Leading off the bottom of the second inning, Musial was called out on strikes by Harvey. Harvey worked a Dodgers-Cardinals game behind the plate for the first time that Friday night at Sportsman’s Park. Williams, like Drysdale, a powerful right-hander, started for the Dodgers. Louis and that Stan Williams, not Drysdale, was the pitcher. I believe the basic story about Musial and Harvey is true, but I’m convinced it happened on May 11 in St. Drysdale pitched seven innings, not nine. He popped out twice and hit a two-run home run. Musial had three at-bats against Drysdale in that game. Harvey worked the plate in only one of those games, July 25. Both have significant inaccuracies.ĭrysdale faced the Cardinals six times in 1962. “That’s when I realized why they call him ‘Stan the Man.’ And I learned not to anticipate the call.”īoth stories are well-told. Then, without turning, he said, ‘Young fellow, I don’t know what league you came from, but we use the same plate. He told the bat boy to bring him his glove. “And there I am standing with egg on my face, the crowd booing,” Harvey recalled. The pitch broke to the outside and missed the plate by six inches. Plate umpire Doug Harvey, seeing the ball in flight, raised his right hand, signaling strike three. Ninth inning, two outs, score tied, full count, Don Drysdale pitching and Stan Musial coiled, ready to swing.ĭrysdale delivered. Louis, working his third plate game, the Dodgers against the Cardinals. It is unclear whether Muder got his information from Harvey, or whether it came from an October 1992 Baseball Digest magazine article by Jerome Holtzman. That extra moment in time allowed Harvey to perfect his craft. He taught himself to slow down his calls, thus establishing his deliberate style. Musial, who was playing in his 21st big league season, gently told Harvey to “calm down and slow down.” Harvey took the advice to heart. The pitch appeared to be a strike _ until it darted four inches off the plate at the last second, a common path of Drysdale’s wicked deliveries. Here is what Muder wrote about Musial and Harvey regarding an undated game in 1962 between the Cardinals and Dodgers:Įarly in his career, Harvey called out future Hall of Famer Stan Musial on a pitch from another future Hall of Famer, Don Drysdale. In the spring 2010 edition of Memories And Dreams, the official magazine of the Hall of Fame, the museum’s director of communications, Craig Muder, wrote a profile of Harvey. It just didn’t happen exactly the way the Baseball Hall of Fame has reported it. Stan Musial apparently played a significant role in the development of Doug Harvey as a Hall of Fame umpire.

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