July 14, 1979: The Carter administration's energy crisis... gasoline shortages ... Los Angeles County deputies are ordered back to work after a two-day sickout ... and Gov. Brown trims the budget by vetoing raises for state employees.
In his final season with the Angels, Nolan Ryan flirted more than
once with a fifth no-hitter. Against the Yankees, he lasted until the
ninth when Reggie Jackson singled.
This would have been a controversial no-hitter since Jim Spencer's
liner to center in the eighth was ruled an error on center fielder Rick
Miller. The Yankees were furious and even Angel general manager Buzzie
Bavasi told official scorer Dick Miller of the Herard-Examiner,
"There's no doubt about what it was."
Baseball doesn't use newspaper reporters as official scorers anymore and that's probably a good thing for all concerned.
July 10, 1959: A heatwave sears Southern California as a fire threatens homes in the Linda Vista neighborhood of Pasadena.
More attacks are feared in Vietnam after a bombing kills two American advisors.
An Inglewood police officer putting a ticket on a car that hadn't been moved for two days discovers the partially clothed body of a missing Fresno woman in the trunk. On the front seat is a sweater and a pair of Capri pants, a front tooth and blood.
The victim is identified as Mary Jean Prestridge, 26, the wife of a truck driver and the mother of two children.
Police are looking for a young man seen with Prestridge in Fresno shortly before she vanished.
The Dodgers' games against the Milwaukee Braves are fascinating to
study since the teams finished the regular season tied and faced each
other in a playoff to decide the 1959 National League champion.
In a typically close game, the Dodgers edged the Braves, 4-3, in 13
innings. The Dodgers moved into second place with the victory, wedged
between the first-place Giants and the third-place Braves.
What stood out was how pitching has changed. Milwaukee's Warren
Spahn took the loss after pitching 5 2/3 innings in relief of starter
Joey Jay.
Spahn was still a top pitcher. He would win 21 games in 1959, the
fourth of six consecutive seasons with at least 20 wins. What was he
doing coming out of the bullpen?
The Dodgers' relief staff was similarly quiet. Roger Craig was the
winning pitcher and he really earned it, pitching the final 11 innings.
There's a reference in the story to how few pitches Craig threw, but 11
innings is a lot under any circumstance. Wonder how many pitchers the
Dodgers and Braves would use in a similar game today.
And this wasn't a rare case. The next afternoon, Don Drysdale came
out of the bullpen to pitch the Dodgers past the Braves in the final
game of the series. Drysdale had pitched two scoreless innings the
night before, but the game was rained out in the third inning. He was
scheduled to pitch the first game of the next series in Cincinnati but
was called in when Sandy Koufax struggled. There was no one else?
Drysdale pitched six innings.
It's impossible to imagine a current manager juggling such a star pitcher.
The Dodgers climbed back into first place in the National League West by sweeping the Atlanta Braves in a Dodger Stadium doubleheader, 5-3 and 4-3. Mota led the way with four hits in each game.
He won the nightcap for the Dodgers with a bases-loaded single that went over the head of Atlanta's right fielder, none other than Henry Aaron.
"It is the greatest thrill of my life," Mota told The Times' John Wiebusch. "A Dodger I always want to be and now I am one and we are in first place. I want to play on a champion."
July 7, 1949: Charles Stoker surrenders his police badge to defense attorney S.S. Hahn after being accused of burglary by Policewoman Audre Davis.
In this story, Davis admitted lying to win the conviction of Hollywood madam Brenda Allen. She accused Stoker of stealing nude photos of her, as well as a check with a forged signature.
Gen. Harry M. Vaughan threatens to punch photographers in the nose if they take one more picture.
Tokyo Rose liked the glamour of her World War II propaganda work, according to a prosecutor in her treason trial.
Baseball always seemed a simple game to me, but Al Wolf's coverage of the Hollywood Stars' 12-0 victory over the San Francisco Seals required some explanation. Or translation.
Wolf turned the Stars into the Twinks (a familiar nickname often used in headlines) and the homebreds. Pinky Woods wasn't just the winning pitcher. He right-handed his way to victory.
The game was played in Hollywood so the fans were the Gilmore Gardens gazers. Hits were round-trippers or two-ply wallops. Runs were markers or tallies.
The opposition became the no-so-sassy Seals.
The best part of the story didn't have any goofy names. Wolf noted that a game later that week had been deemed "Television appreciation night," with a $500 set to be given as a door prize.
Guess the winner could gaze at a round-tripper leaving Gilmore Gardens.
July 2, 1969: The Sacramento debating society recesses without passing a budget. Why is crime down? Police credit the Neighborhood Watch program.
Photograph by Steve Dykes / Los Angeles Times
Feb. 13, 1992: Dodgers batting instructor Matty Mota, left, and his son Jose discuss the finer points of hitting in a workout at Dodger Stadium.
Manny Mota was the new kid on the block then, trying to stay in the lineup no matter how he felt.
It's hard to picture Mota as the Dodgers' new guy since this season marks his 30th as a Dodger coach, according to dodgers.com.
Mota, who played for the Dodgers until 1980 with one at-bat in 1982, was acquired in the same trade with Montreal that brought Maury Wills back to Los Angeles.
Mota was still in the outfield then, not the premier pinch-hitter he would eventually become for the Dodgers. Despite playing with a painful elbow, Mota hit an inside-the-park home run that was a key blow in a 4-1 victory over the Astros.
