On Wednesday afternoon, Detroit fans had a rare treat in an old-fashioned doubleheader between their Tigers and the Pittsburgh Pirates. That’s when the Pirates’ starting pitchers were their two young phenoms, Jared Jones and Paul Skenes. It brought to mind a September 1, 1965 doubleheader at old Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, pitting the Pirates against the Los Angeles Dodgers, who started Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Pirates fans hope that one day, the tandem of Skenes and Jones is spoken of like Koufax and Drysdale.
Like the one in 1965, the doubleheader in Detroit was a true twin bill, two games for the price of one. A real doubleheader is as rare as the leisure suit these days. Today most doubleheaders are split admission. In this era of high player salaries and corporate greed, teams don’t want to give fans a free game if they don’t have to. Fans don’t want it anyway. Not in these times of smartphones and Twitter, where people officially have shorter attention spans than goldfish, so say Canadian scientists who scanned the brains of 112 subjects using electroencephalograms in 2015.
Pirates Face Koufax and Drysdale in a Doubleheader
The Dodgers would win the 1965 World Series over the Minnesota Twins, with Koufax and Drysdale leading the charge. The Dodgers’ everyday lineup wasn’t so fearsome. It didn’t have to be. Koufax was 26-8 in 1965 with a 2.04 ERA en route to his second Cy Young Award. His win total and ERA were the best in all of baseball, as were his 27 complete games, 382 strikeouts, 0.855 WHIP, 1.93 FIP, and 5.38 strikeout-to-walk ratio. On the other hand, Drysdale was 23-12 with a 2.77 ERA and 1.090 WHIP. Where Koufax had a fear of injuring batters, Drysdale was mean. Drysdale led the majors with 12 hit batsmen. There’s no record of how many others had to duck his high and tight fastballs.
Going into the Wednesday twinight doubleheader, the Dodgers sat atop the National League standings with a 75-57 record. The Pirates, rejuvenated under their first-year manager Harry Walker, were 71-62, in fifth place, 4 ½ games behind Los Angeles. With three other teams and their fans rooting for them, the Pirates needed a sweep against Koufax and Drysdale. There would be 20 innings of baseball on this night. The two teams combined used just six pitchers.
Game 1: Pirates Face Koufax
For Game 1, the Pirates sent right-hander Tommie Sisk to the mound against the lefty Koufax. In the top of the first inning, Willie Davis belted a solo home run off Sisk. In the top of the third with one out, Sisk hit Jim Gilliam with a pitch. With two outs, Ron Fairly hit a sharp single to right field. Gilliam scored when the ball skipped through the legs of Roberto Clemente. The 2-0 deficit seemed insurmountable against Koufax, who broke his own MLB record for strikeouts by a left-hander when he struck out Willie Stargell for No. 307 in the fourth inning.
Walker must have thought so, too. When Jim Pagliaroni doubled in the bottom of the fifth, Walker decided to take advantage of a runner in scoring position and sent up a pinch hitter for Sisk. However, the choice of third-string catcher Ozzie Virgil was an odd one. Virgil had last appeared in a game on July 31. After Virgil popped out to the catcher, Bob Bailey drove in Pagliaroni with a single. Stargell tied it in the sixth when his long triple to deep right-center field drove in Bill Mazeroski, who had singled. Meanwhile, Pirates left-hander Joe Gibbon held the Dodgers scoreless in six innings of relief.
Pag Comes Through
Koufax was still on the mound in the bottom of the 11th inning when he issued a two-out walk to Stargell. Pagliaroni was next. “Pag” was known for being the on-deck hitter when Ted Williams hit his final home run. He would also become famous as the catcher who caught Catfish Hunter’s perfect game. At this moment, he fell behind in the count 0-2 against Koufax. Pagliaroni then reached for an outside fastball and pulled it, sending it high off the scoreboard in left field to score Stargell and win the game, 3-2.
“I was prepared for Koufax’s fastball,” Pagliaroni told Lester J. Biederman of The Pittsburgh Press. “If you don’t, he throws it right past you.” The Pirates had beaten Koufax, but Drysdale lurked.
Game 2: Pirates Face Drysdale
For Game 2, the Pirates sent 1960 Cy Young Award winner Vern Law to the mound against Drysdale. Again, Davis gave Los Angeles an early 1-0 lead in the first inning, this time with a sacrifice fly. That was the only run the Dodgers would get off Law. In the bottom of the sixth, Bill Virdon led off with a home run off Drysdale, his drive down the right field line barely scraping the foul pole.
With one out in the bottom of the eighth, Virdon and Clemente hit bloop singles off Drysdale. Now with runners at the corners and lefty-swinging Stargell due up, Dodgers manager Walter Alston removed Drysdale in favor of his left-handed relief ace Ron Perranoski. Walker countered by sending right-handed batting Manny Mota to bat for Stargell. With the infield in, Mota smoked a grounder at shortstop Maury Wills, who saw the ball go in and out of his glove as Virdon scored. The 2-1 score held up. The Pirates had done what seemed impossible by beating Koufax and Drysdale.
The 26,394 Pirates fans in attendance, all presumably with attention spans longer than goldfish, got what they paid for. They saw two future Hall-of-Fame pitchers pitch great games while the home team won both.
Today in 1960s Baseball: Pirates sweep doubleheader from Dodgers; beat Sandy Koufax & Don Drysdale (1965) https://t.co/obLL1Jamvr #pirates pic.twitter.com/vMyOB7Fr7c
— 1960s Baseball (@Baseball1960s) September 2, 2019
May 29, 2024: Pirates Face Tigers
Detroit fans weren’t as lucky. In Game 1, they saw their standout pitcher Tarik Skubal throw a three-hitter over seven innings and win the first game, 8-0. But they didn’t get the real Jared Jones. Jones had the worst outing of his brief MLB career. He lasted just 4 1/3 innings, giving up seven runs, of which five were earned. He had just two strikeouts. Jones just wasn’t himself. Afterward, a reporter asked him if the previous day’s rainout threw him off and mentioned the bad defense behind him. Jones just shook his head and muttered, “Excuses.”
On the other hand, Skenes was fantastic in Game 2, but the Tigers fans couldn’t have enjoyed watching their team lose, 10-2. On his 22nd birthday, Skenes pitched a three-hitter over six innings, striking out nine. Just another day for Skenes. He has the right mental makeup. When he strikes out a batter, he walks off the mound with the demeanor of an accountant rising from his desk to get a cup of coffee. Skenes was reunited with catcher Grant Koch, who caught him in Triple-A and made his major league debut. Koch pinch-hit in the first game and caught the entire second game. It was a feel-good moment for the under-the-radar rookie, whose MLB career could end by next week if Jason Delay is activated.
The Last Word
It’s unlikely that Tigers fans will look back on this day the same way Pirates fans look back at the night their team beat Koufax and Drysdale. They’ll better remember having to vacate their seats when lightning struck, while the game continued. Maybe one day Skenes and Jones will be thought of like those two Dodgers aces of the past. For now, it’s a lofty comparison to make. The privilege of watching their growth and making comparisons to the past are among the many things that make baseball the greatest of all games. Even if we can’t have traditional doubleheaders anymore.
Photo Credit: © Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
