Philsmania...your memory is correct about Simmons beating the Phils during that infamous end of the season 10 game collapse. Simmons beat the Phils in loss #10, ironically their final loss of the season, 8-5, on Wednesday night, Sept. 30.
This was Jim Bunning's 3rd loss in 7 days as he was pummeled and left losing 8-0. Two more ironic things about the Simmons-Bunning match up. One, had this game gone the other way, even with a 9 game losing streak entering this game, the Phils would have won the pennant by one game instead of the other way around.
And two...these two had met 3 weeks before at Conning Mack Stadium in the game that I still felt turned the entire race around, though no one quite knew it at the time. Just the day before Frank Thomas has broken his thumb in a makeup game against the Dodgers and was thought gone for the season.
Still, the Phils held a six game lead over a surging Cards team as St. Louis entered Philadelphia for a crucial two game series. For one of the few times in Simmons career with the Cards, he got bombed in Philadelphia and left after 4 innings [10 hits, 4 runs] and Bunning and the Phils had a 5-3 lead entering the ninth inning.
The Cards later said that had they lost that game the season was over for them [especially since Chris Short beat them the following day 5-1] but Lou Brock got a key steal which allowed him to score the tying run with two outs in the ninth and the Cards went on to an eleven inning 10-5 win.
I remember that night [I was a young boy in love with those Phillies] and I recall feeling a bit uneasy. Not only had the Cards crept to within five games of the Phils [this was their smallest lead since mid August] but it was the kind of game the Phils almost never lost up that point in the season.
My uneasiness proved prophetic...they would lose at least a half dozen similar games during their upcoming West Coast road trip and then when they returned home for what became the start of the 10 game losing streak.