{"id":74945,"date":"2024-05-30T09:00:14","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T13:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=74945"},"modified":"2024-05-29T23:42:31","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T03:42:31","slug":"pirates-tigers-doubleheader-koufax-drysdale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/30\/pirates-tigers-doubleheader-koufax-drysdale\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates-Tigers Doubleheader Recalls 1965 Evening and Two Dodgers Greats"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday afternoon, Detroit fans had a rare treat in an old-fashioned doubleheader between their Tigers and the Pittsburgh Pirates. That\u2019s when the Pirates\u2019 starting pitchers were their two young phenoms<\/a>, Jared Jones<\/a> and Paul Skenes<\/a>. 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<\/a> and Don Drysdale<\/a>. Pirates fans hope that one day, the tandem of Skenes and Jones is spoken of like Koufax and Drysdale.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t want to give fans a free game if they don\u2019t have to. Fans don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Pirates Face Koufax and Drysdale in a Doubleheader<\/h2>\n

The Dodgers would win the 1965 World Series over the Minnesota Twins, with Koufax and Drysdale leading the charge. The Dodgers’ everyday lineup wasn\u2019t so fearsome. It didn\u2019t 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<\/em>. Drysdale led the majors with 12 hit batsmen. There\u2019s no record of how many others had to duck his high and tight fastballs.
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