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Ken Raffensberger began his major-league career with the Cardinals, then spent a big part of it pitching against them.

A left-hander who relied on pinpoint control and an assortment of breaking pitches, Raffensberger faced the Cardinals a lot _ 79 times, including 59 starts. He lost (34 times) more than he won (23 times) versus St. Louis, but when he was good he was nearly unhittable.

In 1948, Raffensberger pitched two one-hitters against the Cardinals.

Making the rounds

A Pennsylvania Dutch boy from the town of York, home of the Peppermint Pattie, Raffensberger entered the Cardinals’ farm system in 1937. His manager at Rochester in 1938, Ray Blades, managed the Cardinals in 1939 and put Raffensberger, 21, on the Opening Day roster.

“He has exceptional wrist action,” The Sporting News noted. “He flexes the wrist with each throw and the result is speed that is a bit startling to the hitter. There is no evidence of the speed in his delivery, which makes for deception.”

The St. Louis Star-Times reported, “He delivers the ball with little or nothing on it _ so it seems _ but it gains speed, twist, curve and what have you, as it floats toward the plate.”

In his lone appearance for the 1939 Cardinals, Raffensberger pitched a scoreless inning against the Reds, then was sent back to Rochester. Boxscore

(The 1939 Cardinals were the only team Raffensberger played for in his 15 years in the majors that finished a season with a winning record. As the York Sunday News noted, “A pennant race was as foreign to Raffensberger as a French dictionary.”)

Traded to the Cubs in December 1939, Raffensberger was mentored in 1940 by their player-manager, catcher Gabby Hartnett. “He taught me the value of control,” Raffensberger told The Sporting News. “I learned almost everything I know about pitching from him.”

Raffensberger spent most of the next three seasons (1941-43) in the minors, learning how to get batters to hit into outs, before being traded to the Phillies in September 1943.

The Phillies were bad but provided Raffensberger with opportunity, if not many runs. In 1944, he had a 2.72 ERA versus the Cardinals in 53 innings pitched, but his record against them that season was 1-5. The win was a shutout Boxscore and, in one of the losses, he pitched 16 innings in a duel of endurance with Mort Cooper. Boxscore

Named to the National League all-star team for the only time in his career, Raffensberger pitched two scoreless innings and was the winning pitcher against the American League in the 1944 game. Boxscore

Despite a 3.06 ERA, Raffensberger was 13-20 for the 1944 Phillies (61-92), who finished 43.5 games behind the league champion Cardinals (105-49).

On May 18, 1947, Raffensberger pitched a 12-inning shutout against the Cardinals, but a month later, after he lost four in a row, the Phillies traded him to the Reds. Boxscore

Slow and steady

Raffensberger, 30, made two starts against the Cardinals in April 1948 and got no decision in either. Stan Musial went a combined 5-for-8 (two singles, a double, a triple and a home run) against him in those games.

Raffensberger spent most of the next month in the bullpen. He had a 4.34 ERA for the season when he got a start in the second game of a Memorial Day doubleheader against the Cardinals at Cincinnati.

United Press called him a “creaking” veteran. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch described him as a “softball-throwing” pitcher. According to The Sporting News, wise-guy teammates nicknamed him “Cannonball” because of his slow pitches.

Nothing indicated the performance he was about to give.

With two outs in the first inning, Raffensberger walked Musial and Whitey Kurowski before retiring Enos Slaughter. Then he set down the Cardinals in order in every inning from the second through the seventh with what the Post-Dispatch called “his nuthin’-at-all pitch.”

Nippy Jones, leading off the eighth, got the Cardinals’ first hit, a lined single to center, but Raffensberger retired the next three batters.

In the ninth, Musial walked with two outs, but Raffensberger got Kurowski on a grounder to shortstop, completing the one-hit shutout. He achieved it with one strikeout. Boxscore

No fluke

The next time Raffensberger faced the Cardinals, on July 4 at Cincinnati, they beat him, scoring four runs in seven innings. His ERA for the season was 4.57 when he got another start, at St. Louis, on July 11.

After the Reds scored in the first, Raffensberger retired the first 10 batters before Marty Marion singled with one out in the fourth. Don Lang drew a two-out walk in the inning but Enos Slaughter’s grounder to third ended the threat.

