1960s Timeline

July 4, 1962 - The Giants bid a fond farewell to the Mets today, battering the New Yorkers in both games of a doubleheader, 11-4 and 10-3. A crowd of 33,253 at sunny, windy Candlestick Park saw Willie McCovey blast 2 home runs and drive in 7 runs to pace the Giants in the first game. Willie Mays led the second-game attack with five runs batted in on two homers. Both Giant starters completed their games. Bob Bolin gave seven hits in the opener. In the finale, Billy O’Dell scat

July 3, 1962 - The Yankees put on a pyrotechnic display at the Stadium today. Paced by their famed M-M duo, they thrilled a crowd of 13,378 by exploding 5 home runs. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris hit two apiece, and Bobby Richardson (left) hit the other. And yet, so tenaciously did Hank Bauer’s ninth-place Athletics fight back that the Bombers needed every last one of their homers before the 8-7 victory was theirs. As late as the eighth inning, the Yanks were trailing by thre

July 3, 1962 - Manager Fred Hutchinson selected the National League all-star pitchers and reserves today, naming Stan Musial to the team for a record 19th time while passing over one of his own Cincinnati players, Frank Robinson. Robinson, the Reds’ right fielder, is pounding the ball at a .323 clip and actually is out-hitting Roberto Clemente of the Pirates, who was chosen as the National League’s starting right fielder for the all-star game at Washington, July 10. The other

July 2, 1962 - The Yankees beat the Athletics, 8-4, today, but it wasn’t easy. Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and Hector Lopez hit homers at the Stadium and with Bill Stafford pitching beautifully for six innings, it looked for a while as if that would more than suffice to squelch Hank Bauer’s ninth-place Kansas City team. It took a lot more toil and sweat, however, before Ralph Houk’s Bombers finally put the Athletics down for keeps in the opener of a four-game series before 16

July 1, 1962 - Don Drysdale (left), the 6-foot-6-inch right-handed star of the Dodgers, struck out 13 Mets today en route to becoming baseball’s first 14-game winner this season. The score was 5-1. Drysdale gave five hits to the Mets, only five more than his left-handed teammate, Sandy Koufax, allowed the New Yorkers last night. Just three Mets got past first base — Sammy Taylor, who hit a homer and a double, and Cliff Cook, who also doubled. Drysdale’s overpowering performan

July 1, 1962 - When the Dodgers signed Sandy Koufax eight years ago, they knew he had enormous potential. The trick was to harness it. It has taken Koufax more than seven seasons to reach the point where one National League manager last week described him as “probably the greatest pitcher in baseball today.” That is certainly what he looked like last night, when he pitched his first no-hitter and struck out 13 Mets. “The turning point,” said Koufax today, “was in spring train

July 1, 1962 - The 1942 St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees, opponents in the world series that year, held an “old-timers” game before the start of the Cardinals-Pirates contest today, which the Pirates won, 7-2. The St. Louis Swifties, as the ’42 Cardinals were called, continued their mastery over the Yankees 20 years later by pounding out a 2-inning, 6-0 victory. Enos Slaughter’s two-run triple off the right-field wall was the longest drive. In the 1942 series, the Car

June 30, 1962 - Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitched a no-hitter tonight and struck out 13 batters in turning back the New York Mets, 5-0. The no-hitter was the first in the National League this season. It was the 39th time that Koufax, a left-hander, had struck out 10 or more batters in a game. Koufax walked five. The Dodgers, who had scored four times in the first inning, increased their lead in the seventh on a home run by Frank Howard. Koufax needed only nine p

June 29, 1962 - Four Angel errors and a complete-game, 4-hit pitching performance by Whitey Ford led to a 6-3 Yankee triumph today. The victory extended the Yanks’ winning streak to three games, and they also drew to within a half-game of the front-running Indians, who bowed to the White Sox. Manager Ralph Houk’s defending champions picked up the run that won the game at the expense of pitcher Jack Spring in the seventh inning. A lead-off single by Tom Tresh (pictured) , a wa

June 28, 1962 - Following the Dodgers’ 5-4 victory over the Mets this evening in a 13-inning game at the Chavez Ravine Stadium in Los Angeles, Dodger center fielder Willie Davis (pictured) was fined $25 as a “reprimand for losing his temper.” Davis, angered at a third strike called against him in the sixth inning, hurled his bat at the Dodger dugout along the third-base line. The bat skipped over the top of the dugout, grazed a second-row patron in the left temple, and droppe

