September 21, 1964: The Most Infamous Day in Philadelphia Sports History

 

[Note: This is an update and revision of my post from 21 September 2012]

Chico Ruiz stealing home, Connie Mack Stadium, Philadelphia, 21 September 1964

Fall is my favorite season. Weather-wise, the turn from summer's sweltering heat to autumn's fresh crispness, with its attendant azure-blue skies and the Northeast's brilliant displays of leafy color, is one of the most highly anticipated events of my year. Yet the approach of the autumnal equinox each September 22-24 is marked by an event that, for me, brings back painful memories of childhood disillusionment and has left an indelible mark on my sporting psyche—and not only on mine, but on millions of Philadelphians of my generation: The Phillies blew a seemingly insurmountable 6 1/2 game lead in the National League with only 12 games to go by losing an unthinkable 10 games in a row. The way this streak began was so bizarre, and how the mounting losses seemed so inexorable, certainly (in my mind) justifies the pessimistic fatalism that has made Philadelphia fans infamous in the sporting world.

In the spring and early summer of 1964 I was 7 years old, a burgeoning sports fan who loved playing wiffle ball in the alley behind my row house apartment on Balwynne Park Road in the then-new Wynnefield Heights section of West Philadelphia, a neighborhood carved out of land once occupied by an amusement park called Woodside Park. 1964 was the first year I followed big league baseball in earnest, reading the box scores religiously as if my life depended on it, collecting the Topps baseball cards my dad bought from the Jack and Jill ice cream truck that made its nightly rounds in the neighborhood, listening to By Saam, Bill Campbell, and the recently-retired Rich Ashburn call Phillies games on WCAU radio, and going for the first time to see the Phillies  play in old Connie Mack Stadium at 21st and Lehigh in North Philly. 

At the time, I obviously had no clue of the Phillies’ sad-sack history: only two pennants (and zero World Series victories) in their 81-year history, 17 last place finishes in the span of 29 years between 1919-1947, and a record 23-game losing streak only 3 years earlier in 1961. All I knew was that in the months of April, May, and June of 1964 the Phillies ("we") were locked in a two-team battle with the Willie Mays-led San Francisco Giants for supremacy in the National League. On June 15, when my family left for a summer at Deerfoot Lodge in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, the Phils and Giants were deadlocked in first place with identical 34-23 records. The Giants, not surprisingly, were led by pitcher Juan Marichal, who on June 15 had an 8-2 record and a typically low 2.42 ERA, and the incomparable Mays, by consensus the National League’s, if not baseball's, premier player. In 1964 Mays was off to the hottest start of his legendary career; he was hitting .400 as late as May 23, and on June 15 was still hitting .360 with 18 homers (despite not having hit any in the previous 18 games) and 48 RBI in 57 games. The Phils didn’t have the same level of star power as did the Giants (or the Reds, Braves, or Cardinals for that matter). Indeed, 38 year-old manager Gene Mauch utilized a platoon system for 5 of the 8 positions, with only second baseman Tony Taylor, rightfielder Johnny Callison, and 22 year-old rookie third baseman Richie (“call me Dick”) Allen playing every day. Callison, though, the hero for the NL with a walk-off homer off Dick "The Monster" Radatz in the All-Star Game at Shea Stadium on July 7, had his best season in ’64 with 31 homers and 104 RBI, and was, apart from Roberto Clemente, the best defensive rightfielder in the senior circuit. Allen, meanwhile, despite what could charitably be called his "shortcomings" at 3rd base (41 errors), was a sensation, running away with the NL’s Rookie of the Year award by hitting .318 with 29 homers, 38 doubles, and 13 triples, while scoring 125 runs. The “Wampum Walloper” remains the single most powerful (non-steroid using) hitter I have ever seen, and his torrid start in ’64 was a prime reason for the team’s quick start out of the gate. 

