For Yastrzemski, 1967 Was a Very Good Year; Just Ask Joe Hoerner

The last player to win the triple crown was Boston’s Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, and former teammate Ken Harrelson said it’s a year he’ll never forget.

“This is the kind of year it was for Yaz,” Harrelson told Peter King of Newsday. “We’re playing St. Louis in the second game of the World Series. They bring in a left-handed reliever, Joe Hoerner, to face Yaz, and Yaz comes to the on-deck circle and says, ‘Ever face this guy? What’s he got?’ I say, ‘Sinker, slider.’ He says, ‘That’s not good enough. Let’s see what they’ve got in the scouting report.’

“We go to the bench, and (coach) Sal Maglie looks up Hoerner in the scouting report we had from Frank Malzone, our advance scout. It says, ‘Starts out all left-handed hitters with the low fastball.’ So Yaz goes up there--Hoerner’s motion is sneaky, and he’s quick, and Yaz has never seen him before--and the first pitch is a low fastball. Yaz hits it 18 rows up in the bleachers. He runs around the bases, no acknowledgement, no smile, no nothing. Vintage Yaz.

“That was one of the most profound moments of my baseball career. That was ’67 for Yaz. We just sat there in awe and watched him. He almost put us in a coma with the things he did.”

Low Blow Dept.: From Patrick Reusse of the St. Paul Pioneer Press: “In Whitey Herzog’s newly released autobiography, there’s a picture of the White Rat shaking hands with Tom Lasorda. The punch line says, ‘Here I am with my good friend Tommy Lasorda. I’m telling him to pitch to Jack Clark.’ ”

Trivia Time: What four fighters knocked down Muhammad Ali? (Answer below.)

36 Years Ago Today: On Aug. 11, 1951, Robin Roberts of the Philadelphia Phillies beat the New York Giants 4-0, dropping the Giants 13 1/2 games behind the first-place Brooklyn Dodgers. The next day the Giants embarked on a 16-game winning streak and eventually won the pennant in a playoff on Bobby Thomson’s home run.

For What It’s Worth: Steve Dils is 2-0 in London. The Ram quarterback mopped up for Tommy Kramer in 1983 when the Minnesota Vikings beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 28-10, in the first NFL game played there.

Add London: From the Associated Press story on Sunday’s game: “The loudest boos were reserved for the band when it struck up a halftime rendition of ‘Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina.’ It may have been a hit in the musical ‘Evita,’ but it did not go down well with the fans in a country that fought Argentina in the Falkland Islands war less than five years ago.”

Cincinnati Manager Pete Rose, on why he prefers head-first slides: “They’re safer and faster. And they usually get your picture in the paper.”

Rookie pitcher Joe Magrane of St. Louis, claiming he’s not interested in awards: “I don’t sit around thinking about winning Rookie of the Year or MVP or Miss Congeniality.”

Would-you-believe-it dept.: To spice up the pairings in the first round of the PGA, they put together the first three winners of major tournaments in 1987, Larry Mize (Masters), Scott Simpson (U.S. Open) and Nick Faldo (British Open). Gordon White of the New York Times checked them out on the seventh hole. He counted a gallery of nine.

Trivia Answer: Sonny Banks, Henry Cooper, Joe Frazier, Chuck Wepner.

Quotebook

Tommy John of the New York Yankees, on why he hasn’t employed the knuckleball he’s developed in practice: “I’m not old enough yet.”