Sept. 4, 1963 - Jim Bouton failed to bag his 20th win today at Yankee Stadium because the Senators were hitting the ball out of the park on him, but Roger Maris saved the young righty from defeat when he slammed his 20th homer with a man on and nobody out in the ninth to give the Yanks a 5-4 victory. “My wife and I were going to throw a little champagne party tonight if I got it,” said Jersey Jim afterward. “But it can wait. I’ve got five more starts, the way I figure it.” All the Washington runs came on homers, including one — a personal major league first — by lefthander Claude Osteen, which tied the score at 2-2 in the third. Ed Brinkman parked one of Bouton’s serves in the fifth and Don Lock, an ex-Yank, rapped his No. 25 in the seventh. Lock’s smash into Ruthville broke a 3-3 tie, and Bouton’s chance for his 20th win when the Yanks failed to score in the eighth. So Bouton, at this point, could not be the winner — only the loser. But Maris hit the ball into the right mezzanine after Elston Howard led off the ninth with a walk, and the win went to big Steve Hamilton. “I threw some careless pitches out there today,” Bouton said. “But anyway, I’m glad Steve was able to pick up a win.” The lanky lefty is now 5-1 since he came to the Yanks in an April trade with Washington. Maris’s homer was his first since July 6 in Cleveland. There was no question that it was going to carry all the way when the ball left the bat. Osteen walked to the third base foul line, stopped, and pounded his left fist into his glove a half dozen times before proceeding to the clubhouse. “I don’t know,” he said afterward. “I was trying to keep the ball away from him all day. And I was still pitching to him that way in the ninth too, but he lost it just the same.”
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