April 18, 1964
St. Louis Cardinals 2-2
At
San Francisco Giants 3-1
“Red told me to lean back and fire and let my arm do the job.” – Ernie Broglio
The game 5 lineup:
- Curt Flood CF
- Dick Groat SS
- Tim McCarver C
- Bill White 1B
- Doug Clemens LF
- Ken Boyer 3B
- Johnny Lewis RF
- Julian Javier 2B
- Ernie Broglio P
Here we see the Cardinals have abandoned their set lineup – just 4 games in. I wondered why Curt Flood was batting so low after having real success for years, especially in batting average – which was definitely the flavor of the day – and now he found himself leading off over Julian Javier who moved to 8th.
Javier had led off the first 4 games of the season. He would only lead off 6 more times the rest of the year.
McCarver batting 3rd seems to be a direct result of his 3 hit game the night before – and one of only 2 times he’d bat in the top of the lineup all season.
As for Doug Clemens, he was the latest young outfielder the Cardinals were hoping wasn’t completely worthless. And let me put it to you this way:
You know Brock for Broglio is famous for the lopsided nature of the trade. But what most people don’t realize is that the trade was a 6 player deal. Broglio has gone down in history as some sort of lower-case goat for being the bad part of the deal, but he gets that notoriety because he was at least good enough to be remembered.
You probably don’t know who Doug Clemens is, and you probably guessed by now that in a few months, he will call Wrigley Field home. That’s because in the deal, the team did an even position swap. Each team got two pitchers and a leftfielder. The two pitchers the Cardinals got were worthless. But I suppose the leftfielder makes up for it.
Oh, right, there was a game?
Well, let me give you a little spoiler, the hitless wonder Cardinals, who have already switched up their lineup for the 5th game of the season, managed to get 4 total hits in this one. And the other team had Willie Mays.
Mays proved to be trouble in the bottom of the first, when he hit a slow roller to SS and beat it out for an infield hit. It was Mays’ 5th hit of the season – the other 4 were home runs.
Broglio tried in earnest to pickoff Mays, after becoming somewhat famous for allowing stolen bases. Perhaps because of the distraction he uncorked a wild pitch to Willie McCovey to send Mays to 2nd. McCovey, who had started the year 0-14, then ripped a single to score the first run of the game, advancing to 2nd on the throw home.
Cepeda followed with a walk, and then Broglio – still working on pickoffs, picked McCovey off 2nd to end the inning. “That must be my first pickoff in three years,” said Broglio
1-0 Giants, against a team that hadn’t hit a home run all year.
Speaking of home runs, there was that Willie Mays guy. Remember he finally hit a single? In the 5th he hit a 430 foot homer, his 5th of the year. That Mays guy seems like he must have been pretty good.
Broglio pitched a great game otherwise, besides those 2 runs. He tossed a complete game with 5 hits and 5 walks.
Still, like I said, the Cardinals managed a total of 4 hits on their own.
Those 4 hits?
Leading off the 3rd inning, Johnny Lewis hit his 1st career home run.
Leading off the 5th inning Ken Boyer hit one of his own.
Leading off the 6th inning Curt Flood hit a heralded homer (he had lived in Oakland) to give the Cardinals a 3-2 lead
Oh, yes, there was another hit after that. Dick Groat followed the Flood homer with a single, which I suppose was almost as impressive as he finished the game with an .091 batting average.
The Cardinals hit 0 homers through their 1st 4 games, and then powered up to hit 3 solo homers to beat the mighty Giants, 3-2.
It would only take a few games for them to repeat the trick – 3 homers to deliver a 1 run win – but you won’t believe who they had to beat to make that come true.
