RetroSimba

Why start versus Cardinals was special for Sandy Koufax

April 9, 2024 by retrosimba

(Updated July 30, 2024)

In 12 seasons in the majors, Sandy Koufax made just one Opening Day start for the Dodgers. It came on April 14, 1964, against the Cardinals.

Koufax, 28, was considered to be at the top of his game then, coming off a dominant season. The left-hander won both the National League Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards in 1963. He was 25-5 that season, including 4-0 versus the Cardinals, and led the majors in wins, ERA (1.88), shutouts (11) and strikeouts (306). Koufax also won Games 1 and 4 of the 1963 World Series, a Dodgers sweep of the Yankees.

Yet, as he approached an Opening Day start for the first time, Koufax admitted he was nervous. “Sure I feel it,” he said to columnist John Hall of the Los Angeles Times. “I’ve been getting worked up for days. It’s a thrill … I always get excited before every start, but the first game of the season is something extra.”

As it turned out, the prominence of the assignment wasn’t the sole reason for the jitters. Koufax’s pitching arm didn’t feel right.

Profit share

During contract negotiations for the 1964 season, Koufax proposed a “formula he worked out whereby he would participate in gate receipts on nights he worked,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner columnist Melvin Durslag noted, but Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley “made it clear he wanted employees only, not shareholders.”

Koufax met with his former teammate, Jackie Robinson, who advised the pitcher to press the Dodgers for a share of ticket revenue. “He made a difference of 10,000 to 15,000 in attendance a game near the end of the (1963) season when he pitched,” Robinson told The Sporting News.

O’Malley wouldn’t budge in his opposition to the idea. He told Durslag that “the Hollywood and Las Vegas influence … tend to give people in our business delusions of grandeur. Our boys hear talk in terms of residuals, capital gains, percentages and pieces of the action, and they are misled into applying these patterns to baseball.”

On the day before the Dodgers’ team plane headed to spring training at Vero Beach, Fla., Koufax agreed to a contract of $70,000 for 1964, a doubling of the $35,000 salary he got in 1963, The Sporting News reported.

Ready or not

In his 1964 Florida spring training outings, Koufax threw mostly slow curves and changeups, but the Dodgers said it was nothing to worry about _ he was working on making his off-speed pitches better, The Sporting News reported.

Privately, Koufax confided his left arm was hurting, according to author Jane Leavy in her book “Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy.”

On April 10, 1964, four days before the season opener, Koufax was feted at the Los Angeles baseball writers banquet at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunset Boulevard. An overflow crowd of 1,500 attended the $20-a-plate dinner and was treated to entertainment from Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Nancy Wilson and emcee Phil Silvers.

The next night, Koufax started against the Angels in an exhibition game at Dodger Stadium and looked terrific in his two-inning tune-up, striking out five and allowing only an infield hit.

Good reads

Noting that Koufax “probably set a major-league record by reading more books in one season than any pitcher in history,” the Los Angeles Times asked him on the eve of the season opener to compile a list of books he’d recommend for teens.

Under the category of modern novels, Koufax suggested “Lord of the Flies” (William Golding), “Catcher in the Rye” (J.D. Salinger), “To Kill a Mockingbird” (Harper Lee), “A Separate Peace” (John Knowles), “I, Robot” (Isaac Asimov), “The Ugly American” (William Lederer and Eugene Burdick), “On the Beach” (Nevil Shute), “Jamie” (Jack Bennett), “Fail-Safe” (Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler) and “A Very Small Remnant” (Michael Straight).

A sampling of some of Koufax’s other recommendations included:

_ Adventures: “Annapurna” (Maurice Herzog), “Deliver Us From Evil” (Thomas A. Dooley), “The Edge of Tomorrow” (Thomas A. Dooley), “The Man Who Never Was” (Ewen Montagu).

_ Biographies: “Portrait of Myself” (Margaret Bourke-White), “The Diary of a Young Girl” (Anne Frank), “Surgeon” (Wilfred C. Heinz).

_ Histories: “Hiroshima” (John Hersey), “Profiles in Courage” (John F. Kennedy).

_ Humor: “The Education of Hyman Kaplan (Leonard Q. Ross), “Platypus At Large: A Nonsense Book of World Politics” (Emery Kelen).

_ Observation: “The Craft of Intelligence” (Allen Dulles), “Romance of Philosophy” (Jacques Choron), “The Fire Next Time” (James Baldwin).

_ Science: “The Universe and Dr. Einstein” (Lincoln Barnett), “Gods, Graves and Scholars” (C.W. Ceram).

Only four sports books made Koufax’s list: “The Four-Minute Mile” (Roger Bannister), “Basketball Is My Life” (Bob Cousy and Al Hirshberg), “Lou Gehrig: A Quiet Hero” (Frank Graham) and “Playing For Life” (Bill Talbert and John Sharnik).

Same Sandy

The book on Koufax was he looked good in pitching a six-hit shutout in a 4-0 Opening Day victory at Dodger Stadium. All six Cardinals hits were singles and only one Cardinal base runner advanced as far as second base. Boxscore

Bill White had two of the hits. For his career, White batted .176 versus Koufax. “You weren’t afraid of him, but Sandy, you just couldn’t handle him at all,” White told Yankees Magazine. “You could se the ball; you just couldn’t hit it.”

Koufax became the first Dodger to pitch an Opening Day shutout since Whit Wyatt did it in 1940 against the Braves at Boston. Boxscore

Cardinals team captain Ken Boyer told the Post-Dispatch, “Sandy’s curve got better as he went along. If you’re going to beat him, you’re going to have to do it in the early innings.”

