The Trolley Dodger

The heartwarming story was great, and just in time for the holidays. As several other Dodger blogs have pointed to at the Times:

His name is Jim Governale and the recording is of word-painter extraordinaire Vin Scully’s over-the-air description of the final inning of the Dodgers’ 5-0 victory over the New York Mets on June 30, 1962, at Dodger Stadium, the only known surviving audio account of the first of Sandy Koufax’s four no-hitters.

Orel over at “Sons of Steve Garvey” updated their post about it to point out that audio has been posted over on dodgers.com. It is a joy to hear — so much drama in just a few minutes. Even if you know how it turns out, you still get caught up in the moment. And I love the interplay amongst the managers, umpires, and players, as Vin Scully describes their “jawing” at each other.

I wanted to check out the scoring for the game, so here it is over at Retrosheet: Mets at Dodgers, June 30, 1962. It was a Saturday game. None of Vin’s human drama is there, but there’s nothing like seeing that line of zeroes marching across the box score.

Baseball Almanac has a page about the game up as well, which includes a couple of cool tidbits:

Did you know that during the first inning Sandy Koufax also recorded a fabulous feat when he threw only nine pitches and all nine were strikes?

Two time batting champion Richie Ashburn almost ended it all during the sixth inning when he hit a sharp line drive into left field. The ball was lost in the lights by Tommy Davis who barely recovered and made a spectacular catch preserving the no hitter!

There’s also this choice quote from Sandy:

“To win. Nothing else matters, and nothing else will do.”