cub dugout. Play was halted as the ball was retrieved and presented to Banks.

And, finally, here’s one for trivia buffs. In which major league ballpark did Lou Gehrig hit his first homer? Yankee Stadium? Guess again.

On June 26, 1920, Lane Technical High School of Chicago was playing the High School of Commerce from New York for the inter-city baseball championship at Wrigley Field.

The score was 8-8 and Commerce had the bases loaded in the eighth inning, when Gehrig, a high school junior, stepped up and hit the first ball pitched over the right-field fence for a 12-8 victory.

Although it wasn’t one of the official 6,905 Wrigley Field homers, it was a memorable one.

PLAYERS WITH 20 OR MORE HOME RUNS AT WRIGLEY FIELD
(as Cub player or opponent; stats through 1978)

WRIGLEY FIELD HOME RUN FACTS (1914-1978)

• Total homers-6,905
• Total Homers by Cubs-3,427
• Total homers by Cubs opponents-3,396
• Total homers by Federal League teams-82
• World Series homers-19 (6 by Cubs, 13 by Cubs opponents)
• All-Star Game homers-5 (0 by Cubs, 2 by NL; 3 by AL opponents)
• Most homers in one season-201 in 1970 (Cubs 109, opponents 92)
• Most homers in one season by Cubs-109 in 1970.
• Most homers in one season by Cubs opponents-100 in 1966
• Most homers by a Cub lifetime-Ernie Banks 290
• Most homers by a Cub opponent lifetime-Willie Mays 54
• Most homers by a Cub in one season-Hack Wilson, 33 in 1930
• Most homers by a Cub opponent in one season-7
• Gene Oliver, St. Louis, 1965
• Johnny Callison, Philadelphia, 1965
• Mike Schmidt, Philadelphia, 1976 (4 in 1 game)

All-Time Cub Team

• Ernie Banks, 120   1B
• Rogers Hornsby, 29   2B
• Ernie Banks, 170   SS
• Ron Santo, 212 3B
• Billy Williams, 241   OF
• Hank Sauer, 114 OF
• Hack Wilson, 105   OF
• Gabby Hartnett, 115 C

All-Time Opponent Team

• Willie Stargell, 28
• Rogers Hornsby, 23
• Glenn Wright, 10, Johnny Logan, 10
• Eddie Mathews, 36
• Willie Mays, 54
• Hank Aaron, 50
• Mel Ott, 38
• Roy Campanella, 17

Note: Banks is listed at two positions; Hornsby made the Cub team and the opponent team; Stargell edged Gil Hodges and Orlando Cepeda by one homer at 1B; Johnny Bench has 16 homers and will likely replace Campy as the catcher.

*Assisted by John C. Tattersall

Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison
Edited by Gregory H. Wolf
Associate Editors: Len Levin, Bill Nowlin, and Carl Riechers 
Publication Date: April 29, 2019
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9701-5901-1, $21.95
ISBN (e-book): 978-1-9701-5901-1, $9.99
8.5″ x 11″, 350 pages

Wrigley Field evokes a feeling of perpetual summer, youth, and dreams. Any mention of the ballpark at the intersection of Clark and Addison in Chicago conjures up images of the ivy on the outfield walls, the hand-operated scoreboard, Cubbie blue, and the park’s vibrant neighborhood. Wrigley transcends time and transports its guests to a green oasis in the midst of a bustling city. Built less than 50 years after the Civil War, it was inaugurated when Woodrow Wilson was President of the United States, and a century later it remains a testimony to the enduring power of our national pastime.

This book is an ode to that storied ballpark, evoking its history through detailed retellings of 100 games played there, including not only historic triumphs and defeats of the Chicago Cubs (and the Federal League Whales), but also Negro Leagues matchups, youth championships, and even games by the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Including the talents of over 50 members of SABR, the book also includes many historic photographs.

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

• E-book: Click here to download the e-book version of Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison  for FREE from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB/Kindle formats.
• Paperback: Get a 50% discount on the Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison paperback edition from the SABR Store ($17.99 includes shipping/tax; delivery via Kindle Direct Publishing can take up to 3-4 weeks.)

Buy the book

• E-book: Click here to download the e-book version of Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison for $9.99 from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB/Kindle formats.
• Paperback: Get the paperback edition Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison from the SABR Store ($34.99 includes shipping/tax; delivery via Kindle Direct Publishing can take up to 3-4 weeks.)

