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The turnstiles clicked a merry tune at Milwaukee's County Stadium on an August evening in 1961.
The standing room only throng of 40,775 was the biggest stadium crowd in two years.
Reserved seats had been sold out for weeks, and the fans lined up hours before the game at the bleacher entrances.
The Braves were far off the National League pent-up base, and their rivals, the Chicago Cubs, were deep in the second division.
But that didn't matter. Fans came from the city, the suburbs, Chicago, and even further.
They came to see a pitcher bid for a victory that would put him in a charm circle.
Lefty Jack Curtis was a Cub starter. He was only three years old when his pitching rivals started his pro baseball career.
But that didn't make the Milwaukee pitcher's job any easier. For four innings, the two Southpaws racked up zeros on the scoreboard.
The Braves pushed one run across in the fifth, and the Cubs matched that tally in the sixth.
In the eighth inning, County Stadium came alive, and Geno Somoli walked a home run to give the Braves the lead.
A hush fell over the crowd as the pitcher walked to the mound to start the ninth inning.
He was only three outs away from victory. André Rogers was the first batter, and he was erased on four pitches.
Only two hours to go. Jerry Kendall was the next, and he laced a low-liner to center.
But Geno Somoli raced in and made a great sliding catch for the second out.
Ernie Banks was in the bat rack for the Cubs. He had been benched for a couple of days, but was sent up as a pinch hitter.
Banks grounded one hard to third, but a bad throw by Eddie Matthews gave Ernie a life.
Another pinch hitter, Jim McAnany, stepped to the plate. He looked at a couple of balls and then sent a fly to right field.
Hank Aaron moved over a couple of steps and pulled it in. A finisher story in 60 seconds.
The game was over, and the pitcher, Warren Spawn, had reached a milestone in his long and meritorious career.
Only a dozen pitchers before him had won as many as 300 games.
Now Spawn joined a slight group of pitching greats, which include Cy Young, Christian Matheson, Walter Johnson, Eddie Plank, and Mephie Grove.
But Spawn admitted later that it was the toughest game, even though not the most important game, he had ever pitched.