The Cardinals got only two more base runners (Musial walked in the seventh and Nippy Jones reached on an error in the eighth), and Raffensberger completed his second one-hitter in the Reds’ 1-0 victory. None of the Cardinals’ outs were strikeouts. Boxscore

“His slider, when acting right, breaks about six inches in toward right-handed batters, making them hit it with the handle of their bats,” Reds catcher Ray Lamanno told The Sporting News. “Left-handed batters see it suddenly break away from them. It starts spinning rapidly just as it begins to break. By that time, batters usually are off stride. Kenny threw curves to Musial in both his one-hitters, keeping the ball away from him.”

In a story headlined, “Raffensberger Zero Ball Too Fast for Cards,” Cubs general Jim Gallagher, in St. Louis to see the game, told the St. Louis Star-Times, “Gremlins carry the ball up to the plate for the last 20 feet.”

Raffensberger said to The Sporting News, “To listen to the hitters, I don’t have anything. I take a lot of kidding that I don’t have a fastball, and don’t have a curveball. All I got, I guess, is confidence in myself to get that ball over.”

For the 1948 season, Raffensberger was 11-12 with four shutouts and only 37 walks in 180.1 innings. He made nine starts against the Cardinals and was 3-3 with a 3.04 ERA. 

High praise

In 1949, Raffensberger was 18-17 for a Reds team that won just 62. He led the National League in shutouts (five). On Aug. 14, he pitched 12 innings against the Cubs and three days later he went 13 innings versus the Cardinals. Boxscore

Branch Rickey, the Cardinals’ executive who traded Raffensberger in 1939, tried multiples times to acquire him for the Dodgers in 1949, but the Reds wouldn’t deal, The Sporting News reported.

Raffensberger beat the Cardinals four times in 1951. In one of those wins, he pitched 14 innings before his catcher, Johnny Pramesa, walloped a walkoff grand slam. Boxscore

Raffensberger, 35, again led the National League in shutouts (six) in 1952, won 17 (including four versus the Cardinals) and posted a 2.81 ERA. He walked 45 in 247 innings. “I was the best control pitcher in the big leagues during my time,” he told the York Sunday News.

He pitched his last game in the majors for the Reds in June 1954, finishing with a career mark of 119-154. He achieved four one-hitters: one each versus the Cubs and Dodgers and two against the Cardinals.

Asked by The Sporting News to name the toughest batters he faced, Raffensberger chose Musial, Jackie Robinson and Carl Furillo. Musial returned the compliment. According to the Associated Press, when Musial appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” he named Raffensberger as the toughest pitcher he had faced.

In 201 at-bats against Raffensberger, Musial hit .323 with six home runs but also struck out 20 times, according to Retrosheet.org. Only Warren Spahn struck out Musial (30 times) more often than Raffensberger did.

In his autobiography, “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” Musial said, “The toughest pitchers for me were Ken Raffensberger, Johnny Vander Meer and Curt Simmons, left-handers, and Clem Labine, a right-hander.”

Raffensberger “had nothing except slow stuff, and a forkball,” Musial said. “With changing speeds and control, he made those pitches seem so fat when they weren’t. The forkball looked as big as a grapefruit but fell off the table, low. I stubbornly tried to slug with him and didn’t have much success.”

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Something screwy usually happened to Cardinals batters when they faced Jack Baldschun, but the one time they beat him, it opened a crack in the solid hold the Phillies had on first place in the National League.

Soon after, when the crack turned into a chasm, the Phillies fell and the Cardinals climbed past them to win the 1964 pennant.

A right-hander who relied on a screwball and thrived on a heavy workload, Baldschun was one of baseball’s best relievers in the early 1960s.

The right stuff

As a youth in his hometown of Greenville, Ohio, 40 miles northwest of Dayton, Baldschun was interested in several sports, including harness racing. “My dad owned some horses and drove them in races in Ohio, Michigan and Illinois,” Baldschun told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I traveled with him (as a stable boy) in the summer.”

Baldschun was good at playing golf and the piano, but even better at baseball. He attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, for two years, then entered baseball’s minor leagues in 1956 when he was 19.

Pitching in the Reds’ system, “I only threw 80, maybe 83, mph,” Baldschun said to the Philadelphia Daily News. “I’d never get by with just a fastball.”