Below: Find memorable game stories from Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison

SABR Biography

Wrigley Field has served as home of the Chicago Cubs since 1916. (Photo: Jacob Pomrenke)

Click here to read more about Wrigley Field at the SABR BioProject

Game Recaps

Contributors: Matt Albertson, John Bauer, Nathan Bierma, Thomas J. Brown Jr., Frederick “Rick” Bush, Alan Cohen, Rory Costello, Richard Cuicchi, John DiFonzo, Greg Erion, Doug Feldmann, Scott Ferkovich, Merrie Fidler, Dan Fields, James Forr, Brian Frank, Gordon J. Gattie, Paul Geisler, Ed Gruver, Tom Hawthorn, Paul Hofmann, Mike Huber, Norm King, Russ Lake, Bob LeMoine, Len Levin, Mike Lynch, Mike Mattsey, Seth Moland-Kovash, Jim Nitz, Bill Nowlin, Tom Pardo, J.G. Preston, Chris Rainey, Tim Rask, Alan Reifman, Stephen V. Rice, Carl Riechers, C. Paul Rogers III, Gary Sarnoff, Rick Schabowski, Ryan Schuring, Joe Schuster, Richard A. Smiley, Glen Sparks, Mark S. Sternman, Gregory H. Wolf, Brian Wright, and Don Zminda.

The 1964 Phillies enjoyed a six-and-a-half game lead in the National League with 12 games left in the season, proceeded to lose 10 in a row, and surrendered the pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals. The closing two weeks of the 1964 regular season inflicted psychic baseball wounds which began to heal after the Phillies’ 1980 world championship and have faded with the passing decades and recent string of Phillies successes, (which began with the 2007 Phillies overcoming a seven-game deficit late in the season).

This article looks at the minds of Phillies fans in the weeks leading up to the 1964 collapse. In the manner of G.H. Fleming’s The Unforgettable Season and Jean-Pierre Caillault’s A Tale of Four Cities, this story is told through contemporary newspaper accounts.

September 1

When you think of a baseball fan, the stereotype comes to mind: A noisy, pot-bellied guy, chest hair curling over a loud sports shirt, a torpedo-sized cigar in one hand and a six-pack in the other. He’ll roost on a taproom stool all night, telling you how Jimmy Foxx belted ’em out of Shibe Park, or arguing whether Tris Speaker, Joe DiMaggio or Willie Mays could go get the deep ball with more class.

That’s the old breed. It still flourishes, and Mr. R. R. M. Carpenter’s accountants are grateful. The Phils, however, are luring a New Breed which comes in more ornamental designs than the old model.

The new fan wears toreador pants, a “Go, Phils, Go” button attached to a frilly shirt, and smells of Arpege rather than Corona-Corona. Pennant fever has destroyed the reason of most of Philadelphia’s cupcake population. Chicks of all sizes and vintages are becoming wildly romantic about the Phils, of all people.

It is a little astonishing, as if Woody Allen suddenly began playing the hero in James Bond movies. Once the Phils were the objects of scorn, laughter and pity. Now they are cuddly, lovable, neat, fantastic and fab.

Nope, Connie Mack Stadium does not yet look like a run-down sorority house. If the Toreador Set is still in the minority, they are among the most intense loyalists in town. A word against John Callison will draw outraged screeches as fast—almost—as criticism of those furry cats from Liverpool, whatever their names are.

— Bulletin 1

September 2

You could look it up. Bunning is now 9–0 vs. the Mets and [Houston] Colts. He is 6–4 vs. the rest of the National League. That adds up to 15–4.

What that could add up to can only be guessed at, but Bernard Baruch might be needed to break it down to dollars and cents. It already includes a one-hitter—vs. the Colts—and a perfect game—vs. the Mets. It could add up to 20 wins. It could add up to a pennant. It could add up to the Cy Young Award. It could add up to the Most Valuable Player Award.

Before you know it, Jim Bunning will be able to write a check that can make a bank bounce.

— Daily News 2

September 4

The Phillies have reached the stage in their National League pennant quest where they win even when they lose.

That’s because the mathematics are all on the side of a front-runner when a flag race goes into its final stages. The league leader can lose games and still gain time unless the other contenders begin to move at a fast clip—which is exactly what the Phillies have been doing for the last week.

A week ago, a .500 pace by the Phillies in their remaining games meant that the Reds would have to play .622 baseball to take the pennant and the Giants would have to play .778 ball to do so. In this last week the Phillies have played .500 ball—worsening the position of both chief contenders because the Reds must now play .724 ball to win and the Giants .808 ball if the Phillies simply maintain that .500 gait.

— Daily News 3

September 5

Sure, I love the Beatles. But do you want to know something? I love the Phillies even better. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

— Daily News letter to editor 4

September 8

Probably the only Philly fan in Philadelphia who doesn’t show signs of pennant fever is manager Gene Mauch.

“He never mentions the pennant,” said his brunette wife, Nina Lee. “He only talks about today’s ballgame, and winning that.”

Her comments come as no surprise to sportswriters, who have wondered privately if Mauch knew how to pronounce “pennant”—they’ve never heard him mention it, either.

