Top 10 Surprises In New Book ‘Diamond Duels’

By John Nogowski                                 

When you’ve followed Major League Baseball for 60 years and had a son who made it to the majors, you’d think you might have about seen or read it all. And you would be wrong. 

“Diamond Duels,” published by Lyons Press on March 4, takes a deep dive into baseball’s historic pitcher-hitter matchups. In researching the book, it seemed as if there were surprises just about every day. 

Here are my top 10 surprises I found in writing and researching “Diamond Duels.” But there are plenty more!

(1) Stan Musial and Warren Spahn faced off 356 times over their 20-year careers. Musial hit .321 with 15 home runs, the most he hit off any pitcher. By way of comparison, Derek Jeter in his 20-year career had more than 100 at-bats against just three pitchers: Roy Halladay, James Shields and Tim Wakefield.

(2) Whitey Ford made 73 lifetime starts against the Chicago White Sox but just 42 against the Boston Red Sox. In some seasons, he never started a game at Boston. He was 7-6 lifetime with a 6.16 ERA at Fenway Park.

(3) In 1947, Ted Williams won his second Triple Crown (.342, 42 homers, 114 RBIs) but lost the MVP to Joe DiMaggio (.315, 20, 97). Yankees reliever Joe Page (14 wins in relief) got seven first-place votes that year. Williams got just three.

(4) Duke Snider hit 19 home runs off Robin Roberts, the most by one player off of one pitcher. Willie Mays was next with 18 off Warren Spahn, including his first.

(5) Hank Aaron started his career 1-for-23 against Don Drysdale. He wound up hitting 17 home runs off him, the most he hit off any pitcher, and batted .292 after that rough start.

(6) In 1999, Pedro Martinez allowed just nine home runs, posting a 25-4 record with a 2.07 ERA, 313 strikeouts and just 160 hits allowed in 213.1 innings.

(7) Mickey Mantle didn’t hit doubles. Mantle’s doubles totals from 1960 to 1966 were 17, 16, 15, 8, 25, 12 and 12. Over the same span, American League contemporary Al Kaline hit 29, 41, 16, 24, 31, 18 and 29. In that six-year span, Kaline hit 188 doubles to Mantle’s 105.

(8) Christy Mathewson covered the 1919 World Series—infamous for the Black Sox betting scandal—for the New York Times and kept a separate scorecard with sportswriter Hugh Fullerton to mark questionable plays. Yet he pooh-poohed talk of a fixed Series in his articles. Later, Mathewson’s roommate Rube Marquard said Mathewson had a gambling problem. “I’ve seen him lose as much as $7,000 to $8,000 in a night,” said Marquard, who was Giants teammates with Mathewson from 1908 to 1915.

(9) Pete Rose versus Hall of Famers: Warren Spahn (.531), Jim Kaat (.361), Juan Marichal (.342), Don Sutton (.339), Don Drysdale (.328), Jim Bunning (.318), Ferguson Jenkins (.316), Bob Gibson (.307) and Gaylord Perry (.304).

(10) Barry Bonds hit the most game-tying home runs in baseball history with 87. Hank Aaron was next with 79. Rafael Palmeiro was third with 70.