Now THAT'S a Pitching Matchup!

My birthday is October 4th, which means that while it usually is just after the season ends, sometimes it falls on the final weekend of the season. Recently, I was curious if there were any games played the day I was born, so I did a little research. 

It turns out that the only game played that day was game two of the ALCS between a pair of 101-win squads: the Orioles and the A's. Baltimore won 5-1 behind Mike Cuellar, with Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell & Elrod Hendricks hitting home runs. The win pushed the O's to a 2-0 series lead, and they would finish off the sweep the next day in Oakland.

More interesting than that though, was something else I noticed. Less than a week earlier at Shea Stadium in New York, the Mets hosted the Cardinals in what was the second-to-last game of the season for each team. With both teams already eliminated from pennant contention, it wouldn't seem to be all that noteworthy of a game.

What made the game particularly interesting to me looking back at it almost 50 years later was the two starting pitchers: Starting for the Cardinals was their big southpaw, Steve Carlton. Going for the Mets was their young flame-throwing righthander, Nolan Ryan. It would be the last game either man would pitch for his team, with both of them getting traded in the off-season. They would eventually become the two greatest strikeout pitchers in MLB history! 

The Cardinals would immediately regret trading Carlton, as the next season he would have one of the great pitching seasons in history, assembling a 27-10 record for a Phillies team that went 30-85 when he didn't pitch. He won the Cy Young Award with 310 strikeouts and a 1.97 ERA, and even finished top-5 in the MVP voting. All told, post-trade he would accumulate 252 wins and more than 3,000 strikeouts over the remainder of his career.

The results for Ryan were just as quick, and every bit as bountiful! Pitching for the Angels in 1972, Ryan would lead the American League in strikeouts (329), shutouts (9), and hits/9 innings pitched (5.3!) on his way to a 19-16 record and a 2.28 ERA. After leaving the Mets, Ryan would win another 295 games, strike out over 5,000 more batters, and toss seven no-hitters!

The one thing that would plague Ryan (especially in those earlier days of his career) was wildness. He would go on to lead the league in walks in six of the next seven years, including two seasons where he walked over 200 batters. On that day in September of 1971, this wildness reared its ugly head as he walked four of the five batters he faced, before being pulled from the game without even retiring a batter.

Carlton had more success that day, picking up his 20th win of the season. Perhaps reaching that milestone gave him the confidence to ask for $5,000-&10,000 (reports vary) more than the Cardinals were offering on his 1972 contract. Cardinals owner Gussie Busch found such a contract dispute to be impertinent and had Carlton traded to the last place Phillies for hurler Rick Wise. The rest, as they say is history.

Day 7...Cooperstown

Outside the Hall

Sunday morning we woke up, had a hearty breakfast of Hostess powdered sugar donuts and Sunny Delight, I put on my Headfirst Hudler t-shirt honoring one of my favorite players, and we made the seven mile trek down the road to the Hall of Fame.

Cooperstown was once reputed to be the birthplace of baseball with Abner Doubleday having created the game in 1839 in what was Elihu Finney's cow pasture (and what is now Doubleday Field). Historians have since debunked both of these claims, but as the home of the Hall, the village remains central to the game. It is an idyllic little town that revolves around baseball. Card and memorabilia shops line Main Street, and other businesses play off the fact that they know the vast majority of people who come to Cooperstown come to visit the Hall. In many senses it has the feel of a bygone era, which makes it perhaps the perfect location for a museum that celebrates history.

Just inside the front door, we were greeted by a life-size replica of Babe Ruth, adorned in his Yankee pinstripes, bat in hand, ready no doubt to hit one of his 714 career home runs. The Babe has always been a larger than life figure, and he was no different for us as he definitely drew our attention throughout the museum. 

There were of course other players in whom we were interested as well. Cardinals legends like Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, and (my personal favorite) Lou Brock were among those who we wanted to see how the Hall had honored. And among contemporary heroes of that day, Nolan Ryan loomed as large as any in our minds, even as he played his penultimate season at the age of 45. Though he of course wasn't yet inducted to the Hall, there was no shortage of artifacts from his amazing career.

This was my second trip to Cooperstown, having visited with my family six or seven years earlier. On that occasion, we met up with Scott Bloomer, a friend of mine who was on his annual summer trip to visit his grandparents in Cooperstown. He directed us to Sal's Pizzeria, just a block down Main Street from the Hall. I enjoyed it enough on that occasion that I made sure to make a return visit this time with Eric for lunch. 

After lunch we visited a couple shops, including the gift shop at the Hall. I hadn't worn a ballcap that day because I knew I would want to buy one there. After looking around and considering a number of different options, I settled on a white St. Louis Browns cap (1946-49) with a brown bill and orange letters. The Browns left St. Louis for Baltimore after the 1953 season, and I looked forward to wearing the hat to the game in Baltimore the next week when we visited Camden Yards.

Cooperstown is the type of place where baseball fanatics like us, who love the history of the game, could truly spend days. Unfortunately we only had one day to spend there, so after looking through the museum for the rest of the afternoon, we had to call it quits, and be satisfied with what we'd seen.

Before heading back to our campsite for the night, we stopped off at a local bar & grill in town for dinner. While there we watched the Bulls finish off the Blazers in the NBA Finals. Trailing 79-64 headed to the 4th quarter, Chicago outscored Portland 33-14 to secure their second of the three straight NBA titles. Little did we know at the time that in less than 16 months, Michael Jordan would retire from basketball (for the first time), and switch his attention and efforts to baseball. In the summer of 1994, I actually made a trip to Birmingham to see him play...but that's a story for another day.

There was one other thing I should mention about our time in Cooperstown. I remember being awed at the beauty of Doubleday Field where the Hall of Fame Game was annually played. It seems odd now, even as I look at my photo of the field and notice nothing all that special about it. I'm not sure that it's any nicer than many of the fields my son's high school team now plays on. But back then, almost all of the baseball I had seen in person had either been on the Astroturf of Busch Stadium or the dirt fields of my youth. Even when I played in high school, almost all of the fields we played on were dirt infields. Here was a crisp, clean, nicely manicured ballfield, perfect in its simplicity, and natural as God intended when he created baseball. The further we got into our trip, the more I loved this game.

Miles Driven Today: 15

Total Miles Driven: 1,446

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Greeted by the Babe, just inside the door

Eric and the Babe

The Babe calls his shot

Stan Musial, Rex Hudler & me. One of us is still in the Hall.

Eric and me with one of our favorites, Nolan Ryan

Doubleday Field