But baseball fans who crowd into Connie Mack Stadium not only know the word, they know the chances of calling it theirs—they know that the Phillies have won 60 percent of their games so far this season, and that if they win half the remaining games, the nearest challenger will have little hope of copping the National League flag.

And they know if that happens, fans can plan on seeing the World Series open here Oct. 7.

Right before he leaves for the ballpark, Gene Mauch has his favorite food, hamburger, and then makes sure that jingling in his pocket with his change is a silver medal, his good luck piece ever since a Catholic friend presented him with it years ago.

“Of course we’re not superstitious,” said his friendly wife, smiling as she knocked on the wooden porch post enroute to seeing her visitor to the car.

“But wouldn’t it be terrific if we did win the Pennant?”

— Bulletin 5

I think the Daily News ‘Go Phillies Go’ banners on the opening day of the season had a lot to do with giving our team the spark to go out and win the pennant.

— Daily News letter to editor 6

To the editor of The Inquirer:

I just came out of the desert to read in an Egyptian newspaper that the Phillies are leading the National League!

To a life-long Phillies fan this was so impossible that I had the French translated for me by an expert and he said, “In first place by seven games.”

I still believe this is a trick, but even so it pleases me so much that I am going right out to the temples to pray to Isis, Ptha (sic), Hathor and Horus that this dream may continue through at least early October.

— Inquirer letter to the editor from James Michener 7

“Probably the only Philly fan in Philadelphia who doesn’t show signs of pennant fever is manager Gene Mauch,” reported the Philadelphia Bulletin.

September 9

It would be a wonderful thing for baseball if the Phillies win the pennant because it took a phenomenon like the Mets to replace them in this land as a symbol of baseball’s culturally deprived.

It would be no less wonderful if they won it by six games— their present margin over the Giants, Reds and Cards—or by eight or 10 games, but it might be more wonderful if they won it by one or two. The Phillies are a team that has gotten to where it is by somehow getting one more run than the other guy, and that is how the race should go. The 1950 Phillies, to their everlasting credit, blew a bigger lead than the 1964 Phillies now have, prolonging the agony until the 10th inning of the last day of the season. In retrospect, that was their greatest triumph. THAT took talent.

— Daily News 8

Collectively and individually, the amazing Phillies are rewriting a lot of pages in the baseball record book this year as they make a valiant run for their first pennant in 14 years. In the process, they also are setting a new all-time attendance record—having exceeded, this week, the old mark of 1,217,205 which had stood since the 1950 season of those unforgettable “Whiz Kids.”

This satisfying statistic indicates popular support for the Phillies unprecedented in their long history. In underscores, also, the need for a new and larger stadium to accommodate the growing throngs who would like to see their favorite baseball players in action on the home diamond.

If there ever was any question about Delaware Valley sports fans backing enthusiastically a winning baseball team, the doubts have now been effectively dispelled. The new attendance record provides an additional argument for expediting a spacious new stadium for Philadelphia, with plenty of parking space and convenient to public transportation.

— Inquirer editorial 9

“WHICH OF THESE THREE FAMOUS PHILLIES MADE THE BIGGEST HIT?” asked a 1964 newspaper advertisement. “Is it Jim Bunning, who hurled a perfect game?”

September 10

I have been real nervous lately. Sharp-tongued, short-tempered. My old lady has been very nice about it, though. Oh, I haven’t escaped entirely unmarked. She hasn’t been that nice. A lump here, a lump there: about par for a married man.

I know what’s bugging me, but can’t do anything about it. You see, I’m a Phillies’ fan, yet I dread the thought of them winning the pennant—if they have to meet the Yankees in the World Series.

Too well do I remember the fiasco of 1950. I can still see those Yankees dashing around the bases and scoring runs like they were playing the Rover Boys. A traumatic experience, the head-shrinkers would call it. And, let’s face it, the same thing will happen again this year if the Phils and the Yanks meet in the Series.

No wonder people are starting to call me Shaky.

—Joe Martin

Forget it, Shaky, and think of how the Dodgers clobbered the Yanks in four last year. —Ed.

— Daily News letter to editor 10

Don’t tell Gene Mauch the Cardinals are coming. Don’t remind him St. Louis is five games back and rumbling through the final two months like a buffalo stampede.

“The only club in the National League that can beat us is the Phillies,” Mauch said. “We did that tonight, and it ain’t gonna happen any more.”

The Cardinals got 20 hits and beat the Phillies, 10–5, last night in 11 weird innings, to snarl to within five games of the lead. It was a big game because the Giants had lost in the afternoon, and the Reds had lost at night, and a Phillies’ victory would have meant a seven-game lead over the world.

“They might be peeking back at us,” Cardinal third baseman Ken Boyer suggested, after getting three hits and driving in three runs, including the tying run with two out in the ninth inning.

“If they win it, they break it open. A seven-game pad would have been tough. Especially the way the schedule is.”

