Bay Area Bias
Home / Giants / Standing on the Corner of Rivalry and Riot

Standing on the Corner of Rivalry and Riot

Giants fans and players alike slowly pulled their faces out up from their palms. No one could figure out how Willie McCovey’s rocket line drive in game 7 of the 1962 World Series landed in a Yankee glove. The following year the scab was pulled back a little further when the most despised of rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, won the whole thing behind the masterful arm of Sandy Koufax. Each Spring returns ripe with hope, visions of pennants and of course another chance to lay some wood on the blue and white. With the best player in the game standing in centerfield, the brute force of Willie McCovey and an up and coming Orlando Cepeda optimism was flooding from Ocean Beach to the Embarcadero.

A great rivalry is handed down like snow clothes through generations. It is a gentleman’s hatred in baseball for anyone who has ever aligned themselves with the Giants or Dodgers. What neither side will concede to admit is underneath the competitive fire and schadenfreude there is great respect with such a rival. When these two teams share a field it is tantamount to fighting with your brother. These scraps were so personal that when one organization decided to head west in 1958 the other one high tailed it towards the Pacific that same year. The Polo Grounds (in New York) and Ebbets Field (in Brooklyn) would serve as time capsules to now a century old battle

Any decade can serve as evidence to the intensity of this rivalry but none more paramount than the 1960s. With two players that would sit at the head table of any Cooperstown cookout (Koufax and Mays) amongst many others enshrined, the dramatic clashes would resonate through baseball discussions for years to come. These contests aptly reflected the tumult and unrest that filled the air of the 60s in America

When the good Lord was handing out stature, Don Drysdale somehow snuck back in line for a couple free refills. Even without the help of a mound he was an imposing presence. Standing 6’ 6” and well over two hundred pounds, when Drysdale sent a message high and inside there was no need for a translator. It took the bravest of hitters to step back in the cauldron ignoring the heat from the laces of the ball that just charred their nose hair. On May 1, 1964 the champagne stain outlines could still be seen on blue caps of the Dodgers from their World Series title. The black and orange were taking their first trip of the season to Chavez Ravine and each squad was expected to be a formidable presence in the National league. The Dodgers would go on to win handily (7-1) in front of over 50,000 dressed for what would look today like a Don Draper audition. It was one of many regular season games except for one exchange when Drysdale went high and tight on the great Willie Mays. It was Drysdale’s best defense to Mays who could turn on any ball anywhere (The Giants only run that day was a Willie homer) except maybe at his chin. The location and speed of such pitch was not unique for Drysdale yet it is believed that at some point that day Giants pitcher Juan Marichal promised revenge down the road.

Help Me, Herman!

The skipper who posted the lineup each day for the Giants at the time was Al Dark. A former player in New York, Dark will be forever remembered as the first manager to bring a pennant to San Francisco (in 1962). However, the honeymoon ended in 1964 when owner Horace Stoneham believed it was time to go a new direction. As the airwaves blasted the new hit single from the Beach Boys, “Help Me, Rhonda” Giants fans were thinking “Help me, Herman.” Even before he managed his first game, Herman Franks had a distinct role in the history of America’s past time. When the call of all calls rang across airwaves in 1951, “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” behind the Bobby Thomson shot heard ’round the world, Franks had a rather interesting vantage point. An entire thesis could be written on the backdrop to that distinct moment in baseball. One expert would claim the stealing of signs by the Giants, while others would stand behind the antiquated baseball code of win at all costs. It is believed that when Thomson went deep the former catcher Franks, buried deep in the bowels of the Polo Fields, was in the center field clubhouse with an unobstructed view of the Brooklyn Dodgers catcher. One buzz would ring in the Giants’ bullpen indicating a fastball was on its way and two buzzes tipped off a curve. Speculation, heresy and conspiracy all coat this tale although as Ralph Branca who starred as the goat in this screen play, serving up the final pitch, said many years later, “he still hit the pitch.”

The 1965 season could not come soon enough. Each squad was loaded, the Dodgers behind the lethal combo of Koufax and Drysdale, while Giants fans’ necks stung with whiplash from watching balls fly out of Candlestick Park from the mighty McCovey and Mays. Hopes were as high as (Giants ace) Juan Marichal’s left leg on his theatric release. The consistency of these two clubs throughout the regular season drastically drifted from American’s sense of stability that seemed to be stuck on puree during the summer of 1965.

