Philly reporters recall the '64 Phillies collapse

When the Phillies' sensational 1964 season turned tragic during a 10-game September losing streak, it was a more innocent era.

No Internet. Little TV coverage. No Twitter rants.

"Back then, the only social media was when you bought drinks for the writers after the game," cracked Larry Shenk, who was 25 years old and in his first year as the Phillies' public-relations director in 1964. "It was a different time, as far as the media covering the team."

The Phillies' infamous fold, which started 50 years ago on Sept. 21, when Cincinnati's Chico Ruiz stole home to start the 10-game slide, would seem "even more catastrophic" if it happened in today's social-media age, Shenk said.

Bill Campbell was on the broadcast team with By Saam and Richie Ashburn that season. A few days after the season ended, manager Gene Mauch asked Campbell if he could drive him to the airport so he could take a flight home to California.

"Gene gets in my car, and I had the Cardinals-Yankees World Series game on the radio," Campbell recalled the other day. "And Gene reached over and slammed it off. He couldn't stand that he wasn't in the World Series."

Mauch and Campbell used to drive together to the airport for all the road trips during that era. Mauch would talk to Campbell about why he loved to platoon players and about the intricacies of the sport.

"I can't believe to this day that Gene Mauch was never in a World Series," said Campbell, who turned 91 on Sept. 7. "I learned more about baseball from Gene Mauch than anybody else. I thought he was a genius."

Stan Hochman covered the Phillies for the Daily News in 1964, his sixth season on the beat. Hochman said Mauch was not his feisty self during the 10-game slide.

"He was almost tranquilized with the media," Hochman said. "He was calm on the surface, but who knows what was going on inside him?"

Mauch used a golf analogy during the fold-up, Hochman said.

"He would say, 'If you bogey the first three holes, no one pays attention, but if you struggle down the stretch . . .' "

All of the writers and broadcasters who covered the Phils in '64 - "the year of the blue snow," catcher Gus Triandos famously called it - said the usually fiery Mauch was much more subdued as the late-season losses mounted.

"He always had opinions, and you didn't have to press him to get questions answered," said Rich Westcott, who covered a handful of games that season for the Delaware County Times, and has since written 24 books, including eight on the Phillies. "But he got quieter and quieter as the season went along. I remember asking a question and I couldn't get an answer. He would give me a couple words, and that was it. You could tell he was taking it to heart.

"There wasn't a lot of joy in that clubhouse" in late September.

There was one time, Hochman said, that Mauch showed some emotion during the losing streak, telling reporters: "If someone is taking money from your pockets, shouldn't you fight the guy?"

It was his way of saying he wanted someone on his team to start a fight and give the club a rallying cry.

"The players sneered at the suggestion," Hochman said.

Jack Carty, who covered the Phillies for the Courier-Post in 1964, said one of the things he remembers vividly is Mauch, after doing postgame interviews, always grabbing a six-pack of beer and taking it home with him. He also recalled that Triandos confiding in him during the early days of the skid that there was no reason for alarm, no reason to think a total collapse was underway. "Mauch won't allow it to happen," the player told Carty.

That was the general consensus of the team, Carty said.

During the collapse, Hochman said, Mauch had a "big blowup" with Inquirer beat writer Allen Lewis, who wrote that the man known as the Little General was mismanaging the pitching staff.

"Ray Kelly [Bulletin], me, Lewis . . . we all questioned how he used his pitchers," Hochman said.

During the 10-game skid, Mauch used Jim Bunning and Chris Short five times on two days' rest. Hochman disputes claims that Mauch didn't use Ray Culp because the righthander was injured.

"Culp was healthy," Hochman said. "Mauch had lost confidence in him and didn't think he had any guts."

In the years that followed the collapse, whenever a major-league team had a big first-place lead that was shrinking, Shenk would get the inevitable calls from reporters, asking for contact information on the '64 Phillies.

"One time Cookie Rojas said to me, 'Don't give out my number anymore; I'm tired of talking about it,' " Shenk said, referring to the former Phillies second baseman.

Shenk, in his first year on the job in '64, said he was overwhelmed with his multitude of public-relations tasks down the stretch.

"The losing streak was such a blur because we were preparing for the World Series, and Connie Mack Stadium was very small" to accommodate the media. "The elevator was small, the clubhouse was small," said Shenk, who has devoted a chapter of his recently released book, If These Walls Could Talk: Philadelphia Phillies to the '64 swoon. "We were planning for credentials, hospitality parties at the Warwick Hotel, World Series programs. We had to add some lower-level seats, and had to get a bulldozer in there to make it happen. And if there was a [first-place] tie after the Sunday games, we would have played a playoff game Monday at Connie Mack."

Shenk smiled.

"I didn't know what we were doing," he said. "I was still more of a fan than an employee. It was all new."

The Phillies and the National League wanted to use the plush Warwick Hotel as the league's headquarters for the World Series. One problem: A wedding was scheduled there. Some strings were pulled. The Warwick had to tell the bride and groom the bad news: Sorry, but we can no longer host your affair.

And then, after a 10-game skid that will live in infamy, the Phillies and Major League Baseball no longer needed the Warwick Hotel.

"To this day, I still don't know if that wedding ever was held there," Shenk said.

scarchidi@phillynews.com

@BroadStBull