May 10, 1963 - Don Drysdale, who hadn’t won a game in nearly a month, pitched a six-hitter tonight as the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the San Francisco Giants, 2-1, in the first meeting of the clubs since the National League playoff last year. Drysdale got into trouble in the ninth when Dick Tracewski booted Willie Mays’s grounder and Willie McCovey followed with a single to put men on first and third with no one out. Drysdale then struck out Orlando Cepeda and Tom Haller and got a pinch-hitter, Ed Bailey, to foul out to the catcher. The Dodger right-hander wound up with 11 strikeouts. Tommy Davis, who hit .452 against the Giants last year, went 2-for-3 and drove in the decisive run with a third-inning double off Jack Sanford. San Francisco manager Alvin Dark lodged a protest in the ninth inning. He contended that skipper Walt Alston of the Dodgers technically made two trips to the pitching mound in the ninth and that this should have brought Drysdale’s automatic departure from the game. What happened was that Alston first conferred with catcher John Roseboro — about the possibility of the Giants working a double steal, he said — and then huddled with Drysdale. “I asked [plate umpire Chris] Pelekoudas if my talk with Roseboro constituted one trip to the mound before I went out to Drysdale,” Alston reported. “He said no. I wouldn’t have gone out otherwise because I had no intention of removing Drysdale.” Senior umpire Jocko Conlan said if Roseboro had gone to the mound after his chat with Alston, it would have been the same as if the manager had done it. But Roseboro didn’t. This didn’t appease Dark, however. “The umpire said as long as the catcher doesn’t go to the mound, it’s legal,” he barked. “But it isn’t. Sure I’m going through with the protest. Alston can’t do it.” Regarding Drysdale’s performance, Dark said: “He was great.” In the winners’ dressing room, Alston was asked how the Giants looked in their first 1963 appearance against his Dodgers. After a long pause, he grinned and replied, “Tough!”
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