Koufax and Cardinals starter Ernie Broglio were matched in a scoreless duel until Ron Fairly drove in Willie Davis with a single in the sixth. “That was the turning point,” Broglio told the Los Angeles Times. “You give Koufax a run and he gets pretty tough.”

Old arm

A week later, in the Cardinals’ home opener, Koufax gave up a three-run home run to Charlie James and departed after pitching one inning.

“He was slow,” Boyer told the Post-Dispatch. “It wasn’t too hard to figure something might be wrong with him.” Boxscore

Koufax was examined by Cardinals physician Dr. I.C. Middleman, who determined the pitcher had “inflammation of the elbow” and “a slight muscle tear” in his left forearm, the Post-Dispatch reported.

Middleman informed the newspaper that Koufax told him his arm had been hurting since spring training but he hadn’t mentioned it to the Dodgers.

Koufax missed his next three starts, took three cortisone shots and returned to the rotation on May 4. He found his groove in June (5-0 record) and July (5-1).

On Aug. 16, Koufax again shut out the Cardinals, striking out 13, and then was shut down for the rest of the season after being diagnosed with an arthritic left elbow. Boxscore

“Arthritis is an acute inflammation of a joint usually associated with old age,” Jane Leavy wrote. “Koufax’s elbow was old even if he wasn’t … The cartilage in his elbow was breaking down.”

Even with the ailments, Koufax managed to post a 19-5 record, with seven shutouts, and 1.74 ERA in 28 starts in 1964. He pitched two more seasons, winning the Cy Young Award both years, before calling it quits at 30.

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers | 18 Comments »

Ooh la la: Joaquin Andujar and a Canadian clout

April 3, 2024 by retrosimba

In Montreal, where the predominant language is French, he’s “Un Dominicain Coriace.” In his homeland, where Spanish is spoken, it’s “Un Dominicano Duro.”

Regardless of the locale, Joaquin Andjuar, the self-proclaimed “One Tough Dominican” pitcher, could back up his image with astonishing results.

One such instance occurred on April 27, 1984, for the Cardinals against the Expos at Montreal. Brushed back by a pitch, Andujar retaliated by belting the next delivery for a home run that put the Cardinals ahead for good.

Head games

For the Friday afternoon game at Olympic Stadium, the Expos produced a lineup that included Pete Rose in left, three future Hall of Famers _ Gary Carter at catcher, Andre Dawson in right, Tim Raines in center _ and a probable future Hall of Fame manager at first, Terry Francona.

The player who drew Andujar’s attention (and ire), though, was the Expos’ spunky second baseman, Bryan Little. Batting with one out and none on in the first inning, Little bunted for a single. He advanced to third on a hit by Raines and scored on Dawson’s sacrifice fly.

Andujar didn’t think much of a batter who used a puny bunt to get on base against him. When Little came up again in the third, he was sent spinning to the ground by a fastball. “He was throwing at me,” Little told the Montreal Gazette.

Andujar expected the Expos to seek retribution because when he batted in the fifth he wore a helmet with a protective ear flap, an unusual choice for him, when he dug in from the right side of the plate. “I didn’t want to get hit in the ear,” Andujar told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Sure enough, Steve Rogers’ first pitch to him was a fastball near the head. Umpire Bruce Froemming warned Rogers he’d be ejected if he threw another like that.

My way

Andujar had his own system for determining which side of the plate to take as a batter. Though a right-hander, he sometimes batted from the left side, as he did in his first plate appearance of the game against Rogers.

According to the Post-Dispatch, Andujar said he batted from the left side versus right-handers when there were runners in scoring position because, “I make better contact left-handed.” He generally went to the right side when he was bunting or trying to slug a home run.

Usually, Andujar was trying for the long ball.

Cutting loose with savage cuts, he struck out 315 times in 607 career at-bats in the majors. As Rick Hummel of the Post-Dispatch noted, “If one watched Andujar swing his 40-ounce bat as if he were trying to beat a rug, one wondered what would happen if bat ever met ball.”

After throwing the brushback pitch to him, Rogers found out.

On with the show

Andujar powered the next pitch to deep left for a home run, breaking a 2-2 tie.

“He was pumped up and I threw a bad pitch right in his wheelhouse,” Rogers told the Post-Dispatch. “I was trying to throw a slider away and I threw a spinning nothing ball, middle in.”

Milking the moment, “Andujar majestically flipped his bat aside and watched his homer sail over the wall,” Rick Hummel wrote. “Then he literally walked the last 90 feet in his home run trot, pausing to step dramatically on home plate before continuing to the dugout.”

Cardinals infielder Ken Oberkfell told the Montreal Gazette, “We were all stunned … Now we’re going to have to listen to him talk about his power for a week.”

Andujar finished with a complete-game win. (His first 10 decisions versus the Expos all were wins and he ended his career with a 15-6 record against them.) Boxscore

Power supply

A career .127 hitter in his 13 major-league seasons, Andujar had five home runs, including two versus Rogers. With the Astros in 1979, Andujar homered against Rogers at Montreal. Boxscore

In addition to the two home runs off Rogers, Andujar hit another against the Expos _ in 1979, an inside-the-park poke versus Bill Lee at the Astrodome in Houston. Boxscore

Andujar’s first four home runs were right-handed. His last, a grand slam at St. Louis against the Braves’ Jeff Dedmon, was from the left side. Like Babe Ruth, Andujar called that shot.

