When you pray, pray; when you play, play

Now we know where the blame for the Phillies 1964 collapse lies.

The ball club was leading the National League by 6.5 games with a dozen left to play. The team was so confident, they printed their World Series tickets. Remember this was back in the day when there were no divisions, just the NL and AL pennant winners; kids, ask you parents.

Manager Gene Mauch pitching his staff into the ground, throwing his veterans on three and even two days’ rest rather than entrust the responsibility to his younger players. Sure enough, this was one of the all-time monumental falls to earth in sports history. At least until the 2007 and 2008 Mets pretty much mirrored the feat.

But it wasn’t really Mauch’s fault. It was David Bedein.

Who, you ask? Bedein, the Middle East correspondent for the Philadelphia Bulletin, writes in this mea culpa that it’s just as much on him. Had he been a good boy in 1964, had he just stayed in shul on Rosh Hashana instead on sneaking out out to Connie Mack Stadium to watch the Phils play the lowly Mets, all would have been right with the world.

But the Lord punished him. The Phils lost that game, and according to the writer, that began the downward spiral.

Problem is, like Moose Skowron of old, Mr. Bedein is a little mixed up on the facts.

The second day of Rosh Hashana in 1964 was Tuesday, Sept. 8, according to Hebcal.com. According to Retrosheet, the Sept. 8 game was against the Dodgers, not the Mets. And at that date there were still more than 20 games to go, not the final 12.  (Curse you, Rob Neyer).

I’ll give Bedein a pass on Frank Thomas’ broken thumb in the fifth inning, although it seems to have happened in the fourth.

Note: Bedein addressed the time-frame snafu in response to an email:

My memory was that they were playing the mets [sic] and that this was the beginning of the end. What you are reporting to me is that the end of the Phillies began on about Yom Kippur, which is the real Day of Judgment.

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Kaplan’s Korner on Jews and Sports © 2009 New Jersey Jewish News

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