Gene Collier: On This Day in '65, Pirates Did What?

Thursday, September 01, 2005
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The blistering hot summer had Americans seeing things. UFO's were reported in four states that August, but even as September dawned mercifully cool, Pittsburghers thought they were hallucinating as well.

Some still talk of it, insisting they were present to see the Pirates sweep a doubleheader from the Los Angeles Dodgers, beating Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, though memories and folklore conflict as to the year, the month, the winning pitchers, the scores, even the promotion: green weenie or no green weenie?

But thanks to the Pirates, to Retrosheet.org, and to the fact that I have absolutely positively nothing to do, consider this a very modest public service toward the common clarity. Because it really did happen, and it happened, as it happens, 40 years ago today, Sept. 1, 1965.
"Remember it?" said Jim Pagliaroni, the Pirates' catcher in Game 1 against Koufax, "I can't remember what happened last week."

Same as the rest of us.

But God do we remember Koufax, the blade-like left-handed artist who could elicit waves of appreciative applause in opposing ballparks merely by walking to the bullpen to warm up.

"I'll put it this way," Pags said from his home in Grass Valley, Calif., "If you had a runner on third and nobody out, and you could pick one pitcher to get out of that situation, it would be Koufax because, against every other pitcher, you at least had a chance to hit the ball.

"I faced some great pitchers: Gibson, Drysdale, Marichal, Whitey Ford in the American League, but with Koufax, if you went up there looking for a fastball thinking you could adjust to the curveball, you had another thing coming. The rotation on that curveball was so over the top that it didn't matter what you were looking for. Even Henry Aaron said that. Koufax was the only guy I ever heard the great hitters say that about."

So Pags doesn't remember the leadoff double he lashed to center in the fifth off Koufax, nor the Bob Bailey single that scored him to slice the Los Angeles lead to 2-1. An inning later, Willie Stargell launched the seventh of what would be a career-high eight triples that year, scoring Bill Mazeroski to make it 2-2, which is where it stayed until the 11th, with Koufax still firing away. I guess no one had Sandy on a pitch count.

"I once pitched 18 innings on two days' rest," said Vernon Law, who started against Drysdale in the nightcap. "Then [Bob] Friend came on to relieve in the 19th, gave up a run, but we scored twice in the bottom of the 19th to win."

Don't call me and tell me you were at that one, too. One 40-year-old legend at a time, please.
Tommie Sisk was the Pirates' starter against Koufax. He worked five innings and gave way in the sixth to Joe Gibbon, who matched Koufax zero-for-zero into the 11th. Koufax was 21-5 at game time, on his way to 26-8. When he made Gene Alley his 10th strikeout victim, that made 313 punchouts for the season, breaking his own National League record. Donn Clendenon and Mazeroski grounded out to start the 11th, but Stargell walked, bringing up Pagliaroni.

This he remembers.

"I was a dead low fastball hitter," Pags said. "I could time his fastball, but it appeared to rise at the last instant, and I'd just foul that back all the time. I guess he was getting tired, because one of them just stayed down and I hit it off the scoreboard."

Stargell scored, Pirates 3, Dodgers 2.

"It was usually the case that in doubleheaders I pitched the second game," said Law on the phone from Provo, Utah. "And I always had pretty good luck against the Dodgers. When we'd take a road trip to the West Coast, [Pirates manager Danny] Murtaugh would always hold me back to L.A.

The Dodgers scratched out a run for Drysdale in the first, but Law sculpted eight scoreless innings thereafter. Bill Virdon knocked the menacing right-hander with a leadoff homer in the sixth, then singled and scored on an error in the eighth. Pirates 2, Dodgers 1.

The sweep pulled the Pirates within 21/2 games of the first-place Dodgers with most of a month to play. But Koufax and Drysdale lost only one game between them the rest of the season, winning 10 times down the stretch to take the pennant by two games over the Giants, seven ahead of the third-place Pirates.

That year, ending with a Dodgers win against the Minnesota Twins in the World Series, Koufax and Drysdale went a combined 49-20 with 592 strikeouts. But Sept. 1 in Oakland, they were 0-2.

"I know what I always say when someone asks how I did against Koufax," said Pagliaroni, who had his best year that summer (17 homers, 65 RBIs, .268), "I say I was 4 for 5. Four hits in five years."

Oh yeah, and no green weenie.

(Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283.)