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Pitchers | 16 Comments »

Cardinals fumbled chance to land local lad Andy Russell

March 29, 2024 by retrosimba

In high school at suburban St. Louis and in college at the University of Missouri, Andy Russell helped make every football team he played for a winner and was at his best in the most important games.

A hometown standout would seem a natural choice for the St. Louis Cardinals. Instead, Russell played his entire NFL career as an outside linebacker with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He was named to the Pro Bowl seven times in 12 seasons and was captain of the Steel Curtain defense that transformed the franchise into Super Bowl champions.

In his rookie season in 1963, Russell stung the Cardinals, intercepting a pass in a Steelers win.

Executive’s son

Charles Andrew “Andy” Russell was born in Detroit and lived in Chicago and New York before his family moved to the St. Louis suburb of Ladue. His father’s job as an executive with Monsanto, the chemical company, required the relocations.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Andy Russell said his father William “was an immigrant who came to the United States from Scotland in 1922 at age 11. He was proud of making his way in this new world. It’s a million miles from the tenements of Glasgow to the top ranks of Monsanto.”

Andy Russell became an accomplished fullback on the Ladue Horton Watkins High School football team. Nicknamed “The Horse” because of his power and ability to stiff-arm tacklers, Russell led the team to an 8-0 record his senior season in 1958.

He chose Missouri from among 25 college scholarship offers because, in part, “I was impressed particularly with the members of the faculty whom I met,” Russell told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

As Russell entered college, his father got promoted to lead Monsanto’s overseas division. Andy’s parents moved to Brussels, Belgium (and later Geneva, Switzerland), and Monsanto provided Andy with roundtrip airfare each summer during his college years to join them in Europe, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Missouri Tiger

In Russell’s three varsity seasons (1960-62) as a fullback and linebacker for head coach Dan Devine, Missouri was 25-4-3, including victories against Navy in the Orange Bowl and Georgia Tech in the Bluebonnet Bowl.

As a junior in 1961, Russell was Missouri’s leading rusher, but defense was where he excelled the most. At linebacker, he played “aggressively and with intuition, diagnosing running plays and wheeling back to knock down and intercept passes,” columnist Bob Broeg noted in the Post-Dispatch.

Playing before 71,218 spectators, including President-elect John F. Kennedy, in the Orange Bowl, Russell intercepted two passes from Navy quarterback Hal Spooner.

In Missouri’s 10-0 victory versus Oklahoma State in 1961, Russell scored the lone touchdown, intercepting a pass and returning it 47 yards for the score. The next year, he picked off two passes to help Missouri beat Nebraska, 16-7.

In his final game for Missouri at the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston, Russell made two interceptions and nine tackles. He also threw the key block to spring Bill Tobin on a 77-yard touchdown run.

As the St. Louis Globe-Democrat noted, Russell “always seems to rise to the occasion in important games.”

Join the club

During a visit to St. Louis, William Russell took Andy to a Cardinals football game and was disheartened by the brutality he witnessed on the field. According to Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray, the father said, “Son, promise me one thing: You will never play pro football.” Andy replied, “Don’t worry.”

Andy Russell planned to start a business career in St. Louis after he graduated. He also was facing a stint in the Army because he had completed the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program at Missouri.

“I never even considered pro football,” Russell said to The Pittsburgh Press. “I can honestly say the thought never occurred to me.”

During his senior year, when NFL teams sent Russell questionnaires that included a query on whether he wanted to play pro football, Russell checked the box marked “no.” According to the Associated Press, the only team that didn’t mail him a survey was the Steelers. So they didn’t know he was uninterested.

The Steelers had traded their top seven spots in the 1963 NFL draft and didn’t have a pick until the eighth round. When their turn came in the 16th round, the Steelers selected Russell, then sent scout Will Walls to meet with him. Walls “gave me a real sales talk on the (team’s) shortage of linebackers,” Russell recalled to the Post-Gazette. “That convinced me that I had a chance.”

After graduating from Missouri in June 1963 with a degree in economics, Russell signed with the Steelers. According to the Associated Press, he got a $12,000 contract and $3,000 signing bonus. Russell planned to play one season for the money, then pursue a graduate degree. At the Steelers’ suggestion, he asked the Army for a delay in fulfilling his ROTC commitment and it was granted.

Making the grade

The 1963 Steelers were loaded with characters. “That was a fun team,” Russell recalled to the Post-Gazette. “They used to drink a lot of ‘fluids’ to ward off colds. I had played for Dan Devine at Missouri and things were so disciplined that you couldn’t even cough in a meeting. At my first meeting with the Steelers, you could barely see the blackboard through all the cigarette smoke. Some guys would snore in the back of the room and others would argue with the coaches on whether or not plays would work.”

Russell said to Jim Murray, “We were a wildly reckless team … We were about as disciplined as a litter of puppies.”

The Steelers accepted Russell because of how well he played in training camp. Defensive coordinator Buster Ramsey told United Press International, “You don’t often see a rookie work into a system that quickly. He has speed and lateral movement and should develop into one of the best linebackers in the league.”

