Quote of the Day (Zach Helfand, on the Umpire’s Strike Zone)

"For many years, an umpire’s strike zone was like an extension of his personality. Some umpires were literalists, uncompromising. Some preferred expediency; their boundaries were enormous. No matter who was working, when it rained suddenly everything was a strike. [Joe] West, the record-holding umpire, is a burly man with a Carolina drawl who moonlights as a country singer and used to pal around with Merle Haggard. He told me one umpire described the old standard for learning the strike zone as ‘You call them strikes until someone goes, “Hey!”’ Another of his friends liked to say, ‘The strike zone is like a television set, and every now and then you need [Hall of Fame Baltimore Orioles manager] Earl Weaver or Billy Martin’—the Yankees’ volatile manager in the seventies and eighties—'to come out and adjust the knob.’ Martin once sent an umpire a Christmas card that read ‘I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season.’ On the inside, he wrote, ‘Because you sure had a horseshit summer.’ Video evaluation has reined in some quirks, but the strike zone still changes measurably depending on the score, the team batting, and the pitcher’s race.”— Zach Helfand, “Invasion of the Robot Umpires,” The New Yorker, Aug. 30, 2021

You can be forgiven for thinking that in this offseason, San Francisco Giant manager Gabe Kapler might be sorely tempted to pull a Billy Martin and send Gabe Morales an unpleasant holiday greeting.

The first-base umpire did little to slow down—and, I’d wager, much to accelerate—the movement towards the video-evaluated decisions chronicled by Helfand in his New Yorker piece. In Thursday night’s deciding game of the Giants-L.A. Dodgers NLDS playoff series, Morales sent Wilmer Flores and the rest of the Giants to an aggravated, sorrowing postseason by calling a third, game- and series-ending strike on the first baseman.

Most of the rest of the civilized world believes that Flores checked his swing. That sentiment was not undercut in the slightest by Morales' feeble post-game explanation of his decision. ("I don’t have the benefit of multiple camera angles when I’m watching it live. When it happened live, I thought he went, so that’s why I called it a swing.")

The call certainly short-circuited any chance that Flores could have kept the rally alive long enough to tie the score, or maybe win the game. No amount of talk about how it was a game for the ages will salve the wounds of Giant fans.

Forget about masks, chest protectors, and leg guards: During a game, an umpire’s best equipment are ear plugs, so he won’t tune out insulting references by managers and fans to his ancestry. After a game, he is well advised to avoid any electronic medium that talks endlessly about the contest and his role in it.

Some years ago, an acquaintance of mine yelled out on behalf of her beloved Mets, “Hey ump, I’m blind, and even I can tell that was a ball!” Her taunt provoked much appreciative laughter and cheers at Shea Stadium back then. I suspect that from now on, more than a few Giant fans would echo her.

(The image accompanying this post, if you haven’t guessed, comes from Bull Durham, with Kevin Costner’s catcher Crash Davis being tossed from the game for arguing a call by an ump.)

Quote of the Day (Tommy Lasorda, Assessing His Catcher’s Speed)

“If he raced his pregnant wife, he’d finish third.”—Los Angeles Dodgers manager and Baseball Hall of Famer Tommy Lasorda (1927-2021), on catcher Mike Scioscia, quoted in Houston Mitchell, “The Late Tommy Lasorda Was Known As Much for His Quotes As for His Managerial Acumen,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 8, 2021

I was going to use another quote from the late Dodger legend—one of those classic locker-room inspirational mottoes. But as soon as I saw this one—well, let’s just say I knew I had spotted a winner!

(The image accompanying this post, showing the retired Lasorda in his honorary capacity as spring training manager, was taken March 12, 2010, by Djh57.)

Quote of the Day (Kellogg’s 1934 ‘Baseball’ Guide, With Fielding Advice That the Dodgers Can Use)

“Good outfielders will tell you not to be too tense. If your wrists and hands are rigid you’ll increase your chances of fumbling. Be relaxed when you catch the ball.”—“How to Catch a Ball,” Kellogg’s “Baseball” Guide (1934)

I was pleasantly surprised when a friend sent me last week the 1934 Kellogg “Baseball” guide you see here. I had just finished writing a post about Jimmie Foxx, and the guide took me back to the world of the Philadelphia A’s and Boston Red Sox slugger of the Thirties. The tips in this pamphlet offered the kind of advice from him and other future Cooperstown greats that American boys would have received at the time.