Mauch sneered at Boyer’s suggestion. “If I’m peeking back,” he said, after a closed-door clubhouse meeting, “and we get one more out in the ninth inning, then I’m looking back seven games in front.

“Anyway, I’d rather be peeking back, than peeking ahead.”

— Daily News 11

Mayor James H.J. Tate more or less put the fate of the proposed stadium up to the Phillies Wednesday, stating if they did not win the pennant it would “seriously jeopardize” the sports bowl loan proposal.

“It will be a sad blow,” the Mayor said commenting on the possible double tragedy.

Barring the Phillies dropping from first place the Mayor said he expects the $25 million loan proposal to pass along with three other loans on the November ballot.

— Inquirer 12

The St. Louis Cardinals are in second place and they are coming. It is hard to see the Phillies blowing the pennant to the Reds or Giants, because the Reds and Giants don’t seem interested enough, but it is not hard to imagine them blowing it to the Cardinals. The Cardinals are interested: they have won 13 of their last 16 games.

Down the stretch, the Cardinals have a few important things going for them, if a team five games out of first place on September 9 can have anything going.

They have their boss, Augie Busch. Busch recently fired general manager Bing Devine because the Cardinals weren’t high enough in the standings for him. In other words, he didn’t think Devine had done a good job of building a contender. No group of athletes has ever had a better chance to embarrass their boss, an incentive that’s almost unfair to the Phillies.

They have this penchant for late-season heroics. A year ago the Cardinals won 19 out of 20 to project themselves into the big picture.

They have the Phillies. The Cardinals beat the Phillies. They have beaten them 10 out of 14 already. Three of the four remaining games are in St. Louis.

And they have Ken Boyer. He’s nice, too.

— Daily News 13

September 11

Nobody knew the advantage of Chris Short’s victory over the Cardinals yesterday more than Big Magic.

Big Magic now says that the Phillies have a 92 percent chance of winning the National League pennant.

Big Magic said the Phillies probably will face the White Sox in the World Series.

If you are wondering about Big Magic it is a huge hunk of metal. It can’t go to its left. It couldn’t reach the right field wall at Connie Mack Stadium if it tried until 1984.

Big Magic is a computer, a Honeywell 1400 computer if you please. It is housed at the Franklin Institute.

“This is the first time we’ve ever had the computer attempt to figure the pennant winner,” said Al Polaneczky who feeds the computer with data cards once a day and gets the probabilities for the National and American League pennant races.

Big Magic’s daily diet consists of the remaining schedules of each club against every other club. It digests the data, then gives its daily probabilities.

“The method we are using is much the same as we follow in computing sales,” Polaneczky added. “We call it the Monte Carlo technique because we are actually gambling with data. The operation is well proven. It has a solid basis in mathematics.”

Gene Mauch hopes so.

— Daily News 14

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (UPI).—The Phillies were such prohibitive favorites in the legal bookmaking establishments here that no bets were being taken today on their chances of winning the National League pennant.

With the Phillies listed as “out,” so far as wagering was concerned, the odds-makers in their day-to-day line posted the St. Louis Cardinals at 10–1 and the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants at 20–1.

— Daily News 15

NEW YORK (UPI).—An old-fashioned “quickie” World Series—the first since 1956 when New York and Brooklyn played their last subway series—will be in the offing this year if the Phillies face either the New York Yankees or the Baltimore Orioles.

The elimination of the travel days between games two and three and five and six should the series opponents represent cities 300 miles or less apart was announced yesterday by baseball commissioner Ford Frick. The travel days would remain part of the series schedule in the event of a series between the Phillies and the Chicago White Sox.

— Daily News 16

September 13

It is a cinch who will be the hero, the darling of the masses, as the Phils whip down the stretch drive. Names such as Allen and Callison and Short and Bunning pale into triviality, compared to the true idol of World Series time.

The Most Valuable Player around Connie Mack Stadium is sure to be Frank (Everybody’s Friend) Powell.

Powell cannot throw, run or hit. He has a graying thatch, thick specs and a comfortable girth. For the next three weeks, however, he will be the most popular Phillie in captivity—his fan mail will make the Beatles look like anonymous nonentities.

Powell is in charge of World Series tickets. His old title was Director of Sales. His new title is Big Chief With Heap Big Headache And Not Enough Pasteboards.

“Our first thought is to make sure the real Phillie fans, the ones who supported the club all year, get a chance at World Series tickets,” said Everybody’s Friend. “With a park this small (roughly, 34,000 seats), it’s going to be a real problem. We could probably sell it out five times.”

Letters asking to reserve Series tickets have hit Powell’s desk at a 20–30-a-day clip since early in the year. A form letter goes back to each fan. The Phils will give the green light for customers Wednesday to shoot in Series orders. Prices, as last year’s, will be $12 tops.