Baldschun experimented with a variety of other pitches but nothing clicked. Then in 1960, when he was with Class A Columbia (S.C.) of the South Atlantic League, Baldschun discovered a way to make a screwball move sharply onto the corners of the plate. “I threw it three-quarters, off the backside of my fingers,” he told the Philadelphia Daily News.

Columbia manager and former big-league pitcher Max Macon encouraged Baldschun to use the pitch in games and successfully converted him from starter to reliever. 

“I’ve got three different screwballs,” Baldschun said to the Dayton Daily News. “I can make it break straight down, down and in, and down and out.”

Macon said he recommended Baldschun “two or three times” to the Reds during the 1960 season but they weren’t interested, the Greenville Daily Advocate reported. After the season, the Reds didn’t put Baldschun on their 40-man winter roster and the Phillies picked him in the draft of unprotected players.

“He comes highly recommended,” Phillies manager Gene Mauch told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Max Macon said he’d stake his reputation that Baldschun has what it takes to help a big-league club in relief.”

Power pitcher

Making the leap from Class A to the majors, Baldschun, 25, earned a spot with the 1961 Phillies. The rookie was a bright light in a dark season. The Phillies lost 23 in a row and finished 47-107, but Baldschun (5-3) had a winning record and led National League pitchers in appearances (65, all in relief). In July, he pitched in eight consecutive games and allowed only one run in that stretch.

“He has done it by using a bewildering screwball, the confidence of a burglar, and a right arm that looks like it belongs to Popeye,” Ron Smith of the Philadelphia Inquirer concluded.

Estimating he unleashed the screwball for 85 to 90 percent of his pitches, Baldschun told the newspaper, “I believe I could throw 10 straight screwballs, tell them it’s coming and still get them out, somehow, eight of the 10 times.”

The rookie also began a workout regimen to help his right arm withstand the strain of delivering screwballs. “He performed a set of isometric exercises before each game and increased the strength of his forearm until it was as big as his bicep,” the Greenville Daily Advocate reported.

Mauch told the Dayton Daily News, “Baldschun is blessed with some kind of arm that defies all the rules. I never saw a man with a freak pitch who could work as often. That’s where his personal exercising program comes in. His entire right side is actually brutish.”

His rookie season was no fluke. The next year, Baldschun was 12-7 and led the 1962 Phillies in ERA (2.96), saves (13) and appearances (67). He followed that with an 11-7 record and 2.30 ERA in 1963, achieving team highs in saves (16) and appearances (65). On Easter Sunday, Baldschun won both games of a doubleheader against the Cardinals at St. Louis. Boxscore and Boxscore

Down and out

Tempers flared when the Phillies and Cardinals played in St. Louis on May 4, 1964. After the Phillies’ Dennis Bennett knocked down Julian Javier with a pitch, Bob Gibson retaliated when Bennett came to bat.

The next time Gibson batted, Baldschun was pitching. His first pitch made Gibson skip away from the plate. The next one plunked him in the thigh. Gibson flipped his bat toward Baldschun, who caught it with his glove hand. Gibson was ejected, but the Cardinals got revenge. On the first pitch from Baldschun after he hit Gibson, Carl Warwick slammed a two-run home run.

The Phillies, who won 10 of their first 12, remained contenders in 1964. In July, Mauch pitched Baldschun in 19 games, including five in a row.

When the Cardinals came to Philadelphia on Sept. 9, 1964, the Phillies (83-55) were in first place, six games ahead of three teams in second: Cardinals (77-61), Reds (77-61) and Giants (78-62).

Phillies ace Jim Bunning pitched six innings in the series opener against the Cardinals before being lifted for Baldschun, who was tasked with protecting a 4-3 lead. Baldschun pitched a scoreless seventh and a scoreless eighth, then drove in a run with a double (the only extra-base hit of his big-league career) versus Barney Schultz and extended the lead to 5-3.  “I felt sure we’d win after that,” Baldschun told the Philadelphia Daily News.

The Connie Mack Stadium scoreboard showed two significant results: the Giants lost to the Dodgers and the Reds lost to the Pirates. If Baldschun could secure a win over the Cardinals with a shutdown ninth, the Phillies’ lead in the standings would increase to seven games.

“If they win it, they break it open,” Cardinals third baseman Ken Boyer told the Philadelphia Daily News. “A seven-game pad would have been tough.”

In the ninth, the Cardinals scored a run, making it 5-4, and had Lou Brock on third, two outs, with Boyer at the plate. With the count 1-and-2, Boyer stroked a single to center, driving in Brock with the tying run.

