NLDS 61 Cardinals sweep 61 Braves

The 1961 Milwaukee Braves finished the regular season by winning their final 10 games to win the NL West. Their cousins, the 1961 St. Louis Cardinals lost their season finale to the 1952 Philadelphia Phillies, and thereby lost the NL East title by a single game.

These two same-season clubs squared off in a best-of-five division round series, starting in Milwaukee. A couple of marquee names took the mound in game one, Warren Spahn and Bob Gibson. In 1961 Spahn was nearing the end of his illustrious career, while Gibson was just starting to find his rhythm as a young pitcher learning to harness his control. Both clubs notched a tally in the first, and each added another one later but the pitchers controlled things for the most part. The game went into the eighth tied at 2. The Cardinals then roughed up Spahnie a little, although Roy McMillan’s error on Curt Flood’s leadoff grounder was a bad omen for the veteran left hander. He may have been a bit rattled by the miscue, as he then walked Bill White. Ken Boyer then got out in front of an off speed pitch, but squared it up and the ball barely stayed fair down the left field line, rattling around in the corner as Flood and White scored. Boyer kept running around second and barely got in under Ed Mathews’ tag for a triple. After another walk and a strikeout, Spahn then uncharacteristically uncorked a wild pitch, that allowed Boyer to scamper home.

Gibson helped himself in the ninth with a double and a run, scoring on Julian Javier’s single to complete the scoring in the 6-2 win. Both Gibson and Spahn went the distance.

Game two matched lefthanders Curt Simmons and Bob Hendley. Simmons was the Cardinals best pitcher in KOD24, despite a so-so 4-3 W-L record. He was not quite as sharp as usual in this one, but scattered 10 hits and a walk allowing only 2 runs. Meanwhile his mates tallied 4 times, with Simmons himself driving in 2 on a single against a drawn in infield after fouling off an attempted pitch on a squeeze play.

Game three moved to St. Louis, and was all Cardinals. A 16 hit attack off of Lew Burdette and Don McMahon was lead by Bill White, who had 4 hits and 5 RBI. Joe Cunningham and Ken Boyer each had three hits, while Javier and Stan Musial had 2 apiece, with The Man driving in a pair. Larry Jackson was the beneficiary of all this offense, but did just fine himself going 8 innings and giving up 3 runs, 2 earned, while striking out 6 and walking two. Then 10-5 finale sent the fans home happy and excited to be part of the upcoming NLCS.

The Cardinals move on to face the winner of the Phillies/Giants match-up, in an effort to grab their first KOD pennant.

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