It was comforting to discover that, before designated hitters, armies of relief pitchers, and sluggers advised by hitting coaches not to worry too much about strikeouts if they could put the ball out of the park, some elements of the game of the past have managed to carry over.

After last night’s game, I’m sure that Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts might have wanted to get the above passage into the hands of centerfielder Chris Taylor. With only one strike to go to secure victory and a 3-1 World Series advantage, Taylor and Dodgers catcher Will Smith committed a cascading series of errors that frightened their fans with what one Twitter user termed “a double Buckner”—a reference to the Red Sox first baseman unfairly tagged the goat of the 1986 World Series for a ball that skidded through his legs.

Maybe the Boys in Blue will recover and this set of defensive miscues occurring in a mere 10 seconds will be forgotten in the ensuing era of good feeling. But if the Dodgers don’t win the series, expect Roberts to be put on the same “Win This Year or Else” clock that Aaron Boone is on following his deeply problematic pitching strategy in Game 2 of the American League Divisional Series with the Tampa Bay Rays.

This Day in Baseball History (Don Drysdale, Dodger Heat Hurler, Born)

July 23, 1936—Don Drysdale, a pitcher who used a sidearm delivery, blazing football and brushback pitch to command the strike zone and earn a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame, was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Van Nuys, Calif.

It took me a while to find a photo that caught the mound essence of this legendarily intimidating righthander for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. Ninety-five pictures out of a hundred showed a handsome man with a genial smile, a guy that Hollywood featured in a Leave It to Beaver episode (the star chats with The Beav long distance) or as a guest on the TV western The Lawman.

The photo accompanying this post comes closer to a starter who described his own personality this way: "I hate all hitters. I start a game mad and I stay that way until it's over."

Even that quote might not be sufficient. Drysdale could look so mad, you’d think he suspected you of robbing the food from his family’s table.

Drysdale might put a batter on his rear end in retaliation for an opposing pitcher hitting his teammate. He might send a hitter to the ground for stepping in and out of the batter’s box, as he did with the Phillies’ Wes Covington. Or he might engage in a form of psychological testing, as he explained in retirement in a 1979 interview with Dave Anderson of The New York Times: “The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid, and if he is timid, he has to remind the hitter he's timid."

Yet Drysdale could also render great players nervous, such as Mickey Mantle. "I hated to bat against Drysdale,” the Yankee centerfielder admitted. “After he hit you he'd come around, look at the bruise on your arm and say, 'Do you want me to sign it?'"

Even without the brushback pitch, Drysdale possessed enormous skills or physical assets that led many to predict success for him early on. There was his 6-ft.-5-in. frame, for instance, which gave batters less time to react to his pitches; his sidearm motion, “all spikes, elbows and fingernails,” according to a 1962 Sports Illustrated profile, which also termed it “an enfilading action against plate-crowding right-handers”; and a fastball that he threw consistently in the mid-90s.

Yet, for a while, the pitcher who became famous for playing with hitters’ fears couldn’t conquer his own. Even after helping the Dodgers win their first World Series in Los Angeles in 1959, Drysdale would rage against himself over a mistake, then lose his concentration and, perhaps, the game. Only with the 1962 season, when he notched a 25‐9 record and a Cy Young Award, did he finally break through and really fulfill his vast promise.

With lefthander Sandy Koufax, Drysdale formed one of the great starting pitching tandems in history. They also acted as a team against Dodger management, with each holding out for a $500,000 three-year contract. The fact that Dodgers Vice President Buzzy Bavasi finally came to terms with them, at a time when management held the upper hand in baseball, derived from their crucial leadership in the prior four years, when the Dodgers won two World Series championships.

Drysdale was forced to retire midway through 1969 because of a rotary cuff injury. (“A torn rotator cuff,” he noted at the time, “is a cancer for a pitcher and if a pitcher gets a badly torn one, he has to face the facts, it's all over, baby.") Only the season before, he had achieved another extraordinary mark: 58 straight scoreless innings (including six straight shutouts), a record that would not be bested until another Dodger pitcher, Orel Hershiser, came along 20 years later.

After retiring, Drysdale became a broadcaster for the White Sox, Rangers, Expos, Angels and Dodgers. While other pitchers had exceeded his 209 career victories, few were his equal at his zenith. It was recognition of that fact that led to his eventual induction into Cooperstown in 1984. Nine years later, his second wife, Ann Meyers, was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, making them the first couple to achieve induction into the Hall of Fame from any of the four major American sports: football, hockey, basketball and baseball.

