Eephus Digest

Not in honor of Labor Day, I made an effort (labor = effort, get it?) to tell three stories that aren’t long enough for a single column, so I collected them in this potpourri piece.

CARDS DO DOUBLE DUTY

This was not a day-night doubleheader. Yes, on Thursday, September 13, 1951, the St. Louis Cardinals played two games that day, one that began during the day and the other that started at night. But the Redbirds didn’t play the same team twice.

September 13 was supposed to be an off day for the Giants, who were scheduled to play the Cubs on the fourteenth. But the Cards-Giants game on the twelfth was rained out, and New York was not scheduled to return to St. Louis after the twelfth. Commissioner Ford Frick decided to have St. Louis and New York play on the thirteenth in a day game and begin the regularly scheduled game against Boston that evening. The Cardinals were okay with this, but New York’s owner Horace Stoneham was against it, according to press accounts.

In the 19th century, teams had played two games against two teams on one day, but both games started during the day. The Giants-Cardinals-Braves was the first time one game was played during the day and the second at the night.

“Playing two ball games in one day will never become a major league policy or practice, nor will the king-sized stunt replace the automobile any faster than it did old dobbin when grandpa was a gay blade,” wrote Bob Broeg for the St. Louis Post Dispatch the next day. (An old dobbin refers to a retired workhorse that was part of a popular song in the 19th century.)

“In fact, over a 68-year period from the time the New York Maroons squared off against both Boston and Providence in 1883, no major had attempted to play two clubs on the same day,” Broeg wrote. “To straighten out a weather-snarled schedule, though the Cardinals tried yesterday to beat two ball clubs, the present-day Maroons and and Bean-Towners, but they were successful only in proving that enough is enough and to face two twenty-game pitchers in one 24-hour period is enough.”

In the first game on that September day in 1951, the Cardinals knocked out Giants starter and 20-game winner Sal Maglie in the second inning. He walked the first two batters, gave up hits to the next two batters and the Cards were up 2-0. The next batter bunted the runners to second and third, and they scored on another single, making it 3-0. Manager Leo Durocher replaced Maglie with Monty Kennedy, who came in with two runners on base; he allowed both runs to score and gave up a run charged to him before the inning was over. Those were all the runs St. Louis would score.

In the top of the third, the Cardinals replaced starter Tom Poholsky, whose leg was struck by Giants catcher Wes Westrum’s spikes as he slid into home plate, causing a wound. Dick Bokelmann took the mound in the top of the third; he allowed two runs in the sixth inning and two runs in the eighth, before Gerry Staley relieved him and closed out the game for his third (and final) save of the season. The game took two hours and 26 minutes to play in front of 4,160 fans.

“Sal Maglie lost his sixth game of the season here (St.Louis) this afternoon and that just about does it for the Giants who once more find themselves eight lengths back of the Brooks in the losing column with but with thirteen games to play,” wrote Jim McCulley in the next day’s New York Daily News. The Dodgers, who were off that day, had 17 games left in their season.

At 8:45 pm the Cardinals began the second game against the Boston Braves. Starting for Boston was Warren Spahn, who had won 19 games by that point of the season. He retired the first six batters he faced until he walked centerfielder Chuck Diering to lead off the third. He proceeded to retire the next 10 batters – until Cards starting pitcher Al Brazle singled off him with one out in the sixth. After that, no Cardinal reached base. Spahn had pitched a one-hit shutout to earn his 20th win of the year, while Brazle, who pitched a complete game, gave up only two runs in the losing effort; a game that was played in one hour and 48 minutes. 4,706 fans were at the second contest.

“It was the best game I ever pitched,” Spahn told the Boston Globe. “I’ve been working all year for this one (his 20thwin).” He helped himself by driving in the second Boston run in the top of the ninth.

The lone hit he surrendered to his pitching counterpart came on a changeup. “It was a good pitch, outside, right where I wanted it,” he said. “He was lucky.”

Cards catcher Del Rice caught both games, while Solly Hemus, Red Schoendienst, Stan Musial and Bill Johnson also played in the two games that day.

The Giants started the 13th 5.5 games behind the Dodgers. At one point, the Giants were trailing the Dodgers by 13 games in August. Little did Jim McCulley envision a scenario where the Giants and Dodgers would tie for the pennant and Bobby Thompson hitting “the shot heard round the world” to put them in the World Series.

The Cardinals finished third in the league that year, with an 81-73 record, 15 games behind both the Dodgers and Giants at the end of the season. The other five teams in the National League that year had losing records.

IS HE THE WORLD’S BEST BASEBALL FAN?

I don’t know if Harvey Briggs is alive, but he told me that upon his death his sister (if she outlived him) would scatter his ashes on the steps of The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

“She’s going to spread my ashes on the steps of the Hall of Fame,” he said. “They’re still gonna debate who was the better hitter, Di Maggio or Williams, but there’ll be no doubt I was the greatest baseball fan.”

And Harvey could back it up.

In a typical year, he saw about 180 games in the US, the Caribbean and Japan. I wonder if he ever made it to Australia?

I met him in the parking lot at Daniel S. Frawley Stadium in Wilmington, DE. As he got out of his car, he stretched, and remarked that driving eight hours will make you stiff. Where did you come from, I asked? North Carolina, he said. Briggs had seen a minor league game there, and he was going to see the Wilmington Blue Rocks in a few hours.

I started talking to him, and he told me he liked to watch baseball games; and not just major and minor league games, but college and high school games, including girls softball contests. And not just in America. Every year he travelled to the Caribbean World Series tournament, which he called the best baseball he’d seen. The players give everything they got, he said, they’ll crash into walls to make a catch or slide headfirst to beat a throw. He also enjoyed watching the crowds.

