MLB: Mel Allen, Phil Rizzuto and Jerry Coleman's Mistake Topped John Sterling's

We all love John Sterling (we do?) although many listeners criticize him for his more than occasionally inaccurate play-by-play,

The reality is that even the greatest of all New York Yankees announcers, the real "Voice of the Yankees," Mel Allen, once made an embarrassing error that had nothing and everything to do with his description of the game.

The date was June 2, 1963. The Yankees were in Cleveland to play the Indians a doubleheader.

It was a clear, sunny day in Flushing, New York so I decided to sit in the sun and listen to the game instead of staying indoors to watch it.

Mel Allen did the radio announcing. Phil Rizzuto and Jerry Coleman were on the television side.

Indians manager Birdie Tebbetts posted left-hander Sam McDowell as the first game starter on the lineup card posted in the dugout. Yankees statistician Bill Kane relayed the information to the broadcast booths but then Tebbetts changed his mind.

He decided to start left-hander Jack Kralick in the first game and McDowell in the night cap. No one told Allen, Rizzuto or Coleman. They told their listeners that McDowell was pitching.

The game started and remained scoreless through five and one-half innings. As I listened, I kept waiting for "McDowell" to start walking batters but he never did.

McDowell was a strikeout pitcher who walked a lot of batters. In 1963, he had 63 strikeouts and 44 walks in his 65 innings of work.

Kralick pitched 223 innings with 129 strikeouts and only 49 walks.

McDowell was 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighed 190 pounds. Kralick was 6 feet two inches tall and weighed 180 pounds.

The Indians scored three runs on a Joe Adcock three-run home run in the sixth inning on their way to a 5-0 win. "McDowell" limited the Yankees to a pair of hits, striking out four and walking only one.

There are varying accounts with respect to when Mel Allen discovered that Kralick, not McDowell was pitching.

Stephen Borelli wrote that in the third inning, Kane realized that Kralick was the Indians pitcher. It must have been easy to mistake McDowell for Kralick since Allen, Rizzuto, Coleman and Kane all did.

It took Kane a few more innings before getting the courage to tell Rizzuto and Coleman, who first thought their mistake was funny. Then they realized that someone would have to tell him. Kane was selected.

He supposedly told Mel, but I remember that Mel didn't inform his listeners until the second game. He gave the lineups and quickly reported that Sam McDowell, not Jack Kralick was starting the second game.That was it.

Memory is a fleeting thing and I might be wrong, but I took the games quite seriously. Mistaking one pitcher for another most of the game is something that one tends to remember.

One reason I think I remembered correctly is that Borelli wrote "...Kralick was a noticeably shorter pitcher (than McDowell) ...."  He wasn't.

With the passage of time, most individuals tend to remember the good, forget or repress the unpleasant and create a reality that is different from what occurred.

There is no excuse for John Sterling's mistakes. They occur almost every game, but he and his fans can take solace knowing that even the best make egregious errors.