Early in the season, when linebackers John Reger and Bob Schmitz got injured, Russell stepped in and impressed. On Sept. 29, 1963, facing the Cardinals at Pittsburgh, Russell intercepted a Charley Johnson pass, helping the Steelers to a 23-10 victory. Game stats

“The Cardinals had little success with rookie Andy Russell, even though they picked on the St. Louis youngster time and again,” The Pittsburgh Press reported. “His best play was an interception of a pass intended for fullback Joe Childress. The Cardinals tried to play it cute. On the preceding play, they tried the same over-the-middle pass to fullback Mal Hammack, but Russell broke it up at the last instant. Figuring the rookie wouldn’t expect the same play immediately, Childress came in with orders to come right back with the same thing, but Russell wasn’t guessing. He played his man and wound up with the ball.”

Russell was the Steelers’ only rookie regular in 1963. He started in 13 of 14 games, according to pro-football-reference.com.

Rags to riches

In January 1964, Russell was ordered to begin a two-year tour of duty as an Army lieutenant. He spent most of that time at a base in Stuttgart, Germany, where he played football for a service team, and missed the 1964 and 1965 NFL seasons.

Discharged in January 1966, Russell enrolled in graduate school at Missouri before going to Steelers training camp in the summer. He picked up where he left off, returning to the Steelers’ starting unit.

On Nov. 13, 1966, in a game against the Cardinals at Pittsburgh, Russell blocked a Jackie Smith punt, recovered the ball and returned it 14 yards for a touchdown, putting the Steelers ahead to stay. Boxscore

“We normally don’t attempt to block a punt,” Russell told the Post-Dispatch, “but we had seen in films that they left an opening in their line. When they set up the same way on a punt just before the one we blocked, we decided to try it. The punt hit me right in the face, then it was bouncing on the ground. I picked it up, got a good block and ran it in.”

In 1967, Russell was named Steelers defensive captain (a title he held for 10 years) and earned a master’s degree in business administration at Missouri.

Russell played for losing teams from 1966 to 1971 before experiencing a turnaround under head coach Chuck Noll. From 1974-76, the Steelers’ linebacking unit of Jack Ham, Jack Lambert and Russell was considered “the best in football,” Baltimore Colts running back Lydell Mitchell told the Post-Gazette.

The Steelers were NFL champions in 1974 and 1975, beating the Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowls those seasons.

Russell played in 168 consecutive regular-season games for the Steelers. Video He was 35 when he stopped playing and opened an investment securities firm in Pittsburgh. Russell also did extensive charitable work there.

Adventure seeker

According to the Post-Gazette, Russell became “the ultimate mountain man,” summiting all 54 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado. He also climbed Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.

Russell and former Steelers center Ray Mansfield completed the Hunter’s Island Route, a 145-mile canoe adventure through the Canadian wilderness.

“I had always been curious about the limits of physical endurance,” Russell told Neil Amdur of the New York Times. “After football games, I was so exhausted that I used to get this tremendous feeling of peace, as if I had used every bone in my body. I always wondered whether it was possible to achieve this same feeling somewhere else.”

Posted in Football, Games, Opponents | 12 Comments »

Cardinals gave Jim McAndrew big-league baptism by fire

March 25, 2024 by retrosimba

Picture this: You’re a rookie starting pitcher from a hamlet in Iowa, making your big-league debut on the road against the reigning World Series champions. The opposing starter is a future Hall of Famer who rarely has allowed a run during a winning streak on his way to a Cy Young Award.

That’s the challenge Mets right-hander Jim McAndrew faced when he got the start in his first major-league game against Bob Gibson and the 1968 Cardinals.

The degree of difficulty McAndrew faced hardly lessened. In his first four starts, McAndrew allowed six runs total, but the Mets scored none _ and he lost all four.

McAndrew finally got his first win by pitching a shutout, beating the Cardinals and their other future Hall of Famer, Steve Carlton.

A hard-luck hurler, McAndrew nearly quit when he was in the minors but Whitey Herzog convinced him to stay. McAndrew had one winning season in seven years in the majors, but played for two National League pennant winners and a World Series champion.

Help from Herzog

McAndrew grew up on his parents’ 750-acre farm in Lost Nation, Iowa, and developed into a top prep ballplayer. Cardinals scout Ken Blackman showed interest but advised McAndrew he’d be better off playing college baseball, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.

A psychology major, McAndrew pitched for the University of Iowa. On the recommendation of their St. Louis-based scout, Charlie Frey, the Mets took him in the 11th round of the 1965 amateur draft. (Their 12th-round pick was another right-hander, Nolan Ryan.)

After producing 10 wins and 1.47 ERA for a Class AA club managed by St. Louisan Roy Sievers in 1967, McAndrew was dejected when the Mets didn’t put him on their 40-man big-league winter roster. He thought about quitting and going to graduate school. “I had confidence in myself but nobody else seemed to,” McAndrew recalled to Newsday.

When Mets director of player development Whitey Herzog learned McAndrew was thinking of leaving, he talked him out of it. McAndrew was assigned to Class AAA Jacksonville in 1968, but manager Clyde McCullough moved him to the bullpen. “Whitey told McCullough to put McAndrew back into the starting rotation,” Newsday reported.

In July 1968, when Nolan Ryan reported for military duty, the Mets called up McAndrew to replace him.

The heat is on

On a sweltering Sunday, July 21, 1968, McAndrew made his debut against Bob Gibson and the Cardinals at Busch Memorial Stadium. “Some people thought it was throwing a lamb to a lion.” Newsday noted.

Instead, “for five innings he matched zeroes with Gibson, who is in the midst of one of the hottest streaks in all baseball history,” the New York Times reported.

Then, in the Cardinals’ half of the sixth, Bobby Tolan drove a pitch to right-center. Outfielders Cleon Jones and Larry Stahl pursued it, thinking a catch could be made, but the ball hit against the wall. Neither Jones nor Stahl was in position to get the carom and the ball got between them and rolled away. Tolan circled the bases with an inside-the-park home run, giving the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.

