Polish All Stars 8, Mets 2

With the starting pitching being a rematch of the opener, both teams were hoping that this game would not be a repeat of that one, where both starters were knocked out of the box early. Both Seaver and Harry Coveleski lasted well into the game (six and seven innings, respectively), but the results were notably different.

The Poles figured Seaver out early, scoring four runs off him in the first three innings. The Mets got two of them back thanks to a home run by David Wright in the bottom of the fourth, but they’d manage only five baserunners after that.

Seaver, meanwhile, ran into a bit of bad luck in the fifth. With the top of the order up, two full-count walks put runners on first and second with no outs. Al Simmons grounded into a double play and it looked like Seaver would get out of it. But Stan Musial slapped a single just past a lunging Keith Hernandez, and Alan Trammel came around to score.

Simmons would get another similar opportunity in the top of the ninth – two runners on with walks – but this time with two outs. A breaking ball from McGraw caught too much of the plate, and Simmons deposited it in the left-field bleachers to make the score 8-2. Tempers flared when Stan Musial was nicked on the thigh with McGraw’s next pitch, but Stan the Man sent his teammates back to the dugout with a wave of his hand as he calmly took his base. “It was fair,” said Stan later. “I was crowding the plate a bit. McGraw wasn’t throwing at me.”

Bob Kuzawa took care of the Mets in the bottom of the ninth.

Mazzilli pinch hit for McReynolds in the 9^th. LOB: Poles 7, Mets 6. 2B: Kurowski, Alfonzo HR: Yastrzemski, Musial, Wright, Simmons RBI: Yastrzemski, Pierzynski (2), Musial (2), Wright (2), Simmons (3). HBP: Musial (by McGraw)