Page:Baseball Guide and Record Book 1962.djvu/15

, just when they had many observers believing they would pull away from the field, Alston's athletes encountered their worst nosedive of the year—ten losses in a row. The disastrous slide began August 14, when Ernie Broglio hurled St. Louis to a five-hit, 5 to conquest at Memorial Coliseum.

August 11, 1961, marked a red-letter day in career of Warren Spahn, 40-year-old Milwaukee southpaw, who entered exclusive group by notching victory No. 300 of his major league career with 2 to 1 conquest of Cubs.

Cincinnati invaded the Coliseum the next night. The Dodgers tagged Joey Jay for two runs in the first inning, but he blanked them the remainder of the way to win on six hits, 5 to 2. A twi-night double-header concluded the series, August 16. First place was at stake, and a crowd of 72,140—biggest for a twin-bill in N. L. history—turned out. But they saw the Dodgers shut out twice, 6 to and 8 to 0, as Purkey tossed a four-hitter and O'Toole followed with a two-hit masterpiece to extend the L. A. scoreless string to 26 innings. With the sweep, the Reds returned to the lead. They never again were ousted from the driver's seat, although they had several close calls.

Still reeling from this debacle, the beleaguered Dodgers went to San Francisco, where they dropped three in a row. One of the setbacks was their fourth whitewashing in six starts.

The Dodgers next journeyed to St. Louis and the Giants to Cincinnati. While L. A. was losing three more to the Cardinals, Dark's sluggers won a double-header from the Reds, 12 to 2 and 5 to 3, August 22, and slaughtered them the next evening, 14 to 0, with a six-homer assault. The trio of triumphs capped a surge that found the third-place Giants winning 13 of 15 games to pull within four lengths of the top and revive flag hopes in San Francisco.

Hutchinson read the riot act to the Reds following the humiliating August 23 lambasting, and they responded by whipping the Giants in the series finale. This started Dark's club on a crushing five-game skid.

But more trouble loomed for Cincinnati. The Dodgers, in the throes of