After the inning, McAndrew left the game because the searing 94-degree heat got to him more than the Cardinals batters did. “He needed oxygen between innings,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The Cardinals added a run in the eighth and won, 2-0. Gibson completed his seventh shutout of the season, stretching his win streak to 10 and improving his career mark against the Mets to 20-3. He threw 144 pitches and struck out 13.

McAndrew told the New York Daily News he felt good about how he pitched, “but I didn’t win, and that’s what I’m supposed to do.” Boxscore

Runs are scarce

In his next three starts, McAndrew and the Mets lost 2-0 to the Dodgers, 1-0 to the Giants and 1-0 to the Astros, giving him an 0-4 record. The Mets finally scored in his fifth start, but McAndrew got shelled and lost to the Giants, a 13-3 final.

McAndrew brought an 0-5 record and 3.38 ERA into his next start, a return to St. Louis against Steve Carlton on Aug. 26.

The game was scoreless in the seventh when Tim McCarver lined a pitch deep to left. “McCarver would have had a three-base hit, two bases, at least,” Mets manager Gil Hodges said to the Post-Dispatch, but Cleon Jones made a diving catch. “Maybe the best play we’ve had in the outfield all year,” Hodges said.

The importance of the play was underlined when the next batter, Mike Shannon, singled. Instead of driving in a run, it was a harmless hit because McAndrew worked out of the inning unscathed. “I don’t win it if Cleon doesn’t get that one,” McAndrew told the New York Daily News.

The Mets manufactured the run McAndrew needed against Carlton in the eighth. Tommie Agee singled, moved to second on a Phil Linz sacrifice bunt, stole third and scored on a Cleon Jones sacrifice fly.

Given the 1-0 lead, McAndrew did the rest, retiring the Cardinals in order in the eighth and ninth to secure the shutout and his first win.

Recalling how Whitey Herzog stuck with him earlier in the year, McAndrew said to Newsday, “I attribute my being here tonight to him.” Boxscore

Five nights later, in a rematch at New York, Carlton and Joe Hoerner combined on a shutout and beat McAndrew and the Mets, 2-0. Boxscore

In three starts against the 1968 Cardinals, McAndrew allowed three runs in 23 innings and was 1-2.

Fit for a king

After the 1968 season, the Mets offered the Reds Dick Selma, Larry Stahl and their choice of either McAndrew, Gary Gentry or Steve Renko for Vada Pinson and Hal McRae, according to columnist Dick Young, but Pinson went to the Cardinals for Bobby Tolan and Wayne Granger.

The Mets also offered McAndrew to the Expos for Donn Clendenon but were turned down, The Sporting News reported. (Later, in June 1969, the Mets acquired Clendenon for a package of players and he was a key run producer for them.)

McAndrew stayed with the Mets in 1969 and contributed to their championship season. On a staff with Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan and Jerry Koosman, McAndrew pitched in 27 games, including 21 starts, and was 6-7. One of those wins was a three-hitter against the Cardinals on June 30. Boxscore

The Mets won four of five against the Orioles in the 1969 World Series, but McAndrew didn’t pitch in any of the games.

“He was the team intellectual, the quiet one of the clubhouse, the loner,” Joseph Durso wrote in the New York Times. “On the field, he was even more isolated than that _ the sixth man in a five-man rotation, the hard-luck pitcher nobody scored any runs for, the trade bait whenever deals were discussed.”

To the people of his hometown, though, McAndrew was someone special. On Nov. 1, 1969, residents of Lost Nation held a parade and dinner in McAndrew’s honor. “McAndrew received a number of gifts, including a plaque from Lost Nation mayor Shorty Ales noting Jim’s inspiration for the youth of the community, and a specially designed gold ring,” the Quad-City Times reported.

“Everyone has treated me just like a king,” McAndrew said to the newspaper.

Ups and downs

In 1971, McAndrew twice was injured in on-field accidents. At spring training, he was running in the outfield when a line drive off the bat of teammate Art Shamsky struck him in the jaw. “I lost four teeth,” McAndrew told the Post-Dispatch.

In July that year, during batting practice at Houston, McAndrew was fielding balls hit to the outfield and pitcher Gary Gentry was shagging tosses from coach Rube Walker. While chasing a liner, McAndrew collided with Gentry. McAndrew needed 20 stitches and plastic surgery for a wound over his right ear. Gentry took 15 stitches for facial cuts.

McAndrew had his best season in 1972, finishing 11-8 with a 2.80 ERA. Two of the wins were against the Cardinals, including his first complete game in two years. Boxscore

“He’s sneaky fast,” Mets catcher Duffy Dyer told Newsday. “He’s not a strikeout pitcher and there’s a lot of first-ball swinging.”

The Mets were National League champions in 1973, but McAndrew wasn’t much of a factor. He was 3-8 and had no wins after May 13. The Mets didn’t use him in any of the seven World Series games against the champion Athletics.

Afterward, the Cardinals offered to trade Joe Torre to the Mets for Jerry Koosman. The Mets countered with a package that included McAndrew, but the Cardinals said no. The Mets then sent McAndrew to the Padres. He pitched his final season in the majors with them in 1974.

McAndrew had a career mark of 37-53, including 6-6 versus the Cardinals.

