Manfred Mann – "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" (1964)

She looked good (looked good!)

She looked fine (looked fine!)

She looked good, she looked fine

A few days ago, an old friend sent me a video of Mickey Mantle’s final World Series home run, which he hit off Gibson in game 7 of the 1964 Fall Classic.  Click here to watch that video.

It was Mantle’s record 18th World Series roundtripper.  No currently active player has more than seven, so that record will likely stand for a very long time.

Mantle’s blast came in the top of the 6th inning, driving in Bobby Richardson and Roger Maris (both of whom had singled) and cutting the Cardinals’ seemingly comfortable 6-0 lead in half.  

If that game had taken place in 2024 instead of 1964, Gibson would have almost certainly been yanked in favor of a relief pitcher after surrendering Mantle’s home run.  But Cardinals manager Johnny Keane left him in the game even after he gave up a two-out walk later in that inning.

Gibson got out of the 6th with no further damage, and retired the first two Yankee batters the 7th before giving up a single to the pesky Richardson.  Would any current major-league manager have left him in the game to face slugger Roger Maris rather than calling in a lefty relief pitcher?  I doubt it.  But Keane stuck with Gibson – who retired Maris on a line drive to right.

The Cardinals added an insurance run in the bottom of that frame, and Gibson set the Yankees down in order in the 8th.  With a 7-3 lead going into the 9th, Keane told Gibson that he was leaving him in to close out the game.

“Don’t be cute and don’t go for the corners,” the Cardinal skipper told his ace. “Just get it over. They’re not going to hit four home runs off you.”

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But after the big right-hander struck out Tom Tresh to open the 9th, he gave up a long four-bagger to Clete Boyer.  Keane no doubt breathed a sigh of relief when his pitcher fanned pinch-hitter Johnny Blanchard for the second out.  But Phil Linz then deposited a Gibson offering into the left-field seats, cutting the Redbirds’ lead to just 7-5.  

If Bobby Richardson had gotten on base, would Keane have relieved Gibson rather than let him face Maris and perhaps Mantle with the game – and the Series – on the line?

We’ll never know because Gibson induced the New York second-sacker to pop up for the final out, giving St. Louis the championship.

After the game, Keane was asked why he left Gibson on the mound in the top of the 9th even after the Boyer and Linz home runs.  “I had a commitment to his heart,” the manager replied.

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Any baseball fan would agree that Gibson’s game seven performance was remarkable.  But you can’t appreciate just how remarkable it truly was without knowing that only three days earlier, the big righty had started – and finished – game five of the ’64 Series, which went ten innings.

Think about that.  Gibson pitches a ten-inning complete game, takes two days off – starting pitchers today usually get four days off between starts – and then pitches a nine-inning complete game.

I haven’t been able to find Gibson’s pitch counts for those games.  But the most widely-followed formula for estimating pitch counts tells you that Gibson likely threw around 153 pitches in game five and 146 pitches in game seven.  

Today starting pitchers rarely throw more than 100 pitches in a game.  In fact, no major-league pitcher has thrown more than 112 pitches this season.

And no major-league pitcher has started a game on three days’ rest this year – much less two days’ rest.

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Not surprisingly, Bob Gibson was named Most Valuable Player of the 1964 World Series, while Johnny Keane won the Sporting News Manager of the Year Award. 

But in 1965, the two men’s career trajectories diverged sharply.

I’ll tell you more about what happened to Gibson and Keane after their 1964 World Series triumph in the next 2 or 3 lines.

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Jeff Berry and Ellie Greenwich – who penned numerous pop classics (including “Be My Baby,” “Chapel of Love,” “Leader of the Pack,” and “River Deep, Mountain High”) – wrote today’s featured song for the Exciters, who released their recording of it under the title “Do-Wah-Diddy” in 1963.  Click here to listen to that recording.

Click here to watch a very young Bruce Willis singing the song to Cybill Shepherd in an episode of Moonlighting.

Click here to watch Mary-Kate Olsen – or perhaps Ashley Olsen – singing the song on Full House.

Click here to listen to Manfred Mann’s recording of “Do Was Diddy Diddy,” which hit number one on the Billboard “Hot 100” the week that the St. Louis Cardinals won game seven of the 1964 World Series.

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Manfred Mann – "Fox on the Run" (1968)

I saw the sunlight in her hair
I saw the promise in her eyes

Tony Hazzard is an English singer/songwriter whose songs have been recorded by the Hollies, the Yardbirds, Herman’s Hermits, and Manfred Mann (among others).

The two songs he wrote for Manfred Mann – “Ha! Ha! Said the Clown” and “Fox on the Run” – were top ten hits in the UK.  (Those singles went nowhere fast in the U.S.)

Tony Hazzard and friend

Oddly, “Fox on the Run” has become a favorite of American bluegrass bands – go to any gathering of bluegrass musicians and the odds are you’ll hear it sooner rather than later.   

You can click here to read a 2 or 3 lines post that featured a bluegrass recording of this song.

And you can click here to read a 2 or 3 lines post that featured a very different song with the same title. 

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Manfred Mann was born Manfred Lubowitz in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1940.  

Lubowitz studied music in college and worked as a jazz pianist at a number of Johannesburg clubs.  He and a childhood friend formed what may have been South Africa’s first rock and roll band, and recorded a couple of albums.