The couple did not have long to enjoy this dual honor. Less than two months after Ann’s induction, Drysdale died of a heart attack in Montreal at age 56. He was remembered as a fearsome competitor within the lines and an easygoing, quotable raconteur outside them.

Quote of the Day (Roger Kahn, on a Boy of Summer)

"Carl Furillo was pure ballplayer. In his prime he stood six feet tall and weighed 190 pounds and there was a fluidity to his frame you seldom see, among such sinews. His black hair was thick, and tightly curled. His face was strong and smooth. He had the look of a young indomitable centurion ... I cannot imagine Carl Furillo in his prime as anything other than a ballplayer. Right field in Brooklyn was his destiny." --Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer (1972)

In the 1947-57 period, when the center of baseball was in New York, the Brooklyn Dodgers kept falling, with the exception of the 1955 World Series, to the New York Yankees. That team deserved better: They not only initiated a crucial moment in baseball history (the breaking of the color line, through Jackie Robinson) but also gathered together one of the most talented lineups ever to play on the diamond--perhaps the best team ever not to become a dynasty. One of their key players was Carl Furillo, born on this date in 1922 in Stony Creek Mills, Pa.

Thirty years after I first read Roger Kahn’s classic The Boys of Summer, the chapter on Furillo especially stays with me. While Kahn was covering the team as a young reporter, Furillo was a god of right field: “People came early just to watch Furillo unlimber his arm. The throws whined homeward, hurtled off a bounce and exploded against Roy Campanella's glove--pom, pom, pom, pom--knee-high fastballs thrown from three hundred feet ... Throughout the grandstands men said to one another, 'He's a master.'"

Unfortunately, his career did not end happily for the one-time “Reading Rifle,” 1953 batting champion and lifetime .299 hitter. Furillo, reacting to his unceremonious release by the Dodgers (now infamously having moved cross-country to Los Angeles) following an injury in 1960, had sued to collect the rest of his $30,000 contract, and won. After an unsuccessful attempt to secure payment he felt owed for the following season, the remaining major-league clubs turned down his written offer to pinch-hit and coach. In those pre-free agency days, it’s hard not to resist the conclusion that, in Kahn’s words, “people in baseball’s conformist ambiance decided he was a ‘Bolshevik.’"

By the time Kahn caught up with him, a decade later, Furillo was a hardhat, installing elevator doors in the old World Trade Center, then under construction. Later, he worked as a security guard for a nylon factory in Stony Creek Mills.

Throughout the early part of his career with the Dodgers, Furillo had clung to his dream of a championship with a Sisyphean determination against the odds. Among all the players interviewed by Kahn, except for third baseman Billy Cox (a bartender a decade removed from the game), perhaps none had been buffeted by time and fate as much as Furillo.

Today, he would undoubtedly have had a lawyer, money manager and accountant to look after his financial needs. Before the onset of free agency, however, Furillo was at the mercy of every kind of ploy management dared pull: not just his unconditional release when his days as an everyday player were gone, but also the Dodgers' reimbursement of only half his relocation expenses to the West Coast after he'd been promised full payment.

A few years before his death in 1989, Furillo accepted an invitation from the Dodgers to appear at one of their Old-Timers’ Games in Los Angeles. It was good that fans finally had a chance to pay tribute to this proud man and superb ballplayer who had been instrumental in the team’s first World Series win in Los Angeles and their only fall classic victory in Brooklyn.

This Day in Baseball History (Marichal, Roseboro Brawl)

August 22, 1965—Cumulative tensions—from a duel of ace pitchers, from a white-knuckle pennant race, from a historic rivalry that hadn’t let up in intensity just because the two teams had relocated clear across the country from their New York beginnings—exploded in a 15-minute brawl between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The nearly 43,000 Candlestick Park spectators and thousands more L.A. area TV viewers couldn’t believe what started it. First, there was an exchange of words between Giant pitcher Juan Marichal, taking his turn at bat, and Dodger catcher Johnny Roseboro; then Roseboro was on his feet with his mask off; then Marichal was hitting him on the head, twice, with his bat. (See the accompanying image.)

Across the nation, old baseball hands were trying to recall if they had ever witnessed another bat attack at the major league-level. They couldn’t.

A pitcher known for pinpoint control on the mound had completely lost it. What could have led him to do that?

Nothing raises ballplayers’ temperatures as much as the brushback pitch. Contemporary position players continue to take exception to it. It means a direct threat to their health (and—though not every player would admit to it—their continuing ability to amass millions in the free-agent market).

The brushback pitch was an even bigger part of the game in Marichal’s time. Pitchers such as Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale were unafraid to remind hitters that the strike zone belonged to them—all of it. Hitters crowding the plate received constant reminders that they did so at their own peril.

The Giant-Dodger rivalry had also featured this on prior occasions. Giant pitcher Sal Maglie became known as “The Barber” for his constant willingness to resort to “chin music.”

Pitchers’ ability to control the game became a central concern as Marichal faced off against the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax that day 45 years ago today. Suspicions of tit-for-tat retaliation had been growing since the first of the four-game series two evenings before.

When Maury Wills’ bat had touched the glove of Giant catcher Tom Haller on the backswing, the Giants thought the Dodger speedster had leaned deliberately so that Haller would be called for catcher interference. Matty Alou‘s similar maneuver the next day did not earn him first base, as Wills had received, but it did raise the ire of Roseboro, who was behind the plate at that at-bat and yelled angrily at the Giant bench.

Tensions continued to mount on Sunday, as the Dodgers scored two quick runs in the first and second innings. Marichal, not only annoyed at Wills for his Friday maneuver but now for an attempt to bunt against himself, proceeded to flatten him his next turn up. Ron Fairly also got one high and inside.

As I write this, it occurs to me that the escalation of tensions between the Dodgers and Giants were a kind of small-scale version of those between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in that decade of the Cold War. Early on in this game, one player did his best to keep matters in check: Sandy Koufax.

Roseboro signaled for a “message pitch” in retaliation for Marichal making Wills hit the dirt. As Roseboro admitted later, he should have known better than to expect that from the great lefty. Koufax delivered the message a mile over the head of Marichal, who was never in from the great fireballer. (A good thing, too, since Koufax’s speed was such that serious damage could have occurred.)

"Koufax was constitutionally incapable of throwing at anyone's head," Roseboro wrote in his 1978 autobiography, "so I decided to take matters into my own hands."

On his throw back to Koufax, Roseboro whipped the ball within a millimeter of Marichal’s ear. The pitcher thought he’d been nicked. When he asked Roseboro why he’d done that, the catcher rose and moved toward him.

Marichal, believing that Roseboro was about to attack. launched a preemptive strike—make that two—with his bat. Then Roseboro had charged him, and the benches emptied.

Matters would have been far worse but for Giant superstar and captain Willie Mays. Wanting to end the fight before it got worse—and genuinely fearing for the safety of Roseboro, one of his best friends—he crossed team lines and pulled the catcher away from the melee, the blood from the wound staining his own uniform. Dodger outfielder Lou Johnson spoke for many when he said, “They can thank Mays that there wasn’t a real riot out there.”

To everyone’s relief, the attack, which opened up a two-inch gash at the top of Roseboro’s head, did not lead to a concussion for the veteran catcher. It did, however, affect the pennant race between the two teams, as well as perceptions of Marichal.

Marichal ended up being ejected, fined $1,750 and suspended eight games, meaning that he missed two starts. That year, the Giants ended up two games behind the Dodgers for the pennant. Naturally, many people have argued that Marichal could have been the equalizer in that race.

“Old School” blogger Robert Rubino of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat has taken a contrarian position, noting that two Marichal losses down the stretch probably had more to do with the Giants’ disastrous slide that year than the righthander’s suspension.

Rubino is right, in the sense that wins in both games would have produced a tie (and, amazingly, a repeat of the “Miracle at Coogan’s Bluff Game” 14 years before ended by Bobby Thomson’s legendary home run). But, as provocative and well-argued as his position is, I don’t think it ends the matter.

Pitching rotations can be precarious, and a dependable starting pitcher’s absence can cause trouble (see, for instance, the heart palpitations produced in Rex Sox and Yankee fans by sidelined pitchers Josh Beckett and Andy Pettitte). It might have been worse in Marichal’s era, when four starters were the norm, than now, when five is the preferred number. Marichal’s absence forced manager Herman Franks to juggle the lineup, so that, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, the Giants went 4-12—a run that turned out to be unexpectedly costly in the end.

The incident also threatened, for awhile, to stain forever the reputation of Marichal. Previously known as the “Dominican Dandy” for his stylish, calm manner off the field, he now found himself tarred as a symbol of violence.

In his first two years of eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Marichal fell short of the required 75% of the vote. Based on statistics alone—a 16-year career that included a 243-142 record, a 2.89 ERA, 52 shutouts, 244 complete games and six 20-win seasons—and a reputation as the most dominant National League pitcher in the 1960s after Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson—he should have been voted in on his first attempt.

The implication was inescapable: Cooperstown voters were still penalizing him for the fight. He had not been involved in similar controversial incidents after that, so it was beyond his own power at this point to sway voters in his favor.

The person who did so was Johnny Roseboro.

This was hardly an expected outcome for the first few years after the incident, when Roseboro pursued a $110,000 lawsuit against the pitcher, coming away with only a reported $7,000 in February 1970. Several years later, however, when Marichal was dealt to the Dodgers at the tail-end of his career, an assurance by Roseboro—by now retired—that he bore the pitcher no ill-will did much to assure acceptance by the Dodger “family.”

Several years later, meeting at an old-timers game, the two discussed the incident at length, then shook hands. The relationship grew steadily warmer as they met again at other old-timers games and charitable events.

After Marichal’s second failure to enter Cooperstown, Roseboro made clear, through public gestures—including posing with him and visiting him in the Dominican Republic—that he’d let bygones be bygones. The next election, Marichal finally made it to the Hall of Fame.

When Roseboro died in 2002, his widow asked Marichal to be a pallbearer at the funeral. In his eulogy, the Hall of Famer told fellow mourners that Roseboro's forgiveness was “one of the best things that happened in my life."

Today, in terms of the politics of the Hall of Fame, the closest thing to the Marichal-Roseboro controversy is the case of Roberto Alomar. Like Marichal, Alomar’s statistics placed him among the top five or so players at his position during his time. And, like Marichal, an ugly incident—spitting at umpire John Hirschbeck after a third-strike call, followed immediately after the game by an even uglier, personal reference to how Hirschbeck had become “real bitter” after his son’s death—left a terrible impression in the mind of the public and many potential Cooperstown voters.

Like Marichal, Alomar has made amends with his former adversary, including a donation to fight the disease that claimed Hirschbeck’s son.

I believe that, like Marichal, Alomar will eventually enter Cooperstown. Other factors, however, run the risk of delaying this a while longer. For one thing, he does not have Marichal’s basically warm disposition. For another, he did not win the approval of his teammates—nor leave the game with the grace--that Marichal summoned.

Giant teammates marveled at the way the righthander with the high kick looked out for them. And, in 1975, after two starts that left him believing he had come to the end of his career, the pitcher told Dodger president Peter O’Malley, “I can't take your money anymore if I can't pitch the way I want to."

In contrast, when he left the Mets following subpar seasons when his former skills had mysteriously disappeared, Alomar had acquired a reputation as an overpaid, sullen, toxic presence in the clubhouse. Moreover, a nasty recent lawsuit, in which an ex-girlfriend claimed the former athlete had unprotected sex with her despite being HIV-positive, has left a continuing cloud over his character.

This Day in Baseball History (Dodger Stadium Opens)

April 10, 1962 – Though the Los Angeles Dodgers lost the first game in their new home, Dodger Stadium won widespread public acclaim and began to influence powerfully the construction of ballparks throughout the rest of the decade. 

More than 52,000 fans turned out at what the media were calling the “Taj Mahal of Los Angeles,” in a game that featured two mainstays from the team’s glory days in Brooklyn: centerfielder Duke Snider and 1955 World Series pitching hero Johnny Podres. 

Fan disappointment over the 6-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds soon turned to joy, however. In a signal of better days ahead, lefty fireballer Sandy Koufax threw a four-hitter the following day. 

In the process of fulfilling his dream of building this spanking-new structure, however, team owner Walter O’Malley had, by moving the franchise from its original home, ripped a hole in the heart of Brooklyn; ran roughshod over the rights of a disenfranchised Latino community in Los Angeles; and showed owners in all sports how to play off one metro against another in deals that did not necessarily redound to the best interests of taxpayers, let alone fans. 

The story of how the Dodgers’ departure from Ebbets Field severed a team from its intensely loyal fan base has been told and re-told repeatedly. For years, O’Malley has been cast as the villain of the piece, though there have been periodic attempts at historical revisionism. 

Well, there’s good revisionism (the more praiseworthy recent looks back at the once-scorned Reconstruction era in the South) and bad revisionism (the late-20th-century view of some historians that the Irish Potato Famine was not the product of malign forces in Great Britain). In my opinion, the more supposedly “balanced” view of O’Malley falls into the latter category, because it does not take into account the man’s character. 

