Baseball historical sleuthing; Non-Cubs edition

I found this photo here:

... and thought, “That’s a fun photo and worth sleuthing!”

Obviously it’s meant to show how Pirates infielders Gene Alley and Bill Mazeroski “vacuumed” up ground balls. Mazeroski won eight Gold Gloves and is arguably the best defensive second baseman in MLB history. But Alley was a pretty good fielder in his time, too, with a pair of Gold Gloves in a 10-year career.

We can see all the scores here, but we can’t see the National League matchups, so we’ll have to go with the AL matchups to sleuth this.

You can see “CALIF” and “KANS” on the left side of the board, Forbes Field abbreviations for CALIFORNIA and KANSAS CITY. These are the key clues. The Angels began calling themselves California in 1965, and the Athletics moved out of Kansas City after 1967. Thus, this has to be from 1965, 1966 or 1967.

I used the Washington at California matchup to try to match the others on the board, and found that this scoreboard was from a game played Friday, May 5, 1967. The Pirates hosted the Giants that night, winning 7-2. That’s the game at the TOP of the board, even though that appears to be a 14-4 score. If you’ll look above the last column in that row, though, there’s an “H.” That’s for hits — and that matches, the Pirates had 14 hits that night, the Giants 4.

The other scores appear to have been left posted just as they were at the end of that Friday night game, as we see the clock reads 12:17. So, this was clearly taken before the next day’s game. No, that’s not a real vacuum cleaner on the field.

The Cubs defeated the Cardinals that day 5-3 — that’s the score at the bottom of the board, partially obscured. The score above that is Reds at Braves, next above that is Astros at Mets, next above that is Dodgers at Phillies, and then the Pirates vs. Giants game at the top. Here are all the scores from May 5, 1967.

Anyway, as I said, this was a fun photo to see and sleuth, even though it’s not Cubs related.