Stan Musial in His Prime
Gotta Love the Peekaboo Stance
Final Regular-Season Date Highlighted By Musial, Spahn Efforts
By The Associated Press
The pennants belonged to the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. But 1963’S final day belonged to Stan Musial and Warren Spahn.
Musial finished his record-studded career with the St. Louis Cardinals Sunday the same way he started it 22 years ago, with two hits in a 3-2 victory.The Man left his 3,026th game in the sixth inning after helping the Cards to a 2-0 lead over Cincinnati. The Reds tied it in the ninth, but St. Louis won in the 14th on Dal Maxvill’s run-scoring double.
Spahn, 42, pitched a masterful four-hitter for the Milwaukee Braves in a 2-0 triumph over the Chicago Cubs, winning his 350th game and matching his best previous season’s record – 23-7. He also hit that mark in 1953.
It was a day of anticlimax for the pennant winners. The National League champion Dodgers were beaten for the third straight time by Philadelphia. 3-1, and the American League champion Yankees were rained out of their regular season finale, at New York against Minnesota.
Next on the agenda for the two champions – their eighth Word Series showdown, starting Wednesday at Yankee Stadium.
In other NL action Sunday – Felipe Alou’s three-run homer in the eighth inning carried the San Francisco Giants over Pittsburgh 4-1; and Houston’s frisky young Colts, led by 18-year-old John Paciorek in his first big league competition, belted New York’s Mets 13-4.
Elsewhere in the AL – Detroit and Cleveland both won, finishing tied for fifth, with the Tigers whipping Baltimore 7-3 and the Indians edging Kansas City 2-1 behind Jim Grant’s six-hit pitching. Washington’s tail-end Senators clouted the Chicago White Sox 9-2. The wind-up at Boston, between the Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels, was cancelled by rain.
Baltimore’s loss had an unhappy aftermath for Billy Hitchcock. He was fired after two years as manager of the Orioles after two seasons. Sam Mele was signed for another season as manager of the Minnesota Twins.
Musial, who broke in on Sept. 17, 1941 with two hits that helped St. Louis down Boston 3-2, bowed out with his last two singles.
Musial’s two hits gave him a 1963 average of .251, well below his sparkling lifetime mark of .331.
Spahn was magnificent against the Cubs, registering his 62nd career shutout. The ageless marvel finished his 18th full season with the Braves with an amazing 22 complete games, an earned run average of 2.60 and seven shutouts.
Hank Aaron hit his 44th homer in the first for Milwaukee, tying San Francisco’s Willie McCovey for the league high, and (he) scored the game’s other run in the third after a single and a steal of second.
~ Associated Press, Lebanon (PA) Daily News, September 30, 1963, Page 15
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Memory Joggers
That last day Houston Colt .45s rout of the New York Mets by 13-4 is forever characterize by the 3 for 3, 4 runs scored, and 3 RBI of 18-year-od rookie John Paciorek. Because of a back injury, Paciorek’s first MLB game of September 29, 1963 turned out to be his only appearance in a big league game, thus, forcing the disappointed young man to retire from active play wih a 1.000 career batting average.
1963 was also the year that Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers swept the Yankees in the World Series, four games to none.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
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