On September 17, 1964, I turned twenty-seven years old. I had hit .300 or better six of my seven major league seasons. I already had 222 home runs, an average of more than 30 per year. There probably would have been more had it not been for the winds and chill of Candlestick Park. Bob Stevens, who covered the Giants for many years, pointed this fact out during batting practice recently. Mays, McCovey, and I, all of us, could have added about sixty more career home runs playing in another ballpark.

But 1963 and 1964 had taken a huge toll on my injured knee. When I went to Puerto Rico after the 1964 season, the knee got so bad that I had to fly to New York to have it looked at. That's when the doctors decided I had to have surgery. I had the operation in the winter of 1964. In 1965 I was in such bad shape that I missed almost the entire year.

But a lot had happened. Alvin Dark was fired by the Giants after the 1964 season. The big rap against him was that he not only divided the team along racial and ethnic lines but that he had done everything possible to exacerbate the problem.

He had told a Newsday columnist earlier that year that he was having trouble with the club because there were too many black and Latin players on the team. He said that the Negro and Latin players did not have the same pride as the white players, that we were not able to perform with the same mental alertness as the whites.

There was also another factor. With all our talent, except for our pennant-winning year in 1962, we'd never finished above third place. On paper we were the best team in the National League.

In 1963 we finished in third with a record of 88-74. We were 11 games behind the Dodgers and just a game in front of the fourth-place Phillies. We were a powerhouse, with five players hitting twenty or more homers. McCovey hit 44 home runs, Mays hit 38, and I hit 34. Ed Bailey hit 21, and Felipe chipped in with 20. As a team, we hit 197 home runs, 58 more than the Milwaukee Braves who were next in line.

Although the Dodgers pitching staff was outstanding, we had good pitching ourselves. Juan Marichal topped the league with a 25-8 record. Jack Sanford was 16-13, Billy O'Dell 14-10, and Bob Bolin 10-6. Mike McCormick and Stu Miller had been traded to the Baltimore Orioles. Stu promptly led the American League's best relief pitchers for a number of years.

Mike, who won 51 games for us before he turned twenty-four, hurt his arm and was shipped off to Baltimore as damaged goods. After four years in the American League, he came back to the Giants in 1967, led the league with 22 wins, and was the National League's Cy Young winner. A great comeback for a great guy.

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