In 1989, his son, pitcher Jamie McAndrew, was taken by the Dodgers in the first round of the 1989 amateur draft. He got to the big leagues with the Brewers in 1995. The catcher in his debut game was Mike Matheny. Boxscore

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers | 13 Comments »

How Art Howe took a final bow as player with Cardinals

March 20, 2024 by retrosimba

After nine consecutive seasons (1975-83) with Keith Hernandez as their Opening Day first baseman, the Cardinals had a most unlikely successor: Art Howe.

Though he’d been a productive infielder, mostly at second base and third for the Astros, Howe was unemployed at the start of 1984. He sat out the 1983 season because of elbow and ankle surgeries, then became a free agent and, at 37, hoped to show he still could play.

The 1984 White Sox, managed by Tony La Russa, brought him to spring training to compete for a utility role as an unsigned player, but a rookie, Tim Hulett, won the job.

The Cardinals, seeking a pinch-hitter, threw Howe a lifeline, signing him on March 21, 1984. Two weeks later, Howe was in the Cardinals’ Opening Day lineup as the first baseman, batting fifth, against the Dodgers when the player who was supposed to start, David Green, strained his shoulder.

Howe’s longshot leap from unemployment to Opening Day starter was not the first time he defied the odds. He’d been doing that his entire playing career.

Better late than never

Growing up near Pittsburgh, Howe was a Pirates fan. “He used to stand in front of the TV when the Pirates were on and pretend he was playing,” Howe’s father, Art Sr., recalled to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “He’d have his hat on and be holding a bat. He’d tell us that someday he’d play for the Pirates.”

The prediction came true, but the route Howe took hardly was routine.

A standout high school athlete, Howe accepted a football scholarship from the University of Wyoming because he’d also be allowed to play baseball. A quarterback, he hurt his back his freshman year and gave up football but stuck with baseball. Howe injured his thigh his senior season, underwent surgery and got no interest from big-league scouts.

He graduated from Wyoming with a degree in business administration in 1969, returned to Pittsburgh and became a computer programmer for Westinghouse.

“I worked with what we called the wire book,” Howe said to Dave Anderson of the New York Times. “We had to close all the books _ the money in, the money out. If anything was wrong, they’d call you in to stay until it proved. Stay all night if you had to. It was always the system analyst’s fault, never the input.”

Howe also had a disc operation for his ailing back in 1969. The next year, he played semipro baseball in the Greater Pittsburgh Federation League in his spare time. A friend arranged for him to attend a Pirates tryout camp. “I felt like a grandfather coming down there with all those 16- and 17-year-olds,” Howe recalled to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Pirates scout Merrill Hess, who ran the tryout, said to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “He had some impressive credentials. The problem was he was considered too old and too slow to be a major-league prospect.”

The Pirates still offered him a contract. Howe, 24, married, and a father, gave up the $1,500-a-month job at Westinghouse for $500 a month to play for a Class A farm club in Salem, Va., in 1971.

“I just didn’t want to be one of those ex-jocks who sit around with his grandson on his knee and wonder if I could have played major league baseball,” Howe said to the Post-Gazette. “I had the chance to find out, and I wanted to take it.”

No quit

Howe was 27 when he got called up to the Pirates in July 1974 as a backup to third baseman Richie Hebner. Howe’s first two home runs in the majors came against the Phillies’ Steve Carlton and the Mets’ Tom Seaver.

(For his career, Howe batted .389 versus Seaver, with 14 hits, including three home runs. He also hit three homers against Vida Blue. His .618 on-base percentage versus Blue included 15 hits and six walks.)

After the 1975 season, the Pirates sent Howe to the Astros, completing a trade for infielder Tommy Helms.

Howe hoped to replace Doug Rader, who’d been traded to the Padres, as the 1976 Astros third baseman, but Enos Cabell won the job. Two months into the season, Howe, 29, was demoted to the minors. With his career at a crossroads, Howe hit .355 for the Memphis Blues and was brought back to the Astros in September.

For the next six seasons, Howe was an Astros regular at second (1977-79), first (1980) and third (1981-82).

In May 1980, a pitch from the Expos’ Scott Sanderson struck Howe in the face, fracturing his jaw. He was sidelined less than a week, playing with a wired jaw and a special protective helmet. Five months later, in a one-game playoff against the Dodgers to determine the 1980 West Division champion, Howe had four RBI in the Astros’ 7-1 victory.

He batted .296 in 1981 and produced a 23-game hitting streak.

During the winters, Howe managed teams in Puerto Rico, hoping the experience would prepare him for a baseball job after his playing days.

Howe’s playing career was in jeopardy when he had to miss the 1983 season. “I started to get a stabbing pain in my (right) elbow the middle of the 1982 season,” Howe told the Chicago Tribune. “The elbow got weaker and weaker, and I had surgery in December of that year.”

A second elbow operation was performed in May 1983. In both surgeries, nerve transfers were performed, the Tribune reported. Howe also had surgery on his left ankle in 1983 for a problem with the tendon sheath.

Cardinals come calling

Howe attended the 1983 baseball winter meetings, looking for a job. The Astros and Giants made offers, but he chose to try out at spring training with the 1984 White Sox because he figured he could compete for a role as backup to third baseman Vance Law and viewed the club as a title contender.

Though manager Tony La Russa was impressed with what he saw from Howe, telling the Chicago Sun-Times, “He has made every throw he has had to make and showed a willingness to do whatever we ask,” Howe was informed he wouldn’t make the team.

That’s when the Cardinals stepped in. Their scout, Joe Frazier, tracked Howe in spring training and noted he moved and threw well, the Post-Dispatch reported.

