July 25, 1963 - It was Senior Citizens’ Day today at Milwaukee’s County Stadium, and three oldsters on the field did not disappoint. Warren Spahn (pictured left in 1959) and Lew Burdette (right), close friends and long-time roommates, faced off in a baseball duel in the tradition of the Dean-Hubbell and Grove-Gomez classics. And Stan Musial, still refusing to act his age, drove in the winning run in the second-place Cardinals’ 3-1 victory over the Braves. “Lew just proved again what a great competitor he is,” said Spahn, the losing pitcher, afterward. “Lew proved that when the chips are down, he’s tough.” The 36-year-old right-handed Burdette, who won 179 games for the Braves before he was traded to St. Louis last June 15, allowed 5 hits, struck out 2, and did not walk a batter. The 42-year-old left-handed Spahn, sidelined since July 7 with a sore elbow, yielded 8 hits and all the Card runs, one of which was unearned, before retiring for a pinch hitter in the eighth. He struck out one and did not issue a walk. Spahn groaned most about Musial’s first of two singles, a grounder to right that scored Bill White, who had doubled, in the fourth. “Stan hit a good pitch, a change-up down and away, and the single he got later was probably the first hit he ever got off my screwball,” Spahn said. In the Cardinal clubhouse, Burdette had a ready answer when one newsman pointed out that Spahn had outdone him in one respect — at bat. “If I had been just a little bit taller, Spahnie wouldn’t have had that hit,” Burdette said of the high hopper over his head in the fifth.
Comments