— Bulletin 17

Johnny Callison hit the game-winning homer in the All-Star Game and was named All-Star MVP, and was in the running for NL MVP honors, though he did not win.

September 14

WHAT COULD MAKE YOU HAPPIER THAN SEEING THE PHILLIES WIN THE PENNANT?

(Watching them take the Series on RCA Victor Color TV!)

Phillies fans, this is your year. Callison won the All-Star Game. The Phils must win the pennant. And who can argue that they’ll win the Series in a climax? Your only problem is: how do you get to see the Series? Connie Mack stadium [sic] seats only 33,608 and maybe 2 million of us want “in.” The answer is: at least see it in living color. And that means RCA Victor Color TV, the finest color available. It’s the finest because RCA Victor has spent 10 years in pioneering and perfecting it. Your dealer can put you in front of a set for only $399.95.

It’s worth the price just to see the whole Series in color—but, as a bonus, you can figure that there are 51 other weeks in the year of other great color TV shows as well.

P.S.: If the Phils don’t win the pennant … (bite your tongue!) color TV will not become obsolete. In fact, seeing the World Series, the NCAA football games and your favorite programs in color may help make life almost bearable.

— Bulletin full-page advertisement

SAN FRANCISCO, SEPT. 14— There are 20 sports writers in the United States who must decide whether Jim Bunning, John Callison or Rich (Don’t call me Richie) Allen is the National League’s Most Valuable player [sic] and Bunning, Callison and Allen won’t cooperate.

All three keep behaving like MVPs, making it impossible to separate their contributions to the pennant that is growing in Philadelphia.

Yesterday, for instance, the Phillies moved a win and a day closer to the World Series and it was Bunning and Callison and Allen who did most of the moving in a wind-aided 4–1 victory over the Giants.

Bunning muzzled the Giants for ten innings, the best performance in a hurricane since Humphrey Bogart made Key Largo. Callison broke open the shivering tie with his single in the tenth. Allen’s two-run homer followed—just in time to prevent 35,305 cases of windburn.

It was no way to help a sports writer make up his mind.

Somebody asked Gene Mauch what he would do if he was a sports writer and—before they carried the guy out—Mauch said:

“To tell you the truth, I couldn’t cast a vote. I’d have to pass…”

— Bulletin 18

Alvin Dark knows what made the Phillies tick like a time bomb.

Tick: Jim Bunning. Tick: Johnny Callison. Tick: Richie Allen. Boom.

Dark surveyed the wreckage of his battered pennant hopes yesterday after the Phillies whipped the Giants 4–1 in 10 innings.

Tick: Bunning pitched a gritty seven-hitter. Tick: Callison drove in the winning run with a single off lefthander Dick Estelle. Tick: Allen lashed a two-run homer off reliever Ron Herbel. Boom went the Giants, fluttering seven games back of the Phillies while the Cardinals stuck six games back.

“The Phillies couldn’t have won it without Bunning,” Dark said. “They couldn’t have won it without Callison, or without Allen.”

Not that Dark was running up the white flag. “The Phillies still have to win nine out of 19 to get to 95 games,” he said, and people wrote it down out of politeness.

— Daily News 19

September 16

DEAR PHILLIES, ‘UNCLE’

YOURS TRULY, GIANTS

— San Francisco theater marquee in photograph, captioned, “BY DAY IN ‘FRISCO— Theater owner in Giants home town concedes National League flag to Phils”(above a photo of marquee at Gimbel’s at 9th and Market in Philadelphia reading GO PHILLIES/WE’RE FOR YOU), Bulletin 20

The Phillies’ Magic Number is down to 12, which should mean things are getting better.

Big Magic, the Honeywell 1400 computer, sees it differently. It says the Phillies now have an 89 percent chance to win the pennant. The other 11 percent went to the St. Louis Cardinals in tests run this morning at the Computing Center of the Franklin Institute.

— Bulletin 21

HOUSTON, Sept. 15.—The Phillies announced plans to accept World Series ticket applications Tuesday, then played like future champions as they took another stride closer to the National League pennant in their 1–0 night-game victory over the Houston Colts.

The second-place St. Louis Cardinals swept a twilight-night doubleheader with the Milwaukee Braves, reducing the Phillies’ league lead to six games. Nevertheless, this—their third win in a row—was an important triumph for the Phils.

It’s beginning to sound like a broken record, but it’s a fact—John Callison batted in the winning run. The star right fielder, making a strong bid for the Most Valuable Player Award, singled home Richie Allen, who had led off the sixth inning with a double, and that was all the scoring.

It was the third straight game in which Callison knocked in the winning run.

— Inquirer 22

WHO’S EXCITED?

Let’s be Phillies-sophical about it all…

How would this look at the Victory Ball?

Thirty days hath September but we need only four in October.

I’m the guy that picked them in spring training.

So what if it did take 14 years—it was worth it.

I can see it waving now.

