DARK DID A JOB - WITH NO COMPLAINTS
The greatest comeback in baseball history appeared to have been for naught.
The New York Giants, 13 1/2 games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers in mid-August, had rallied to tie for 1951 National League pennant, then split the first two games of their best-of-three playoff series.
But going into the bottom of the ninth at the Polo Grounds, the Dodgers were leading 4-1. It was a moment of high drama - but not to Giants shortstep Alvin Dark, who would lead off the inning.
"You can't go up to the plate thinking about what's happened before or what's going to happen if you do or don't do something," Dark said. "You just take each atbat as it comes and try to do your best.
"I was just trying to get the bat on the ball."
Dark did, slkapping an 0-2 pitch from Don Newcombe into right field.
What followed ranks in the top echelon of baseball lore.
Don Mueller followed with another single to right. Monty Irvin popped out, but Whitey Lockman doubled down the right-field line, driving in Dark.
Ralph Branca came in to pitch to Bobby Thompson, who popped an 0-1 fastball into the lower d eck in left field giving the New York a stunning 5-4 victory and the pennant with "The shot heard round the world."
"We might have won even if I hadn't gotten that leadoff hit," Dark said. "But I've never dwelt on that. It was just a day I did my job and things turned out right."
Just doing his job was something Dark excelled at throughout a solid 14-year career during which he played for five teams.
Dark went directly from playing to managing, guiding five teams through a sometimes stormy but overall success 13 seasons. His 1962 San Francisco Giants took the New York Yankees to seven games before losing, and his 1974 Oakland A's won the World Series.
"I was very fortunate," said Dark, who grew up in Lake Charles and excelled in baseball, basketball and football at LSU before going into the Marines in World War II. "I was in the big leagues for 28 years. I was around great tams and great people.
"There are absolutely no regrets."
Dark seemed destined for athletic greatness from the start.
An Oakland-born sonof an oilfield worker who moved to Lake Charles when Alvin was 8, Dark's earliest baseball lessons were from his father.
"My dad had played semipro ball, and when I was 10, he started buying equipment for me - bats and balls, footballs and basketballs.
"My first love was football, but Dad wanted me to be a baseball player. When he would knock off work in the evenings, he would make me play ball."
The war ended Dark's college career, but baseball hadn't forgotten him. In 1946, he signed with the Boston Braves for a $50,000 bonus. Dark made to the majors at the end of that season, appearing in 15 games.
He was back to stay in 1948, batting .322 (fourth best in the National League) and helping the Braves to their first pennant since 1914. Dark was the NL Rookie of the Year.
The .322 average was the highest of Dark's career.
"I didn't think much about it at the time," he said. "I had always hit .300 and thought I'd probably be doing it forever. Now I realize how special that was."
That was also the beginning of Dark's relationship with second baseman Eddie Stanky. They seemed oddly matched -- the Bible-quoting Dark and the pugnacious Stanky, aptly nicknamed "The Brat."
But they spent four years as teammates and roommates. Dark called Stanky his idol.
"Eddie was the perfect roommate," Dark said. "He loved baseball, movies and eating, just like me. Neither one of us drank.
"After a game, we'd go back to our hotel room, take our shoes off and talk baseball."
Two years after the Braves won the pennant, the Giants traded four players for Dark and Stanky, completing the foundation for their championship run in 1951.
Those were glory days for baseball. There were 16 teams in the majors, but integration of the game had brought in a tremendous influx of previously unavailable talent from the Negro Leagues. And it was a time of great rivalries -- particularly between the Giants and the Dodgers.
"All you thought about was winning," Dark said. "You could have three hits, but if your team didn't win that day, it didn't mean anything.
"There was tremendous competition just to stay in the majors, too. One year I was hitting .252 at the All-Star break, and I was having nightmares about being sent down. This was after I had played in a couple of All-Star games. You always hustled, because if you didn't, there was some guy down in the minors ready to take your place."
The Giants again made it to the World Series in 1954, this time sweeping the Cleveland Indians in four games. Dark hit .412 in the Series.
Dark was traded to St. Louis in 1956, to Chicago in 1958 and to Philadelphia in 1960, winding up the season and his career with the Phillies.
"Every player would like to stay with one organization, but I was always traded because the other club wanted me, not because I had worn out my welcome Where I was," Dark said. "I never took it personally."
Playing shortstop, Dark said, had prepared him well to be a manager.
"When you're playing shortstop, you're involved in every pitch," he said. "You know what the catcher is trying to do. You know what the pitcher is trying to do. You're involved in the relays and cutoffs. You're getting the knowledge a manager needs without realizing it."
Dark also said he was fortunate to be around some of the best baseball minds of his era. "Billy Southworth (Braves) was an excellent manager," Dark said. "Freddie Hutchinson (Cardinals) knew how to handle pitchers. Charlie Dressen (Braves) knew how to handle players, and Leo Durocher (Giants) just knew how to win games. I learned from them all."
Dark would manage the Giants, the A's, the Indians, the A's again and the Padres. He was fired from the Padres during spring training of 1978, finishing with a record of 994-954.
Now retired and living in Easley, S.C., Dark spends his days playing golf, speaking to church groups and appearing at card shows and old-timers games.
"Life is very satisfying," Dark said. "Like I said -- there are no complaints."
The Alvin Dark file
Comanche, Okla. Moved to
Lake Charles at age 11
Resides: In Easley, S.C.
Years in Majors: 14
Position: shortstop
Games: 1,828
BA: .289
Hits: 2,089
RBI: 757
HR: 126
Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA)
Author: Ted Lewis Staff writer
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Lost and Found Alvin Darks 1944 Baseball Stats at UL
