Tag: San Francisco Giants

Aug 22: Marichal loses it

AUGUST 22, 1965 | SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – A tight pennant race turned ugly on the afternoon of August 22, 1965. With only a half game separating the San Francisco Giants and arch rival Los Angeles Dodgers, Giant pitcher Juan Marichal attacked Los Angeles Dodgers’ catcher John Roseboro with a bat. Roseboro suffered a gash that required 14 stitches to close. Marichal was suspended eight games and fined $1,750, a big chunk of change in those days.

As the story goes, when Marichal was on the mound for the Giants earlier in the game he knocked down Maury Wills and Ron Fairly with brushback pitches. As Jeff Merron reports on ESPN’s Page 2, Dodger catcher John Roseboro admitted that he intended to retaliate against Marichal when he came to bat, “I tried a knockdown from behind the plate, throwing the ball close to his nose when I returned it to the pitcher.” After coming close a couple times to Marichal, standing in the batter’s box, as he threw back to pitcher Sandy Koufax, Marichal turned on Roseboro. Striking the catcher with the bat.

Roseboro and Marichal patched things up in later years, but on that one afternoon in 1965, it was nasty.

CONTRIBUTING SOURSES:
August 22, 1965 box score/play-by-lay
Baseball brawls
1965 NL pennant race

A STORY FROM APRIL 30 IN BASEBALL HISTORY – MAYS JOINS EXCLUSIVE GROUP

DSCN2130TODAYINBASEBALL.com TAKES US BACK TO MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN  ON APRIL 30, 1961.  Willie Mays joined an exclusive group on this date – the 4 home run group. At the time, Mays was just the 7th player in major league baseball history to hit 4 home runs in a nine-inning game. His blasts helped his San Francisco Giants beat the Milwaukee Braves (today’s Atlanta Braves) 14-4.

Baseballs flew out of Milwaukee County Stadium on that Sunday afternoon in Wisconsin. Besides Mays’ 4 round-trippers, teammate Jose Pagan hit 2 home runs, as did Henry Aaron of the Braves. Solo shots were hit by the Giants’ Orlando Cepeda and Felipe Alou.

As of this writing [April 23, 2018], 11 players have hit four home runs in 9-inning games in the modern era:

Bobby Lowe, Boston Beaneaters, May 30, 1894
Ed Delahanty, Philadelphia Phillies, July 13, 1896
Lou Gehrig, New York Yankees June 3, 1932
Gil Hodges, Brooklyn Dodgers August 31, 1950
Joe Adcock, Milwaukee Braves July 31, 1954
Rocky Colavito, Cleveland Indians June 10, 1959
Willie Mays, San Francisco Giants – April 30, 1961
Bob Horner, Atlanta Braves – July 6, 1986
Mark Whiten, St. Louis Cardinals – Sept 7, 1993
Mike Cameron, Seattle Mariners – May 2, 2002
Shawn Green, Los Angeles Dodgers – May 23, 2002
Carlos Delgado, Toronto Blue Jays – Sept 25, 2003
Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers – May 8, 2012
Scooter Gennett, Cincinnati Reds, June 6, 2017
J.D. Martinez, Arizona Diamondbacks – Sept 4, 2017

Several years usually pass between 4-home run games, but only 21 days separated Mike Cameron’s and Shawn Green’s displays of power in 2002.

Chuck Klein (1936), Pat Seerey (1948) and Mike Schmidt (1976) have also each hit 4 home runs in one game, but they needed extra innings to do it.

No one has ever hit 5 home runs in one game. But on this date in 1961, Willie Mays joined an exclusive group by hitting 4.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
MLB hitting leaders
Baseball-Almanac

A STORY FROM APRIL 12 IN BASEBALL HISTORY–GREAT SPOT FOR A BALLPARK…NOT!

TODAY IN BASEBALL takes us back to APRIL 12, 1958 in SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. The first major league baseball game to take place in San Francisco was played on this date in 1958. The Giants new home, Candlestick Park, was beautiful, but the location was simply not a suitable place to build a ballpark. Unfortunately, New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham didn’t know that when he toured the site on a beautiful day in 1957. It turned out it was a great spot to build a ballpark — NOT!