From 1952 to 1956, O’Malley’s Dodgers were reportedly the only National League team to make money, so, unlike the Boston Braves moving to Milwaukee, he wasn’t moving a franchise abandoned by local fans. Yet he scheduled seven different games for the team in 1956 and 1957 in, of all places, Jersey City. 

And he appears to have exerted influence behind the scenes in inducing New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham to take his team to San Francisco, giving himself some degree of cover when he followed with his own move. 

In an excellent column last September, The New York Times’ Dave Anderson took a meat ax to the new revisionism, especially when quoting former Dodger exec Buzzy Bavasi on O’Malley’s motivation (money, of course) and his strong-arm tactics in the move: 

“He could have taken the Dodgers a few miles to where Shea Stadium is, but he took them 3,000 miles. We had a vote among the eight top people in the front office, and the vote was 8 to 1 not to go to California, but the one vote was Walter’s.” (Predictably, the team’s PR press release noted that the team vote of stockholders and directors was unanimous to go to Los Angeles.) 

O’Malley wasn’t done. After flying over the hilltop location at Chavez Ravine, he had decided this was the place where he’d build, and nothing was going to stand in its way. 

Los Angeles was still reeling over a bruising fight over the failed attempt to bring public housing to this working-class Latino enclave that resulted in the mass eviction, at the threat of eminent domain, of residents. 

Enter O’Malley, bearing a gift: the promise of a baseball franchise to a massively growing city that had never seen one. The mayor was all ears, and backed the Dodger owner’s proposal to build. 

Having bought 300-plus acres back from the federal government at drastically reduced prices, Mayor Norris Paulson was desperate to see productive use of the land. A nasty battle (marked by unproven allegations of payoffs to the mayor) followed as O’Malley fought to win a public referendum on the fate of his idea—which passed by only three percent. 

 As someone who watched his own neighborhood victimized by use of eminent domain nearly 40 years ago, I have tremendous sympathy with the remaining families who, offered pitifully small compensation by the city for their land, refused to leave. 

O’Malley with his money was too strong for them, however, and in the end they went, too, making way for the bulldozers who leveled, graded, and pushed up the site of O’Malley’s dream project. 

 And dream project it was. Disneyland had impressed O’Malley in his early imaginings of his “Taj Mahal,” and, with the park’s elaborate color scheme and stress on surrounding horticulture, he sought to create his own counterpart to Walt Disney’s fantasyland. 

How typical that O’Malley looked to this other Walt for inspiration. In listening to public radio some time back, I heard a Disney biographer say he was thrilled to have a likable subject like Cary Grant, because in researching the earlier Disney book, he’d had to deal day after day with someone whose name was mud in Southern California for his tough tactics in getting the land and removing families.

Another word about this park before we go: its influence on the shape of baseball action itself over the next decade. 

After a short burst of hitter exuberance at the start of the decade, highlighted by the Yankee duo of Mantle and Maris’ assault on Babe Ruth’s cherished single-season home run mark, baseball in the 1960s became increasingly characterized by pitching dominance, especially in 1968, when the Detroit Tigers’ Denny McLain became the last pitcher to win 30 games in a season, Bob Gibson ended up with a mind-boggling earned-run average of 1.12 per game, and the American League ended up with only one hitter with a batting average over .300 (Carl Yastrzemski, at .301). 

Part of the reason for this pitcher dominance was the increased number of so-called “pitcher’s ballparks.” No blasts over invitingly short right-field porches here. 

Instead, there were places like the Dodgers’ new home, or the one created to replace it in the hearts of New Yorkers, Shea Stadium (which I’ll consider next week). 

Over the years, Dodger Stadium developed something of a reputation as a “pitcher’s park.” Now, it’s true that the immortal Sandy Koufax threw so hard that it didn’t matter where he played, since batters had trouble seeing his fastballs in the first place. 

But others on the Dodger staff, less powerful than Koufax and Don Drysdale, also flourished, at least for a time, in this ballpark. 

Opponents of the so-called “ballpark effect” argue that the Dodgers simply spent more time cultivating hitters. But I think that proponents have some good points on their side regarding Chavez Ravine, including its somewhat large dimensions, capacious foul territory, and walls with no unusual caroms a la Boston’s Fenway Park. 

This past December, Walter O’Malley was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and it is indisputable that he opened the game up to expansionism and fielded consistently winning teams created through smart scouting and training rather than expensive contracts. 

But if you get around to watching the ceremonies where the late Dodger owner is inducted, think of what he did not only to Brooklyn, but to the squatters of Chavez Ravine to build his “Taj Mahal of Los Angeles.”