Mauch stuck with Baldschun. He pitched a scoreless 10th, but in the 11th, his fifth inning of relief, the Cardinals knocked him out, and won, 10-5. Boxscore

Instead, of being seven games back, the Cardinals were five behind.

A week later, Baldschun lost back-to-back games against the Dodgers. Mauch tried others in the closer role, the Phillies lost 10 in a row, and the Cardinals clinched the pennant on the last day of the season.

Changing the script

Though Baldschun led the 1964 Phillies in saves (21) and appearances (71), Mauch proposed changes to him in 1965. “He wanted me not to throw the screwball,” Baldschun recalled to the Philadelphia Daily News. “I just hated to give up my best pitch.”

Mauch said he thought Baldschun was nibbling the corners too much with the screwball and getting behind on counts, and that the pitch would be more effective thrown with two strikes on the batter, or in special situations, instead of most of the time, the Dayton Daily News reported.

In the book “We Played the Game,” Phillies reliever Ed Roebuck said, “Baldschun was an excellent relief pitcher but he always went deep in the count, and this really upset Mauch.”

Another Phillies pitcher, Chris Short, told the Philadelphia Daily News, “I know that three-fourths of the gray hair Gene Mauch got _ and he got a lot _ came from Jack Baldschun. He had a great year for us, but he was always falling behind in the count. We used to call him ‘Three-and-Oh.’ “

Baldschun pitched in 65 games for the 1965 Phillies but shared the closer role with rookie Gary Wagner.  

On Dec. 6, 1965, Baldschun was traded to the Orioles for Jackie Brandt and Darold Knowles. Three days later,  the Orioles sent him with Milt Pappas and Dick Simpson to the Reds for Frank Robinson.

(According to The Cincinnati Post, Reds owner Bill DeWitt Sr. said the club initially wanted Pappas and Curt Blefary, but the Orioles wouldn’t part with Blefary. The trade was revived when the Orioles acquired Baldschun and offered him.)

Baldschun (1-5, 5.49 ERA) flopped with the Reds in 1966, and spent most of 1967 and 1968 in the minors. “The Reds wanted me to die in the minor leagues,” Baldschun told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “In my heart, I knew I could pitch.”

An expansion team, the Padres, picked him up in 1969. Roger Craig was their pitching coach. Though Baldschun pitched in 61 games for the 1969 Padres and had a 7-2 record, he confessed to the Philadelphia Daily News, “The screwball wasn’t breaking. It was rolling.”

Baldschun, 33, pitched his final big-league games with the Padres in 1970. The Cardinals, the first team he faced in the majors, also were the last he pitched against. Boxscore

In 49 games versus the Cardinals, Baldschun was 5-1 with three saves. Overall for his big-league career, he was 48-41 with 60 saves.

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Though Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry were the most prominent pitchers on the 1960s Giants, Bobby Bolin was an important member of those staffs, too.

A right-hander with a fastball rated among the best in the National League, Bolin was effective both as a starter and a reliever.

In 1968, when Bob Gibson led the league in ERA (1.12), the pitcher who was next-best was not Marichal or Perry or Ferguson Jenkins or Tom Seaver or any of the other future Hall of Famers pitching then. It was Bolin (1.99).

In the only game they started against one another that year, Bolin beat Gibson.

For his career, Bolin was 9-5 with a 2.75 ERA versus the Cardinals.

Country kid

Bolin was raised on a farm in Hickory Grove, S.C., a town of about 300 residents, located 55 miles from Charlotte, N.C. Years later, in a chat with the Rock Hill (S.C.) Herald, his mother, Blanche, said of Bobby and his two brothers, “It was hard to get any work out of those boys. They were either listening to a ballgame on the radio, or out in the backyard throwing rocks.”

Bolin switched from rocks to baseballs and became a pitcher. “Bobby played three years of baseball at Hickory Grove High School. The other year, when he was a junior, Hickory Grove had no team, so he pitched for York High School,” the Rock Hill Herald reported.

A gangly 6-foot-4, Bolin overpowered batters in high school and American Legion games with a fastball thrown from a sidearm delivery. His “big hand so completely covers the horsehide that you expect to see the stuffing fly out at any time,” the Charlotte Observer noted.

