RetroSimba

(Updated Sept. 1, 2018)

On a Cardinals pregame radio show from Los Angeles June 9, 2010, Mike Shannon had Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully as his guest. When Shannon asked Scully about the long rivalry between the Dodgers and Cardinals, Scully launched into a story to illustrate the intensity that existed in the series.

According to Scully, Brooklyn’s Carl Furillo lined a shot that struck Cardinals pitcher Cloyd Boyer in the throat. Scully told how Boyer dropped to the ground and reached for his throat as if trying to pry an imaginary pair of hands that were strangling him.

As Furillo went up the line toward first base, he apparently was jawing at Boyer. Furillo supposedly was yelling, “Choke, you so-and-so. Choke!” Scully said.

The incident occurred on July 17, 1950, in Game 1 of a doubleheader at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis. Boxscore

How impressive it was to hear Scully tell the tale 60 years after he witnessed it.

Boyer entered the game in the eighth inning in relief of starter Gerry Staley and the first batter he faced was Furillo, who hit a line drive toward the pitcher. The ball struck Boyer “hard on the right thumb, glanced off and slammed against his throat,” Dick Young of the New York Daily News reported.

Although Boyer retrieved the ball and threw to first base in time to get Furillo, “he almost fainted a moment later, gasping for breath,” the Daily News reported. “His mates had him lie on the hill for several minutes, regaining his wind.”

Once he was certain he could breathe freely, Boyer got to his feet and was able to walk off the field.

X-rays of the thumb disclosed no fracture, “but a ruptured blood vessel at the heel of his hand will keep him idle for perhaps a week,” the Daily News reported. “At that, he’s lucky he’s alive. Getting his hand in the way of Furillo’s comeback bullet just in time to prevent it from tearing into his neck probably saved the guy’s life, or at least his voice.”

Boyer “barely escaped worse injury when a Carl Furillo line drive glanced off his hands and struck him on the Adam’s apple,” Baseball Digest reported. “But the gallant hurler scrambled to his feet, threw out the batter and then collapsed.”

The Sporting News called Boyer a “hard-luck rookie right-hander” and reported Furillo’s liner “bruised his right hand at the base of the thumb and glanced against his windpipe, momentarily taking the kid’s wind.”