On June 18, 1972, colorful Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley holds baseball’s first ever “Mustache Day.” Finley agrees to pay $300 to each of his players for growing mustaches by Father’s Day and all do except Vida Blue, who is still bitter about his recent contract negotiations with the team owner. Reggie Jackson had started…
1972 – Jerry Reuss allows only a ninth-inning double to Larry Bowa in a 10-0, one-hit victory over Philadelphia . Cesar Cedeno paces the attack with four hits, including two doubles and a homer. Bob Watson collects three hits and drives in four.
1972 – Jim Wynn belts a solo shot off Dick Selma in the bottom of the eleventh to stun the Phillies, 1-0. Houston outlasts eventual Cy Young Award winner Steve Carlton, who blanked them on six hits for the first ten frames. Don Wilson and Tom Griffin team for the shutout.
6/14/1972: Matty Alou of St. Louis homered off LA’s Don Sutton in the third inning. It came with no one on and one out, but was rained out at Busch Stadium.
Graig and Jim Nettles become the tenth different pair of brothers to homer in the same game when they both go deep in the Cleveland Stadium contest. Twins center fielder Jim’s solo shot in the top of the sixth inning is matched by his older brother’s blast in the bottom of the seventh in Minnesota’s 5-3 victory over the Indians.
On June 11, 1972 Jim Qualls is sold by the White Sox to the Kintetsu Buffaloes of the Japanese League.
On June 11, 1972 In Montreal‚ the Reds conclude their 12-game road trip with their 11th win‚ an 11 – 1 pasting behind the pitching of Gary Nolan (8-1). The Expos’ only score is a Ken Singleton homer. The Reds will go 53-25 this year on the road.
On June 11, 1972 Roberto Clemente’s two-out, two-strike, two-run bomb breaks a 4 – 4 tie in the 7th. His two-out, 9th-inning single provides insurance for Pittsburgh’s 7 – 5 win. Los Angeles’s first four runs score by way of three long balls, two of them inside the park, courtesy of Manny Mota and Willie…
On June 10, 1972 Hank Aaron’s grand slam helps the Atlanta Braves to a 15 – 3 rout of the Phillies. It is Aaron’s 649th home run, moving him ahead of Willie Mays into second place on the career list. It is also his 14th grand slam, tying Gil Hodges’ National League record. Aaron will now by just 65 shy of Babe Ruth’s total.
6/9/1972 – The Braves Marty Perez made the last out of the top of the sixth, but he came up to start the seventh. Phillies catcher Tim McCarver proved to be too clever as he pointed out the incorrect batter to the home plate umpire after the first pitch, which was a ball. He did not realize that until the incorrect batter’s plate appearance is over, the team can replace that batter with the proper one or a pinch hitter. The Braves sent up Jim Breazeale in place of Perez as a pinch hitter for the pitcher, who was the correct batter. Breazeale inherited a 1-0 count, but struck out. This was not the first time a team did not understand the rules in order to take advantage of them. If Perez had finished his at bat and made an out, the Phillies could have accepted the play. Most likely Breazeale would have come up as a pinch hitter, which would have been correct since the Perez play would have reset the lineup. The effect would have been to have Perez, a “good field, no hit” shortstop bat an extra time, which would have delayed the top of the order coming up by a batter. It turned out not to matter since the Braves did not score in the last three innings and the Phillies won the game 4-3 with a run in the bottom of the eighth.
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