Sept. 15, 1964 - It is a grueling pennant race. It started early, and the three teams grouped at the top of the American League — the Orioles, the White Sox, and the Yankees — have remained tightly bunched. Every loss dictates a sullen clubhouse. But the anger in the Yankees tonight was subdued by expressions of awe. It was almost as if they could accept losing to Dean Chance (pictured).
The 23-year-old Angel righthander allowed only two singles in winning, 7-0. Until losing pitcher Al Downing hit a sharp grounder between third and short on a hanging curveball with one out in the sixth, the only Yankee to reach base was Bobby Richardson on a broken-bat nubber with one out in the fourth.
Downing became the last runner. Chance faced 29 Yanks, walked none, and closed with a flourish by making Richardson his eighth strikeout. Had all of this been a one-night stand, it would still be a jewel. But Chance, in his assault on the record books, has been doing similar things to the Yanks all season. He has now worked 50 innings and is 4-0 against New York with three shutouts and 14 scoreless innings in a tie he left. Of their 14 hits off Chance, Mickey Mantle’s homer was the only run. The Yankee batting average against him is .086.
Yankees talked about Chance tonight with as much and more respect than they reserved for Sandy Koufax after the last World Series.
“He’s a great, great pitcher — probably better than Koufax,” Tony Kubek said. “There’s nobody close to him in our league. He throws fastballs, curveballs, sliders up, down, in, and out. What else can a pitcher do?”
Those who don’t talk about what Chance throws are bedeviled by his motion. The Angel kicks toward third base, hides the ball until the last possible moment, and then delivers it three-quarter overhand. “The only reason you can’t hit him,” Joe Pepitone said, “is because the only thing he shows you is his back.”
Chance’s delivery reminds Yogi Berra of Jim Bunning’s. “Bunning turns like that,” Berra said, “but Bunning didn’t have this guy’s sinker. Maybe if you got him working in a stretch, he [Chance] isn’t as tough…”
Yogi’s voice trailed off. Perhaps he was reviewing the futility of it all. The Yankees have seen too much of Chance’s back, but they couldn’t make him stretch very often.
Their biggest attack against him tonight came before the Yanks batted in the fourth. Kubek was waiting to step in when Yankee third-base coach Frank Crosetti asked home-plate umpire Lou Di Muro to look at Chance’s pitching hand, claiming he was applying sticky substance to the ball.
“It was resin that had caked on his fingers,” Di Muro said. “It’s not uncommon. Pitchers go to the resin bag and then to their lips. It’s just that sometimes they get so much on, you have to tell them to wipe it off. I did, and he did.”
The Angel then went back to wiping out the Yankees. L.A. outfielder Jim Piersall, en route to scoring the game’s first run in the sixth, singled and stole second base. Before coming home on Joe Adcock’s single, Piersall said Richardson told him: “Sticky stuff or no sticky stuff, he’s got too good a stuff.”
Following tonight’s defeat, the third-place Yankees trail the league-leading Orioles by 1½ games and the second-place White Sox by a half-game.
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