During my summer in New York, the Phillies gradually pulled away from the Giants, who were hurt by the loss of Marichal due to back spasms for nearly a month in July and August. When my family returned to Philly at the end of August and the Phils returned from a short, 6-game road trip to Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, we both came back to a city palpably different from the one we had left, one reeling from race riots that decimated Columbia Avenue (now Cecil B. Moore Avenue) in North Philadelphia, just a mile south of Connie Mack Stadium.*  

Columbia Avenue in the Aftermath of the Riots, 28-30 August 1964 (AP Photo)

Phillies 1964 World Series Tickets(photo @
http://keitholbermann.mlblogs.com/
tag/1964-world-series/ )

When the Phillies left for their brief trip on August 23, they led the Reds and Giants by 7½ games, having demolished the Pirates, 9-3, at Connie Mack behind Allen's 2 homers and ace Jim Bunning's 14th win of the season. But they proceeded to lose 4 of the 6 games on the trip, 2 of 3 to both the Braves and the Bucs. On the last game of the trip, the Pirates, behind a complete game from big Bob Veale and Bob Bailey's 3 hits and 3 RBI, chased ace Chris Short after an inning and a third, winning 10-2. Short, who had allowed only 1 earned run in his three previous starts, all complete game victories, saw his microscopic ERA rise from 1.69 to 1.90. But the Phillies were still in first place with a seemingly secure 5½ game lead over the Cincinnati Reds, 6½ over the Giants, and 7 over the surging St. Louis Cardinals, who had rejuvenated themselves by trading for speedy outfielder Lou Brock on June 15. When, on September 20, Bunning defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers at Chavez Ravine, 3-2, to run his record to 18-5 and lower his ERA to 2.33, the Phillies came home to North Philly with the aforementioned 6½ games lead (over the Reds and Cards; 7 over the Giants) with just 12 games left on the schedule. Printing presses in Philadelphia proceeded to print World Series tickets for what appeared at the time to be inevitable, and 90,000 were sold within hours. But, alas, it was not to be.

September 21, 1964 is the most infamous day in the infamous history of Philadelphia sports. The Phils were at home against the second place Reds, with 12 game winner Art Mahaffey facing John Tsitouris, who had been a major disappointment with a 7-11 record. The game remained scoreless until the 6th inning when, with one out, rookie Chico “Bench Me or Trade Me” Ruiz (for more on Ruiz’s tragically short life, see here) singled and sped to third on a single to right by Vada Pinson, who was gunned down at second by the rifle-armed Callison when he tried to stretch it into a double. That brought up Frank Robinson, one of the league’s most feared sluggers, with 2 outs. Then Ruiz did the unthinkable—“the dumbest play I’ve ever seen,” according to teammate Pete Rose: he attempted a naked steal of home with the right-handed Robinson (!) at the plate, risking decapitation and the wrath of the irascible slugger at the same time. But somehow ―Philadelphians might say "typically"―it worked.**  Mahaffey, noting Ruiz’s break for home, was distracted enough to uncork a wild pitch outside the reach of catcher Clay Dalrymple, enabling Ruiz to score the game’s only run. The Phillies anemically managed only 2 hits the last 4 innings of the game off Tsitouris, both doubles off the bat of Wes Covington. 

At first both the team and the fans took the loss in stride.  After all, they still had a 5½ game lead over the Reds. But closer inspection would have shown the cracks already showing. Three days previously, Short had blown a 3-0 lead in the 7th inning against the weak-hitting, defending champion Dodgers, allowing 3 straight hits, culminating in a game-tying home run by Frank Howard, before a throwing error by Ruben Amaro led to the Dodgers scoring the winning run in the 9th off reliever Jack Baldschun. The very next night, in an eerie preview of events on the 21st, Willie Davis won the game for the Dodgers in the bottom of the 16th inning with a naked steal of home off reliever Morrie Steevens. With 2 out, Davis had singled for his fourth hit of the game. He then proceeded to steal second and go to third on a wild pitch by the iron man Baldschun, who was then relieved by Steevens, off whom the speedy Davis swept home. Bunning's win on the 20th seemed to steady the ship briefly, but the listing began again with Ruiz's daredevil dash on the 21st. 

