Herrnstein to Wine to Herrnstein to Triandos: '64 Phils Turn Unique Triple Play

Phillies' Gus Triandos tags Colts' Rusty
 Staub to complete the triple play.

Things were looking mighty bright to the young Philadelphia Phillies team in the spring of 1964. Many pre-season prognosticators had chosen them to take the National League Pennant. Dick Allen, the rookie third baseman, was proving to be the real deal. Newly acquired ace pitcher, Jim Bunning, showed he would anchor the otherwise young staff and had already compiled a 3-1 record. Entering a game with the Houston Colt .45s at Colt Stadium on Sunday evening, May 17, the Phillies were 16-10, tied for second place with the St. Louis Cardinals, one-half game behind the league leading San Francisco Giants. 

During this contest the Phillies would pull off a triple play that would prove to be the crucial play in their 2-0 victory. Triple plays, of course, are rare occurrences, but this triple play was the rarest of the rare: a 3-6-3-2 triple play. A play that was unique in the history of baseball up until that time and a play that has been repeated only once in the 56 years since that day. 

The starting pitcher for the Phillies was Chris Short. Short was making only his second start of the season. He had begun the season in the bullpen and had not yet become the left-handed yang to Jim Bunning's ying. After this game he would take up a regular spot in the rotation and pitch very well all season. Opposing Short was Houston right-hander Jim Owens, a former Phillie with a reputation as a brawler and late-night carouser, who was trying to revive his career with the expansion Colts.

The Phillies lineup featured young and promising players at almost every position. Only left-fielder Wes Covington was over 30-years-old. Around the infield was Allen at third, Bobby Wine at short, Tony Taylor at second, and rookie John Hernnstein at first. Covington was in left, Tony Gonzalez in center, and budding star Johnny Callison in right. Clay Dalrymple was catching. 

The Phillies took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning on back-to-back doubles by Callison and Covington. The score was the same when the Colt .45s came up in the bottom of the fifth and all sorts of craziness ensued. Colt's first baseman Rusty Staub led off with an infield single and moved up to second when Walt Williams' sacrifice bunt was fumbled by Allen for an error. With two men on, Jerry Grote attempted to bunt twice and failed. Short then threw one low and the count moved to 2-2. At this point, Short threw another pitch around the knees that was called a ball by home plate umpire, Lee Weyer. Dalrymple said something to Weyer and Weyer tossed the Phillie catcher out of the game. 

Incensed, Dalrymple got right in Weyer's face and held up five fingers to indicate how many pitches the ump had missed. Manager Gene Mauch came out to both defend and protect his catcher and also got the heave-ho. While Dalrymple and Mauch marched to the clubhouse, Gus Triandos donned the catching gear and took Dalrymple's place behind the plate.

With peace restored, Short fired a 3 and 2 pitch to Grote, who slashed a ground ball to Hernnstein at first base. John caught the ball and fired to Wine to retire Williams for the first out of the inning. Herrnstein sprinted back to first base to receive the return throw from Wine, which just nipped Grote coming to first. Hernnstein lost his balance on the play, however, as he felt for the first base bag. Staub, seeing Hernnstein stumble, hesitated and then took off for home. Hernnstein recovered and threw to Triandos in time to catch a sprawling Staub at the plate.

The 3-6-3-2 triple play was, as I said above, the first ever in major league history. It was the first and last triple play of any kind at Colts Stadium, which was replaced by the Astrodome in 1965. It was also the first triple play the Phillies had pulled off since June of 1958. The play helped preserve the Phillies lead and Short's shutout. The Phillies scored their second run in the sixth, when Gonzalez walked, moved up on an error, and scored on a Taylor single. Short finished off a five hit shutout in style with the help of two double plays started by Taylor. Owens was the hard luck loser.

The man in the middle of the 3-6-3-2 triple play, John Hernnstein, had been a Phillies minor league prospect for a number of years and had two brief September call ups in 1962 and 1963. He was being heavily counted on in 1964, even though the other Phillies' rookie, Allen was much more highly touted.  Hernnstein started out well, and by the time this game was played on May 17, he was hitting .333 and had supplanted veteran Roy Sievers as the starting first baseman. The good times didn't last, however, and as Herrnstein's batting average plummeted, the Phillies looked to shore up their pennant chances by trading a couple of pitching prospects for Mets slugger Frank Thomas. By the end of the season, Hernnstein was relegated to pinch hitting and late-inning defensive replacement duty. He saw limited action with the Phillies in 1965, bounced around to three teams in 1966, and was gone from baseball thereafter.

Catcher Dalrymple was the only Phillie player not entirely ecstatic about the triple play. "I'm mad," he told the Philadelphia Daily News' Stan Hochman, "I could have been part of a triple play for the first time and I got thrown out of the game." As it happened, Dalrymple never was a part of a triple play in his 12 year major league career. He was on the field, however, on August 15, when Phils' pitcher John Boozer started a 1-6-3 triple play against the Mets at Shea Stadium and on October 2, when the Phillies pulled off their third triple play of the season, in Cincinnati against the Reds. That play helped the Phillies break their 10 game end of year losing streak. Chris Short was the pitcher that day, too. But there was little joy for the Phillies after that game, as their pennant hopes appeared to have slipped away.

The only other 3-6-3-2 triple play in Major League Baseball history occurred on August 5, 1998, when the New York Mets turned one - John Olerud to Rey Ordonez back to Olerud to Todd Pratt - at Shea Stadium. Barry Bonds tried to score from second on the play and was tagged out by Pratt..