July 29, 1964 - A Yankee trip to the golden shores of the Pacific is all sunshine and flowers. There are the tours of the movie studios, the good restaurants, and Juliet Prowse to pose with Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris before the games.
There are funny wisecracks from Jimmy Piersall, and the Yanks usually do well against the Angels.
But there’s always someone who doesn’t get the word. The Yankees had beaten the Angels, 5-0, tonight behind the four-hit pitching of Jim Bouton, and somehow third baseman Clete Boyer had missed the fun.
Boyer slumped on the bench of his locker in the Yankee clubhouse for awhile and then tossed his uniform and equipment into his traveling bag. There was little rush to the Sunset Strip.
“I’ll be glad when it’s time to retire,” Boyer said. “You won’t catch me crying.”
Mantle, in the next locker, added: “I’d retire too, but I can’t afford it.”
The Yanks hadn’t eaten anything more than the ballpark smorgasbord of candy and soda since 4. The luggage had to be in the lobby of the hotel at 8 o’clock in the morning, and the bus was to leave for the airport and the flight to Minneapolis at 8:15. That didn’t leave much time on the town.
Boyer, a sensitive individual under the stoic Yankee veneer, was feeling the weight of the tourism and his .219 batting average. It didn’t seem to matter so much that he had made at least one outstanding play at third base each of the three nights in L.A. and that he had knocked in the second run of tonight’s game with a sacrifice fly. He’d had only one hit in the series, he’d just about forgotten the funny things Piersall had been saying to him, and he was tired.
“It’s so frustrating,” Boyer said. “You play every day, play every day, play every day. You do something good, and you’d think you learn something. Then you go bad again.”
Last night, Boyer dived to his left to take a single away from Piersall, and Piersall, on his way to the bench, had made Boyer laugh. “He said, ‘Why don’t you do that to Al Kaline? I’ve got a wife and nine kids,’” Boyer related with a smile.
Piersall, whose wife is expecting their ninth child next week, said of Boyer: “He’s a great fielder. I watch him from the dugout. He’s always ready. That was the third time he robbed me this year. I told him, ‘Why don’t you field like you hit?’”
Boyer seemed to wince a little at the line when it was retold. It isn’t the most pleasant thing for him to be reminded of his average. He isn’t credited with each hit he takes away from someone else.
“I’d rather do it the other way,” Boyer said. “I’d rather hit like I field. Ah, what’s the difference? I’ve been a lousy hitter for 10 years, why change now?”
Boyer wasn’t the only one to come under the point of Piersall’s comical needle. Elston Howard was behind the plate when Piersall came to bat for the last time in the eighth.
“I told him,” Piersall said, “if I didn’t get a good pitch to hit, I’d vote for Barry Goldwater.”
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