This is the eighth in a series of examinations of baseball-related legends and whether they are true or false.

This installment is a re-format edition, so these legends have already been posted on this site, just not in this format.

Let’s begin!

BASEBALL LEGEND: Tommy Davis’ former Dodger teammate Johnny Roseboro helped him bat over .300 in 1967.

STATUS: False

We can’t always expect stars to remember all the details from the stories they relate in their biographies (or other places where they are asked to reminisce about the past), but when the main point of the story appears to be incorrect, I think it is worth pointing it out.

Tommy Davis spent the first eight seasons of his career playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He was a great hitter, and won back-to-back batting titles with the Dodgers in 1962 and 1963 (the Dodgers also won the World Series in 1963).

After an injury in 1965, Davis was never really the same player ever again, and after being traded to the Mets in 1967, Davis played an additional eleven seasons for a total of TEN other teams (counting the Mets and also, admittedly, counting the Yankees, who Davis signed with but never actually suited up for).

In his memoirs, Davis spoke of a particular situation that took place in the second to last game of the 1967 season, with his current team, the Mets, squared off against his old team, the Dodgers.

Davis recalls coming to bat against Don Drysdale having already gone 0-2 so far in the game. Davis felt he was close to .300 (maybe even under) and really wanted to hit .300, so he asked his former teammate and friend, catcher John Roseboro, if he could help him out. He told him where he stood, batting average-wise. The game was a meaningless game (the Dodgers and Mets were 8th and 10th, respectively), so it didn’t really mean much except for personal statistical accomplishments (in the days before free agency, batting .300 and batting .299 likely DID matter on how much money you made the next season).

So Davis’ old teammate, Roseboro, had Drysdale throw one right down the middle and Davis scorched it for a double. With his average now safely above .300 (.302, as Davis tells it), Davis took himself out of the game and then skipped the final game of the season.

Now, the Dodgers DID play the Mets on the second-to-last day of the season. It WAS Davis’ last game of the season. Davis DID hit a double off of Drysdale. His batting average for the season WAS .302. Before he hit the double, his batting average was just under .301.

But the rest of the story doesn’t check out, including two minor issues and one major issue.

1. Davis got his double in the third inning, after being 0-1.

2. Davis did not come out until after the fourth, where he had another at-bat (he grounded out).

And here’s the big one….

3. Roseboro was not catching that game!

Jeff Torborg was.

And yes, Torborg and Davis were ALSO teammates for a few seasons at that point, so I suppose everything else could be true and Davis just misremembered Roseboro as being the catcher, but he makes a big deal over it being Roseboro in his (Davis’) auto-biography.

Strange.

BASEBALL LEGEND: Ferguson Jenkins lost five games 1-0 in 1968.

STATUS: True

1968 is known as the “year of the pitcher.”

Major League Baseball, in an attempt to combat increased offense in the years following the expansion in the early 1960s, decided to give pitchers some advantages. They raised the pitching mound and increased the size of the strike zone.

As a result, pitching dominated the big leagues in 1968.

In 1966, National League teams averaged 4.09 runs a game.

In 1967, National League teams averaged 3.84 runs a game.

In 1968, National League teams averaged 3.43 runs a game!

Bob Gibson set a new major league record for lowest Earned Run Average for a season (1.12 ERA).

So when Ferguson Jenkins says that he lost five games in 1968 1-0, it’s not unbelievable, but at the same time, it seems like the sort of thing that a guy might easily misremember.

But no, not only did Jenkins lose five games 1-0, he also pitched a SIXTH game that ALSO ended 1-0 against Jenkins’ Cubs, only Jenkins received a no-decision as he was out of the game by the time it ended.

On May 14th, Don Drysdale of the Dodgers out-dueled Jenkins, 1-0.

On May 19th, Gaylord Perry of the Giants beat Jenkins, 1-0.

On June 16th, both Phil Niekro and Jenkins went at least nine innings (Fergie went 10!) in no decisions in a game the Cubs lost, 1-0.

On June 20th, Bob Gibson (he of the 1.12 ERA) beat Jenkins, 1-0.

Finally, a month apart, on July and September 11th, respectively, Jenkins lost to the Mets (once at home and once on the road) 1-0, losing to Dick Selma and Jim McAndrew, respectively.

FOUR of the six losses involved games where Jenkins was facing off against a future Hall of Famer (like Jenkins).

Talk about some crazy good pitching match-ups!!!

BASEBALL LEGEND:The New York Post had an editorial up the day after the Yankees defeated the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series bemoaning a Yankee loss in the series.

STATUS: True

As the title of the piece goes, when it comes to jumping the gun a bit, the New York Post’s mistake on October 17, 2003, was not nearly as bad as the infamous Chicago Tribune headline wrongly naming Thomas Dewey as the thirty-fourth President of the United States.

Still, mere hours after Aaron Boone’s dramatic 11th inning walk-off home run sent the New York Yankees to the World Series by defeating the Red Sox four games to three…

the New York Post had the following editorial in some editions of their paper (thanks to the Smoking Gun for the image)…

The Editor-in-Chief of the New York Post, Col Allan blamed the blunder on a simple production error.

“We had prepared two editorials, one in the event of the Yankees winning, one with the Yankees losing,” he said. “When we transmitted the pages to our printing facility, the wrong button was struck and the wrong editorial sent.”

Pretty darn funny mistake!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com