The Cardinals had been talking to the Angels about acquiring Ron Jackson, who batted right-handed and played first and third. According to the Post-Dispatch, the Cardinals considered two proposals _ a straight swap of Bob Forsch for Jackson, and a three-way exchange in which St. Louis would send two prospects to the Dodgers for Burt Hooton, then flip Hooton to the Angels for Jackson.

Instead, when Howe became available, the Cardinals took him. Manager Whitey Herzog told the Post-Dispatch that Howe would be the club’s top pinch-hitter versus left-handers. “Howe is going to be better off the bench than (departed free agent) Gene Tenace was,” Cardinals pitcher Dave LaPoint told the newspaper.

When David Green’s ailing right shoulder made him unavailable to start at first base in the season opener against Dodgers left-hander Fernando Valenzuela, Howe replaced him.

Batting between George Hendrick and Willie McGee, Howe was not much of a factor in the Cardinals’ 11-7 victory. He grounded out in the second and hit into a double play in the third. When right-hander Pat Zachry replaced Valenzuela in the fourth, Dane Iorg batted for Howe and delivered a two-run single. Boxscore

Follow the leader

After that, Howe settled into the role Herzog had envisioned for him. He appeared in 89 games for the 1984 Cardinals, making 28 starts at third and three at first, and played all four infield positions.

Howe hit .318 as a pinch-hitter but .216 overall in 1984. A highlight came on July 14 when he had three RBI in the Cardinals’ 7-6 victory versus the Padres. Boxscore

After the season, the Cardinals signed Ron Jackson, who’d been released, but Howe beat him out for the utility infield job at 1985 spring training.

Then, three days before the season opener, the Cardinals acquired reserve infielder Ivan DeJesus from the Phillies. DeJesus could play third as well as short.

Howe, 38 and experiencing back problems, got three at-bats for the 1985 Cardinals, went hitless and was released on April 22. “Art kind of expected it,” Herzog said to the Post-Dispatch. “We hope to get him in our organization, maybe as a minor-league manager.”

Howe told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “The Cardinals have offered me a job as a minor-league hitting instructor.”

A better offer came from Bobby Valentine, who replaced Doug Rader as Rangers manager in May 1985. Howe joined the Rangers’ coaching staff. “He came highly recommended by (his ex-Astros teammates) Nolan Ryan and Phil Garner,” Valentine told the Post-Gazette.

Howe went on to manage the Astros (1989-93), Athletics (1996-2002) and Mets (2003-04). He succeeded La Russa with the Athletics and Valentine with the Mets. With Howe, the Athletics had 102 wins in 2001 and 103 in 2002.

Posted in Games, Hitters | 12 Comments »

How Golden Richards found Midas touch against Cardinals

March 15, 2024 by retrosimba

Golden Richards was a NFL glamour boy with a glittery name and the look to match. A blonde mane flowed from beneath his helmet when he streaked down the field. As columnist Jim Murray noted, “He’s so golden from his hair on down that he glows in the daylight. He’s perfect for the part of Sir Galahad.”

Richards could play, too. Few were faster than he was. A Dallas Cowboys receiver, Richards had sure hands, the strength to catch in a crowd and the ability to haul in long passes over the shoulder.

He got both his first NFL reception and first touchdown catch against the St. Louis Cardinals. Later, as an established starter, Richards made a game-winning touchdown grab at St. Louis. For his career, the foe he had the most catches against (19) were the Cardinals.

In his first five seasons with Dallas, Richards took part in nine playoff games, including two Super Bowls. The glory came at a terrible price. Richards suffered injuries, became addicted to prescription painkillers and struggled with alcohol abuse.

Burnishing bright

John Golden Richards was born on Dec. 31, 1950, in Salt Lake City. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, his parents gave him the distinctive middle name because they thought a baby born on New Year’s Eve must be extra special. Everyone called him Golden.

Richards’ specialness came through in athletics. He participated in five sports _ baseball, basketball, football, tennis and track _ at Granite High School in Salt Lake City. As a senior in 1969, Richards ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds and cleared 24 feet in the long jump at the Golden West Invitational in Sacramento.

Colleges recruited him for track, but Richards preferred football. The only football offers he got were from Air Force, Brigham Young University (BYU), Utah, Utah State and Westminster College, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Richards, a Mormon, planned to bypass BYU and go with Utah because of the football program’s strong passing game. “Next thing, I was called into my bishop’s office, and he told me he wanted me to go to BYU, or else he would call me on (a Latter-day Saints) mission,” Richards said to the Tribune.

Richards did what he was told and found he was right about BYU’s quarterback situation. None could get the ball to him consistently. In his two varsity seasons (1970-71), Richards caught a total of two touchdown passes.

He made up for it with punt and kickoff returns. As a junior in 1971, he was the NCAA’s top punt returner, with 624 yards and four touchdowns.

Richards didn’t put the same kind of effort into his studies. He was declared academically ineligible for his senior season at BYU. “It was my fault,” he told the Deseret News. “The situation arose simply because of my own laziness.”

He transferred to the University of Hawaii for the 1972 season and snared five touchdown passes in five games before he tore ligaments in his right knee.

Seeing stars

Before the injury, Cowboys scout Bob Griffin twice tested Richards in the 40-yard dash and both times he clocked 4.4 seconds. Impressed, the Cowboys took Richards in the second round of the 1973 NFL draft. “We haven’t had anybody this quick on our team since we picked up (two-time Olympic gold medalist) Bobby Hayes,” Cowboys head coach Tom Landry said to the Honolulu Advertiser.