Herman Crump, Bolin’s American Legion coach, told the Charlotte newspaper, “It was hard to believe any 16-year-old could throw the ball as hard as Bobby did.”

According to the Rock Hill newspaper, the Pittsburgh Pirates signed Bolin, but the deal was voided because he was ineligible. Bolin was 17 when he signed with the Giants in December 1956.

Rookie year

Bolin, 22, reached the majors with the Giants in 1961 and was made a reliever. His first save came in his second appearance, on April 23, 1961, against the Cardinals at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

In the ninth inning, with the Giants ahead, 2-1, the Cardinals had runners on first and third, one out, when Bolin was brought in to work out of the jam.

The first batter he faced, Daryl Spencer, looked at a 2-and-2 pitch for strike three. Upset with the call by umpire Tom Gorman, Spencer slammed his bat to the ground and was ejected. “I thought the pitch was four inches inside,” Spencer said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Bolin told the San Francisco Examiner, “I thought it was a good pitch _ high enough and over the plate.”

The next batter, Mickey McDermott, lined a pitch foul before striking out swinging to end the game.

Noting that Bolin delivered only fastballs to the Cardinals, Giants catcher Hobie Landrith told the Examiner that the rookie threw “faster than anyone on our club can throw, and maybe as fast as anybody in the league.” Boxscore

Bolin said to the Charlotte Observer, “As my fastball goes, so go I.”

Two months later, on June 23, 1961, Stan Musial timed a Bolin fastball and belted it onto the roof of the right field pavilion “as Busch Stadium trembled with uproarious acclaim,” the Examiner reported. The grand slam was Musial’s ninth, and last, of his career and gave him seven RBI for the game. Boxscore

Learning on the job

The next year, Bolin (seven wins, six saves) helped the Giants win the 1962 pennant and pitched in two games of the World Series against the Yankees.

In 1964, Bolin appeared in more games as a starter than as a reliever for the first time since reaching the majors. In the first game he pitched that season, a start against the Cardinals, Bolin limited them to four hits in seven innings, but three were solo home runs _ by Johnny Lewis, Ken Boyer and Curt Flood _ and St. Louis won, 3-2. Boxscore

At the urging of his road roommate, pitcher Billy Pierce, 37, Bolin, 25, ditched the sidearm delivery and began throwing with more of an overhand motion. “As a result, his fastball moves _ and never the same way twice,” Pierce told The Sporting News.

On Aug. 14, 1964, Bolin pitched a one-hit shutout against the Braves. “A blind hog will find an acorn once in a while,” he modestly told the Examiner. Boxscore

Eight days later, he struck out 11 Cardinals, including Lou Brock four times, and got the win. Down by three in the seventh, the Cardinals had the bases loaded with two outs when Bolin struck out Brock on three consecutive fastballs. “I don’t think anyone could have hit those pitches,” Brock’s teammate, Tim McCarver, told the Examiner. “They tailed away and caught a sliver of the back of the plate.”

Giants catcher Tom Haller told the newspaper, “He’s as fast as he ever was, but he’s hitting spots. He’s got to throw it there to be effective.” Boxscore

Different look

Even with his overpowering fastball, Bolin needed a breaking pitch to keep batters from digging in. After much tinkering, he developed a slider. 

Bolin had 14 wins (eight in relief) in 1965 and 11 in 1966 (when he made 34 starts and pitched 10 complete games).

In his first appearance at the Cardinals’ new Busch Memorial Stadium, on June 28, 1966, Bolin pitched a two-hitter for the win. His former teammate, Orlando Cepeda, grounded a single to right for the Cardinals’ first hit in the seventh and Charlie Smith got the other on an infield hit in the eighth.

“I was missing with the fastball the last couple of innings, so I threw mostly sliders at the end,” Bolin told the Examiner. “Both the hits were on good pitches. Cepeda hit an outside slider and so did Smith.” Boxscore

A year later, on June 29, 1967, Bolin pitched the equivalent of a complete game in a relief stint against the Cardinals at St. Louis. The Giants scored 11 runs in the top of the first, nine against Bob Gibson, but, when Giants starter Joe Gibbon allowed two runs without recording an out in the bottom half of the inning, he was relieved by Bolin, who pitched nine innings for the win. Boxscore

Classic duels

To his disappointment, Bolin was used mostly in relief in the first half of the 1968 season. Moved into the starting rotation after the all-star break, he prospered. Bolin was 8-3 in the second half of the season. In those three losses, the Giants totaled one run.

