(note:  The life, and times of the San Francisco Giants are well-documented.  They are written down in newspapers, magazines, and record books. My rather ordinary life is not.   Like Jose Canseco in his book “Juiced”, I am attempting to write about the past without notes nor evidence, but merely personal  recall and conversations with surviving family and friends.  But unlike Jose Canseco, there is no ill will for anyone. With one possible exception.   That of Charlie Park, former  sports writer for the defunct Los Angeles Mirror. The reason will become apparent later)

It was a Thursday afternoon.  May 12, 1955 to be exact.  I wasn’t there, when or where it happened.  I am 2000 miles away in Barry Bonds future hometown, being a typical bored mindless seven-year old, honing the fine science of rubber band shooting and splattering spitballs against the blackboard.

Meanwhile, in Chicago Illinois, Sam Jones, of the big sweeping curve, and deadly fastball, six months short of his 30th birthday enters the top of the ninth with a 4-0 lead.  He has walked four and struck out three, facing only two batters over the minimum thanks to an earlier pair of double plays. The Pirates have yet to hit safely, despite the lineup presence of  Roberto Clemente, future NL MVP Dick Groat, future All Star Frank Thomas and the brothers Gene and George Freese.

For the home team Cubs, future SF Giant Jim King goes into left field, a defensive replacement for future SF Giant Bob Speake.  Future SF Giant, Sam Jones begins the Top of the Ninth by immediately walking No. 8 hitter, Gene Freese.  Preston Ward, who would go onto hit a stellar .211 that year, pinch hits for future Cy Young Award Winner and Comeback Player of the Year, Vern Law. Law entered the game in the bottom of the 3rd after starter Nellie King, had pitched an ineffective 1st and 2nd innings.   After wild-pitching Freese over to second,   Jones walks pinch-hitter Preston Ward, before Ward is pinch-run for by Cuban rookie, Roman Mejias.

This rolls the lineup over with runners on 1st and 2nd, nobody out, and leadoff batter Tom Saffell coming up.  Saffell, rescued from the Atlanta Crackers in 1949 by Gabe Paul, is a bench player after being replaced in  right field by first year player Clemente.  This would be Saffell’s last year in the Bigs.  Saffell, like Freese and Ward before him, works Jones over for a walk, juicing the bases for Groat, Clemente, and Thomas.

With the bases loaded and chomping down on his flat-sided toothpick, Jones gets a swinging strike-out of  number three batter, Clemente, after ringing up Dick Groat on a called strike three. One batter later, clean-up hitter Frank Thomas, strides to the plate; only to be rung up on strikes by Home Plate umpire Artie Gore, to end the game and preserve the 4-0 victory. The Cubs that year, would finish in sixth place, 9 games under .500, 26 games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers.  The Pirates would finish dead last winning only 60 games. The Giants were only one year removed from their World Series victory the prior Autumn, never to repeat this accomplishment.

Thus, following three consecutive walks and a wild pitch to start off the ninth, Sam “Toothpick” Jones strikes out a future Hall of Famer, a future MVP and a future All Star, ensuring his place in American History as the first black player to pitch a Major League no hitter. Sadly, fewer than 3000 fans are at 1060 W Addison St. to bear witness. I learn of the feat the next morning as my dad reads aloud the details from the sports page. As he speaks,  I slurp down the usual bowl of cold cereal, pausing only to punch a younger brother as he tries unsuccesfully to snag my toast.  My father does not see the bratty sibling reach for the toast, but only me as I repell the attack upon my breakfast.  Getting whacked  for not picking on somebody “my own size.”  convinces me that life is unfair.  Little do I know.

Prior to the 1959 season, the San Francisco Giants have a dilemna; two young outstanding first base prospects.  Orlando Cepeda is one.  Bill White who can play the outfield as well, is the other.  Willie McCovey is still in the wings. And the Giants need pitching like a dead man walking needs a stay of execution. Horace Stoneham or Chub Feeney (Giants VP and General Manager) take your pick, pulls the trigger on a trade for Sam “Toothpick” Jones, by now a 34 year old journeyman with a sometimes sore arm. Jones had been traded to St. Louis following the 1956 season and pitches with some success for fellow Cards,  Stan Musial, Ken Boyer, Curt Flood, Tim McCarvar, Bob Gibson, and Jim Brosnan. He puts together arguably his best  season for the Cardinals in 1958 going 14-13 with 250 innings pitched, 225 strikeouts and an ERA of 2.88.  But the Cardinals need a guy to plug into left field, so Bill White and Ray Jablonski  go over to the Cards, and  Sam Jones and Don Choate (whose career lasts 4 games at the end of the 1960 season) come west to San Francisco. Sam Jones is now a San Francisco Giant and that’s all I need to know.

