BASEBALL—NATIONAL LEAGUE PLAYOFF between San Francisco and Los Angeles turned into a poor man's copy of the 1951 playoff, when Bobby Thomson's homer capped a four-run ninth-inning rally by the Giants. This year the Giants won the same way—coming from behind with four runs in the ninth—but instead of a homer, walks and an error by the sluggish Dodgers made the difference. San Francisco won this deciding game 6-4. Earlier they had taken the opener 8-0, behind three-hit pitching by Billy Pierce and two home runs by Willie Mays that brought his total for the season to 49, high in the majors. The second game went to Los Angeles 8-7. During the playoff, Maury Wills stole four bases to run his season record total to 104.
World series (see page 16) was first between Yankees and Giants since 1951 when travel was across the Harlem River instead of cross-country. The perennial Series hero, Whitey Ford, won the opener 6-2 for New York in Candlestick Park, but the Giants took the second 2-0. Back home, the Yanks won the third game 3-2 but lost the fourth 7-3 to leave things at 2-2.
Little world series between Class AAA minor league playoff winners went to International League's Atlanta, four games to three, when the Crackers took an unprecedented Series doubleheader from American Association's Louisville club.
BOATING—PALAWAN, skippered by Thomas J. Watson Jr., energetic president of IBM, led a wind-battered fleet to the finish of a rough 64-mile Stratford Shoal race, the final event on the Long Island racing calendar. The 54-foot sloop held her winning lead on corrected time as well, but official victory was withheld pending a protest hearing.
BOXING—EMILE GRIFFITH, appearing at Madison Square Garden for the first time since his fatal knockout of Benny (Kid) Paret, superstitiously chose a different corner, and then outboxed Don Fullmer through 10 dreary rounds.
Raymundo Torres, with five straight knockouts behind him, met former world welterweight champion Don Jordan, who had lost seven in a row, in a Los Angeles mishmash that was all too reminiscent of another recent fight. Torres floored Jordan at 2:18 of the first round. The event's most exciting moment came when officials stepped into the ring, declared the fight "no decision" and told a booing crowd that the purse would be held up pending an investigation. Later, officials released Torres' share and suspended Jordan, a key figure in Gambler Frankie Carbo's trial last year, for a poor performance. "I didn't see a punch," snapped Referee Jimmy Wilson.
FOOTBALL—NFL: WASHINGTON clung even tighter to the top of the Eastern Division and shoved still winless Los Angeles down even more as the Redskins beat the Rams 20-14 in Washington (see page 61). With three wins, the rebuilt Redskins now have won more games than in the past two seasons combined. In a battle of the Western Division leaders. Green Bay's Paul Hornung kicked the deciding 21-yard field goal against Detroit as the final seconds ticked off. Hornung, scoring leader of the league (55 points), also kicked two other field goals—the Packers didn't get a touchdown but won 9-7 in a cold rain in Green Bay, Wis. The New York defense yielded two touchdowns to St. Louis, but Quarterback Y. A. Tittle passed for one, set up another and finally ran 21 yards for a third as the Giants overcame the fitful Cardinals 31-14 in St. Louis. A 50-yard scoring pass from Quarterback Jim Ninowski to Fullback Jim Brown in the last quarter pulled the Browns to a 19-10 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in Cleveland. On Lou Groza Day there, the man of the afternoon kicked two field goals (35 and 42 yards) and added a point after touchdown to take the alltime NFL scoring lead by one point from Philadelphia's Bobby Walston: 850 points in Groza's 17-year career. John Brodie's passing and Halfback J. D. Smith's running (145 yards) squashed Baltimore on its home ground as San Francisco won, 21-13. Even more squashed: Johnny Unitas, benched for the first time in his seven years as a pro. Winless Minnesota stayed so. with a 13-0 loss to Chicago on a drizzly Minneapolis afternoon, and the Steelers downed Philadelphia, 13-7, in Pittsburgh.
AFL: BOSTON beat an inept New York team, 43-14, before a meager crowd at the Polo Grounds. Standouts were the Patriots' Babe Parilli (three touchdown passes) and End Gino Cappelletti (19 points). Rookie Quarterback John Hadl did most of the work, passing for two TDs and running for one in San Diego, as the Chargers handed Dallas its first defeat, 32-28. In Denver, the Broncos overwhelmed Oakland 44-7 in a scoring explosion that featured Halfback Gene Mingo's 83-yard touchdown run. Buffalo came close to winning one in Houston, but a late Oiler rally closed the Bills out, 17-14.