On Sept. 6, 1968, fans came to Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, hoping to see Juan Marichal and Bob Gibson as the starting pitchers in Game 1 of a doubleheader, but Giants manager Herman Franks had other ideas. He opted to start Bolin (7-4, 1.89) versus Gibson (20-6, 0.99) and save Marichal (24-7, 2.33) for Game 2 against Steve Carlton (12-9, 2.83).

Regarding his choice of Bolin to oppose Gibson, Franks told the Post-Dispatch, “I didn’t pitch any humpty-dumpty, you know.”

When the public address announcer read Bolin’s name in giving the Game 1 lineups, the crowd booed, the Post-Dispatch reported.

Bolin was up to the challenge. He limited the Cardinals to two runs (both earned) in 7.2 innings before Frank Linzy took over and provided scoreless relief. Gibson gave up three runs (two earned) in eight innings and lost for only the second time in his last 20 starts. Boxscore

(Neither Marichal nor Carlton pitched especially well in the second game, an 8-7 victory for the Giants. Boxscore)

Two weeks later, when the Cardinals were in San Francisco, Gaylord Perry pitched a no-hitter against them. The next day, the Cardinals’ Ray Washburn turned the tables, pitching a no-hitter versus the Giants. Bolin was the losing pitcher in that game. He shut out the Cardinals on two hits before they struck for a run in the seventh and another in the eighth. Boxscore

Changing leagues

In December 1969, Bolin was traded to the Seattle Pilots, who moved to Milwaukee before the start of the 1970 season and became the Brewers. He was sent to the Red Sox in September 1970 and became a relief specialist.

Bolin led the Red Sox in saves (15) in 1973 when Eddie Kasko was manager. Darrell Johnson, who replaced Kasko after the season, wanted to shake up the roster. In March 1974, in what Peter Gammons of the Boston Globe described as “the biggest single surprise of spring training,” Bolin, 35, was released. He opted to return home to South Carolina rather than try to extend his playing career.

He later quipped to the Rock Hill Herald, “I had to quit in 1974 for health reasons. The Red Sox were sick of me.”

In 13 seasons in the majors, Bolin totaled 88 wins and 51 saves. He three times finished in the top 10 in the National League in ERA _ 1965 (2.76), 1966 (2.89) and 1968 (1.99).

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Pitchers Dizzy Dean and Paul Derringer didn’t get along as Cardinals teammates. As opponents, their dislike for one another erupted into public view.

On June 6, 1933, Dean and Derringer got into a fight on the field before a game at Cincinnati. Only their egos got bruised.

Dean, the consummate showman, was a flamboyant flamethrower who craved attention. Derringer, a skilled but less flashy pitcher, was “a belligerent man who often used his fists to settle disputes,” according to the Society for American Baseball Research.

Dean became a Hall of Famer, but Derringer earned far more career wins (223) than Dizzy did (150).

Intramural rivalry

Conflict between Dean and Derringer began in 1931 when both competed at spring training for a spot as a rookie in the Cardinals’ starting rotation. The Cardinals chose Derringer, 24, and returned Dean, 21, to the minors.

Derringer responded with an excellent rookie season for the 1931 Cardinals, helping them to repeat as National League champions. Derringer was 18-8, leading National League pitchers in winning percentage (.692). He also was the Cardinals’ team leader in shutouts (four).

While Derringer thrived with the Cardinals, Dean pitched for minor-league Houston and took out his frustrations on Texas League foes, crafting a 26-10 record and 1.57 ERA in 1931. 

Dean joined Derringer in the 1932 Cardinals’ starting rotation. Smug after his successful debut season, Derringer “strutted too much” and “became his worst enemy,” Sid Keener observed in the St. Louis Star-Times.

That made Derringer a target for Dean’s barbs. “Derringer had trouble with Dean,” the Dayton Daily News reported, “and he was prepared to report to the league president that Dean had been nasty in riding him all season.”

June of 1932 was a turning point for the two rivals. Dean was 3-1 with a 1.91 ERA in June. Derringer’s June numbers: 2-3 and 6.09. From then on, manager Gabby Street turned increasingly to Dean, prompting Derringer to accuse the club of favoritism, according to the book “Diz.”

