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St. Louis, Missouri 9/17/1963
As the great Stan Musial’s career is coming to a close with less than two weeks left, he faces off against another great in Sandy Koufax in a key pennant race game. Musial would win this battle with a seventh inning single but Koufax would win the day allowing only four hits and walking none in a 4-0 blanking of the Cardinals. The Dodger win would increase their lead in the standing to three games over St Louis, who were also aided by a Frank Howard two-run home run in the eighth inning. Koufax would improve his record to 24-5 with an 1.87 ERA.
Musial over the last seven games of his stellar career would hit .316 with three RBIs. For the season he would finish with a .255 average, 12 home runs and 58 runs batted in. His final hit, his 3,630th, would come on September 29th when he hit a single off Cincinnati Reds’ Jim Maloney in the sixth inning. St Louis manager Johnny Keane, sensing the high note here, would bring in a pinch runner allowing Musial to walk off the Busch Stadium for the final time to a standing ovation.
Hey….that was my first baseball game. I’m sitting out there in left field with my cub scout friends. Any chance the photo is available in high resolution? Would like to make it part of a wall to hang in my rec room