July 1, 1963 - A classic 1-1 thriller between the Dodgers and the Braves was broken up today when pinch-hitter Wally Moon (pictured) scored Maury Wills with a deep double to right center field in the ninth inning. The 2-1 triumph for Los Angeles not only gave the Dodgers a series split, but it lifted them to within half a game of the pace-setting St. Louis Cardinals, who open a showdown series tomorrow. A Dodger Stadium crowd of 21,603 today saw Johnny Podres pitch his best game of the season. Aside from Gene Oliver’s game-tying solo homer in the fourth, the Braves could not get a man around. Podres struck out 12 for the second-best effort of his career. On Sept. 7, 1959, he fanned 14 Cubs at the L.A. Coliseum. Podres’ strike-out victims tonight included Denis Menke four times, Mack Jones thrice, and Tommie Aaron and Bob Sadowski twice each. In addition, Johnny slipped an 0-for-4 horse collar to the great Henry Aaron, who was batting .533 against L.A. going into the game. Wills sparked the decisive ninth inning with a single to center and stole his 19th base after repeated pickoff pegs to first base by starter and loser Ed Sadowski. Frank Howard’s 12th home run in the second inning traveled 425 feet into the center-field seats. It was Howard’s first round-tripper since June 7. Hondo’s enormous power was demonstrated again in the fifth when Tommie Aaron caught his broken-bat fly some 340 feet from home plate. The barrel end of Howard’s bat lande at the feet of third baseman Denis Menke. One shudders to think how far the ball would have traveled had Hondo gotten really good wood on it. The ball might have killed a little old lady in Pasadena.
