May 8, 1964 - Celia Dalrymple is a vivacious, petite woman — really petite. So, when Clay Dalrymple (pictured) wasn’t hitting his wife’s weight, he really wasn’t hitting.
He’s up to .097 now, which isn’t much, but enough to silence the gags about not hitting his wife’s weight. The balding catcher hammered a two-run homer over the right-field fence that sparked the Phillies to a 9-6 victory over the Braves last night at Connie Mack Stadium.
He was 0-for-21 going into last night’s game and was hitting a dismal .082. When he came up in the first inning, the Phils had already scored two runs and had runners on second and third with two out.
Nobody would have second-guessed Bobby Bragan if he had walked Dalrymple and let Hank Fischer take his chances with Bobby Wine. But the pitched to Dalrymple because Bragan reads the papers, and he knew Clay was 0-for-21.
“I’m sure he told him to pitch carefully,” Dalrymple said afterwards. “Anyway, the first two pitches were balls. I made up my mind only to swing at a good pitch. Well, it came in right here, belly-button high. I grounded out, and I was disgusted with myself.”
The next time up, it was a 2-2 game because Joe Torre had hit a two-run homer off Art Mahaffey.
Johnny Herrnstein was on first, and here came the same pitch again, belly-button high. “I made up my mind to get some real good rips,” Dalrymple said. “I’ve been lazy with the bat. When you overswing, though, you jerk your head, and I didn’t want to do that either.”
So, Dalrymple got a good rip, and ripped it over the fence for a 4-2 lead, and the Braves never caught up. Did the 3-for-37 start worry Dalrymple? “I’ve been in bad slumps before,” he said. “Wasn’t it in 1961 that I had 17 RBI’s on my first 17 hits. I didn’t have many hits, but the ones I got were helping — I think I hit .180 the first two months that year.”
Mahaffey didn’t finish, although he had a 9-2 lead after a shaggy seventh inning.
“It was a long inning, and my arm stiffened up,” he said. “But I was satisfied with the way I pitched up ’til then. Heck, I lost my last game, 1-0, and I won this one, 9-6. Which is better? A win is a win.”
The Phils have now won three of five with the Braves. “We helped them win all three,” Bragan said. “We made fielding lapses in all three.”
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