Yankees World Series Memories

Introduction

In 1894, Pittsburgh Pirates owner William C. Temple pushed for a championship series for the two top teams in his National League. The second-place New York Giants swept the first-place Baltimore Orioles in a seven-game series to capture the Temple Cup. The upstart American League got into the act in 1901 and two years later, in 1903, the Boston Americans (no Curse of the Bambino yet) defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates of Honus Wagner five games to three for the Championship of the United States, soon to be renamed the World Series for no known reason. Every year since the World Series has been played, except for 1904 as a result of National League arrogance and 1994 due to a labor dispute.

In 1921, the once-downtrodden New York Highlanders, escapees from Baltimore, played in their first Series as the Yankees against their Polo Grounds landlords, the New York Giants. The Giants won five games to three. (It was the final time the World Series would experiment with a best-of-nine series format.) John McGraw's Giants came back again to defeat the Yankees in a 1922 Series sweep four games to none. Yet it took the Giants five games to do so, as Game 2 ended in a 10-inning, 3-3 tie as the sun went down. Yankees right fielder Babe Ruth had only two hits in the series.

Yankee Stadium, the House That Ruth Built and Steinbrenner is building anew, opened the following year. So began the Yankees' World Series dominance with a victory over the hated Giants, four games to two. From that day—October 15, 1923—until now, the New York Yankees have been the most successful team in the history of sports with 26 titles in 39 Fall Classic appearances. Not even the absence of a World Series appearance since 2003 or the inability to gain a World Series championship ring since 2000 can challenge the team's domination.

As a youngster growing up in New York—mad about baseball and determined to play the game for a living, or at least write about it after curve balls and ground balls ended my athletic dreams—I measured time by World Series games. A new year began with the Fall Classic. I saw my first World Series game in person as a teenager in 1947, the Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Yankees, Game 3 of the Series, a vivid memory that remains 60 years later. My brother and I slept overnight on the sidewalk outside Brooklyn's Ebbets Field waiting for the gates to open at 10 a.m. so we could purchase our $1.10 bleacher seats. That day at the ballpark, we ate our salami sandwiches, chewed on a candy bar, and sipped soda as we watched Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, Phil Rizzuto, and Snuffy Stirnweiss take batting practice. No matter that the Yankees lost that Series game 9-8. I sat thrilled and breathless for the entire game. We stood later in the Ebbets Field rotunda as players exited the stadium, screaming their names as they briskly passed on their way to the waiting team bus. Joe, Joe, I shouted as DiMaggio passed, walking lightly on the rotunda floor, wearing a long dark overcoat with his slick, black hair almost shining in the late afternoon sunlight. The Yankees won that thriller of a Series four games to three.

They missed out in 1948 as I watched the Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Braves on the small television set in my neighbor's home. Then in October of 1949, the Yankees began the most astonishing streak in baseball history, never matched in almost six decades: five straight championships in five years under the direction of manager Casey Stengel. The World Series seemed to become the personal property of the Yankees throughout the 1950s with eight appearances in ten seasons between 1950 and 1959. They only missed the October fun in 1954 and 1959, beaten out twice by manager A1 Lopez with the Cleveland Indians in 1954 and again with the Chicago White Sox in 1959.

Five more appearances in the Fall Classic from 1960 through 1964, now witnessed in person as a working sports-writer, added to the Yankees' lore and lustre.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the team slowed down considerably under CBS ownership. Then Billy Martin brought the Yankees back to the Series in 1976. Two more championships followed in 1977 and 1978 under the rambunctious leadership of Martin and strong-willed team owner George Steinbrenner. The Yankees were in the Series again in 1981, then slipped into another prolonged absence until the arrival of Joe Torre as field boss in 1996. There were six Yankee appearances in the World Series in the first eight years of Torre's time as skipper.

Over the last 60 years I have witnessed every Yankee World Series game as a fan, a working newspaper sportswriter, or a baseball author. I have collected the thrills and the disappointments in my memory bank. With ease, I can recall Don Larsen striking out Dale Mitchell for his perfect game in 1956, and Yogi Berra drifting back slowly to the left-field wall as Bill Mazeroskis fly ball sailed over his head for the game-winning home run in Game 7 of the 1960 Classic. There's Bernie Williams camping under a Mike Piazza drive to center field to record the last out of the 2000 Series when the Yankees and New York Mets played for the first time in the modern version of the Subway Series. In the following pages, I have exhausted my memory in replaying so many of the Yankees Series triumphs and tragedies. Beginning with my first Yankee October in 1947 and moving through the most recent appearances. In my mind, I have rated each appearance on the merits of excitement, drama, heroics, and history Now, in order, come the tales of my favorite Yankee World Series.

—Maury Allen

1

1947

The 1947 World Series wasn't short on memorable occasions: a near no-hitter pitched by journeyman Yankee hurler Bill Bevens, who won only seven games in the entire 1947 season; a clutch ninth-inning, pinch-hit double off the wall in Ebbets Field by retiring Brooklyn infielder Harry Cookie Lavagetto that not only broke up the near no-hitter but won the game for the Dodgers; a miraculous catch in the sixth game at Yankee Stadium by diminutive outfielder A1 Gionfriddo; probably the finest relief pitching performance in World Series history turned in by lefthander Joe Page, who logged five scoreless innings of one-hit ball to wrap up Game 7 for the Yankees.