“When a team (in the Caribbean series) takes the lead, a group of guys will carry that country’s flag and start walking through the crowd of the other team and they know, they know they’re going to get pelted with food, drinks and (other objects).” He also frequented the restaurants in those countries. “Señor Briggs!” the staff would say as they recognized him. “I tipped big,” he explained.

He had only two rules: never be late for a game, and never leave a game early.

He was once watching a game in Baltimore that went into extra innings. One team had taken the lead, which was good for him. The last train leaving to help get him home was leaving soon; if the game ended, he’d just about make the train. Somehow, the other team tied it. He threw something, it might have been his hat, because now he’d miss his train. Another fan next to him, who knew about his rule, teased him about it.

He was on a bus in Wisconsin and was running late. He would get off at a stop and head to the stadium, but he doubted he’d make it before the game started. He mentioned this to the driver, who, he said, detoured from the route and dropped him off in front of the ballpark.

I last met with Briggs a long time ago, and I can’t recall the year. He had given me his phone number, and I met him at his home in Southern New Jersey, where he told me his stories and showed me his collection ticket stubs and of photos he took. I wrote up an article about him, intending to publish it in a baseball magazine or something local. All I could manage to publish was a few paragraphs in a city magazine that didn’t nearly tell readers about him.

I have moved several times – make that many times – since I last spoke to him. I can’t find my notes, and the computer I wrote the story on is long gone, too. My long-term memory is pretty good, and I’m confident what I’ve written is accurate.

He worked on a barge, three weeks on, three weeks off; that’s how he found the time to travel to the games.

Briggs had been to Japan, and while watching the Tokyo Giants, he was worried he might not make it in time to see the San Francisco Giants start a game in their home city. But nature gave him a break. Flying from Japan to the United States, the winds blow in that direction, and that leg of the flights are shorter than the ones from the US to Japan. He got to the game in time, and because of the international dateline, he saw The Tokyo Giants and the San Francisco Giants on the same day (and he had the ticket stubs to prove it).

Briggs was divorced but said his traveling to see games was not the cause for the breakup.

I’ve searched the internet to find something on Briggs, an article about his being the greatest fan ever or, God forbid, an obituary. So far, I haven’t found anything.

So, Harvey, if you’re out there, get in touch with me through the BallNine website. I’d like to know where you’ve been lately.

HE WAS IN THE MIDDLE BETWEEN BARTMAN AND ALOU

The count was three and two, with a runner at second base and one out. The hitter swung and lofted a foul ball that was floating towards the front row of seats along the leftfield foul line at Wrigley Field.

The photos and video show Cubs outfielder Moises Alou and Cubs fan Steve Bartman reaching for that foul ball in game six of the National League Championship Series on October 14, 2003. Bartman touched the ball and deflected it away from Alou. Later images showed Alou jumping up and down at what he thought was Bartman’s interference, and Bartman being pelted with beer and other items by fellow Cubs fans.

What’s not in those images is who hit the foul ball that both men reached for in that infamous game.

It was Florida Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo.

Given another chance at the plate, Castillo saw Cubs ace Mark Prior throw a wild pitch for ball four, sending him to first base and enabling Juan Pierre to reach third.

We all know how the rest of that inning went. The Marlins went on to score eight runs, and the inning was kept alive with Chicago’s sure-handed shortstop Alex Gonzalez (who made only 10 errors all season) mishandling a ground ball hit by Miguel Cabrera that could have been a double play.

Moises and Bartman are linked in baseball history, but who was Luis Castillo?

I was thinking of including Castillo in my next “Forgotten Man” column, in which I profile players who were involved in significant plays but are largely unknown, such as who was on base when Bobby Thompson hit his home run to give the New York Giants the pennant in 1951, or what other players went to the California Angels along with Nolan Ryan when the New York Mets sent the quartet in exchange for Jim Fregosi?

But Castillo was not a minor player or unknown figure in his career. He batted .300 or higher in eight of his seasons, twice led the league in stolen bases, and made three All-Star teams.

He was born on September 12, 1975 in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic. He was signed by the Marlins on August 19, 1992 and made his major league debut almost four years to the day when he played against the New York Mets on August 8, 1996. He was only 20 years old and went 0 for 3 that game.

His best year was 2000, when he batted .334 and led the National League with 62 steals. He again led the league iwith 48 in 2002. From 1999 to 2002, the second baseman swiped 193 bases and scored 279 runs. With Juan Pierre batting leadoff and Castillo hitting second, the Marlins had a terrific top of the order.

In 2003, he swiped “only” 21 bases, and batted .314, but getting another chance to bat led to one of the most bizzare innings in postseason play. Florida went on to win the game 8-3, won the seventh game against Chicago and defeated the favored New York Yankees in the World Series in six games.

“I saw him (Moises Alou) getting really mad, jumping up and down, throwing his glove and yelling, and I realized he didn’t get it,” said Castillo after the game. “That fan saved our season. Moises would have had that.”

Castillo batted a second time in the frame and popped out to second base for the final out.

Bartman received death threats, had police protection outside his home, and changed his phone number. In a cathartic gesture, when the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 – their first since 1908 – the team gave Bartman a championship ring.

Castillo ended his career on October 3, 2010 when he played for the New York Mets. In 2017, he was inducted into the Dominican Republic Sports Hall of Fame. He had an impressive career, but then so did Bill Buckner, but unlike Buckner, or, to the point, so did Mookie Wilson, who hit the ball Buckner bubbled, but there was no “Steve Bartman” involved, and Buckner, unlike Castillo, didn’t get a second chance.