Re-Living 1972

It’s been relatively slow going these days with all the rainouts, snowouts, and freezeouts, so it’s probably an ideal time to continue our periodic retrospective on the 1972 season. Here are a few game results from this day in that historic regular season…

Two American League pitchers turned in excellent starts on April 17 of 1972, one at the noted pitching haven of Memorial Stadium. Dave McNally, the stylishly smooth left-hander for the Orioles, hurled a complete-game, four-hit shutout against the Yankees. Of course, that wasn’t exactly a vintage Yankee team in early ‘72. The first two hitters in Ralph Houk’s lineup were Horace "Hoss" Clarke (yikes) and Rich "Orbit" McKinney (double yikes). And then after wading through a fairly tough middle of the order that included Thurman Munson, Roy White, and Bobby Murcer, McNally could take a few deep breaths against a bottom third of the order that featured Rusty Torres and Gene "Stick" Michael…

At Fenway Park, Cleveland’s Milt Wilcox tossed a two-hit shutout against the Red Sox. (My goodness, two complete games on the same day in the same league!) We tend to remember what Wilcox did as the No. 3 starter for the 1984 Tigers, but he actually cut his teeth with the Reds, Indians, and Cubs before finally establishing himself as a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter. From 1970 to 1977, Wilcox failed to win in double figures and never pitched more than 156 innings in a season. By 1978, his second season in Motown, Wilcox had become an integral member of Sparky Anderson’s pitching staff…

In National League play, the Dodgers’ Bill Singer (yes, he was known as the "Singer Throwing Machine") threaded the needle against a heavy-hitting lineup of Braves, holding Atlanta to two runs over seven innings in an 8-3 win at the "Launching Pad (Fulton County Stadium). This was years before the controversy that an inebriated Singer created when he, as a newly signed scout with the Mets, publicly mocked the Asian descent of Dodgers executive Kim Ng. The Mets eventually fired Singer, making him a racial-rousing predecessor to the likes of Don Imus. (I don’t think that Singer has resurfaced in baseball since then, and that makes me wonder if there should be a time limit on such "banishments.") I’ve heard Singer described as "old school," and in many ways that’s a compliment, but not when it comes to outdated racial views and bigoted treatment of minority figures in baseball….

And then there was the Phillies’ game against the rival Cardinals. The Phillies did what they did so well and often that season—lose the game. With the score tied at 3-3 heading to the ninth, lefty submariner Joe Hoerner gave up two runs to his former Cardinals mates, who pieced together a three-hit rally replete with a Dal Maxvill sacrifice fly. Hoerner’s performance helped spoil a fine effort by Phillies starter Woodie Fryman, who clubbed his first and only home run of the season. With faulty performances like that, it’s not surprising that Hoerner didn’t last the season in Philadelphia. At the June 15^th trading deadline, the plummeting Phils traded Hoerner and a young slugger named Andre Thornton to the Braves for two right-handers, Jim "Jumbo" Nash and Gary Neibauer. And no, the trade didn’t reverse Philly fortunes. Philadelphia ended the season at 59-97, the worst record in the National League, and some 37 and a half lengths out of first place in the NL East.