They make me feel young all over.

— Captions of fan photos in a Ballantine Beer ad, Inquirer 23

September 17

“This club,” (Vic) Power said, “we’re relaxed. When I was in Minneapolis, everybody was tense. Everybody was afraid of something, somebody. I don’t know who. Maybe the owner. I know it wasn’t the manager because he was a nice guy.

“This club is so relaxed—they’re always jumping around, they play the radio real loud, they make jokes.

“When I was in San Francisco last week, I was almost going crazy—the radio was going real loud, they were making jokes, everybody was ribbing everybody.

“This club don’t care about nothin’.”

— Bulletin 24

This is the year for The Phillies. This is the time when the most thrilling sound in the air is the crack of a bat. This is the time when every baseball fan salaams his favorite star, rubs his rabbit’s foot and puts the double hex on every challenger. This is the time when you will want to decorate your den, office or club room with pictures of the 1964 Phillies players…

— Bulletin display ad

September 18

Through most of the 1934 season, the world champion Giants were virtually unopposed. On Sept. 7th, with three weeks to go, the Cardinals trailed by seven games. This was the old St. Louis Gas House Gang of Frisch, and Pepper Martin and Joe Medwick and Leo Durocher, with the Dean brothers, Dizzy and Paul, winning 49 games between them.

This was also the year Bill Terry, the Giants’ manager, asked at the wrong time and in the wrong tone: “Is Brooklyn still in the league?” On closing day the Cardinals led by one game, but in the ninth inning the Reds filled the bases against Dizzy with none out. Then the St. Louis scoreboard flashed the news: “Dodgers, 8; Giants, 5.”

Diz grinned and fired the high hard one. Two batters struck out. The third popped up. Dean had his 30th victory and the Cardinals had the pennant.

Is Gene Mauch, of the Phillies, listening? About three weeks ago the teams his club had to beat were Cincinnati and San Francisco. The Cardinals were fourth, 11 games off the pace.

A week ago Philadelphia’s lead was only five games, but it wasn’t the Reds or Giants who had closed the gap. The Cardinals were second, having made up six games in a fortnight.

They had almost a month to go. If they could pick up six more games in that space…

So far they haven’t done it. They were idle Thursday, six games back before the Phillies’ night game at Los Angeles. At that point each had 16 games to play. The Cardinals have five with the Mets, the Phils none with New York, Houston or Chicago.

Philadelphia starts the last week of the season with three night games in St. Louis, then finishes with a pair in third-place Cincinnati. After the confrontation with the Phillies, the Cards wrap it up at home with three shots against the Mets.

No, sorry. No forecasts, predictions, prophecies, prognosis or auguries.

— Inquirer 25

Vic Power described the Phillies’ winning attitude: “This club? We’re relaxed. When I was in Minneapolis, everybody was tense. Everybody was afraid of something, somebody. I don’t know who. Maybe the owner. I know it wasn’t the manager because he was a nice guy. This club is so relaxed.”

WHICH OF THESE THREE FAMOUS PHILLIES MADE THE BIGGEST HIT?

Is it Jim Bunning, who hurled a perfect game?

Or Johnny Callison, who slashed the crucial homer in the all-star fracas?

Or is it the new Phillies Tip?

Phillies Tips, like the Phillies team, is on everybody’s lips.

— Display ad, Bulletin 26

September 20

The city, stricken with pennant fever these past few weeks, has now come down with a delightful new ailment—the World Series virus.

Nearly everybody, or so it seems, has been infected by the bug as the Phillies, with only two weeks of the season left, drive for their first National League pennant since 1950.

“Go Phillies Go!” is the battlecry in every neighborhood, in every nook and corner of the metropolitan area—and even beyond.

The slogan, or some variation thereof, shines forth from bedsheet banners, flags and pennants, and from billboards.

Fans shout it. Signs in store after store proclaim it.

Pretty girls stroll about wearing five-inch buttons emblazoned with:

“Go Phillies Go.”

On a billboard on the eastbound side on the Vine St. extension of the Schuylkill Expressway near the 22nd st. off-ramp, the regular Strawbridge and Clothier advertisement has been replaced with:

“All the way! PHILLIES”

And there’s a story behind a huge Phillies banner outside the rail division of the Transport Workers Union, 1630 Arch St.

A union spokesman said John Mellon, president, and his staff were half an hour late for a meeting with management. They apologized, saying something important had come up.

They didn’t explain, the spokesman said, that hanging the Phils’ banner was the “important business.”

Official Philadelphia is also getting ready to honor the Phillies and take care of the World Series crowds that will flock here, if the Phillies take the pennant.

Mayor Tate is forming a “host committee” to make Philadelphia’s hospitality available to visitors to the fullest extent.

The members, to be announced tomorrow, include persons from the business, sporting and entertainment world as well as civic groups.

