1964 in baseball


Champions

Major League Baseball

Major league baseball final standings

American League final standings

National League final standings

Nippon Professional Baseball final standings

Central League final standings

Pacific League final standings

Events

January

  • January 3 – The Cincinnati Reds announce that manager Fred Hutchinson, 44, has contracted lung cancer. He will begin two months of radiology treatment in Seattle and will make spring training with the team.
  • January 6:
  • *Owner Charlie Finley signs a two-year pact to move his Athletics‚ pending American League approval‚ from Kansas City, Missouri to Louisville, Kentucky.
  • *The Chicago White Sox introduce their new powder-blue road uniforms.
  • January 9 – The Philadelphia Phillies release first baseman Frank Torre.
  • January 14 – The Pittsburgh Pirates sign pitcher Dock Ellis as a free agent.
  • January 15 – Willie Mays‚ the highest-paid player in baseball‚ signs a $105‚000 contract with the Giants.
  • January 16 – American League owners vote 9–1 against Charlie Finley's attempt to move his club to Louisville. Finley is given an ultimatum to sign a lease in Kansas City or lose his franchise.
  • January 20 – The Houston Colt.45s acquire veteran shortstop Eddie Kasko from the Cincinnati Reds for pitchers Jim Dickson and Wally Wolf, plus cash considerations.
  • January 28 – Cincinnati center fielder Vada Pinson is cleared of assault charges stemming from a September 5‚ 1963 incident when local sportswriter Earl Lawson does not pursue charges further.
  • January 29 – Pitcher-author Jim Brosnan is given permission by the Chicago White Sox to make his own deal with another team. His in-season writing has been censured by Sox general manager Ed Short.
  • January 30 – The United States Senate Subcommittee on Monopolies begins hearings on baseball.

    February

  • February 2 – Red Faber, Burleigh Grimes, Tim Keefe, Heinie Manush, John Montgomery Ward, and Miller Huggins are elected to the Hall of Fame by the Special Veterans Committee.
  • February 13 – Chicago Cubs second baseman Ken Hubbs, National League Rookie of the Year and Gold Glove winner, is killed in the crash of his private plane.
  • February 17:
  • *Former Chicago White Sox shortstop Luke Appling is selected to the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers' Association of America in a runoff election. In, the first year of eligibility for Appling, he received just two votes.
  • *The St. Louis Cardinals reacquire outfielder Carl Warwick from the Houston Colt.45s for pitcher Chuck Taylor and outfielder Jim Beauchamp. Warwick will help the Redbirds win the 1964 World Series, setting a Fall Classic record for reaching first base consecutively as a pinch hitter.

    March

  • March 18 – Bolstering their bullpen, the Chicago White Sox acquire 35-year-old left-hander Don Mossi from the Detroit Tigers in a cash transaction.
  • March 22 – The Milwaukee Braves sign outfielder Cito Gaston as an amateur free agent.
  • March 23:
  • *Finally, Charlie Finley gives in to American League pressure and signs a four-year lease with the municipal government to keep the Athletics in Kansas City. Finley wanted a two-year deal. His exasperated AL colleagues voted 9–1 that KC's offer was reasonable.
  • *The San Francisco Giants sign pitcher Masanori Murakami‚ third baseman Tatsuhiko Tanaka‚ and catcher Hiroshi Takahashi, the first Japanese ballplayers ever to play for American teams. Murakami played for the Fresno Giants and later the MLB Giants, while Tanaka and Takahashi played for the Magic Valley Cowboys.
  • March 31:
  • *The Washington Senators acquire pitcher Buster Narum from the Baltimore Orioles for a "player to be named later"/PTBNL, who turns out to be 20-year-old outfield prospect Lou Piniella.
  • *The Chicago White Sox sell the contract of pitcher Mike Joyce to the New York Mets.

    April

  • April 1 – Cleveland Indians manager Birdie Tebbetts suffers a heart attack. Third-base coach George Strickland will fill in for three months until the 51-year old skipper returns to the team with limited duties.
  • April 8 – Houston Colt.45s relief pitcher Jim Umbricht dies of cancer at the age of 33. In 1965, the franchise will retire his uniform number 32.
  • April 9:
  • *The Los Angeles Dodgers acquire well-traveled minor-league outfielder Lou Johnson from the Detroit Tigers' organization for relief pitcher and 1959 World Series hero Larry Sherry. Detroit even sends the Dodgers $10,000 in cash to sweeten the deal. To this point in his 12-season professional baseball career, Johnson, 29, has appeared in only 96 MLB games. But he will be recalled to the Dodgers in May 1965 to replace an injured Tommy Davis and help Los Angeles win two NL pennants and the 1965 World Series.
  • *To the chagrin of special consultant Branch Rickey, the St. Louis Cardinals trade Jimmie Coker and Gary Kolb to the Milwaukee Braves for reserve catcher Bob Uecker. After introducing himself, the Redbirds' new backstop is quickly informed by Rickey. "I didn't want you. I wouldn't trade one Gary Kolb for a hundred Bob Ueckers".
  • April 10 – Demolition of the Polo Grounds in Manhattan begins, using the same wrecking ball that demolished Ebbets Field in Brooklyn four years earlier.
  • April 13:
  • *Lyndon Johnson, the 36th U.S. President, throws out the ceremonial first pitch in 1964's traditional Presidential Opener before 40,145 at District of Columbia Stadium. The home-standing Washington Senators can muster only one hit, a third inning double by Claude Osteen, off Ken McBride and Julio Navarro, and fall to the Los Angeles Angels 4–0.
  • *After beating the Reds 6–3 in the traditional home opener in Cincinnati, the Houston Colt.45s sit in first place in the National League for the only time under their original nickname. The next year the Colt.45s are renamed the Astros, to reflect Houston's status as the home of the NASA space program.
  • April 14:
  • *Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers goes all the way in his only Opening Day start, allowing no walks and beating the visiting St. Louis Cardinals, 4–0. Frank Howard homers for the Dodgers.
  • *Meanwhile, the New York Mets sell the contract of 1950s Dodger legend Duke Snider, 37, to the San Francisco Giants. Snider will spend the last year of his 18-season, Hall-of-Fame MLB career with the arch-rival Giants, batting.210 largely as a pinch hitter.
  • April 17 – The Mets play their first game at brand-new Shea Stadium and lose 4–3 to the Pittsburgh Pirates before 48,736. Willie Stargell hits the first home run in the stadium's history, a second-inning solo shot off the Mets' Jack Fisher. In the first-ever "Kiner's Korner" from Shea, Ralph Kiner's guest is Casey Stengel. Two days later, the Mets win their first of 1,859 victories stadium when they beat the Pirates 6–0 behind Al Jackson's six-hitter.
  • April 21 – The Philadelphia Phillies purchase the contract of veteran relief pitcher Ed Roebuck from the Washington Senators. Roebuck, 32, will bolster the Phils' bullpen this season, working in 60 games and posting a 5–3 record with 12 saves.
  • April 23:
  • *At Colt Stadium, Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt.45s no-hits his former team, the Cincinnati Reds, but loses 1–0. Two ninth-inning errors allow the Reds to score the game's lone run: a two-base throwing error by Johnson himself on Pete Rose's ground ball, and the second by Nellie Fox on Vada Pinson's grounder, which scores Rose. To date, the game is the only one in Major League history whose losing pitcher had pitched a nine-inning no-hitter. The no-hitter is the first of three in MLB this season—all of them thrown by National League hurlers.
  • *The New York Mets pick up third baseman Charley Smith, 26, from the Chicago White Sox for shortstop Humberto "Chico" Fernández, minor-league catcher Bobby Catton, and cash.
  • April 24 – Willie Mays reaches base five times in five plate appearances—two singles, two bases on balls, and a solo homer—and scores five runs in the San Francisco Giants' 15–5 romp over the Reds at Crosley Field.
  • April 28 – The Los Angeles Angels acquire left-handed pitcher Willie Smith from the Detroit Tigers for right-hander Julio Navarro. An exceptional hitter among pitchers, Smith, 25, will become a full-time outfielder by mid-June to get his bat into the Angel lineup; he'll post a.301 batting average, best among the team's regulars, with 108 hits this season and remain a valuable outfielder and pinch hitter for the rest of his MLB career.

    May

  • May 2 – The Minnesota Twins become the third club in MLB history to hit four consecutive home runs in the same inning, as Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall and Harmon Killebrew go deep in the top of the 11th inning in a 7–3 victory against the Kansas City Athletics. The Twins also become the first team to hit at least three consecutive home runs in an extra innings game. The Twins' six homers on the day are the most by a big-league team in one game in 1964.
  • May 5 – Rookie right-hander Wally Bunker of the Baltimore Orioles pitches a one-hitter in the first start and second-ever appearance of his MLB career, defeating the Washington Senators 2–1 at Memorial Stadium. The Senators' lone hit belongs to Chuck Hinton, in the fourth inning, when Washington scores its lone run on an RBI groundout by Bill Skowron. Bunker, 19, will throw another one-hitter on July 3 against Kansas City, authoring two of MLB's 15 one-hit complete games of 1964. He is en route to a 19–5 freshman campaign and a second-place finish in the American League Rookie of the Year voting.
  • May 6 – Dave Nicholson of the Chicago White Sox hits a home run off of Athletics' pitcher Moe Drabowsky which either bounces atop and over the left-field roof of Comiskey Park or is said to have entirely cleared it. The home run is officially measured at 573 feet, one of baseball's longest of all time.
  • May 8 – The Milwaukee Braves trade veteran shortstop Roy McMillan, 34, a three-time former Gold Glove Award winner, to the New York Mets for pitcher Jay Hook and outfielder Adrian Garrett.
  • May 12 – The Braves release outfielder Gus Bell, 35, a four-time former NL All-Star and 15-year veteran.
  • May 26:
  • *Journeyman outfielder Jim King of the Washington Senators becomes the first of four major-leaguers to hit for the cycle in 1964; however, Washington falls to the Boston Red Sox 3–2 at Fenway Park. The Red Sox' starting pitcher, Earl Wilson, pitches a complete game win despite King's achievement.
  • *The New York Mets find themselves on the right side of a "laugher," humbling the Chicago Cubs 19–1 at Wrigley Field. Their 23 hits and 19 runs set MLB team highs for 1964, while their victory margin is the greatest to date in the club's two-plus year history.
  • May 31 – The second game of a doubleheader at Shea Stadium between the Mets and San Francisco Giants lasts 23 innings and an MLB-record seven hours and 23 minutes. The Giants eventually win it 8–6, on a two-run double by pinch hitter Del Crandall. The winning pitcher is future Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry, who throws ten shutout innings of relief. The doubleheader clocks in at nine hours, 52 minutes of play—also the longest in MLB annals.