 06/06/2002 9:10 pm ET
Players remember '62 World Series
By Chris Shuttlesworth / MLB.com
SAN FRANCISCO -- When the Giants face the Yankees for the start of a three-game set Friday, it will mark the first non-exhibition meeting of the two clubs in 40 years. Yet, the participants in that last game -- Game 7 of the 1962 World Series -- recall the details as though they happened last week.
But what both sides seem to remember most was not the screaming line drive that Willie McCovey shot into Bobby Richardson's glove to give the Yankees their 20th world championship, but the weather.
"One thing I won't forget is we didn't bring enough clothes," laughed Bill "Moose" Skowron, New York's first baseman who scored the only run in the Yankees' 1-0 victory.
The teams had to wait an extra three days before playing Game 6 because of a freak rainstorm in San Francisco. While the players headed to Modesto and Fresno to train, the Candlestick Park crew tried to dry out the field using a low-hovering helicopter and even setting fire to the field, according to Giants catcher Ed Bailey.
After San Francisco took Game 6 to tie the Series at three game apiece -- with the teams alternating wins and losses throughout -- the Giants' Jack Sanford and the Yankees' Ralph Terry both made their third start of the Series in the deciding game.
Sanford got into trouble in the fifth, giving up singles to Skowron and Clete Boyer then walking Terry on four pitches to load the bases with none out. A double-play groundout by Tony Kubek plated Skowron, and although the Yankees would again load the bases in the eighth, Skowron's run would be the only tally in the contest.
Meanwhile, eventual Series MVP Terry was perfect until he gave up a single with two out in the sixth. McCovey tripled in the seventh to account for the only other hit allowed by Terry until the bottom of the ninth.
And what happened in that half-inning would become baseball legend, both celebrated and lamented as one of the classic cases of "what might have been."
Matty Alou began the inning by beating out a bunt single. After Terry struck out the next two batters (his third and fourth K's of the game), Willie Mays stepped to the plate.
"Mays hit the ball down the right-field line and their right fielder [Roger Maris] just made one of the greatest plays to go over and get the ball with the bad turf," said Alvin Dark, who managed the Giants from 1961 to 1964.
"[He made] a perfect throw to Bobby Richardson, the cutoff man, and Bobby Richardson made a perfect throw home. If [third-base coach] Whitey Lockman had sent the runner in, he would have been out."
Skowron said he normally would have been the relay man, but he had a bad arm, so Richardson served that role and saved the tying run from scoring.
"They were good. They were real good," said Bailey. "The guys that beat us would be so surprising. Maris beat us with defense, which is unreal."
Next up was McCovey, who had already recorded three hits off Terry, including a home run in Game 2 and the triple earlier in Game 7. By the book, Yankees manager Ralph Houk should have walked McCovey to load the bases and bring up Orlando Cepeda, who'd only broken out of his 0-for-29 Series hitting slump with three hits in Game 6.
"That's what I thought Houk was doing, going out to the mound to say, 'Pitch around McCovey.' That's what I thought he was doing," said Dark. "I was surprised when they threw a strike. And then when McCovey hit one 11 miles foul, I thought maybe, 'Well, now they'll put him on for sure.' But they didn't."
Said Skowron, "McCovey was hitting and I was talking to the ump [at first base]. I never thought we'd pitch to him. I guess Ralph Terry convinced [Houk] he could pitch to him.
"If McCovey would have hit it to me, it would have hit me right between the eyes."
In a presentation at the Baseball Hall of Fame's induction weekend last season, Boyer recalled that mound conference. He said although Houk told Terry to walk McCovey, Terry said he could get him out, much to Boyer's relief, since he feared Cepeda would hit the ball right past him and make him the Series goat.
"I was pretty surprised," said McCovey. "I thought in that situation with first base open [and] I'm a left-handed hitter and a right-handed hitter coming up, 99 out of 100 managers would have put me on in that situation. Obviously, Ralph Houk decided he would rather pitch to me than Cepeda, and he had his reasons and it worked out."
Terry still lived with the memory of giving up Bill Mazeroski's Series-winning homer two years earlier. So when McCovey drilled a liner surely headed for right field, it looked like he might again suffer a crushing defeat, since the fleet Mays could certainly score the winning run from second.
One problem.
"Richardson caught it on his shoetops," said Skowron.
"Let me tell you, I never saw a ball hit so hard," said Juan Marichal, who broke a finger bunting in Game 4. "I think if that ball could have been in the air, it could still be flying."
McCovey once said in a TV interview that he heard Richardson was caught out of position because he went over to smooth out a divot in the infield dirt and didn't get back in time, putting him in the right spot to make the catch.
He's also wondered why the Yankees didn't put on the "McCovey shift," similar to the Bonds shift employed today that puts three infielders on the left side.
"A second baseman shouldn't catch that ball," said McCovey. "Now I wouldn't be surprised if a shortstop caught it, because that's where shortstops usually played me, when they pulled the shift over. But for a second baseman to be standing there where I hit it, that really surprised me. But obviously, they knew something."
It's obvious what Skowron remembers most about that Series: "Winning -- getting a winning share and winning a World Series ring."
But surprisingly, most of the '62 Giants also have fond memories of being the San Francisco Giants squad to come closest to winning a world title.
"Anytime you're in a championship, it's a fond memory," said Bailey. "You hate to lose -- everybody does -- but it ain't bad finishing second in the world.
"We played the World Series as tight as you can play it. We played seven games and missed by one run."
Said Alou, "The Yankees were a marvelous team. That was a good team all over. They didn't make any mistakes. We didn't make any either, but the good luck turned for them. That was the only difference. Maybe three inches."
But the final batter of the 1962 World Series still lingers on his last swing of the bat, perhaps because he's always reminded of it -- even in the funny papers.
"That's what everybody says when they see me: 'a few inches,'" said McCovey. "Even Charles Schulz ran that a couple of times in his 'Peanuts' [comic strips]: 'If McCovey could have hit it just a couple of inches higher.'
"One thing a ballplayer hates to do is make the last out of a ballgame. I don't care if it's a pickup game, a little league game or the World Series; you don't want to make the last out of the game because you feel you've let the team down. I hit the ball as hard as I could hit it. ... I didn't tell that second baseman to be standing there, but he was."
Chris Shuttlesworth is the editorial producer of sfgiants.com and can be reached at sitecontent@giants.mlb.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
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