GOLF—ALTHEA GIBSON, the former Wimbledon tennis champion who retired from court competition two years ago, won her first title at her new sporting interest, golf. Ignoring wind and rain at Englewood, N.J., she beat LaJunta White for the women's club championship. 2 and 1.
Augusta (GA.) National Golf Club won an international pro-am, four-ball tournament under brilliant blue skies at St. Andrews. Scotland, with a 246. two strokes better than a team from Plainfield, N.J. The field was made up of more than 100 country-club golfers, who went with their club pros on a golf tour of Scotland. One complaint of the Americans at St. Andrews—no electric golf carts.
HARNESS RACING—SAFE MISSION ($10.20 and $6.80), showing the same class as his sire. Triple Crown Winner Scott Frost, swept both heats of the $55,230 Kentucky Futurity at Lexington, Ky., the year's last major event for 3-year-old trotters. In winning, the delicate-footed Safe Mission foiled A.C.'s Viking's bid for the Triple Crown. He was never in contention, finishing fourth and third. Driver Joe O'Brien kept the California entry (S.A. Camp Farm, in Shafter) just off the pace in both heats before urging the carefully nurtured trotter into winning dashes through the stretch.
HORSE RACING—CAIN HOY STABLE had two quick winners in pig weekday races as Belmont Park opened its autumn racing season. NEVER BEND ($3.80) was the best 2-year-old in the $71,175 Cowdin Stakes. He moved up well through a 12-horse field, catching the leaders in the stretch and going on to a three-length victory over Valiant Skoal. The win was momentarily marred by a protest—Never Bend's third straight legal involvement. Another of Captain Harry F. Guggenheim's Thoroughbreds, BATTLE JOINED ($5.50), wiggled through a bunched pack in the stretch to win the $57,300 Lawrence Realization by two lengths over Ogden Phipps's Comic. Manuel Ycaza, who rode both winners, added still another during the week. He led PAMS EGO ($26) to victory in the rich $110,500 Frizettc Stakes for 2-year-old fillies by taking advantage of a tiring duel between the early leaders, Affectionately and Smart Deb, who finished third and sixth.
Soltikoff, a 40-to-1 shot in the 24-horse field, led a French sweep of the first five places in the $228,010 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Europe's richest race, in Paris. American hopeful. Carry Back, never in contention, finished 10th (see page 22).
MOTOR SPORTS—JIMMY CLARK, Scottish driver who races a green English Lotus, smoothly sped over the curving Watkins Glen. N.Y. course at a record 108.61 mph to win the U.S. Grand Prix (see page 26). The victory brings him to within striking distance of the world driving championship.
TENNIS—SOUTH AMERICA defeated North America, 3-2, and Australia put down Europe, 3-0, in the semifinal round of the world professional championships (the Kramer Cup) in Turin, Italy as U.S. pros had no more luck than the country's Davis Cup amateurs in this year of international defeat.
TRACK & FIELD—AURELE VANDENDRIESCCHE, a little-known Belgian distance runner, stepped ahead of the pack at a Waregem, Belgium meet and flowed over a rain-soaked track to break the world 30,000-meter record. His time of 1:34:41.1 took more than a minute off Russian Albert Ivanov's five-year-old mark of 1:35:01. At the same meet TATYANA SHCHELKANOVA, the Soviet Union world champion broad jumper, added 3½ inches to her world record with a leap of 21 feet 8½ inches.
MILEPOSTS—OFFERED: ONE MILLION DOLLARS for the Toronto Maple Leafs' big (6-feet 1-inch), bulky (200 pounds), goal-hungry (33 last year). Left Wing Frank Mahovlich, by James D. Norris, owner of the Chicago Black Hawks. Although he made the offer to Leaf President Stafford Smythe at a Toronto party, Norris promptly followed up with a check that, if accepted, would be the highest price ever paid for any athlete.
SHUFFLED: IN BASEBALL MANAGERIAL SWITCHES—George Robert (Birdie) Tebbetts, from manager of the Milwaukee Braves to manager of the Cleveland Indians; Johnny Pesky, 43, former peppery Red Sox shortstop, from minor league Seattle where he guided a Boston farm team, to manager at Boston, replacing Mike Higgins who moved—possibly up—to a desk job; Mel McGaha, fired by Cleveland, hired by Kansas City, as a rare combination of coach and front-office aide.