Forty Six years ago, Art Rosenbaum and Bob Stevens, two of San Francisco’s best sports journalists in their day, write the seminal diary of the San Francisco version of the Giants; aptly called: “The Giants of San Francisco”. One of the chapters deals exclusively with the 1959 season.  As for the Sam Jones part of that season,  I’ll let the book take it up for awhile:

Milwaukee's Hank Aaron had hit a 410-foot double off Sam Jones in the sixth inning, knocking Jones out of the game. In the dressing room an hour and a half later, several San Francisco sports writers were gathered about  Jones, asking what happened. "You can tell Aaron that the next time he  sees me he's going flat," Jones said, bitterly. "Don't print that” Mays said quickly from the next locker. "Sure, print it," said Jones," and you can tell Aaron too. "Don't print that,"Mays repeated. Jones had been around. The newspapers chose to print the statement, and stressed the implication of how Aaron was setting himself up for a hole in the head next time he faced the wicked-curving Jones. They chose to print it over the protests of the twenty-eight-year-old Mays, who had also been around but not as much as Jones.

And that is the thing about Willie.  He takes it upon himself to be the guy looking out for the others.  He believes it is up to him to run interference for his teammates.  It is because of his bigger salary that he feel this sense of obligation. The story continues:

Two days later was interesting for Giant fans and writers. Jones came into save a tiring Mike McCormick's win in the odd game of the three-set series. The stands were abuzz because the fourth man up was Aaron.  Jones erased the first three men.  In the dressing room after wiping out Milwaukee for the Giants' 6-3 win, Jones was again faced by reporters.  "No comment' he said. "Ask Rigney. And besides that, don't ask me for no comment the rest of the season.

Though there was much stir about the incident ( Sports Illustrated cameras were present in Milwaukee for the "rematch"), Jones threw straight to Aaron and Hank bounced into a double play.

As the season rolled along and Jones became the "big man" for the Giants, his suggestion to "don't ask me for no comment" was forgotten. Sam was too busy starting and relieving to fret too much about the printed word.

And then came the evening of June 30, 1959. The Giants, in the heat of the pennant race with the Braves and Dodgers are in Los Angeles for a Tuesday night game in front of  59,000 fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum. 

Los Angeles native, Eddie Bressoud, a better fielding shortstop who was signed by the Giants out of high school in 1950, is benched in favor of  the first Bahamian to play Major League baseball.  He is converted cricket player, Andre Rogers, a player not too unlike the up again, down again Eugenio Velez.  It is to be Sam Jones vs. Don Drysdale.  And it will be this night above all others that will forever be the cornerstone of the West Coast version of the Giants Dodger rivalry.  Rosenbaum’s and Steven’s book continues:

“… a succession of unusual occurrences helped give Giants vs. Dodgers, in its California incarnation, a character quite distinct from New York vs. Brooklyn. The first such incident demonstrated that even a scorer's decision can exacerbate municipal prejudices.”

Indeed it does.

In 1959, Sam Jones, a laconic right-hander who gnawed on a toothpick while he pitched, was the ace of the Giants' staff. On the night of June 30, in the Los Angeles Coliseum, he had a no-hitter working in the eighth inning when Jim Gilliam of the Dodgers hit an easy bouncer to the infamously maladroit Giant shortstop, Andre Rodgers. True to form, Rodgers bobbled the ball, picked it up and, aware that further effort would only compound his folly, made no throw to first.

The official scorer, Charlie Park of the  Los Angeles Mirror-News, did not hesitate in calling Gilliam's grounder a base hit. Jones nearly swallowed his toothpick. Members of the San Francisco press shouted imprecations, but Park resolutely rejected all appeals. Base hit! Russ Hodges, broadcasting the game home to San Francisco, was tremulous with rage. "If ever a man deserved a no-hit game, Sam Jones did tonight," he bellowed into the KSFO microphone. "The ball was a routine grounder."

Most observers thought Jones threw a no-run, no-hit game, but Charlie Park of the Los Angeles Mirror-News, the official scorer, ruled Jim Gilliam's bouncer to short in the eighth inning a hit. In the dressing room Jones brushed aside Park's outstretched hand, said he didn't want to talk to any newspaperman and especially one who didn't know how to score. Sam puffed on a cigarette while the familiar toothpick occupied the other side of his face. There were tears on his cheeks. "Why," he sulked to other newsmen, "don't yon guys buy yourself another scorer?" Charlie Park said he thought Gilliam would have beaten out the throw even if Andre Rodgers had fielded it perfectly. Rodgers caught it, dropped it, picked it up and failed to throw. Park didn't hesitate. The "hit" sign went up immediately. Later he refused to change his verdict despite much badgering in the press box. Courageously, he said he didn't hesitate when he saw the play and felt there was no reason to do so later.