True to his nature, Derringer “challenged Gabby Street to a fistic duel in the clubhouse,” the Star-Times reported, “because he objected to the managerial maneuvers.”

Dean finished his rookie season as the National League leader in strikeouts (191), shutouts (four) and innings pitched (286). He was 18-15 with a 3.30 ERA. Pitching with “a chip on his shoulder,” according to the Star-Times, Derringer was 11-14 with a 4.05 ERA.

On the move

After Derringer lost his first two decisions in 1933, the Cardinals traded him and two others to the Reds on May 7 for shortstop Leo Durocher, plus two pitchers.

The Cardinals beat Derringer the first time they faced him, on May 30 at St. Louis. Boxscore Five days later, when the Cardinals came to Cincinnati, Derringer turned the tables and won. Boxscore

Derringer was one of eight former Cardinals on the 1933 Reds, according to the Dayton Daily News. Others included Sparky Adams, Jim Bottomley and Chick Hafey. When the series started, “the boys were all pals,” Si Burick noted in the Dayton newspaper. “Leo Durocher, the famous (bench) jockey, was kidding all his former teammates good-naturedly, and the Reds kidded right back. There was entirely too much fun going on.”

That all changed on June 6 before the start of a Tuesday afternoon game.

Fighting words

According to the Dayton Daily News, “Derringer was pitching in batting practice and Dean was razzing him from the Cardinals dugout.”

Dean was “riding the life out of me,” Derringer told the Associated Press.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Derringer said Dean was “questioning his courage.”

Derringer approached Dean and “asked him if he meant what he had been saying,” the Dayton newspaper reported.

“I replied, ‘I meant every word of it,’ ” Dean said to the Post-Dispatch.

Derringer threw a punch and claimed it landed square in Dean’s eye, the Dayton newspaper reported.

Dean told the Post-Dispatch, “I’m skillful at the manly art of self-defense and I ducked very cleverly.”

To prove his point, Dean “showed an eye that had no shiner,” according to the Dayton newspaper.

After the punch, Derringer grabbed Dean, “and when I saw he wanted to wrestle I caught him around the neck and threw him to the ground,” Dean explained to the Post-Dispatch.

As the clinched pair rolled around, Cardinals pitcher Dazzy Vance, 42, “strolled out and sat on them until the situation was in hand,” the Dayton Daily News reported.

Derringer told the newspaper that he “would have won by a knockout if Vance hadn’t stopped the bout.”

Dean claimed he gave Derringer “a right to the side of the head” before Vance arrived.

The Three Stooges-like antics carried over into the game. Cardinals player George Watkins was ejected for throwing his cap at an umpire after being called out on the base path, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, and Reds coach Jewel Ens also was ejected for arguing a call.

After the ejection of Ens, a woman spectator heaved a soda bottle from the stands, intending it for the umpire. Instead, it struck Cardinals infielder Burgess Whitehead on the shoulder as he stood on a dugout step, according to the Associated Press. Boxscore

Postscript

Dean was a 20-game winner for the 1933 Cardinals, then followed with 30 wins in 1934, plus two more in the World Series. He is the last National League pitcher to achieve 30 wins in a season.

Though his ERA was 3.30, Derringer was 7-27 in 1933 _ 0-2 with the Cardinals and 7-25 with the last-place Reds.

Despite that, he posted more wins (223) than losses (212) in his 15 seasons in the majors. He also pitched in four World Series for three franchises _ Cardinals (1931), Reds (1939 and 1940) and Cubs (1945).

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Before his fastball faded and spray hitters such as Ozzie Smith could pull it with power, the Cardinals saw the vintage Vida Blue, the one who, as Sports Illustrated noted, threw heat that “explodes in all directions.”

Blue was 28 when he came to the National League in a trade from the Athletics to the Giants in 1978. Though he would continue to pitch in the majors until 1986, his first year as a Giant was the last of his prominent seasons.

A left-hander who totaled 209 wins, Blue helped the Athletics win three World Series titles.

Rhapsody in Blue

Blue, 18, made his big-league debut with the Athletics on July 20, 1969. Two years later, he was the best pitcher in the American League, winning the Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards. His numbers in 1971: 24-8 record, 1.82 ERA, 24 complete games, eight shutouts and 301 strikeouts in 312 innings.

“He throws harder than Sandy Koufax did,” Orioles slugger Boog Powell said to Sports Illustrated.

