Apr. 30, 1964 - Dennis Bennett did one-third of the hitting and all of the pitching, and the Phillies beat the Reds, 3-1, tonight at Crosley Field to sweep a rain-shortened series.
Jim Bunning was supposed to pitch, but he warmed up Wednesday night for a game that was rained out, so manager Gene Mauch held Bunning over for tomorrow night’s game at Milwaukee. “I know Bennett’s ready,” Mauch explained before tonight’s game, “but I’m not sure about Bunning.”
Bennett was ready. He was in the clubhouse fast asleep. The cocky left-hander always sleeps before a game because he knows he won’t sleep afterwards.
He took a 75-minute nap before going out to beat the Reds for his second victory this season, and he is now 18 wins away from his brash 20-win forecast.
“I’m never keyed up before a game,” he explained, “only afterwards. I can never sleep. I go over every play in my mind. But I don’t care how important the game is, I can always sleep before it.”
It was the kind of tense game that will keep people awake. The Phils got two runs in the first before Joe Nuxhall got anybody out, but that’s all the runs they got off Nuxhall.
Bennett got the only hits — two singles — the Phillies got from that point until the ninth inning, when they pried another run off Jim Dickson, whose teammates call him “Dizzy” because he toted a television set clear across the country to save shipping charges.
The Reds got their run in the third, when Pete Rose doubled, moved up on a wild pitch, and scored as Tommy Harper grounded out. Bennett struck out pinch hitter Hal Smith in the seventh with the tying run on third, and he got Frank Robinson in the eighth with the tying run on second.
In the Phillie ninth, Danny Cater doubled to right, and then Gus Triandos beat out an infield hit, which shows the kind of things that are happening to the league-leading Phils.
Bobby Wine drove in the third Philadelphia run with a sacrifice fly to left, and the Phillies had their ninth win in 11 games when Bennett blitzed through the bottom of the ninth. Johnny Callison snatched a hit away from Marty Keough with a running, shoe-top catch for the final out. and that’s the kind of baseball the Phillies are playing.
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