As a teen, the Cowboys were the team Richards dreamed of playing for someday. When he walked into their locker room for the first time at training camp in 1973, “I was standing there next to Bob Lilly, Jethro Pugh and Roger Staubach,” Richards said to the Salt Lake Tribune. “I wanted to get everybody’s autograph.”

(Before a 1975 game against the New York Jets at Shea Stadium, Richards “stuck a pen and paper in his uniform pants and ran over to Joe Namath, begging for his signature right at the 50-yard line. Namath told Richards it was an honor and sent him a signed glossy photo the following the week,” the Tribune reported.)

On Sept. 30, 1973, the Cowboys were routing the Cardinals at Texas Stadium. In the fourth quarter, Landry began putting in his reserves, including the rookie Richards and quarterback Craig Morton. Soon after, Richards caught his first NFL pass, a five-yard toss from Morton. “I just broke out smiling and was just about laughing all the way to the huddle,” Richards said to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Two plays later, Morton called for Richards to go deep. “I thought it might be a touchdown pass when it (the play) was called,” Richards told the Star-Telegram. “That’s what the play was designed for _ six points.”

Sure enough, Richards broke free and Morton connected with him on a 53-yard scoring pass. Game stats

Big playmaker

More good times followed. Richards returned a punt 63 yards for a score in a 1973 playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings and caught touchdown passes in playoff wins against the Los Angeles Rams (1976) and Vikings (1978).

Richards averaged 17.5 yards a catch in the NFL. Of his 17 regular-season touchdown receptions, 11 were of 40 yards or more.

On Oct. 9, 1977, Richards made the play that beat the Cardinals.

With 6:53 remaining and St. Louis ahead, 24-23, the Cowboys were at the Cardinals’ 17-yard line. Quarterback Roger Staubach called an audible but Richards couldn’t hear him above the din at Busch Memorial Stadium.

“I was able to read Roger’s lips and pick it up, though,” Richards told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

As Richards dashed to the goal line down the right side, covered by cornerback Lee Nelson, Staubach floated a pass. “It was a little bit underthrown,” Richards said to the Fort Worth newspaper. “So I just kept going like it was coming. Then, at the last second, I stopped and tipped it back to me with one hand. Then I got a hold of it and just went sliding in to score.”

Nelson, filling in for injured Perry Smith, told the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, “The guy made a hell of a catch. He caught it with one hand, one arm. I batted one of his arms away.”

The Cowboys won, 30-24. Game stats They would lose only twice all season (to the Cardinals at Dallas and to the Steelers at Pittsburgh) and rolled to the Super Bowl for a matchup against the Denver Broncos.

Richards was one of the game’s stars, catching a 29-yard touchdown pass from fullback Robert Newhouse to highlight a 27-10 Cowboys victory. Game stats and video

Troubled times

Richards was popular. His first wife, Barbara, said at his peak he got 1,000 pieces of fan mail a week. At the Super Bowl in Miami in 1976, Richards was “chased up and down the streets by the females, some handing him their telephone numbers, others just wanting to touch him,” the Associated Press reported.

Richards told the wire service, “It’s kind of overwhelming. I mean, they walk right up with my wife standing next to me.”

He hobnobbed with celebrities such as Olivia Newton-John and model Jerry Hall. “It was glamorous,” Richards told the Salt Lake Tribune.

The glamour masked a dark side. Richards was hurting. He took a pounding in the games. A hit from the Steelers’ Mel Blount broke five of Richards’ ribs. His back ached all the time and so did his teeth from getting belted under the face mask.

Seven times, dentists did root canals to repair damage from hits to Richards’ face, the Dallas Morning News reported. He was prescribed Percodan. Codeine was another. Richards became addicted and “depended on painkillers to play,” according to the Dallas newspaper.

“I never took drugs to get high,” he told reporter Barry Horn. “I took drugs because I couldn’t stand the pain.”

His craving for painkillers spun out of control. “In the bleakest moments,” Gordon Monson of the Salt Lake Tribune reported, “he fished through his own vomit in a toilet for unabsorbed painkillers so he could taken them again.”

Richards told Monson, “There were times when I lived through the darkest dark you can imagine. With the painkillers, you fight and struggle to get up to ground zero, but then you discover you’re still 150 miles below the surface of the earth.”

In April 1978, three months after he scored his Super Bowl touchdown, Richards was rushed to a hospital when it was feared he had overdosed. Five months later, the Cowboys traded him to the Chicago Bears for two draft picks.

Richards spent two seasons with Chicago, got released and was done as a player at 29. His third wife, Amy, told the Salt Lake Tribune, “He got hooked on the narcotics in the NFL. When the NFL was taken away, he no longer had football but he still had the narcotics.”

His problems expanded. Richards turned to booze. “I was living in an alcohol fog,” he said to the Tribune.

He was in and out of treatment centers multiple times.

In December 1992, Richards was arrested on charges he forged his father’s signature on nearly $700 in checks to pay for painkillers. He pleaded guilty.

“This has been a horrible, horrible way of life,” Richards told the Dallas Morning News in January 1993. “Like any addict, I have been deceitful, manipulative and cunning. People who suffer from my kind of addiction can lose everything that means everything to you. I know. I have.”

Richards was sober for the last decade of his life, his brother, Doug, told the Deseret News.

Posted in Football, Games, Opponents | 10 Comments »

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