Almost 45,000 fans packed Dodger Stadium on Wednesday July 27, 1966 to watch a duel between future Hall of Famers Jim Bunning of the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles' ace lefty Sandy Koufax. It is fair to say that on this night, the fans got more than their money's worth.
At the end of the day the Dodgers had a thrilling 2-1 win in 12 innings, a victory earned by Sweet Lou Johnson's pinch-hit single off of Darlod Knowles that drove in Nate Oliver with the winning run. The real story in the game, however, was the performance of the two starting pitchers.
Bunning and Koufax each went 11 innings, with Bunning fanning 12 Dodgers and Koufax punchng out 16 Phillies. Koufax's total was exceeded only two times in his career (he struck out 18 Giants on August 31, 1959 and repeated that feat against the Cubs at Wrigley Field on April 24, 1962). Both pitchers cruised through most of the game, with Philadelphia getting its only run against Koufax on a **** Allen home run in the second and the Dodgers scoring off of Bunning in the sixth on a Jeff Torborg sacrifice fly.
The Dodgers had a chance to beat Bunning in the 11th, but some alert defense by the Phillies ended the threat. Bunning surrended back to back singles to Willie Davis and **** Stuart to start the inning. Torborg then grounded out to first, with pinch-runner Wes Parker moving to second and Davis holding at third. Phillies' manager Gene Mauch decided to pitch to Ron Fairly instead of walking him to set up a double play, and that somewhat unorthodox strategy paid off in a bizarre way. Fairly hit a hard grounder to Philadelphia's second baseman Phil Linz, who threw home to Bob Uecker to attempt to prevent Davis from scoring the winning run. Davis retreated the third, only to find that Parker had advanced to that base on the play. Uecker tagged Parker for the second out and after Mauch decided to intentionally walk Junior Gilliam, Bunning fanned Jim Lefebrve to end the threat.
Johnson's game-winning hit was his only pinch-hit base hit in three attempts in 1966 in a year when he'd drive in a career high 73 runs. Koufax's 11 inning gem resulted in a no-decision but as often occurred in the 1966 season, reliever Phil Regan (called "The Vulture") swooped in and pitched a perfect 12th to earn his eighth win of the year. The year would be a career year for the righthander, as he would win 14 of his 15 decisions, save 21 games and post a 1.62 ERA.
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