After Blue produced three seasons of 20 or more wins, Athletics owner Charlie Finley wanted to cash in on that success. In June 1976, he tried to trade Blue to the Yankees in exchange for $1.5 million, but baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn voided the deal, declaring he did so in the best interests of baseball. (At the same time, Kuhn also canceled Finley’s attempt to swap reliever Rollie Fingers and outfielder Joe Rudi to the Red Sox for $1 million apiece.)

A year later, in December 1977, Finley sent Blue to the Reds for $1.75 million and first baseman Dave Revering. “They call Cincinnati the Big Red Machine. Now they have to call it the Big Blue Machine,” Vida said to The Sporting News.

The Reds envisioned a starting rotation led by Blue and Tom Seaver, but Kuhn again voided the deal. Part of the reasoning for Kuhn’s decision is he said he didn’t think the Athletics were getting enough talent in return. (In his nine seasons with the Athletics, Blue had a 124-86 record and 2.95 ERA.)

Ace vs. Cards

Giants general manager Spec Richardson sensed an opportunity. On March 15, 1978, Blue was traded to the Giants for seven players and nearly $400,000 in cash. Kuhn had no objections.

Naturally, Blue’s Giants debut came against the Reds at Cincinnati and he was the losing pitcher. Boxscore

After that, he went on a roll, winning six in a row. Two of those wins came against the Cardinals.

Blue’s first appearance versus the Cardinals was on May 1, 1978, at St. Louis. He limited them to four hits through seven innings on a mere 57 pitches. Trailing 2-0, the Cardinals scored a run against him in the eighth, but Blue got the win with strong relief help from Randy Moffitt in the ninth. Boxscore

Two weeks later, Blue faced the Cardinals at San Francisco and pitched a complete game for the win. He also singled, walked and scored a run in the Giants’ 9-3 triumph. Boxscore

Blue made three starts against the 1978 Cardinals and was 3-0 with a 2.08 ERA. For the season, he was 18-10 with four shutouts and a 2.79 ERA.

The Padres’ Gaylord Perry (21-6, 2.73) was selected as the 1978 National League Cy Young Award recipient by the Baseball Writers Association of America, but Blue was named The Sporting News National League pitcher of the year in voting by the players.

Throughout the season, Blue was backed by the hitting of 22-year-old Jack Clark, who batted .306 and led the 1978 Giants in doubles (46), home runs (25), RBI (98) and runs scored (90).

Hard time

In an eight-year stretch from 1971 to 1978, Blue pitched 258 innings or more in seven of those seasons. He wouldn’t work that many again.

In 1979, he was 0-2 with a 4.84 ERA in three starts against the Cardinals. On Aug. 29 that year, he gave up a career-high 14 hits to the Cardinals. Tony Scott had four hits and scored twice in the 5-1 Cardinals triumph at San Francisco. George Hendrick, Blue’s former teammate with the Athletics, hit a home run. Boxscore

Cardinals first baseman Keith Hernandez told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “That’s the slowest I’ve seen him throw.”

In March 1982, the Giants traded Blue to the Royals. A year later, he pleaded guilty to a cocaine possession charge and was sentenced to three months in federal prison. Kuhn suspended him for the 1984 season.

Blue returned to the Giants in 1985 and eventually joined a starting rotation with ex-Cardinal Dave LaPoint and Atlee Hammaker, one of the players acquired from the Royals in the Blue trade.

On July 10, 1985, at St. Louis, Blue started, gave up five runs in three innings and took the loss. With two outs in the second, Blue threw a waist-high fastball to Ozzie Smith, who yanked it over the wall in left for a two-run home run. “A terrible pitch,” Giants manager Jim Davenport told United Press International.

An inning later, Blue’s former teammate, Jack Clark, also launched a two-run homer. “He challenges you,” Clark told the Post-Dispatch. “He gives you the fastball.” (Clark produced four hits, including two home runs, in five career at-bats versus Blue.)

In 17 career appearances, including 12 starts, versus the Cardinals, Blue was 5-5 with a 5.36 ERA.

Ted Simmons hit .316 (12-for-38) against Blue. Those with high on-base percentages against him included Tommy Herr (.500, with six hits and three walks in 18 plate appearances) and Keith Hernandez (.421, with 13 hits and three walks in 38 plate appearances).

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