The Pirates and Giants trade infielders, Dick Schofield going to San Francisco and Jose Pagan to Pittsburgh. The Pirates come out ahead on the trade as Pagan will spend seven years with the Bucs.
Baltimore edges the Twins, 6 – 5, scoring two runs in the 9th for the victory. Twins reliever Gerry Arrigo allows a two-out home run to Sam Bowens, his second home run of the game, then throws three balls to John Orsino before being lifted for Bill Fischer. Fischer throws a strike to Orsino who then hits his next pitch for the winning home run. It is Fischer’s last major league game: on the 24th he is placed on the voluntarily retired list.
May 22, 1963 San Francisco Giants first baseman Orlando Cepeda files a libel lawsuit for $1M against Look Magazine charging he was “Defamed,” The article said that Cepeda’s name had a sale tag on it; that ‘it is astonishing that Cepeda, power hitter and slick fielder on a pennant winner, should be considered expendable’; that…
At Yankee Stadium, New York blows a 7 – 0 lead and allows Kansas City to tie the game and send it into extra innings. Mickey Mantle, leading off the 11th, is fooled by Bill Fischer on a slow curve, then cannons a 2 – 2 pitch that almost clears the RF roof. “The hardest ball I ever hit,” Mantle later comments, a ball that, by some accounts, is still rising when it strikes a foot below the top. It is conservatively estimated by Dr. James McDonald, a physicist who studies long-ball trajectories, that the ball would have traveled 620 feet if it had not struck the façade. “That was the only homer I ever hit that the bat actually bent in my hands,” Mantle tells Dale Long, from whom he borrowed the bat.
The all-time shortest managerial career ends after one game – a loss – when Eddie Yost, who replaced Mickey Vernon (14-26) as the Senators’ pilot, is replaced by Gil Hodges. Hodges was acquired today from the Mets, who receive veteran Jimmy Piersall in return.
Los Angeles’s Don Drysdale beats the Mets, 7 – 3, on two hits – homers by Duke Snider and Tim Harkness.
On May 22, 1962, New York Yankees slugger Roger Maris receives four intentional walks during a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels. The four intentional free passes set a new American League record. In 1961, Maris had blasted 61 home runs – a major league record.
Roger Maris is intentionally walked four times to establish a major league record. The quartet of free passes is issued by four different Halo hurlers in New York’s’ 2-1 victory over the Angels in 12 innings at Yankee Stadium.
Roger Maris, who went all of 1961 without receiving an intentional walk, gets four in a 12-inning, 2 – 1 win against the Angels to set an American League record. Maris receives five walks in all. Four Yankee pitchers (Whitey Ford, Jim Coates, Bud Daley and Bob Turley) combine to give up just one hit in 12 innings. Ford leaves after seven innings because of back spasms, and Coates gives up the lone hit, a one-out 9th-inning single to Buck Rodgers.
With Rocky Colavito on the bench because of poor hitting, the Tigers sweep the visiting Red Sox, 6 – 2 and 5 – 2. Boston has now lost nine straight and will extend that to 10 games before winning. Jim Bunning and Hank Aguirre notch the wins, as the Hubmen strand 15 runners in the nitecap.
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