Impact Player

by Bobby Richardson

  Mickey didn’t ask for that, because that statistic probably didn’t mean that much to him. Most of the time we players weren’t too aware of what milestones and records we were approaching unless it was particularly significant. But the team statisticians kept up with those things, and they kept the managers informed of what numbers were within the players’ reach.

  Late in the season, when the league’s postseason spot was clinched, it was common for a manager to be statistics-conscious when he made lineup decisions. After our playing days, when we look back and evaluate our careers, those numbers do mean something to us, so we’re grateful someone was mindful of our statistics at the time.

  Mickey went homerless in the three games before the season-ender. But on the last day of the season, against the Chicago White Sox, Mickey hit number thirty in the fourth inning. Because I was in the unusual spot of batting behind Mickey, I was the on-deck batter and got to be the first player to congratulate him. I should have remembered the line he had used on me in Minnesota and said, “I didn’t think you could do it!”

  Despite the amount of time he missed, Mickey was voted American League MVP for the third time, by a wide margin. I finished second, with Harmon Killebrew third. Mickey had been out of the lineup from mid-May to mid-June, and we’d had a more difficult time winning games when he was out. When he returned, we won at a more frequent rate, and I think that proves right there that Mickey was “most valuable” to our team.

  I’ll admit that when asked about the biggest thrill of my career, I will give different answers. There are so many great moments I was able to enjoy that it’s difficult to pick just one and stick with it. One of my responses to that question, though, is that when Mickey was announced as the MVP winner in 1962, he said, “Bobby should have won it.”

  I was thrilled just to finish second to Mickey, but it meant a great deal to me when Mickey acknowledged my season in that manner.

  Rain, Rain, Go Away

  Typically the regular season would end on a Sunday, and the World Series would begin on a Wednesday. In 1962, though, we had an extra day off because the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers had tied for first place in the National League and needed a three-game playoff to determine the pennant winner. Although we didn’t know our opponent after the final Sunday of the regular season, with San Francisco and Los Angeles playing each other, we at least knew we would be making a cross-country flight.

  The Dodgers had led the Giants by four games with seven left to play. But the Dodgers won only one game in the final week, and San Francisco won on the last day to move into the first-place tie. The Giants won the first and third games of the three-game playoff, clinching the pennant in Los Angeles on the day before the Series was to begin. In keeping with the way they forced the best-of-three playoff, the Giants came from behind to win the clincher, scoring four runs in the ninth inning to win 6–4.

  Our West Coast destination was decided. The 1962 World Series would open the next day at Candlestick Park. But it would take a while to finish. In fact, “delay” became the theme of the Series, which required thirteen days to complete because of rain. The first four games all went off as scheduled, over five days, but it took a full week to play the final three games.

  Because we had had those three days off while the Giants were playing Los Angeles, we started the Series with a pitching advantage. Ralph was able to go with our best pitcher—Whitey, of course—while San Francisco manager Al Dark had to go with his most rested pitcher, Billy O’Dell. That meant we didn’t have to start the Series against San Francisco ace Juan Marichal, a future Hall of Famer who had started the final game against Los Angeles.

  We jumped out to a quick 2–0 lead. Tony Kubek struck out leading off, but I singled and Tom Tresh singled after me. After Mickey struck out, Roger Maris doubled to right to score me and Tresh.

  The Giants scored a run in the second, ending Whitey’s record streak of thirty-three and two-thirds consecutive scoreless innings in the World Series. They scored again in the third to tie the game at 2. Whitey and O’Dell then locked into a pitcher’s duel that lasted until the seventh inning. Clete Boyer got us going again with a solo home run in the seventh, and with Whitey still putting up zeroes on the board, we scored twice more in the eighth and once more in the ninth for a 6–2 win.

  Game 2 was dominated by the pitchers. Ralph Terry had won twenty-three games for us during the regular season, and the Giants started a twenty-four game winner in Jack Sanford. Ralph pitched great, but Sanford was a little better that day, holding us to only three hits as we lost 2–0 for a split of the first two games in San Francisco.

  In what would be a seesaw Series, we won Game 3 in New York 3–2, a game that was scoreless until the seventh. The Giants won 7–3 the next day in a game started by Whitey and Marichal. Marichal pitched only four innings, though, because of a hand injury, and San Francisco’s winning pitcher was Don Larsen, my former Yankees and Denver Bears teammate who had been traded to Kansas City in 1959, then on to the Chicago White Sox, and after that to San Francisco.

  Rain pushed Game 5 back from Tuesday to Wednesday, and we won that game 5–3 thanks to a three-run homer by Tresh in the eighth that scored Kubek and me. Then we boarded another cross-country flight, needing one more victory to wrap up the Series.

  It would take a while to get it.

  We arrived in the Bay Area on Thursday, October 11. So did the effects of Tropical Storm Freda, which made landfall in the Pacific Northwest. Between Thursday and Sunday, more than six inches of rain fell down the coast in San Francisco. It rained so heavily that games were being called off before we even left our hotel for the park. The rain ended Saturday, but there had been too much rain for us to play Sunday on the poorly draining field at Candlestick Park, even though helicopters were brought in to hover just above the outfield in an attempt to dry it out.

