Try to imagine David Price shutting out the Dodgers in a Red Sox World Series sweep, then coming home to his winter job, selling suits and stocking shelves at Eastern Clothing on Coolidge Hill Road in Watertown.
This is what Jim Palmer did 50 years ago. Matched against Sandy Koufax in the second game of the 1966 World Series, the 20-year-old Palmer shut out the Dodgers in what turned out to be the final game of Koufax’s career. A few weeks after the Orioles completed their sweep of the heavily-favored Dodgers, Palmer went to work for $150 per week selling suits, stocking shelves, and signing autographs at a downtown Baltimore clothing store called Hamburgers.
Palmer’s 1966 salary with the Orioles was $7,500. His World Series share was $11,682. He had a wife, a baby girl, and a mortgage on a $26,200 house in Timonium, Md. Celebrating his World Series fame in the winter of 1966-67, he was able to pick up $25 per appearance (plus 10 cents per mile for his commute) to speak to Little League groups in Maryland and Pennsylvania. He was too young to endorse beer like teammates Boog Powell and Dave McNally, so he took another job selling clothes and stocking shelves.
Hello, sir. I’m Jim Palmer. What are we looking for today? A suit? Slacks? Dacron polyester is going to be very big next spring. The Scotchgard coating repels water and these are on sale, two for $9.99.
“You have to understand that almost everybody had offseason jobs in those days,’’ says Palmer, who is at Fenway this week as part of the Orioles’ television broadcast team. “One of the first things the Orioles would tell us was to get involved in the community. If you were going to live there, get involved. All the Colts did. Dealing with the public is a good experience. Some of the sales guys at Hamburgers didn’t like it much. They all worked on commission and I remember selling a woman a blazer, slacks, and a pair of shoes and those guys were not very happy with me.’’
Decades come and go. Mad Men clothes go in and out of style. But Jim Palmer and the high fastball are forever. After 19 major league seasons that landed him alongside Koufax in Cooperstown, Palmer launched a second career as a spokesman/model for Jockey International, and a third career as a television sportscaster. Howard Cosell coached Palmer in the TV game in the 1970s and today Palmer works Orioles telecasts with veteran partner Gary Thorne. They’re here for the first-place showdown series between the Red Sox and Orioles, and Palmer’s also busy promoting his new book, “Nine Innings to Success.’’ (Conflict of interest note: I wrote a blurb for Palmer’s book).
Nicknamed “Cakes” because of his tradition of eating pancakes on game days, Palmer is 70, looks 50, and annoys all of us with his ability to remember absolutely everything about every game in which he played. There’s a lot to remember. He finished with 268 career wins, a .638 winning percentage, a 2.86 ERA, 211 complete games, 53 shutouts, and three Cy Young Awards. He won 20 games eight times. He is the only pitcher to win a World Series game in three different decades. Pitching 200 innings is a big deal these days. Palmer cracked 300 innings four times and hit 296 two other times.
He made his first big league appearance at Fenway on April 17, 1965, when manager Hank Bauer summoned him in relief of future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts to face Carl Yastrzemski with two on (Lenny Green was on second) and nobody out. Palmer walked Yaz, then faced Tony Conigliaro with the bases loaded. He punched out Tony C on a called third strike (“knee high, outside corner”), then allowed a two-run single and got out of the jam with a double-play grounder. In almost 4,000 innings, Palmer never surrendered a grand slam — a fact he delights in mentioning after an Oriole hurler yields a granny.
His connections to the Red Sox and New England are many. Palmer threw 177 pitches in an April start at Fenway in 1966 and also homered off Dave Morehead in an 8-1 win. He injured his arm while facing Billy Conigliaro in a rehab start at Wahconah Park in Pittsfield in 1968. He gave up five homers to the Sox (Butch Hobson, Jim Rice, George Scott, and two by Carlton Fisk) in a single game in 1977. His daughter, Jamie, lives on the Cape and one of Palmer’s closest Oriole friends was the late Mike Flanagan of Manchester, N.H., and UMass. Palmer’s lifelong friend, former teammate Davey Leonhard, owns a chain of floral shops in Beverly.
“I love coming to Boston,’’ says Palmer. “It’s where I made my big league debut. And whenever I sold shoes at Hamburgers, I always recommended Bostonians.’’
Yikes. Imagine telling young sales clerk David Price that you’d like to see some black wingtips in 11½ D.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Shaughnessy.