November 3 - Koufax and the Cy Young - This Day in Baseball - The Daily Rewind

Classic Baseball Broadcasts

Day of Cy Young Awards, 8 Cy Youngs are awarded with 3 multiple winners –

• Vern Law 60 he went 20-1 and started game 1, 4 and the historic game 7 of the 1960 World Series and went 2-0 you can listen to all three of those games in our community.
• Sandy Koufax wins his 3rd, setting the NL record with 382 stakeouts in 1965. You can listen to his starts from 1965, April 22, June 20 and August 10, the 9th inning of his perfect game and for good measure Game 7 of the 1965 World Series on 2 days rest.
• Jim Lonborg 67, 22-9 the leader on the mound for the impossible dream red sox, you can hear his Sept 2, and all three of his world series starts
• Bob Gibson 2 70, Gibson posts his career high in wins with 23, you can listen to Gibson in the 68, 64 and 67 World Series, and his no hitter in 1971.
• Fergie Jenkins 71. Finally gets his after 2 close calls and you can hear him in the 1971 All Star game.
• Rollie Fingers 82 and Pete Vuckovich 82 – back to back for the Brewers and they were both acquired by the brewers from the Cardinals in the same trade on December 12, 1980.
• And Greg Maddux wins his (2) in a row in 1993, and he will win the next two as well becoming the first pitcher to win 4 in a row. Maddux went 20-10 with a 2.36 ERA

All but Law, Lonborg and Vuckovich will end up in Cooperstown

On November 3, 1928 — Voters in Massachusetts approve Sunday baseball in Boston, provided that Braves Field is more than 1,000 feet from a church. This leaves Pennsylvania as the only state with no Sunday baseball in the major leagues.

On November 3, 1987 — Oakland Athletics first baseman Mark McGwire, who hit 49 home runs with 118 RBI, wins the 1987 American League Rookie of the Year Award. McGwire is the second player to win that league’s award unanimously. Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox was the first to do it in 1972. McGwire set a rookie record with 49 homers and was the first rookie to lead the majors in homers since Al Rosen in 1950.

On November 3, 1968 — Harry Caray, trying to cross the busy Kings Highway near the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis suffers two broken legs, a broken nose, and a dislocated shoulder when he is knocked 40 feet in the air after being struck by a car at 1:15 AM on an inclement Sunday morning. The popular Cardinals broadcaster, whose hospital room will become party central before he is discharged, will recover in time to be on the air for Opening Day. We have countless games he called, including the game where Dick Allen hit his famous blast over the Coke sign on May 29, 1965.

Happy Birthday to Ken Holtzman, Born: November 3, 1945 in St. Louis, MO Holtzman was compared to Sandy Koufax early in his career. Both were left-handed, both were Jewish, and both had devastating curveballs. But that comparison was unfair to Holtzman, who went on to have an excellent career, winning 174 games in 15 seasons. The St. Louis native was involved in three big trades, one sending him from the Cubs to Oakland, one sending him from the A’s to Baltimore, and the other shipping him from the Orioles to the Yankees. With the A’s he joined Vida Blue and Catfish Hunter in a formidable starting rotation that led Oakland to three straight World Series titles. A crafty left-hander who preferred to induce a groundball rather than a strikeout, Holtzman won 17 or more games six times, and pitched two no-hitters. A clutch performer, Holtzman was 4-1 with a 2.54 ERA in eight World Series starts.