  Counting the scheduled off-day for travel, we didn’t play for four straight days. That was a day-longer break than we’d had between the end of the regular season and the start of the World Series, waiting for our World Series opponent to be determined. Then, however, we’d been at home. During the weather delays, we were stuck in our hotel in San Francisco. Guys were getting together to go out and eat, go watch movies, play card games, or come up with whatever else they could to battle boredom.

  The extra time off created a different type of problem for me. I’d agreed to write a daily column about the World Series for The State newspaper back home in Columbia, and I was having a difficult time coming up with column ideas each day. I would go to my teammates and practically plead with them to tell me something interesting or share a story that I could use to fill my column.

  Tony Kubek came up with several good ideas I could use, and I’m still grateful to him, because I was really struggling. I never thought the rainouts would end so we could get back on the field and I could have games to write about. That Series saw the start and end of my brief newspaper-columnist career, although it didn’t seem so brief when I was scrambling for column ideas.

  The Giants, of course, had to sit through the same delay, although they had the advantage of being at home during the break and could go about their normal schedules. But in our favor, Ralph Houk could once again bring a fully rested Whitey back to start Game 6. With the Chairman of the Board on the mound, I liked our chances of finally ending that Series right then, but it didn’t happen. San Francisco scored five runs off Whitey in less than five innings, and veteran pitcher Billy Pierce held us to only three hits.

  The Giants won that game 5–2, to force a Game 7. It would be one of the most memorable seventh games not only in World Series history, but also in all professional sports.

  Game 7, like most games in that Series, was masterfully pitched. For the third time in the Series, our Ralph Terry started opposite Jack Sanford. We had split the two previous games those two had started, and based on the way they had gone, we expected runs to be at a premium in Game 7.

/>   They certainly were.

  We led 1–0 going into the bottom of the ninth, with the only run scored in the fifth inning, when Kubek grounded into a double play with the bases loaded, scoring Moose Skowron from third. Terry was pitching incredibly. He had retired the first seventeen batters he faced, and the only time the Giants really had threatened to score was in the seventh, when big Willie McCovey tripled with two outs. But Ralph had struck out Orlando Cepeda to end that inning and protect our 1–0 lead.

  We’d had a chance to increase our lead in the eighth when we loaded the bases. I’d reached first on an error leading off, and Tresh and Mantle had followed with singles. My friend Billy O’Dell came in to replace Sanford. Maris faced him first and hit a grounder to second baseman Chuck Hiller, who threw home to force me at the plate. Ellie Howard then hit into a double play, and we failed to score.

  I have to admit, I was a little concerned at that point. I had played in too many games in my career when one team had a chance to pad a lead late, failed to do so, and wound up losing because of the missed opportunity. I hoped that wouldn’t be the case in this game.

  With Terry still pitching, Matty Alou pinch-hit, leading off the Giants’ half of the ninth inning. He reached base on a bunt single placed so well past the pitcher’s mound that I could only field the ball and not make an attempt to throw to first. Terry struck out Matty’s brother Felipe and Hiller—both after they failed to sacrifice-bunt Matty to second. (Practice those bunts, kids.) But Terry was still looking at the heart of the San Francisco order: Willie Mays, McCovey, and Cepeda. Any one of them could have ended our championship hopes with one swing.

  On an inside-out swing, Mays lined a ball down the right field line toward Roger Maris. With the fast Matty Alou at first base, I instantly knew I would be making a relay throw to home plate with the game possibly on the line.

  It’s been said that the still-soggy grass of Candlestick Park prevented Mays’s hit from getting all the way into the right field corner. I don’t know if that’s true; field conditions weren’t that bad by the end of the Series. But even if that was the case, I think it needs to be considered that right fielder Maris would have been running on the same soggy grass that slowed the ball. Either way, Roger made a great hustle play by racing into the corner, picking up the ball before it rolled onto the warning track, and throwing it quickly to me.

  Roger had been playing with a sore arm for a couple of months, so I’d been going out a little deeper than normal to serve as his cutoff man. I set up several feet inside the right field line to position myself in a straight line between Roger and home plate so I’d know exactly where to throw the ball. Roger’s left foot slipped just a tad as he came up, and his throw short-hopped me slightly. Just as I had all those times fielding a tennis ball bouncing off my chimney back home, I cleanly scooped the short hop with both hands, then immediately turned and threw to Ellie Howard at home plate. San Francisco third base coach Whitey Lockman threw up a quick stop sign and halted Alou at third.

  My one-hop throw to home was accurate, but it took a surprisingly high bounce—chest-high to Ellie and into his mitt.

  As happens with any play like that, there was intense speculation in the days after the Series as to whether Lockman should have sent Alou home. Even today that decision is occasionally discussed, although the general consensus is that Alou would have been tagged out at the plate if he’d continued around third. I’ve always believed Alou would have been out by about five feet, but the fact that my throw took such a high hop would at least have made a play at the plate more interesting.

