Making a Pitch Against Mauch

Chris Short and Art Mahaffey, former pitchers for the Philadelphia Phillies, were participants in a benefit golf tournament at Allentown, Pa., where eventually the talk got around to the Phillies’ famous collapse in 1964 under Gene Mauch.

“Gene Mauch just hates pitchers,” Mahaffey told Don Bostrom of the Allentown Morning Call. “He always seemed to abuse them, and I just can’t figure it out. He ruins them all. Remember a few years ago in the playoffs, with California, he was up two games. Then the Brewers tied the series, and in the last game, his pitcher had a three-hitter in the eighth (actually sixth) when he took him out. He’s just got a way about messing the pitchers up real bad.

“A lot of us still feel it was Mauch who panicked by pitching Jim Bunning and Short every other day (in ‘64). I started the first game of the 10-game losing streak and lost, 1-0, and in the eighth game I was winning, 4-2, in the eighth inning. I had struck the side out in the seventh but gave up a bloop single to start the eighth, and he took me out. Next time I looked around, there were five more hits and we were losing, 6-4. That’s a game I think I could have won because I really had it that day.”

Add Phillies: Said Short, coming to Mauch’s defense: “We just didn’t do the job when we had to. We lost the 10 in a row and then won the last two, but by then it was too late.”

Defending Mauch’s decision to use a two-man rotation in the stretch, he said: “We had a couple of guys with bad arms who couldn’t pitch, in Ray Culp and Dennis Bennett. Mahaffey had a little bit of a problem but he could have pitched more than he did. I always was a Gene Mauch man and I always will be. He’s the best manager I ever played for.”

Trivia Time: Name the four Dodgers who hit 30 or more home runs in 1977. (Answer below.)

New York Mets Manager Davey Johnson tells the New York Times why he would vote for his catcher, Gary Carter, as the National League’s Most Valuable Player over such candidates as Glenn Davis, Mike Schmidt and Dave Parker: “He’s our big RBI guy and he catches. He’s got to wear that equipment on a hot day. He’s got to handle pitchers. He’s got to block the plate. Catcher is the most critical position in baseball, no doubt about it.

“When the Cubs won our division two years ago, Jody Davis gave them a big edge over us at catcher. We were overmatched at the most critical position. But since we got Carter in the trade before last season, we’ve had a big guy back there who’s better than the Cubs’ big guy. Ever since the trade, we’ve been better than anybody in the league at the most critical position.”

Football Coach Jim Sweeney of Fresno State, whose son Kevin was quarterback in the Bulldogs’ unbeaten season last year, has an older son, Jim, who went to Alabama but wanted his brother to go to Washington.

“Jim (the younger) was working in Seattle, and his boss was a big Washington fan,” Sweeney said. “I wanted Kevin to come here, but Jim said, ‘The father I knew and loved allowed me to go to school where I wanted.’

“I said, ‘Jim, you couldn’t throw the ball like Kevin.’ ”

Trivia Time: Steve Garvey hit 33, Reggie Smith hit 32, and Ron Cey and Dusty Baker each hit 30.

Quotebook

Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, on his golf game: “Last time I played a golf match, I lost 20 balls. I lost one on every hole, one in the 19th hole and one in a ball washer.”