josé pagán, r.i.p.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
José Pagán died yesterday. Pagán came up with the Giants, making his debut in the team’s second season in San Francisco, in 1959. He played with the Giants until a mid-season trade in 1965 … basically, during some of my formative years as a fan, Pagán was the Giants shortstop. He was on the 1962 team that went to the World Series … he hit .368 with a homer in that Series. I have memories of him, but my main memory, the one I’ve concocted in my mind over the years, has nothing to do with his play on the field. In my memory, looking back through the fog of decades, Pagán, who was Puerto Rican, was the player my dad would shout to in Spanish. The Giants had lots of Latin ballplayers in those days, so my father could have been shouting at anyone, and, truth be told, he may never have shouted in Spanish … he didn’t speak it in the home … I may have made up the entire thing.
I can’t say I remember any specific game, but in the Internet era, we can always wander through the past. So here are the highlights of a Giants game at Candlestick on June 7, 1961. June 7 is the date of Pagán’s death, and 1961 was his first full season in the majors.
A crowd of 6,048 turned out to watch Art Mahaffey take on Jack Sanford. The Giants had three future Hall-of-Famers in their lineup (McCovey and Mays, with Cepeda in LF). The Giants trailed, 3-1, in the bottom of the 8th, but three doubles tied the score, 3-3. No one scored again until the bottom of the 11th, when two walks, a sacrifice bunt, and an Orlando Cepeda single off of Chris Short gave the Giants the win. Perhaps the most remarkable line in the Retrosheet play-by-play is this one, from that 11th inning: “AMALFITANO BATTED FOR MCCOVEY.” (They needed someone who could bunt.)
Oh, and I seem to have picked a bad game for the purposes of this post: José Pagán went 0-for-4 with 2 strikeouts, and committed 2 errors at shortstop.
In 1961, I knew that batting average was important, that shortstops weren’t expected to hit, and so someone like José Pagán was a decent player, a SS who hit .253 and was 4th on the team in steals (with 8 … those were different times). In 2011, a SS with an OK glove who hit .253 with a little speed would be a utility player who came off the bench and made spot starts when someone needed a rest. We have different expectations now for what a team needs from its shortstops, and so someone like José Pagán seems a lesser player because he doesn’t fit what we now expect. I’m not saying José Pagán was a great player, but he was the regular SS for the Giants during their NL championship season; he even picked up MVP votes that year. He was, as Krukow would say, a good Giant.
I do remember him--he was hanging on at the tail end of his career with those great Pirate teams of the early '70s (I had to check), which is exactly when I started watching baseball. He had a pretty good Series in '71, the Clemente team that won; as you point out, he had a pretty fantastic Series in '62.
Posted by: Phil Dellio | Thursday, June 09, 2011 at 12:15 PM
Dad did yell to the players in Spanish. I remember one game we were down the right field line during warmups, and he yelled at some Latin player, who then threw a ball in our direction. Unfortunately, it sailed many rows behind us :(.
Posted by: Geoff | Thursday, June 09, 2011 at 04:45 PM
I think I remember that!
Posted by: Steven Rubio | Thursday, June 09, 2011 at 04:49 PM