Smoke rising from the East Bay that May could be followed back to the first Vietnam draft cards set ablaze in Berkeley. The ethos of the American youth could not be paraphrased better than from the ample lips of Mick Jagger, the tenor of the Rolling Stones on their smash hit that dropped in July of 1965, “I can’t get no satisfaction!” Unrest would only heighten in July when President Lyndon Johnson escalated the Vietnam conflict by guaranteeing the deployment of thousands of more troops and doubling the number of drafted men per month. The Dodgers and their fans literally watched the racial strife explode in their hometown on the night of August 11, 1965. What started as a white police officer performing a sobriety test on an African American driver, spiraled in to something much more tragic. Los Angeles and the nation at whole watched the nihilism as the Watts riots turned the Los Angeles sky soot filled orange for the next six days. An album title never seemed to convey the zeitgeist better than when four British chaps with amusing haircuts dropped, “Help!” on August 13th.

 

With the embers of the riot still warm, the Dodgers headed north for a four game stand on their final trip of the year to Candlestick Park. This would be a pivotal turn in the National League race as the Dodgers sat half a game back of the lead and the Giants right on their tail one whole game back. Fathers throughout the bay area could care less if the Beatles were coming to play the Cow Palace in a week as they tuned their radios to KSFO to hear the pleasant vocal chords of Lon Simmons and Russ Hodges.

Well This Could Be the Last Time

 The polarity of the two squads would be on the full display as Giants fans embraced the unbridled vigor of the M&M boys whose forearms seemed to have three lanes of muscle. Homers rang into the San Francisco sky and past the most talented gold glove of all, the South shore wind that whipped off the bay. The ace of the staff was the Dominican Dandy, Marichal with big Bob Shaw playing the role of Matt Cain to Marichal’s Lincecum. The Dodgers still had the surgeon on the hill in Koufax, as well as the ox, Drysdale. The Dodgers offense was the antithesis of the Giants. Look no further than the fact that the Dodgers hitters one through eight ended up with 63 home runs on the year while Mays alone belted out 52. Treating the base paths like the carpool lane of the autobahn compensated for the Dodgers paucity at the plate. Their base coaches were more like one-man pit crews. No speedster was more potent than the preacher’s son who could run like hell, Maury Wills. Short in stature, Wills would wrap his fingers at about the “L” on Louisville Slugger and pepper the infield or short outfield with base hits. Once on base though many pitchers turned into his puppet as he stole (successfully) with such reckless abandon that in 1962 he eclipsed Ty Cobb’s record of 96 steals in a year. That year Wills thievery was so prevalent that the grounds crew at Candlestick Park, Marty and Jerry Schwab (father and son) literally emptied matters from their own hands. With an all night effort and an open tab of the magic cocktail of water, moss and sand the Schwabs altered the infield from the rigidity of a flight deck that Wills was accustomed to into a marsh land. LA Times luminary, Jim Murray wrote, “they found two abalone under second base.”

The first night of the series did not disappoint, as both teams were grid locked at 5 runs apiece. It wasn’t until after the fourth hour of play in the top of the 15th inning that Gaylord Perry surrendered three runs giving round one of the battle to the Dodgers. The Giants recovered nicely on Friday where Jim Ray Hart laid the lumber and Bob Shaw went nine strong innings giving up one run and notching his seventh win in a row. Saturday night was no slouch, for the second time in three nights nine innings could not determine a winner between these two heavy weights exchanging body blows. The knell that finally rang came from the bat of Dodgers first baseman Wes Parker in the 11th inning taking the ball for a ride over the right field fence. For all that seemed lost in two heartbreaking extra inning finishes even more awaited on Sunday where the best of the best would be bringing their nastiest cheese, Marichal vs Koufax.

Don’t Play With Me Cause You’re Playing with Fire

A bunt! His heart is pounding through his chest. A city of fervent fans dying for a pennant with their hopes resting on his right arm and that little gnat had the nerve to start off the game with a damn bunt. You could read the steep grade of his dark eyebrows and almost hear the enamel grinding off his teeth. Juan Marichal was fuming over Wills’ first inning dribbler that got him on base. Less than five minutes in and the stakes had been raised. Marichal’s machismo over rode any rational thought so when Wills returned to the plate in the top of the second Juan gave him the kind of hospitality you might find at a Guantanamo Bay bed and breakfast. A heater aimed straight at the cabeza sent Wills falling to the dirt and just like that more chips on the table. The Dodgers beseeched Koufax to return the favor but Sandy was the first knight of sportsmanship, the most genteel of mound keepers. Additionally, with his accuracy if Koufax wanted to put it in the batters’ ear he could probably decide on the helix or the lobe.

The tension was tighter than Joe Buck at Mardi Gras when the venerable Willie Mays came to the plate to lead off in the bottom of the 2nd inning. Perhaps finding a happy medium between competitive reciprocation and a respect for one of the true monoliths of the game Koufax sailed his first pitch well over Mays’ head hoping that now maybe the posturing could be put to rest and a baseball game might be able to continue. With the Dodgers clinging to a 2-1 lead Marichal approached the plate to bat in the third inning. Koufax bent at the waist leaned in for the sign from his catcher John Roseboro. Guarding his teams pride like he guarded the plate, Roseboro felt that Koufax’s token gesture to Mays in the 2nd was simply a placebo. This was the Giants and if Sandy wouldn’t deliver the retribution then he had no problem stepping in

After a ball and a strike Roseboro sent his return throw steaming past Marichal’s ear, Marichal in fact claimed it hit his ear. The prose between Marichal and Roseboro turned to the pejorative. Marichal was now back stepping towards a perplexed Koufax at the mound. Home plate umpire Shag Crawford rose slowly from his stance assuming this masquerade wasn’t about to last long. Crawford, who served on a WWII destroyer when a kamikaze pilot struck, was not a man easily excited. Roseboro flipped off his facemask and proceeded towards Marichal. The tremor from the crowd indicated the vagary of a rivalry shifting from gamesmanship to the precipice of a melee. As Marichal wielded the bat Roseboro showed no sign of abating. Suddenly Marichal swung the bat at Roseboro’s head and shock vibrated through Candlestick Park. Koufax grasped for the bat like a terrified parent reaching for a butcher knife in their toddler’s hand. It took more than 10 minutes for the bench-clearing brawl to end. When fists released and bats were laid down Roseboro had a welt on his head and a significant gash over his left eye requiring 14 stitches. Only raising the apotheosis of Willie Mays, he came to the aid of Roseboro and cooled the fuming catcher. Dodgers’ manager Walter Alston would concede after the game that the foremost peacekeeper was indeed Mays.

Once the game resumed, with Koufax’s concentration visibly deterred Mays did what he had done in each of the three previous games, shot a home run into the sea of Candlestick faithful. This homer provided the run support needed to secure the win for the Giants but seemed of little importance on a day when baseball incurred a black eye. Much to the disdain of Dodger fans and baseball writers Marichal received a fine of $1,750 and a nine-day suspension. If the suspension was supposed to halt the Giants chase for a pennant they were the last to know, reeling off 14 straight wins. Only feeding the lore of a great rivalry though, the Dodgers themselves would get white hot and win 15 of their final 16 regular season games and bring the championship trophy back to Los Angeles.

A quarter century rolled on before the Giants made it back to the World Series. The nation would gradually regain their footing. Hippies in Haight Ashbury tucked away their tie-dye for satin disco shirts, Koufax’ arm almost fell off from overuse, and the wind in Mays step would bow to father time. No pitcher won more games in the decade of the 1960s and yet no one frightened the establishment more than Marichal on the day he let rivalry and riot spill on to one another. It is believed the writers returned some high heat by overlooking his sure fire hall of fame career the first four years he was eligible for Cooperstown. Young ballplayers with vitriol from a rivalry turn into old men with nostalgia and remember a time when their best could only be evoked when their rival was in town. Marichal wasn’t accepted into Cooperstown until 1983 when a former ball player publicly appealed to the voters. That player was John Roseboro.

Comments