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.

Small Faces – "Tin Soldier" (1967)

I am a little tin soldier

That wants to jump into your fire

Thanks to Dunkin’ Donuts, I’m eating a lot healthier these days.

You look confused by that statement.  Let me explain.

You see, I’ve been stopping at the local Dunkin’ every Saturday morning before going to my local farmers market for some time.  (One donut a week can’t hurt you – right?)

Last year, I began to occasionally visit a Dunkin’ before going to the gym for one of my thrice-weekly workouts.  But pretty soon, I was stopping before each of those trips to the gym.

Add in the odd Dunkin’ stop with my grandkids and I was up to an average of five maple-frosted donuts per week – each accompanied by a medium coffee with cream and sugar.

I knew that couldn’t be good for my waistline.  And you know what they say – if you don’t watch your figure, no one else will either!

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Starting this week, I’m back to my once-a-week Dunkin’ stops on the way to the farmers market.

I’ve turned over that new leaf (1) because I have self-control out the wazoo, and (2) because I’m a cheap bast*rd. 

I’m a member in good standing of the “Dunkin’ Rewards” program, which entitled me to get a donut for a buck each time I purchased a medium coffee online.

But when I opened the Dunkin’ app this week before heading to the gym and entered my usual order, I noticed that it cost a lot more than I was used to paying.

It turns out that Dunkin’ has stopped offering the donut-for-a-dollar promotion to its “Dunkin’ Rewards” members.  (The second Dunkin’ Donuts customer service representative I spoke to on the phone came clean about that being a decision made at the corporate level.  The first one had blamed local store owners for the price increase – which was patently false.)  Instead of getting a donut for a buck, I was now going to be charged the regular donut price of $1.99.

Ben Affleck: another reason
to eschew donuts from Dunkin’ 

“No siree Bob!” I said to myself.  Starting this week, I am reverting to my old pattern of once-weekly Dunkin’ visits, eschewing stops at any of the multitude of Dunkin’ outlets in my neighborhood when traveling to my gym.

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Will this result in more visits to my local McDonald’s for a sausage-and-egg McMuffin and a Dr. Pepper?  That’s not only a much more satisfying meal than a donut and coffee but also costs slightly less money – which is a win-win if I ever did see one.

My McDonald’s visits may increase in frequency somewhat, but not nearly as much as the number of my Dunkin’ Donuts purchases will decrease.

My standard breakfast will now be a glass of Sunsweet light plum juice (a/k/a/ “nature’s broom.”). That’s a better choice for my waistline and for my bank account (especially given that I can now obtain that elixir at my local grocery store rather than paying twice as much for shipments from Walmart).

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Back in the day, I would have labored mightily to match this post with a record that mentioned Dunkin’ Donuts or donuts in general . . . even if that record sucked.

But nowadays 2 or 3 lines posts usually feature really good records – even if those records have little or no connection with the subject matter of those posts.  “Tin Soldier” has nothing to do with donuts, but it’s a really good record – despite being a bit of a hot mess – and that’s why I’m featuring it in today’s post.

The Small Faces were never big in the U.S., but they were highly respected and very successful in the UK – it wouldn’t be a stretch to rank them right up there with the Who.  (By coincidence, Kenny Jones replaced the great Keith Moon as the Who’s drummer after Moon died of a drug overdose.)

“Tin Soldier” was written by Steve Marriott.  After he quit the band in 1969 to join Peter Frampton in Humble Pie, the remaining Small Faces hooked up with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood and renamed themselves the Faces.

Click here to listen to “Tin Soldier.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Glenn Frey – "The Allnighter" (1984)

He’s so bad, he’s so good

He makes it feel just the way it should

Nobody else can take her there

The late Glenn Frey’s second solo album – The Allnighter – included “Smuggler’s Blues,” a pretty good song that inspired a Miami Vice episode of the same name.  Frey made his acting debut in that episode, which I vividly remember watching when it aired in 1985.  (I loved Miami Vice, but I’m afraid to watch it now – I have a feeling I’d break out in douche chills if I did.)

Don Johnson and Glenn Frey on Miami Vice

The title track of The Allnighter – which I don’t think I ever heard before it popped up on the Sirius/XM “Deep Tracks” channel earlier today – is most definitely not a pretty good song.  

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“The Allnighter” – which may not have sounded all that creepy when it was first released in 1984, but certainly sounds creepy today – is about a woman who has a late-night itch that only the song’s title character is able to scratch:

She needs someone to treat her right

There’s plenty of men she could call

But she wants him most of all

“Oh God, I hope he’s home tonight!”

She needs a love from a real exciter

She needs the allnighter!

The lyrics of “The Allnighter” go from bad to worse as the song progresses:

He's the one, the one she calls

When she gets that feeling

Some nights she just can’t stop herself

He’s tough and tender, a soul bender

Ain’t no service he can’t render

He touches her like nobody else . . .

He’s the allnighter!

I assume you’ve gotten the point of the song by now, but Frey and his songwriting partner, Jack Tempchin, aren’t taking any chances:

Other guys come and go

They may try but they don’t know

Every girl needs special care

Oh, he’s so bad, he’s so good

He makes it feel just the way it should

Nobody else can take her there

He's the real thing, the pure delighter

He’s the allnighter!

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Today there would be no need for Mr. Allnighter – our heroine would simply open her bedside-table drawer, grab her vibrator, and take care of business sans homme.

No fuss, very little muss – and no need to worry that your dude’s Uber will have a flat tire . . . or that he’ll forget to bring his little blue pills . . . or that some other damsel in distress has already booked him for the evening.

Click here to listen to “The Allnighter,” which esteemed rock critic Robert Christgau called a “smarmy piece of sexist pseudosoul.”  (What he said!)

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.