Baseball: Goose Eggs from the Orioles

Pitching is supposed to be 75% of the game. So naturally the odds makers installed the Los Angeles Dodgers as 8-to-5 favorites to whip the Baltimore Orioles in last week’s World Series. The Dodgers had the two highest-paid starting pitchers in baseball: Sandy Koufax (salary: $130,000), who set a National League record by winning 27 games during the regular season—the most by any lefthander since 1900, and Don Drysdale (salary: $115,000), the burly righthander who recovered from a dismal start to win four out of his last five starts as the Dodgers swept to the National League pennant. The Dodgers also had 17-game Winner Claude Osteen, and a bullpen staff headed by Phil (“The Vulture”) Regan, whose 1966 performance was nothing short of fantastic: 14 victories, only one loss, and an earned-run average (1.62) even lower than Sandy Koufax.

“Those guys who make the odds never played baseball,” grunted Baltimore Manager Hank Bauer. “Our own pitching isn’t so bad either.” Oh, no? The Orioles’ best pitcher, Steve Barber, spent most of the season on the disabled list with a sore arm and was ineligible for the series. Their top winner, Jim Palmer (record: 15-10), gave up so many home runs (20) that his teammates nicknamed him “Boom-Boom.” Baltimore’s starters managed to complete only 23 games all season—four fewer than Koufax alone. That provided a lot of work for the Birds’ bullpen—which was just fine with Myron Walter Drabowsky, 31, who has been shopping for a steady job ever since he broke into the big leagues in 1956.

Just One Hit. “Do you know any Polish jokes?” goes an old baseball line, and the answer is “Yes, Moe Drabowsky.” Drabowsky was born in Ozanna, Poland, came to the U.S. when he was three, attended Trinity College in Connecticut, and collected a $75,000 bonus for signing with the Chicago Cubs. So far, so good. But he has since bounced around nine teams, and until this season, when he compiled a 6-0 record in relief for the Orioles, his most noteworthy achievement was getting his name in the record book—for hitting four batters in one game. “I also was the losing pitcher when Early Wynn won his 300th game,” says Moe, “and I was the guy pitching when Stan Musial got his 3,000th hit.”

He was also the guy Manager Bauer called on to relieve Dave McNally in Los Angeles last week—with the Orioles leading, 4-1, in the first game of the series and the bases loaded with Dodgers. Moe walked the second man he faced, forcing in a run. “Oh, oh,” he told himself, “just one base hit and I’m off to the showers.” Drabowsky gave the Dodgers exactly that—one base hit, in 6⅔ innings. He tied a 47-year-old World Series record by striking out six Dodgers in a row, set another mark by whiffing a total of eleven, and the Orioles won the game, 5-2.

Were the Dodgers worried? Shucks, no—not with Sandy Koufax pitching the second game against Boom-Boom Palmer. For a fellow still nine days short of his 21st birthday, Palmer seemed strangely nonchalant. He announced that he always eats pancakes before he pitches: 1) for luck, and 2) because he does TV commercials for a pancake manufacturer. Then he added: “Against Koufax I guess I’ll have to rely on my skill.” Everybody laughed. They stopped laughing when Palmer fanned six batters and shut out the Dodgers on four hits, 6-0.

Cinch for the Hall. Sandy Koufax not only didn’t laugh, he completely blew his cool when Centerfielder Willie Davis eclipsed all World Series blunders of the past. If, as somebody once said, there is glory in a great mistake, Davis is a cinch for the Hall of Fame. With the score tied 0-0 and Baltimore’s Boog Powell on first, Paul Blair sailed a lazy fly to straightaway center. Davis dropped it. Next up for the Orioles was Catcher Andy Etchebarren; he sailed a lazy fly to straightaway center. Davis dropped it. Not only that, he also picked up the ball and fired it straight as a stick into the Dodger dugout. Two Oriole runs scored; Davis became the first man in World Series history to commit three errors in one inning. His teammates did all they could to share his embarrassment; they made three other errors, for a total of six—tying another World Series record.

“The Orioles haven’t shown me anything,” sneered Shortstop Maury Wills. “We’ll beat them yet.” Well, why not. The Dodgers had cute Claude Osteen going for them in the third game, and he used to beat the Baltimores pretty regularly when he was pitching for the Washington Senators in the American League. All the Orioles could counter with was 21-year-old Wally Bunker, who pitched only three complete games all season and is strictly a fastballer. “Yup,” acknowledged Bunker. “But I notice the Dodgers don’t like fastballs.” A perspicacious pitcher, that Wally Bunker. The Dodgers did get six hits to the Orioles’ three. But one of Balti more’s three hits was Paul Blair’s 430ft. homer. The Orioles won, 1-0. That made it 24 straight scoreless innings for the Dodgers, and left them with one more record to shoot for. Never in history has a team that was behind 3-0 won a World Series.