Some kind of big rally or demonstration is planned for after the Series—if the Phillies get into it—win or lose, a spokesman for the mayor said yesterday.

“We’re highly gratified,” he said, “about the number of organizations which have called in wanting to cooperate. It’s an outpouring of enthusiasm for the Phillies.”

A similar tale was told by a spokesman for the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia.

“A lot of people are talking about doing something spectacular,” he said, “but nothing definite has been decided yet.”

Another source indicated that the Phillies’ management would like the players to concentrate entirely on winning ball games from here on in, instead of taking part in celebrations.

But the fans’ enthusiasm is unbounded.

Three empty three-story buildings at 11th st. and Ridge av. are decorated from top to bottom with Phillies’ slogans.

“Swing and stay all the way with the Phillies” and “You did it before; you can do it again” are a couple of them.

The bedecked structures are just opposite the Mummers Bar at 1105 Ridge av., sponsors of the Phillies’ display.

The bar people plan to stretch a sign across Ridge av. from the bar to the buildings reading: “Go, Phillies, Go. 1964 World Champions.”

A slightly more staid but just as enthusiastic salute to the home team are the 30 flags stretched along Chestnut st. saying: “Fight, Phillies, Fight.”

“We’re going to keep them up until the Phils win the pennant,” said Jack Pearson, president of the Chestnut Street Association.

— Bulletin, front page 27

Bucky Hoffman has been waiting for 14 years to get his right arm tattooed to match his left arm.

It looks as if this might be the year.

In 1950, Bucky had “Fighting Phillies 1950” tattooed on his arm.

“I got that done about two hours after Roberts beat Newcombe,” he told me, when I found him tending bar, as he usually is, at the Mummers Bar at 11th st. and Ridge av. “I went right from Brooklyn into Manhattan and had it done.”

Bucky has the design for his other arm drawn on cardboard and tucked behind the bar. It confidently says, “Phillies World Champs 1964.”

It will also have Pike’s name on it. Pike is a regular customer and buddy, and he made the design.

“That’s the way he wants it on,” Bucky said, “and that’s what he’s gonna get.”

(…)

“We got about 300 more feet of flags to put up,” Willy Kramer, Bucky’s co-fanatic, told me. “We gotta paint the street some more. We’ve invited the Phillies team to have a party here. We’ll get permission to close off the street and have string bands.”

Bobby Searles and his wife came in, and he rolled up his sleeve to show me a tattoo which says, “Fighting Phillies.”

“I got mine in 1943,” he said. “I’m a rabid fan.”

“If they blow the pennant,” Bucky said in a moment of sober reflection, “I got my suitcase right here. I’m blowing town.”

“If they don’t win,” one patron warned sternly, “this is gonna be a parking lot here, bud.”

— Bulletin 28

September 21

Neither the prospect of catching early morning school buses, trains after a few hours shuteyes, the chill weather nor the fickleness of chartered airline schedules dampened the crowd of 2000 Phillies fans who swarmed to International Airport early Monday morning to welcome their heroes home.

School children, collegians, and elderly fans, who have been hanging on every pitch for months, were darned if they were going to miss the chance to give their pennant-bound team a fitting welcome.

And as Mayor James H. J. Tate strode out to meet the team’s chartered American Airlines Boeing 707 Astro-Jet as it touched down at 12:30AM, bedlam broke out in the airport’s second-floor concourse.

The packed crowd, which had been waiting since late Saturday night, feverously wiped the fogged-up plate-glass windows with handkerchiefs and coat-sleeves to better see their “boys.”

Schoolchildren who had been industriously working on their homework threw their books down and cheered lustily as Manager Gene Mauch led the team off the ramp.

Although pennants and signs were not in abundance the noise emanating from the concourse left little doubt as to where allegiances lay.

— Inquirer 29

The throng let out a lusty welcome at 12:30AM. when the Phils, led by manager Gene Mauch, came own the ramp of the jet that had brought them from Los Angeles.

But the cheers quickly died as the Phils headed for the nearest exit.

(…)

Some fans, obviously “sign-stealers,” stationed themselves at exits where they could get a close up look at Rich Allen, Chris Short, Jim Bunning and others.

“Oh, they’re wonderful,” said Evelyn William, 35, a housewife, of 1724 N. Taney st.

“They’re marvelous,” commented Dorothy Falkenstein, of 234 Margate rd., Upper Darby.

Margie Connally, 19, of 235 Westmoreland ave., Hatboro, was breathless with joy.

But Mrs. Emma Bravo, 36, of 2308 Chestnut ave., Ardmore, wanted to know “Why they didn’t com[e] up that ramp where we all waited.” She came carrying a “Go Phillies Go” sign but left chanting “Down with the Phillies.”

Bruce Kesler, 13, of 1803 Glenifer st, had two “Go Phillies Go” buttons on his sweatshirt. Close to tears he said, “I haven’t missed a home game since July 28. I buy Phillies helmets, buttons, banners, everything with Phillies on it.

