Pittston Dispatch // PD Columnists // Jack Smiles - Smiles and Frowns

Sunday August 17, 2008 | 02:50 PM

Used to be that I loved it when the Phillies played on the West Coast and were on TV at 10 o’clock. It seemed cool to stay up late and watch the games. Not so cool these days, as I just can’t seem to stay awake. I did manage to struggle through one of the four Dodger games this week. The one where they lost on a ninth inning home run by Garciaparra.

Someone said as the week began that the Phillies were 53-0 when leading after the seventh inning. That said they promptly went out and lost two such games to the Dodgers. I also heard that it was the first time the Dodgers swept a four game series from the Phillies in 40 years.

I did a little research and found that the Dodgers swept the Phillies in LA in June of 1959. Koufax won the first one 6-2. Danny McDevitt won the second 4-3. Roger Craig won the third 9-6 saved by Clem Labine, and Drysdale won the fourth game 5-2.

In the first game Richie Ashburn was 3-for-5 against Koufax who struck out 16 Phillies. And this was before the height of Koufax’s powers. He was only 8-6 that season with an ERA over 4.00. Wally Post, who was the Phillies’ cleanup hitter that day, was 0-for-4 with four Ks. Sparky Anderson was the Phillies second baseman that day. I looked at a box score and recognized every name expect the Phillies’ shortstop, a guy named Joe Koppe. He couldn’t cope with Koufax. He was 1-for-5 with three Ks.

In the second game Gene Conley was the starting pitcher for the Phillies. Conley, 6’-8”, was also an NBA player. The Dodgers won 4-3 on home runs by Junior Gilliam, Don Demeter and Gil Hodgers.

In the third game, the 9-6 game, Wally Post and Valmy Thomas hit home runs for the Phillies. Thomas, a catcher, was from Puerto Rico. Demeter hit another one for the Dodgers and Wally Moon hit one, too.

Drysdale beat Robin Roberts in the fourth game and hit a home run. Duke Snider and Hodgers also hit home runs for the Dodgers. Wally Post accounted for both Phillies’ runs with a two-run homer his second of the series.

That year, 1959, was the Dodgers second in Los Angeles. They left Brooklyn after the 1957 season. They played their games in the Coliseum. Dodger Stadium didn’t open until 1962. By the way, once Yankee Stadium closes after this season Dodger Stadium will be the third oldest major League park after Fenway and Wrigley.

Anyway, back to 1959. The Dodgers pulled of a near worst-to-first from 1958-59. In 1958, their first year out west, they finished seventh in the eight-team National League. They were 71-83, two games ahead of the, you guessed it, last place Phillies.

In 1959 the Dodgers went 88-68 and won the NL pennant by two games over the Milwaukee Braves, who had won it the two previous seasons.

The Phillies stayed in last place in 1959, 23 games behind the Dodgers. The Dodgers didn’t change their stating line up radically from ’58 to ’59, but they did make some adjustments. In 1958 Roseboro was the catcher, Hodgers, Charlie Neal, Don Zimmer, and Dick Gray were around the infield from first to third and Junior Gilliam, Snider and Carl Furillo, “the Reading Rifle” played the outfield. Furillo was from Reading.

In 1959 they got rid of Gray and Furillo. Gilliam moved from the outfield to third and Moon and Demeter went to the outfield. The pitching rotation was about the same both years. Maury Willis got in 88 games as a rookie in ’59.

Norm Larker was a back up first baseman in ’58 and ’59. He was born in Beaver Meadows, which is in the Hazleton area.

Now I confess I was a Dodger fan back then and I bet I stayed up most of those nights listening to the games on the radio. I was only 12, but I really loved the Dodgers and about the only time I got to listen to them was when they played a team whose radio signal I could get in West Pittston. That was a lot of teams. My father had a metal chassis National radio, I still have it by the way, with an antenna on the roof that could get signals from 50,000 watt AM stations out to the Midwest.

The Coliseum was a heck of a place to play baseball. It’s an oval football field. USC plays there. Because of its shape, for baseball left field was only 251 feet down the line, where there was a 40-foot high screen. Right field went on forever. Wally Moon, a left handed batter, popped a few home runs over that screen and the Dodgers radio guy Vin Scully called them Moon Shots. Not sure if the homer Moon hit in that four-game sweep of the Dodgers was a Moon Shot, but I do recall hearing a few of them called on my National radio.

In the first two games of the World Series in 1959 the Dodgers split with the White Sox in Chicago.

On October 4 the first ever World Series game was played on the West Coast when the Dodgers and White Sox played game three. But the World Series game had to wait for a USC-Ohio State football game to be played that same day. Attendance was over 92,000 for each of the three games in LA.

The Dodgers wound up winning the series 4 games to 2. Larry Sherry was the pitching hero winning two of the games and saving the other 2.

Dodger fans are hoping that the four-game sweep of the Phillies is an omen for a repeat of 1959.

In 1959 the St. Louis Cardinals brought up a 24-year-old rookie pitcher by the name of Bob Duliba. He made his debut on August 11 in relief of Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell.

Bob pitched two scoreless innings, gave up two hits, no runs and struck out one. Bob got in 11 games that season. He was 0-1 with a 2.98 ERA and struck out 14 in 22 innings.

Who Am I?

Here’s a little quiz for you based on this column. The answer is in the column.

I was born in Bridgewater, South Dakota in 1934. I played only one season in the Major leagues, but I played in every game but two as a second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. In 152 games I batted .219 with 34 RBI.

Later I became a manager. I managed for 26 seasons and won 2194 games with two different teams. I managed five World Series teams and own three world championships, the last in 1984.

My first name was George, but you’d never know it because I was universally known by my electric nickname.

Now if you can’t guess this, again the answer in the column, I’m not going to give you the answer. I’m sorry it’s just too easy.