Lubowitz moved to the UK when he was 21 and started writing for a British jazz publication under the name Manfred Manne (after American jazz drummer Shelley Manne), which he shortened shortly thereafter to Manfred Mann.

Mann met musician Mike Hugg at a seaside resort, and the two men formed a band called the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers.  After they signed a record contract in 1963, their producer suggested they call themselves Manfred Mann . . . and the rest is history.

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Click here to listen to Manfred Mann’s 1968 recording of “Fox on the Run.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Emerson & Waldron – "Fox on the Run" (1970)

The game is nearly up

And the hounds are at my door

The British, who began hunting foxes with scenthounds in the 16th century, essentially banned traditional foxhunting in 2004.  (There are a few exceptions to that ban.)

Foxhunting is still legal in the United States, but there's a big difference between English and American foxhunting: in the U.S., foxes are rarely killed during a hunt.  

The American practice is to call off the pursuit once a fox has "gone to ground" – that is, found an underground den or burrow to hide in – but the British use terriers to locate a fox that has gone to ground, and then kill it.

That's because foxes are considered a threat to chickens and other small farm animals in the UK, but foxes are not viewed as a serious agricultural pest in the U.S.)

A red fox enjoying a chicken dinner

"Fox on the Run" was first recorded by Manfred Mann.  Manfred Mann (who was born Manfred Lubowitz in Johannesburg, South Africa) probably never went on a fox hunt – the proper term is "rode to hounds."

The song was written by Tony Hazzard, whose songs were recorded by British invasion bands like Herman's Hermits, the Yardbirds, and the Hollies.  

Hazzard grew up in Liverpool and eventually moved to London to pursue his musical career.  I'm guessing he never rode to hounds either.

Tony Hazzard in 1967

The lyrics to "Fox on the Run" don't make a lot of sense.  For example, here's the last verse:

Well, take a glass of wine 
And fortify your soul

We'll talk about the world 
And friends we used to know

I'll illustrate a girl 
Who put me on the floor

The game is nearly up
And the hounds are at my door

"I'll illustrate a girl who put me on the floor" – say what?  

The last verse of the Emerson & Waldron cover of "Fox on the Run" that is featured in today's 2 or 3 lines is slightly different.  They change "illustrate" to "filistrate" – which seems to be a made-up word.

Bill Emerson in 2010

Later covers of the song by Tom T. Hall and others change the line to "I see a string of girls who put me on the floor."

I was enjoying some free barbecue, beer and country music at a local bank's "Customer Appreciation Celebration" last week when I heard "Fox on the Run" for the first time.  (Am I an actual customer of that bank?  If you want to get all technical about it, I suppose I'm not.)

There's another song called "Fox on the Run," of course.  In 1974, Sweet wrote and recorded a very different song by that title, which it released on the Desolation Boulevard album.

Sweet

(In case you're wondering how Sweet could give their song the same title that Tony Hazzard had used for his song, song titles are generally not copyrightable.)

I was intrigued that two such dissimilar songs shared the identical title, and I decided to write about both of them.  But just before I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, if you want to get all technical about it AGAIN), it was brought to my attention that I had already written about the Sweet song – which has nada to do with foxhunting, by the way – back in 2011.

The Country Gentlemen in 1972

Bill Emerson, a great banjo player who was born in Washington, DC, in 1938, was one of the founders of the Country Gentlemen, a legendary bluegrass band.

In 1967, Emerson hooked up with guitarist Cliff Waldron, and they recorded three albums as Emerson & Waldron – including Bluegrass Country, which included "Fox on the Run."

In 1973, Emerson joined the Navy Band – he was 35 years old at the time – and stayed there for twenty years.

The Navy Band, which consists of 172 enlisted men and four officers, actually encompasses a number of different musical ensembles.  There's the Concert Band, the Ceremonial Band (which performs mostly at Arlington National Cemetery funerals), the Sea Chanters (a choral group), the Commodores (a jazz ensemble), the Cruisers (which plays pop, R&B, and classic rock music), and Country Current (a seven-piece country-bluegrass band).

In addition, there are ten small chamber music ensembles – including a brass quartet and quintet, a saxophone quartet, and a . . . tuba/euphonium quartet?

I hate to be the you-know-what in the punch bowl, but why the hell does the U.S. Navy have a jazz ensemble, a pop-R&B-rock band, and a country-bluegrass group?

The U.S. Navy's "Country Current" ensemble

Bill Emerson was a very accomplished bluegrass musician, and it would have been a shame if he had given up the banjo because he couldn't make a living playing it.

But why is it the Navy's business to subsidize underappreciated musicians?  Does the Navy have a company of Shakesperean actors?  Do they have a ballet or modern dance ensembles?  Are there Navy poets or painters or sculptors?

It would be one thing if sailors were allowed to form musical groups as an extracurricular activity, practicing during there spare time.  But it strikes me as totally bizarre that the U.S. Navy has a country-bluegrass band whose members included someone like Bill Emerson – who presumably did nothing but play banjo during his twenty years as a member of the Navy Band.  (Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe Emerson operated shipboard sonar or radar equipment, or was trained as a medic, or helped maintain carrier aircraft.)

Here's Emerson & Waldron's cover of "Fox on the Run," which was released on their 1970 Bluegrass Country album:

Click below to purchase the song from Amazon: