Clete Boyer, one of Alba big league brothers, dead at 70

As I grow older, despite being a big baseball fan, it is hard for me to remember who played against whom in any recent World Series. The memories of more than four decades ago, however, are as fresh now as they were back then.

Among my favorite memories was the summer and fall of 1964, so well chronicled by the late David Halberstam in his book, October 1964.

With 11 games to go, the St. Louis Cardinals were six games behind Gene Mauch's Philadelphia Phillies, and it looked as if St. Louis, which finished only one game behind the Dodgers the previous year, Stan Musial's farewell season, were going to fall short once more.

Somehow the Cardinals caught fire and Philadelphia, perhaps because of Mauch's decision to rely on only two starting pitchers, Chris Short and current Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning, lost its seemingly insurmountable lead.

When the last day of the 1964 regular season arrive, I remember sitting in the kitchen of our house in Newtonia listening on the radio as Cardinal announcer Harry Caray screamed over and over, "The Cardinals win the pennant, the Cardinals win the pennant."

Since there were no playoff series in 1964, the World Series matchup was already set. The Cardinals would play the mighty New York Yankees, with future Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, all-time single season home run champ Roger Maris, and manager and future Hall of Famer Yogi Berra.

For Southwest Missouri fans, the biggest thrill was in having not one, but two, native sons in the World Series. For the Cardinals, it was the National League's Most Valuable Player, third baseman Ken Boyer. And, in the first time this had ever happened in the World Series, the opposing third baseman was his younger brother Clete.

It is hard to forget the exciting moments of that series- Ken Boyer's game-winning grand slam, big home runs by Mike Shannon and Tim McCarver, the hitting and speed of Lou Brock, the fielding of Curt Flood, the pitching of Bob Gibson, etc. After seven games were completed, the St. Louis Cardinals were world champions, and Clete Boyer and the Yankees were down for the count. The Yankees, who had been in the World Series 14 times in 17 years, did not return to the Fall Classic for a dozen years.

The team fell apart in the 1965 season under new manager (oddly enough, the Cardinals' 1964 manager) Johnny Keane. with only two players, Clete Boyer and outfielder Tom Tresh, coming anywhere near their '64 seasons.

For Clete Boyer, who had already played in five World Series, from 1960 to 1964, including World Championship teams in 1961 and 1962, 1964 was the last time he would ever have the opportunity to play on baseball's biggest stage, though he still had several successful seasons to go with the Yankees and the Atlanta Braves.

Those memories came flooding back tonight when I heard that Clete Boyer had died at the age of 70. According to the Associated Press account, Clete Boyer died on the 50th anniversary of the day he was traded from the Kansas City Athletics to the Yankees:

Boyer made his major league debut at 18 with Kansas City. With Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and Roger Maris, the Yankees started out every season in the early 1960s as the team to beat.

"He always said, 'I wish you could have played on the team that we had in the '60s. We'd have won 150 games,'" Yankees pitching coach Ron Guidry said.

"You'd talk to Moose and he would always tell you how good a third baseman he was," he said. "You talked to Whitey Ford and he'd tell you, 'I didn't have to worry about ground balls. I could pitch inside, throw breaking balls. If they hit it down the third-base line, he was going to catch it.'"

Former Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson praised Boyer's other attributes.

"I would give him a lot of credit for being a good No. 8 hitter. It wasn't easy in those days, with the pitcher hitting being you," Richardson said. "He was a team player and a great teacher.

"He was a hard liver, I don't think that's any secret," he said. "He lived life to the fullest."

With Clete Boyer's death, only one of the three Boyers to play major league baseball, former Cardinal pitcher Cloyd Boyer, remains alive. Cloyd Boyer still lives in Alba.

Old timers remember the days when Cloyd, Ken, Clete, and their younger brothers, former minor leaguers Ron and Len Boyer, were playing on baseball fields in towns throughout this area.

Fortunately, those long ago memories remain fresh and in those, Clete Boyer remains forever young.