The next day Frank Robinson homered and Jim O'Toole went the distance for his 16th win as Short was roughed up for 6 runs in 4.2 innings, raising his ERA from 1.92 to 2.14 and lowering his record to 17-8, as the Reds walloped the Phils, 9-2. As the losses began to mount, the team tightened and, even worse, manager Gene Mauch, the "Little General," whose facility at small ball and strategic matchups had been instrumental in the team’s overachieving success that year, began to panic. Most famously, Mauch used his best starters, Bunning and Short, multiple times on only 2 (!) days’ rest, with predictably bad results (for detailed analysis of this and other of Mauch’s managerial failings contributing to the team's demise in '64, see here).  When, on September 28-30, the Phils were swept by the Cardinals in a 3-game series at Busch Stadium, they had amazingly lost 10 in a row, and fallen into third place, 1½ games behind the Reds and 2½ games behind the streaking Redbirds, who had―Philadelphia fans would instinctively say, "of course"―won 8 in a row. Even though they rallied to defeat the Reds in the final two games of the season, they fell one game short at the end when the Cardinals rallied from behind to defeat the lowly Mets on the strength of the bats of Bill White and Tim McCarver and the arm of Bob Gibson, who won his 19th game of the season in relief. Often lost to memory amidst all the recriminations is the fact that in the 30 days of September 1964, the Phils played 31 games, with no days off.

All these years later, I still recall these events, and the anguish they caused, as vividly as if they happened yesterday (actually, I could only wish to recall yesterday’s events so vividly!). In moments of thoughtful reflection, I can see how they influenced my own fandom at a fundamental level. For me, losing and choking are the expected results whenever my Philly teams play. I am never surprised when a Philadelphia team snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, whether it is the 1968 Sixers losing three straight to the aging, and clearly inferior, Celtics, the 1977 Sixers losing four straight to Bill Walton’s Blazers after taking the first two games easily, or the 2000 Flyers losing three straight to the New Jersey Devils after taking a 3-1 series lead. I am never surprised, but always angered, when clearly superior Philly teams fail to win championships, whether that team is the 1980 Eagles or the 2010-2011 Phillies. I am likewise never surprised when Philadelphia players rarely seem to live up to their early promise or hype, whether it be Dick Allen, George McGinnis, Donovan McNabb, Eric Lindros, Ryan Howard, Carson Wentz, or Ben Simmons.  Frustration, in my experience, has been the norm, and we Philadelphians of the old school are known to voice that frustration in ways that more “refined” and less star-crossed fans of other cities are less wont to do. But it is this very history of frustration that makes the city’s rare championships—the 1960 and 2017 Eagles, the 1980 and 2008 Phillies, the 1967 and 1983 Sixers, and the 1974 and 1975 Flyers—all the sweeter because of their very unexpectedness and rarity.

Time heals all wounds, so the saying goes. In a sense, I guess that’s true. Today I look back at the 1964 Phillies, with names like Covington, Gonzalez, Taylor, Rojas, Wine, Baldschun, Dalrymple, Bennett, and especially Allen, Callison, Bunning, and Short―the last four, the undisputed stars of the team, all now, sadly, with us no longer―with more fondness than I do the more successful Phillies of 2007-2011. To me, they remain bigger than life, despite their failure and my now advanced age. But that failure taught me a dubious “lesson” I wish I could unlearn, but deep down inside know I never will.

*Cf. William C. Kashatus, September Swoon: Richie Allen, the '64 Phillies, and Racial Integration (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004) 121-46; Bruce Kuklick, To Every Thing a Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia 1909-1976 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991) esp. 145-63.

**Conventional wisdom has agreed with Rose and Mauch that Ruiz's "mad dash" home was exactly that, i.e., mad. But not all have agreed, most notably Davy Lopes. For a sabermetric analysis arguing that it wasn't as bad a percentage play as often assumed, cf. Rory Costello's "In Defense of Chico Ruiz's 'Mad Dash'."