The controversy did not die that night. The Chronicle, a wag of a newspaper, seized the opportunity to portray Park's decision as the embodiment of the Southern California mentality and to show up Charlie as the sort of bounder who would willingly rob the North of its drinking water and its no-hitters. There are, the Chronicle editorialized, "dark and secret things, unrelated to reality and governed by no law of man or nature, that happen all the time in the Los Angeles Coliseum.... Whatever the explanation, the facts are intolerable to San Franciscans who regard baseball as a sane pastime, bound by logical rules, fairly imposed. They don't like to have indignities inflicted on Sam Jones' no-hitter. This is a matter of principle, not sectionalism—a moral consideration which holds that it will be a cold day in Candlestick Park when any Dodger pitcher gets closer to an official no-hitter than the Jones boy did in the Los Angeles Coliseum."

The editorial writer had no way of knowing just how many cold days there would be in Candlestick Park, because the new stadium was still under construction in 1959, a matter of no small moment then. The Giants were playing in 23,000-seat Seals Stadium in a year in which, to their considerable surprise, they found themselves pennant contenders. In late September they were leading the league by two games and facing the prospect of playing the city's first World Series in a minor league park. The Dodgers resolved this dilemma by sweeping a three-game series in San Francisco, taking the lead themselves and pressing on to whip the White Sox and become California's first world champions. The battle now was truly joined.

And so it was.  Unless you experience the rage and pain of having your hero done in by dastardly evil conspirators,  you do not know the depths to which more than a few Northern California 11 year olds are plunged that evening.  And despite the Giants second win in a row over the despicable Dodgers, our guy gets robbed of a no-hitter for all-time. 

Later that year, Sam Jones is selected for the 2nd All-Star Game.  Ironically, it is on a Monday afternoon in early August, at the LA Coliseum.  My mom’s kid sister, who had lived with us while going to school,  has married well, and her husband, a  Giants fan, arranges to fly my dad and himself to LA from the City for the day.  Jones pitches a scoreless couple of innings against the American League in traditional fashion, striking out three, walking two while allowing no runs in a loss to the American League. LA Dodger pitcher, Don Drysdale is charged with the loss so there is some solace for Giants fans.

Waiting for the return flight home in a nearby coffee shop, a number of the players are hanging around waiting for their flights.  My dad and uncle, in a booth next to Jones, get to talking to him about their respective experiences in the Army Air Force during the war. Jones has a John-Madden-like discomfort with  flying (Pops was a former bomber pilot, and Jones an earth bound enlisted airman who learned to play baseball while in the Army Air Force) so he tries to loosen Jones up with some of his wartime experiences. 

They continue the conversation on the return flight  and when they land, he offers Jones a ride, Jones having opted for a cab when he left the day before.  So as they start up the Bayshore Highway, neither knows where they are really going except in a general way. Naturally they got lost  Jones lives on some side street out in Noe Valley that my dad doesn't know as we live on the other side of Twin Peaks at the time.  So after driving around in circles for a long while following Sam's errant directions, he finally asks Sam if he could find his way home from the park.  “Oh hell yeah” Sam said and so off to 16th and Bryant they go and find Jones’ house a short time later. 

Later that evening as he tells us the story: “Out front was the most beautiful black Cadillac El Dorado Convertible he has ever seen.  It has one of those Continental Tire Kits on it and everything”  Sam asked if he could do anything for him, and my dad tells him  he had a couple of boys at home,  that are big fans of his and would sure like an autographed ball.  Sam told him: “I’ll do you one better. I'll get the whole team to sign two of them, one for each boy.  Call me in a few days when I have them,  and you can come down to the ballpark and pick them up...how would that be?”

Well, my dad figures that it is just talk and that he will never hear from Sam again.  But several days later, just before they leave on a road trip, Sam calls my dad and he goes over to Seals Stadium and gets the two balls, one for each of us. 

We hang onto them for about a year.  Not having the money for new baseballs and having them get chewed up all the time in the alley behind the house or on the blacktop at the playground, our supply of balls is always in dire straits.  One day we decide to play “catch only” with one of them and only on the grass where it won't get scuffed.  Unfortunately we forget about the grass stains and the sweaty hands of little kids smearing ink.  So needless to say, the first ball gets trashed and finds its way into our supply of “gamers”.  Before too long it is indistinguishable from all the rest of the stringy taped up orbs we keep in an old cardboard box in the basement.  I don’t even remember what happens to the second one. 

(to be continued)