  With McCovey coming up, Ralph Houk went to the mound to talk to Terry. Alou was at third with the tying run, and Mays with his great speed was standing at second as the winning run. Houk asked the right-handed Terry whether he wanted to walk the left-handed McCovey to load the bases for a righty-righty matchup against Cepeda with a force-out at any base.

  While they were discussing strategy, Tony and I met near second base. “I sure hope he doesn’t hit the ball to you,” my longtime roommate said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Well, you’ve already made one error this Series, and I’d hate to see you blow it now.”

  Mays, standing on second, laughed.

  Terry told Houk that he would rather pitch carefully to McCovey than walk him. He didn’t like the idea of having the bases loaded and running the risk of walking Cepeda, who had hit thirty-five homers that season, to force in a run.

  I returned to position on the back of the infield dirt, but it wasn’t my normal position. McCovey was known for hitting balls up the middle, just to the second baseman’s side of the bag. But there had been a couple of plays in that Series when I’d thrown McCovey out at first from the hole between first and second. One of those times, I’d fielded the ball so far toward first that I had to wait on the first baseman to get to his bag before I could make my throw. So I moved a little bit into the hole between first and second, expecting McCovey to pull the ball.

  “Hey, Rich.” A voice came from behind me and to my right. It was second base umpire Al Barlick. “Can I have your cap for my little cousin?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I answered, although surprised to hear such a question from an umpire at that time.

  His request stuck with me as Terry looked in to Ellie for the signal.

  Give him the cap.

  The next thing I heard was the ball meeting McCovey’s bat. He pulled a ball down the right field line that Roger gave chase to, but it landed several rows back in the seats. I edged slightly closer to first.

  I saw Terry looking at me from the mound. He later told me he noticed I was playing out of my normal position and started to walk out toward me and tell me to move back to my right a few steps. But then he reconsidered, thinking I had played hundreds of games at second base and must have had a good reason for positioning myself as I had.

  If a gut feeling telling me that McCovey would pull the ball qualifies as a good reason, then I guess I did have one.

  McCovey took the following pitch for a ball, then hit the next pitch. It was a screamer, too. Willie smoked that ball. And I caught it.

  Over the past fifty years I have heard or read all kinds of adjectives for that catch—miraculous, incredible, amazing, sensational, tremendous, and on and on and on. I believe it was Felipe Alou who wrote in his autobiography that I made a leaping, one-handed catch that no other second baseman in major league baseball could make.

  I wish it had been that spectacular, but in all honesty, it wasn’t. I simply took one step to my left, reached about shoulder high, and snared the ball. McCovey had hit the ball so hard, that was all I had time to do. Even if I had needed to step and leap, there would have been no time to do it.

  The ball came off Willie’s bat with a lot of topspin, so it was dipping as it neared my glove. I caught the ball with my bare hand near my glove and secured the ball as the momentum from following the ball’s flight carried my glove and bare hand to just above the ground. I took two or three more off-balanced steps to my left, still clutching the ball tightly in my glove as my teammates started racing toward the pitcher’s mound to celebrate. Kubek ran to join me where the infield grass meets the dirt, and when I got a few steps from Tony, I removed my cap and handed it to the umpire for his cousin.

  We celebrated briefly on the field and hurried into the locker room, where I gave the game ball to Ralph Terry. He was named World Series MVP for his super pitching and deserved the award. (I wonder what he did with his Corvette.) I was especially happy for Ralph, because he’d been the pitcher who gave up Bill Mazeroski’s homer when we lost Game 7 in 1960.

  We didn’t do much celebrating after the game because Ralph, Tony, Johnny Blanchard, Jim Bouton, and I were hurrying to shower, get dressed, and leave the ballpark. With all the rainouts in the Series, we were eager to get home and had bought commercial tickets to fly back to New York City instead of flying later on the team charter. We had arranged for a polic
eman to take us to the airport, and naturally the policeman got caught in traffic on the way to the airport. Even with his siren on, we weren’t moving for a while.

  Man, I thought, we’ve paid all this money for these special arrangements, and we’re going to miss our flight and not get home any earlier!

  We did catch our flight—barely. Once we got home, my family and I started our drive down to South Carolina and made it to Sumter the next day.

  About two months later someone handed me a copy of the comics section in the newspaper and pointed to Charles Schulz’s Peanuts strip. Schulz was a big Giants fan. In the first three panels Charlie Brown and Linus sat speechless, chins in their hands. In the final panel Charlie Brown stood and screamed out, “Why couldn’t McCovey have hit the ball just three feet higher?”

  Another month later, there was a second reference to that game in Peanuts. Charlie Brown and Linus sat for three panels slightly less disconsolate, but still silent. In the fourth panel Charlie Brown spoke again: “Or why couldn’t McCovey have hit the ball even two feet higher?”

  Well, Charlie Brown, if McCovey had hit that ball two feet higher, or even three feet farther to my left, it would have flown past me for a single into right field. Would Mays have scored from second to win the game? He could fly on the base paths, and with two outs he would have been off at the crack of the bat. But McCovey’s ball was hit hard and would have gotten to Maris in right field quickly. There would have been a play at the plate, I’m sure, although Roger had that sore arm that would have affected his throw home. Would Mays have been safe? I’m just glad we didn’t have to find out.