"The man is remarkable," Wills told The Times' John Wiebusch. "In all those years in Pittsburgh, when he hit so well but played so little, he never said a word. ... It's too bad he couldn't have gotten here five years ago. He'd be an idol here now."
Mota, a career .305 hitter, finished with a .323 average for the Dodgers in 1969.
June 30, 1985: A stipulation that the U.S. not retaliate ends an agreement that would have freed 39 hostages taken during the hijacking of TWA Flight 847.
June 21, 1963: Pope Paul VI becomes the successor to Pope John XXIII and Jerry G. Tees is arrested on charges of impersonating an astronaut. I can't find any further information on what became of Tees -- sounds like an interesting story.
June 18, 1959, the introduction of Charlie Brown's sister Sally begins a story line about the the births of children that quickly turns dark.
June 19, 1979: In 20 years, "Peanuts" has become a sitcom, mildly amusing in a nonthreatening way.
June 19, 1979: The body of Victor J. Weiss is found in the trunk of his Rolls-Royce in a North Hollywood parking structure. Note the bylines: Bob Rawitch, Bill Boyarsky, Steve Harvey, Tom Paegel, Kris Lindgren, Paul Jacobs, Bruce Keppel ... and Kevin Roderick!
Notice that we referred to Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke as "Mrs. Burke" on second reference and in headlines. Wow.
Nolan Ryan flirted with history again.
He came within five outs of pitching his fifth career no-hitter,
which would have broken his tie with the Dodgers' Sandy Koufax for the
most in a career. Oscar Gamble singled with one out in the eighth
inning to break up the gem. Ryan settled for a two-hitter and a 5-0
victory over Texas at Anaheim Stadium.
It was not Ryan's first close call trying for his fifth no-hitter.
He was 9-3, with two two-hitters and another two three-hitters.
"Any time to get that close to it you think about it," he told The
Times' Mark Heisler. "I'd be lying to you if I told you that wasn't
true."
Ryan's catcher, Tom Donohue, called the game his greatest thrill in
baseball, which made him quite a bit more excited than Ryan. "He's been
through it," Donohue said. "I never caught a no-hitter."
A July 2, 1945, issue of the Los Angeles Examiner has been listed on EBay. Notice that it's a war extra, presumably intended for street sales. This is not the edition people would have received at home.
It's impossible to tell from the vendor's photo whether the "crime box" is on the front page. In the late 1940s, the Examiner published a daily list of crimes in Los Angeles and by 1947, when Elizabeth Short was killed, the box was fixed on Page 1. Earlier in the 1940s, however, the "crime box" had no fixed page and often ran inside.
Gus Arriola is one of my favorite comic strip artists. His drawings are so clean and he's a marvelous draftsman.
Vice President Richard Nixon and his family visit Disneyland and stay at the Disneyland Hotel. He also says he shaves three times a day when he appears in public.
An 1865 photo of a hanging that went awry at Temple and New High streets.
At left, Jack Smith begins a five-part series on Samuel Goldwyn, "the only true mogul in the business."
"I guess I am not an angel," Goldwyn says. " I'm not always too sweet. I admit I have a temper. I can get angry sometimes. I'm not too sweet when I get mad. But I know what I want, and I fight for it."
"People don't give a damn, frankly, how much money you have spent. They either like a film or they don't. You can spend $90 million and if the picture bores them they don't care."
"Darby O'Gill and the Little People," starring Sean Connery.
Richard Nixon was no ordinary baseball fan. The vice president said
he was a Dodger fan ... and a Giant fan ... and a Senators fan? Talk
about being politically correct.
"You have to be a fan if you're for the Senators," Nixon said.
adding it was "real tough" to root for the Giants or Dodgers when the
teams played each other.
"If Hodges and Snider can hold up I think the Dodgers have a good chance of winning the National League pennant," he said.
Was that the Dodger fan or the Senators fan speaking? It sure wasn't the Giants fan.
Larry Harnisch. The leading Black Dahlia expert and a collaborator in the 1947project, Harnisch has been a copy editor at The Times since 1988. He has appeared on many TV shows discussing the Dahlia case, notably "James Ellroy's Feast of Death."
Join him for a spin through old Los Angeles in the Mirror's radio car. Keep your eyes open for Mickey Cohen and Tempest Storm. It's quite a ride.
The reporter's badge belonged to Sid Hughes (1908-1958), legendary reporter who worked at nearly every newspaper in Los Angeles.
Keith Thursby. Keith has been an editor at The Times in news, sports and design since 1986. The Rams moved to St. Louis on his first day as assistant sports editor of the paper's Orange County edition. He grew up in Norwalk and lives in Irvine.
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Larry Harnisch. The leading Black Dahlia expert and a collaborator in the 1947project, Harnisch has been a copy editor at The Times since 1988. He has appeared on many TV shows discussing the Dahlia case, notably "James Ellroy's Feast of Death."
Join him for a spin through old Los Angeles in the Mirror's radio car. Keep your eyes open for Mickey Cohen and Tempest Storm. It's quite a ride.
The reporter's badge belonged to Sid Hughes (1908-1958), legendary reporter who worked at nearly every newspaper in Los Angeles.
Keith Thursby. Keith has been an editor at The Times in news, sports and design since 1986. The Rams moved to St. Louis on his first day as assistant sports editor of the paper's Orange County edition. He grew up in Norwalk and lives in Irvine.