San Francisco Mayor George Christopher promised that the city would build a ballpark at Candlestick Point if Stoneham would make his New York Giants the first tenants. What Stoneham didn’t know, and presumably Mayor Christopher didn’t volunteer, was that the sun isn’t the only thing that drops at sundown.

The temperature plummets too, and the fog rolls in. This made for some interesting events at Candlestick. For example, during the 1961 All Star game, Giants pitcher Stu Miller was blown off the mound. In 1963, New York Mets Manager Casey Stengel took his squad out for batting practice, only to watch a gust of wind pick up the entire batting cage and drop it on the pitcher’s mound, 60 feet away.

The most memorable phenomenon was an earthquake during the 1989 World Series, but the stadium weathered that event quite well.

The Giants moved to a much better location for baseball in 2000, Pac Bell Park, which is now called AT&T Park. Attendance has been phenomenal.

The NFL’s San Francisco 49ers continued to play home games at Candlestick until 2014. Candlestick worked for them because parts of the Bay Area are milder in the winter than in the summer. In 2014 the football 49ers moved into brand new Levi Stadium in Santa Clara. As long as nobody tried to play baseball at Candlestick, everyone was happy.

 

JAN 27: MLB EXPANDS

TODAY’S STORY TAKES US TO JANUARY 27TH 10 YEARS APART – 1956 & 1966. EVENTS ON THOSE DATES FORESHADOWED A MAJOR SHIFT BY MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL WEST & SOUTH.

On this date in 1956 the New York football Giants announced they would desert the Polo Grounds for Yankee Stadium. The New York baseball Giants also called the Polo Grounds home. The football team moving added to speculation that the baseball Giants wouldn’t be long for the Polo Grounds either.

The Associated Press reported that the baseball Giants were contemplating a “move across the Harlem River” to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx by 1957. Fat chance the Yankees would let that happen.

The baseball Giants ended up moving in 1958, but far beyond The Bronx. They moved across country to San Francisco. The Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles the same year.

Eight years later the City of Milwaukee tried to get the Braves back from Atlanta. The team left Wisconsin after the 1965 season, but hadn’t played any games in Georgia yet.

On this date in 1966 Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge Elmer Roller stopped short of ordering the league to expand to Milwaukee. He instructed that Major League Baseball should do everything “within their scope” to get a team in Milwaukee.

As it turned out, the Braves stayed in Atlanta.

The American League franchise Seattle Pilots left Puget Sound for Milwaukee in 1970. They changed their name to the Brewers and remain there to this day.

The Dodgers and Giants have been in their respective Los Angeles and San Francisco homes for more than 6 decades, and continue to thrive.

The Polo Grounds in New York was demolished in 1964.

More information:
Chicago Tribune, Judge Orders NL: Stay in Milwaukee, January 28, 1966
“They took our hearts too,” New York Times, May 28, 1957
United Press International, January 28, 1966
Associated Press, January 28, 1956
New York/San Francisco Giants history

OCT 17 IN BASEBALL HISTORY, “I’ll tell ya what. We’re having an earth…”

OCTOBER 17, 1989 | SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – Broadcaster Al Michaels was frantic as ABC lost its signal just before game 3 of the 1989 World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s. Rain, sometimes snow, has been known to interrupt post-season play. This time the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 brought all activity in Candlestick Park, other than self-preservation, to a screeching halt, because, as Michaels’ said off-camera, “I’ll tell ya what. We’re having an earth…”. He was unable to get out “quake” before he was cut-off.

Millions watching the broadcast saw highlights of the previous game being described by announcer Tim McCarver when all of the sudden the picture sizzled and the broadcast signal was lost.

Candlestick Park, with 62,000 people inside, bent – fans felt the stands move and the light standards sway several feet – but did not break. There was catastrophic damage in other parts of the Bay Area; a section of the double deck Nimitz Freeway collapsed, as did part of the Bay Bridge. There were multiple explosions and fires in the Mission District of San Francisco. Sixty-three deaths and almost 4,000 injuries were reportedly caused by the earthquake.

The World Series, coincidentally involving the two Bay Area teams, was postponed for ten days, because, “I’ll tell ya what… we’re having an earth-“. The A’s eventually swept the Giants in four games.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
1989 Earthquake
ABC-TV
Oakland A’s post season