“But I didn’t get to see hardly any of them. And, now I don’t think I’ll go to any games any more—even the World Series.”

Even Bill Campbell, the radio announcer, caught a bit of the fans’ wrath. One guy yelled as Campbell walked by, “There’s another long ball that ain’t going nowhere.”

— Daily News 30

Although the scent of World Series was in the air, some of the Phils are keeping their fingers crossed. Bunning was one.

“Don’t forget,” he warned, “we still have 12 games to play.”

(…)

“I wanted to come here tonight,” (Mayor) Tate said. “I wanted to extend my congratulations to the team and I’m hoping the pennant will be safe in Philadelphia by the weekend.”

Mrs. Cookie Rojas was happy but calm.

“Yes, Sir,” she said, “the way I see it we’ll have it clinched by Thursday night.”

— Bulletin 31

ANDREW MILNER is a freelance writer has written for the “SABR Review of Books,” “The Cooperstown Review” as well as “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game.” He has contributed to “American Sports: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas” (2013), “Sports in America from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century” (2011) and the “St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture” (2000).

NOTES

1 Sandy Grady, “Yes, Dear, the Phillies Are Cute and Cuddly,” Philadelphia Bulletin, September 1, 1964, 51.

2 Larry Merchant, “Banking on Bunning,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 2, 1964, 47.

3 “Phils Have Calendar on Their Side,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 4, 1964, 50.

4 Eileen, letter to the editor, Philadelphia Daily News, September 5, 1964, 7.

5 Eileen Foley, “Asks Wife of Phillies’ Manager: Pennant Fever…What’s That?” Philadelphia Bulletin, September 8, 1964, 60.

6 Leo O’Rourke, letter to the editor, Philadelphia Daily News, September 8, 1964, 35.

7 James A. Michener, Luxor, Egypt, letter to the editor, “Dazed Author Seeks Aid for Phils,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 8, 1964, 10.

8 Larry Merchant, “Two Big Lumps—One is Sugar,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 9, 1964, 57.

9 “Another Record for Those Phillies” (editorial), Philadelphia Inquirer, September 9, 1964, 34.

10 “Shaky Phils Fan Dreads the Yanks”(letter to the editor), Philadelphia Bulletin, September 10, 1964, 10.

11 Stan Hochman, “Mauch Says Phils’ Only Foe is Phillies,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 10, 1964, 52.

12 “Phillies Handed Stadium ‘Ball,'” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 1964, 7.

13 Larry Merchant, “RBI: Runs Boyered In,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 10, 1964, 53.

14 Frank Bilovsky, “Computer Figures It’ll Be Phillies vs. White Sox,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 11, 1964,. 35.

15 “Las Vegas Takes Phils Off Boards,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 11, 1964, 53.

16 “‘Quickie’ World Series Likely,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 11, 1964, 55.

17 Sandy Grady, “The Phils’ World Series Ticket Nabob: He Doesn’t Have an Enemy in the World… Yet!” Philadelphia Bulletin, September 13, 1964, 2 (sports section).

18 George Kiseda, “MVP Election: Candidates Run a Hard Bargain,” Philadelphia Bulletin, September 14, 1964, 39.

19 Stan Hochman, “Phils Time Bomb Ticks… Ticks… Ticks,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 14, 1964, 47.

20 Philadelphia Bulletin, September 16, 1964, 69.

21 “Phils Flag Chances Rated at 89 Per Cent,” Philadelphia Bulletin, September 16, 1964, 69.

22 Allen Lewis, “Phils Score 1–0 Shutout At Houston,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 16, 1964, 1.

23 Philadelphia Inquirer, September 16, 1964, 41.

24 George Kiseda, “Phillies ‘Shoot’ Holes in Pressure Theory,” Philadelphia Bulletin, September 17, 1964, 37.

25 Red Smith, “Phils Reminded of Those 1934 Giants,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 18, 1964, 48.

26 Philadelphia Bulletin, September 18, 1964, 33.

27 Francis J. Burke, “Town Goes Wild as Phils Near Pennant; Innkeepers, Bars Ready for Series Crowds,” Philadelphia Bulletin, September 20, 1964, 1.

28 James Smart, “Go, Phillies! Bucky’s Arm is Waiting,” Philadelphia Bulletin, September 20, 1964, 4.

29 Dennis M. Higgins, “Tate and 2000 Greet Phillies After 3–2 Win Over Dodgers,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 21, 1964, 1.

30 Bill Malone, Daily News, “Dashing Phillies Leave Fans Miffed,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 21, 1964, 3.

31 “Phils, Orchestra Home in Triumph: League Leaders Are Greeted by 2,000 Fans,” Philadelphia Bulletin, September 21, 1964, 3.