1963: ROGER CRAIG

Chapter 4

Roger Craig was not a horrible pitcher or even a moderately bad pitcher. In fact, he was a rather good moundsman, even by the most arduous big-league standards. In truth, he was so good that he was able to earn a rare opportunity to hang around in the big time long enough to seize a chance at some memorable feats of record-setting futility. With the Brooklyn Dodgers, Craig had been a most effective role player as part-time starter and rugged bullpen fixture. He twice won in double figures, once in Brooklyn and again in Los Angeles, and also posted an important Game 5 World Series win that launched the Brooklyn team toward its only championship.

But pitching for the "Boys of Summer" in Ebbets Field or the LA Coliseum was a far cry from toiling for an expansion train wreck of a team in the Polo Grounds. The Mets' biggest loser reached his full momentum in the team's second season, not an easy feat, since he had already lost 24 times and paced the league in humiliation during the team's inaugural outing. Craig had lost big in 1962, but he would lose bigger still, once some of the first-year hitting (in the form of Richie Ashburn, Gil Hodges, and a still-productive Frank Thomas) was taken out of the New York lineup. Before the '63 summer progressed far, the Mets' "ace" found himself in the midst of a losing streak that began to draw national attention as it reached record proportions. The string began with a horrible outing on May 4, during which the Giants drubbed the Polo Grounders 17-4. From that point on, Craig didn't pitch nearly as ineffectively, but the string of defeats eventually stretched through 17 more games. Craig couldn't win, simply because he couldn't shut down the opposition completely every time out of the box. His own team only averaged a piddling 1.6 runs per outing for the luckless Craig. Eight times he lost to an opposing pitcher's shutout. When the string reached 18, he had finally tied the National League record set by Boston's Cliff Curtis way back in 1910. Craig was also now only one loss shy of the major league mark set by Jack Nabors of the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics.

But this was one standard for epic futility that the Mets would not be destined to collect. Craig changed his uniform to "unlucky" No. 13 for the August 9 encounter with the Chicago Cubs, and the well-chosen symbol of reverse luck may have been his first stroke of good fortune all summer long. The ninth of August was apparently destined to finally be Craig's night, but no Mets victory that year would ever come easily. The weary New York staff ace was handed an early lead and once more struggled gamely to hold onto a 3-3 tie going into the ninth frame. Then in the bottom of the final inning, Lady Luck at last turned another cheek. The Mets loaded the bases, the final runner reaching on a walk to Tim Harkness, who had pinch hit for an exhausted and arm-weary Roger Craig. Jim Hickman would now have to deliver if Craig was to gain a decision in one of his ripest chances at victory all summer. Hickman promptly lifted a fly ball that barely nicked the left-field upper-deck overhang for an improbable grand slam. The suddenly lucky hurler raced from the dugout to personally direct each runner around the basepaths, making sure that no sacks were somehow missed. (No precaution was too great when the Mets were on the field!) Craig later commented to surrounding media in the joyous Mets clubhouse that the rare win indeed felt just like any earlier World Series victory with the proud Brooklyn Dodgers.