The first Sunday night baseball game to include the Yankees that I recall was played 28 years before MLB sold Sunday night large-market games to ESPN. And it remains, at least in my memory, as a colossal collision between the accidental and incidental.
It was June 24, 1962, Yanks at Tigers. Why bring it up?
The recent “call up” of Phil Regan as Mets pitching coach prompted reader Jim Burster to remind me of what I can’t forget: the spell baseball cast when I was a kid — 10 in 1962 — that today makes me overly protective of The Game, momentarily forgetful of my kids’ birth dates but never long-gone baseball games that remain vivid memories.
Yes, I was — and still am — a baseball love child.
Burster last month wrote that it was Regan, pitching for Detroit, who gave up the two-run homer to Jack Reed in the top of the 22nd inning to win it 9-7. Never knew it was Regan.
Reed, I still know, was known as Mickey Mantle’s “caddy,” a late-innings outfield sub designed to preserve Mantle’s barely attached legs.
That would be the only homer Reed hit in his three seasons in the bigs, all with the Yanks. In 1965, Reed was replaced by Ross Moschitto, who also hit one home run in his two-year career, both with the Yanks.
Burster wondered if I had any recollection of that 22-inning game. He certainly did: “Everyone was tuned in during my high school graduation party. Where does the time go?”
In this case, not too far. I listened to it on my transistor radio, careful to turn it off between half innings to preserve the battery. When Reed homered, I was across the street, listening at the Dairy Queen. The 7-hour game had nearly struck 9 p.m., curfew.
Burster accurately recalled that Frank Lary, known as “a Yankees killer” — 27-10 vs. the Bombers to prove it — was the starter.
But on this day, the Yanks led 7-0 after two, when Lary was yanked. Then slowly, agonizingly as seen on “Baseball and Ballantine” WPIX Ch. 11, the Tigers, as sportswriters of the day would type, clawed back.
The boxscore shows Rocky Colavito went 7-for-10 for the Tigers. Yogi Berra caught all 22 innings. Imagine! Jim Bouton, 23, pitched seven innings in relief for the win. The Yanks struck out just 12 times, the Tigers 18, a total of 30 among 132 outs. And no DH back then.
Of course, “The game has changed.”
Last week, Rays 6, Rangers 2 was an 8½-inning game. With a DH it totaled 30 strikeouts against eight pitchers. Of the game’s 51 outs, 30 — 59 percent — were by strikeout.
Tuesday, the Mets led the Yanks, 4-2, two out in the ninth, Didi Gregorius on first, when Gregorius was called safe stealing second — a foolish move given the circumstances.
The Mets challenged the call, not because they were convinced it was wrong — it was close — but more likely, as Mets radio’s Howie Rose and Wayne Randazzo recognized, with two out in the ninth, this fell into another totally unintended, foresight-free category:
The what the heck, take a shot, nothing to lose replay review stoppage.
Rose then reasoned that this game, if the call was reversed, stood the chance to “be the most anticlimactic ending” in the history of the Subway Series.
The next night, YES showed a tape of Darryl Strawberry, then with the Yanks, hitting a home run against the Mets. Old Yankee Stadium was packed.
New Yankee Stadium, for games against the Mets last month and in recent seasons, was loaded with empty seats, especially those down-close seats that give comfort to those who have spent an arm and a leg to sit in them — a conspicuous cause-and-effect deficiency that the Yanks haven’t bothered to treat since the new Stadium opened to “guests” 10 years ago.
Thursday, the Fourth of July — the day Colin Kaepernick crossed the Delaware — six MLB teams weren’t even scheduled to play. However Toronto played at home against Boston, the latter the birthplace of the American Revolution.
Don’t know what time tonight’s ESPN Sunday Night Wreck of the Week will end, but it won’t be worth the time or transistor battery to know.
Shoot & miss on free agency
Stephen A. Francesa: Dueling career blowhards Mike Francesa and Stephen A. Smith — bad-guess guys who pretend to know — must have the same “inside” sources. Both, despite privileged info, didn’t come close on their NBA free agents touts.
Smith had Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving “95 percent” guaranteed to sign with the Knicks, while Sitting Bull regularly insisted Durant would never — “ever!” — sign with the Nets.
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That after Francesa guaranteed the Pelicans would never trade Anthony Davis to the Lakers — as Davis’s trade to the Lakers was being finalized.
By the way, I hear both Irving and Durant turned down the Knicks because they refused to pay the $5 Facility Fee — the Dolan-era Garden entry fee charged to those after they purchase a ticket to enter the Garden.
But again, it’s all satire-proof: Neighbor Mark Schneid notes that two finalists for the NBA’s Sixth Man Award, Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell, both played this season for the Clippers.
“Where’s our sixth man?”
“Here we are!”
ESPN’s unforced errors
Not all tennis fans are football or baseball fans, thus many readers seem surprised to witness the mess ESPN makes televising Wimbledon.
Patrick J. Sweeney wonders why ESPN splits the screen during live play to show taped interviews, thus making the tennis twice as hard to see — even for those with two sets of independently functioning eyes.
Why? Because that’s what ESPN does. It begs us to watch then ensures that we can’t.
Larry Bernstein asks why ESPN sticks with blowouts won by big-name players rather than show at least some of close matches between those who might next play the big-name players?
Why? Because it’s ESPN, which thinks we tune in to watch only the stars rather than the sport.
And several ask why ESPN has its commentators treat TV as if its radio, talking, talking talking — Chris Evert and Brad Gilbert are prime offenders — until we no longer hear or care what they say?
Why? Because it’s ESPN! Fill ’er up, regular.
True or false: Nike soon will introduce a Colin Kapernick signature sneaker showing an American flag on fire, as if it has been torched.
Answer: Because it’s now within the realm of possibility, such a question speaks plenty about the bag we’re in.
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