June 25, 1964

Travel Day

The date was June 25, 1964.

After taking 2-of-3 from the Cubs in an abbreviated home stand, the Phillies were en route to a ten-day road trip that would take them to St. Louis, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco for 11 games over those ten days.

They’d been no worse than tied for first place since June 10 and were beginning the day 1½ games ahead of the second-place Giants. But that was subject to change since the Giants were beginning an 11-day home stand by hosting the Dodgers that night at Candlestick Park.

And Change It Was

Sandy Koufax and Jack Sanford locked up in a pitching duel.

Sanford was pitching a three-hit shutout before being lifted for a pinch-hitter in the fifth.
From there, the combination of Billy Pierce, Bob Shaw, and Gaylord Perry yielded one run through the bottom of the ninth – Ron Fairly’s third home run of the season off Billy Pierce leading off the seventh.
Koufax gave up one run on six hits through nine innings. Willie Mays drew a walk leading off the bottom of the eighth, stole second, and scored on Tom Haller’s two-out single.

So the 1-1 game moved into extra innings.

With Ron Perranoski on the mound in the bottom of the 13th, Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda hit back-to-back singles. When Mays tried to advance to third, center-fielder Willie Davis tried to gun him down. But Mays slid under the tag and Cepeda took second on the throw.

Perranoski walked Jim Ray Hart intentionally to load the bases. Perranoski then got Chuck Hiller to hit a ground ball that forced Mays at the plate, but Del Crandall dribbled a ball through the infield to score Cepeda with the winning run.

Perranoski (2-3) was tagged with the loss.

Gaylord Perry (5-3) picked up the win with a nifty three-hitter over the final five innings.

The win allowed the Giants to trim ½ game off the Phillies lead ─ and now trailed by just one game.