Later today, the Artemis II crew will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, marking the end of the first manned mission to the Moon in more than half a century. The baseball world has changed so much between then and now, from the introduction of the designated hitter in the American League in 1973 to the introduction of six franchises in the late 70s, 80s, and 90s. To celebrate today’s accomplishment, I decided to hop into the New York Times archives and see what was happening
in the baseball world on December 27, 1968, and April 17, 1970 — the days that Apollo 8, the first manned mission to orbit the Moon, and Apollo 13, whose use of a free return trajectory served as the model for Artemis II’s mission, splashed down. Unfortunately, we have nothing quite as famous or as interesting as Gaylord Perry’s famous home run minutes after Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon, but it’s still an interesting insight into a long gone era.
December 27, 1968
The holiday season has been, historically, a slow time in the baseball world, and as it turns out, 1968 was no exception. In fact, only one small article in the New York Times had anything to do with baseball — a report from Kansas City that Owen Friend, had been hired by the Royals to serve as a scout in the Midwest and as an infield coach during during spring training. This news was so small that the ProQuest Historical Newspapers archive did not list it independently, but rather attached it to the paper’s “Table for High Tide for Waters Adjacent to New York,” which listed the morning and evening high tides, sunrise and sunset, and moonrise and moonset times.
Rather amusingly, there was one other time in the paper that day in which the word “baseball” appeared: the article reporting the astronauts’ health after splash down, which stated that they wore caps “similar to baseball caps” while on the USS Yorktown.
April 17, 1970
Unsurprisingly, the Times had quite a bit more baseball news when Apollo 13 splashed down. The paper posted recaps of four games. In the paper’s dive into college ball, Columbia University’s 6-3 victory over Providence took center stage, with Fred Armenti’s eight inning, 10-strikeout performance the story of the afternoon. Right underneath that article was a brief account of Navy’s 8-3 shellacking of Army to maintain their perfect season, in which Tom Galloway and Denny Losh were the players of the game. Turning to Major League Baseball, Tom Seaver’s complete game shutout and Bud Harrelson’s first career home run that landed over the fence — the 150-pound shortstop had an inside-the-park homer three years prior — powered the Mets past the Phillies by the score of 6-0. Last, and certainly not least, the Yankees downed the Orioles by the score of 4-1 in 11 innings, ending a three-game losing streak and seeing their early-season record improve to 3-6.
The Yankees’ victory was rather unusual, aided by a strange error in the top of the 11th. With runners on first and second and two out, Pete Ward hit a groundball right at Orioles shortstop Mark Belanger, who turned and threw the ball to second baseman Davey Johnson. Inexplicably, however, Johnson did not cover the bag, and was tagged with an E4 because, as George Vecsey wrote, “being on the base is a rather vital part of a force play.” Danny Cater — who according to the reporter had been dealing with a run of bad luck, having cut his hand on a broken bat, was struck in the ankle by an errant throw, and had barely avoided getting hit in the face during batting practice — followed that up with a triple that cleared the bases and gave the Bombers a 4-1 lead.
