Monday, May. 23, 1960
Sad Sam
They sprint up long ramps and scale aisles like mountain goats to get to their seats on time. They start cheering with the first pitch and continue to the last. So far this year, heart attacks have hit twelve San Francisco Giant fans; five were fatal. Last week City Coroner Henry W. Turkel pleaded for rooters with coronary histories to take things easier at the Giants' new Candlestick Park. But no one seemed to pay much attention to the warning: the Giants were in first place in the National League, thanks in good part to a dour Negro named Sam Jones, one of baseball's most exciting pitchers.
Last week "Sad Sam" Jones, 34, pitched a tvo-hitter to beat the Philadelphia Phillies 1 to o. The shutout brought Jones's earned-run average to 1.91 and his record to four wins against two losses. Of his other three victories, one was a one-hitter and two were three-hitters.
Long recognized as having great speed and a wicked curve, Jones has finally conquered the wildness that made him a vagabond during most of his eleven years in organized baseball. Somehow San Francisco's crisp weather seems just right for Jones's aging right arm (he claims that it shrinks two inches every game). Somehow the stiff wind that blows in from Candlestick Park's leftfield now seems to make his curve ball more effective, though as a minor-leaguer he once vowed: "I'll never pitch in this windy city again.''
Following Jones's lead, other Giant pitchers were performing wonders: in the course of running up a seven-game winning streak, they recorded three consecutive shutouts. But Sad Sam Jones is the mainstay of the Giants' pennant hopes, and no one knows it better than Manager Bill Rigney. Says he: "In trie past 15 years the only Giant pitcher I'd compare with Jones is Sal Maglie for getting cute, for making that ball curve or take off, and Sam is a damn sight faster."
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