June 28, 1962 - The New York Mets, who have no past and are dismally bogged down in the present, invested a substantial sum in the future today by signing Ed Kranepool (right), a 17-year-old first baseman from James Monroe High School in the Bronx. Kranepool received a bonus estimated to be $75,000. Kranepool, a 6-foot-3-inch, 205-pound left-hander, is expected to join the Mets in Los Angeles today to begin a cram course under the expert guidance of Gil Hodges, the Mets’ slic

June 28, 1962 - Mickey Cochrane, one of baseball’s great figures, died today in Lake Forest Hospital in Illinois. He was 59 years old. A spokesman at the hospital said death came after a long illness. Black Mike, a nickname given Cochrane because of his fiery, competitive nature, became linked with the phrase “greatest catcher in the game.” Thirteen seasons as a player with the Philadelphia Athletics and as player and manager of the Detroit Tigers bore out the phrase. Cochran

June 28, 1962 - The management of the Radio City Music Hall announced that the two opening weeks of “That Touch of Mink,” ending on Wednesday night, drew $408,505, a record for that period of time in the 30-year history of the Music Hall. The film stars Cary Grant and Doris Day. Featured in the supporting cast are Gig Young and Audrey Meadows. New York Yankees players Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra, playing themselves, appear in one comical scene. #MLB #baseball #

June 27, 1962 - A single over third base by Bob Skinner in the tenth inning gave the Pittsburgh Pirates a 6-5 victory over the Mets today in a taut, 3-hour contest at Forbes Field. Eclipsed were fine Met performances: a strong effort by Roger Craig (right), the losing pitcher; Richie Ashburn’s 2,500th base hit; and Frank Thomas’s 14th home run. Ashburn became the 39th major leaguer to make 2,500 or more hits. He was on base with No. 2,501, a single (as was No. 2,500), when Th

June 27, 1962 - In the first two innings today at Yankee Stadium, the Bombers gained a five-run lead over the Minnesota Twins with a typical display of expertise and power. What followed was, for the most part, a dull affair. Before acute boredom set in among the more demanding spectators, the Bombers struck hard against fat left-handed pitches delivered by Jim Kaat. Tom Tresh (pictured) led off in the first inning with his fourth homer of the season, a drive deep into the le

June 27, 1962 - Opening in local theatres today is “Safe at Home,” a comedy film starring Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris of the New York Yankees. The film also stars William Frawley and Don Collier, with appearances by Yankees Whitey Ford and Ralph Houk. The film is about a young Florida boy who lies to his Little League teammates, telling them he knows Mantle and Maris and will bring them to their team banquet. His attempts to meet his heroes during spring training by sneakin

June 26, 1962 - Orlando Cepeda’s single to right in the tenth inning today sent Felipe Alou home from first and gave San Francisco a 6-5 victory over Cincinnati. The victory put the Giants back in first place as the Los Angeles Dodgers bowed to the Braves and fell a half-game behind. The safe call on Alou by the plate umpire, Ed Sudol, was greeted by a wild protest by the entire Reds team. Alou, running for Willie McCovey, who had singled, rounded third on Cepeda’s single at

June 26, 1962 - Earl Wilson (pictured left with catcher Bob Tillman), a big right-handed pitcher, became the toast of the Boston Red Sox and the entire baseball-speaking world tonight. The 26-year-old Wilson beat the Los Angeles Angels, 2-0, on a no-hitter at Fenway Park. In the third inning, he gave the Red Sox (and himself) the only run they needed with a homer into the screen atop the left-field fence. For Wilson, who was earmarked to be traded last spring, it was his firs

June 25, 1962 - Henry Aaron hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning and drove in the deciding run with a single in the seventh today as the Milwaukee Braves defeated the Dodgers, 6-4. Los Angeles had led by 4-0 at one point. The Braves went ahead, 5-4, with three runs in the seventh. The loss was the fourth for the Dodgers in their last five games and it left them only a half-game ahead of second-place San Francisco in the National League. The Dodgers got to Bob Hendley for t

June 24, 1962 - Jim Bouton (pictured) and Jack Reed, probably the most obscure players on the star-studded Yankees, were latecomers in today’s 7-hour, 22-inning victory over the Tigers. But they were the heroes. “I’ve never seen a run so hard to get,” said Reed, who clouted a 2-run homer for the Yankees’ 9-7 victory. Bouton, a rookie, entered the game in the 16th and held the Tigers to 3 hits through the 22nd. Yogi Berra, the 37-year-old star who should have been one of the m