Word: alston
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Smokey Alston smiling? The Dodgers winning? It was only yesterday that the collapsible Dodgers blew a four-game lead in the final week and presented the 1962 National League pennant to the San Francisco Giants. And it seemed only the day before that Bobby Thomson of the Giants deposited a dinky drive into the leftfield seats at the Polo Grounds to beat the Dodgers in a playoff for the 1951 pennant. Now the stage was set for another whirlwind finish that would leave the Dodgers flat on their backs, muttering dazedly: "Wait till next year...
...Cards won 19 out of 20, and the Dodger lead dissolved to one slim game. For the first time in years, lines of fans stood all day outside Busch Stadium waiting for the ticket gates to open. "We're ready," promised Cardinal Manager Johnny Keane. As for Alston, he would only grunt: "Another game, another series...
Back in Los Angeles, Dodger fans sighed and waited for the worst. In nine years, Alston had delivered three pennants, two world championships, eight first-division finishes. But this was a time for heroics, and Alston hardly seemed the man to ignite any team. He was still the dour, noncommittal ex-shop teacher from Darrtown, Ohio, the fellow who struck out the only time he ever got to bat in the big leagues, the homespun country boy who played percentages so devoutly that the Dodgers paid a fulltime statistician to do his arithmetic. Every fall Alston signed a blank contract...
...once every percentage play clicked, and every move was blinding genius. To pitch the first game, Alston called on Veteran Lefthander Johnny Podres, bad back, so-so record (13 victories, 10 losses) and all. The slugging Cards got only three hits (including a home run by Stan Musial), and the Dodgers won, 3-1. "We hated to lose that first game," admitted Cardinal Manager Keane. Gritted Musial: "We've got to win the next...
...there stood Sandy Koufax, No. 1 in the National League in won-lost record (23-5), strikeouts (284) and practically everything else.* The Dodgers' regular rotation called for Koufax to work the last game, but that fell on Rosh Hashana, and Sandy refuses to pitch on Jewish holidays. Alston also started hulking (6 ft. 7 in., 250 Ibs.) Frank Howard despite the fact that Howard was 0-for-19 in St. Louis this season. So naturally Howard crashed a two-run homer, and Koufax needed only 87 pitches, 66 of them strikes, to spin a nifty four-hitter...