Then there was modern baseball's first African-American player, Jackie Robinson, who played first base in all seven games, batted .259, showed his electrifying skills on the bases, and opened the door for an integrated baseball future. Robinson, of course, would go on to a Hall of Fame career as a second baseman and later third baseman and outfielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

To catch a glimpse of the action on October 2, 1947, I had to spend a long, thrilling night on the Bedford Avenue sidewalk waiting for the gates to open at 10 a.m. A brown bag with two salami sandwiches, a candy bar, and an apple were in hand as I boarded the BMT Express from the Kings Highway stop in Brooklyn to the Prospect Avenue stop late that in the afternoon. I walked the three blocks to the ballpark with my older brother, settled on the ground with the lunch bag and the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, and waited for the greatest thrill of my young life, a World Series ticket for a bleacher seat.

For the drama of that brilliantly played seven-game series, for the historic appearance of Jackie Robinson, and for the lasting memory of witnessing a World Series game in person for the very first time, I consider the 1947 Series between the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers my personal Series favorite.

Ill let Ralph Branca set the scene:

I remember it like it was yesterday, said Branca, the 21-year-old Brooklyn starter in Game 1. My brother Julius drove me down to Yankee Stadium from our home in nearby Mount Vernon. I didn't say much in the car. I was just thinking of those Yankee hitters: (Tommy) Henrich; (Joe) DiMaggio; Yogi Berra, the good rookie lefthanded hitter; George McQuinn, the tough first baseman; and the slugging outfielder Johnny Lindell.

Branca was sitting on the back porch of the 19th hole of the Otesaga Hotel golf course in Cooperstown, New York as he recalled his emotions from that day nearly 60 years ago.

I had a great year and felt pretty confident facing those famous Yankees. We had a wonderful ball club and I was sure I could handle them. I certainly did for the first four innings. Then DiMaggio hit that infield single and I went to pieces, recalled Branca.

Bad nerves attacked the youngster, who walked McQuinn, hit Billy Johnson with a pitch, gave up a double to Lindell, and walked Phil Rizzuto before being relieved. By inning's end, the Yankees had scored five runs on their way to an opening-game 5-3 triumph.

I know I lost my poise in that fifth inning, Branca remembered, but I couldn't understand then and can't understand to this day why I didn't get a chance to start another game. After all, I had anchored our staff all year and got us there.

The 80-year-old Branca, later to gain even more immortal baseball fame in 1951 after the famous Shot Heard 'Round the World by Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants, grits his teeth when he talks of the 1947 Brooklyn manager.

Burt Shotton took over after Leo Durocher was suspended at the start of the 1947 season, and despite my pitching all year he just forgot me in the Series. That always hurt. I thought things might have been different if I started another game, Branca said.

The Yankees coasted to a 10-3 win in the second game behind Allie Reynolds, and the Series shifted to Brooklyn's Ebbets Field for the third game, my first World Series game. The Dodgers won a slugfest 9-8. More importantly, I ate about half a dozen ballpark franks, downed six or seven sodas, and saved my scorecard from the game, which I still have today

Brooklyn tied the Series at two games each in Game 4, one of the most historic games in the sport's history. Bevens, a 6- foot-4, 220-pound right-hander from Hubbard, Oregon, who would have only a four-year big league career, was 7-13 that season for Yankee manager Bucky Harris.

He walked ten Dodgers in that game; gave up a single run in the fifth on two walks, a sacrifice, and an infield out; and carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning. In the final frame with the Yankees ahead 2-1, Bevens walked Carl Furillo with one out and then retired rookie third baseman Johnny Jorgensen on a foul ball for the second out. Shotton then made a strange move, which Harris countered with an even stranger one.

The Brooklyn skipper, who always wore street clothes in the dugout, sent in the veteran outfielder Gionfriddo to run for Furillo. On the second pitch Gionfriddo stole second base to put the tying run on second. Shotton sent injured slugger Pete Reiser out of the lineup with a damaged foot, up to bat for reliever Hugh Casey.

In one of the most controversial moves in World Series history, Harris went against the book and walked Reiser, the potential winning run, intentionally It was the tenth walk of the game for Bevens. Infielder Eddie Miksis ran for the limping Reiser. Then came up another pinch hitter, veteran Harry (Cookie) Lavagetto, a right-handed line-drive hitter in his final big league season. Lavagetto, hitting for Brooklyn second baseman Eddie Stanky, stood between Bevens and a no-hitter. He lined Bevens' second pitch past right fielder Tommy Henrich off the wall in right. Gionfriddo scored easily from second, and Miksis, with great speed, slid home safely with the winning run on a great charge from first.

I thought about that hit for years, Bevens once said. I tried to get the pitch high and away from Lavagetto. I guess it wasn't high enough and far enough away.

Sometimes you don't always get a pitch where you want it, said Berra, then a rookie catcher.

The 3-2 Brooklyn victory tied the Series at two games each, setting up an exciting Series finish. In the fifth game, DiMaggio homered off fireballer Rex Barney in the top of the fifth inning, and Frank Spec Shea, who won 14 games as a rookie during the regular season, picked up his second Series triumph by allowing just four hits and one run in nine innings.

The Yankees took a 3-2 Series lead into Game 6, one of the most thrilling contests in World Series history. The Dodgers were trailing 5-4 heading into the sixth inning. They rallied against reliever Joe Page in the top of the sixth with the key hit an RBI pinch-hit double by third-string catcher Bobby Bragan. It was amazing that Bragan was still on the Dodgers roster in the Fall Classic. He was from Birmingham, Alabama, and was one of the leaders of a petition that spring, along with southerners Dixie Walker and Eddie Stanky and misguided Pennsylvanian Carl Furillo, that implored the Dodgers to refrain from bringing African-American player Jackie Robinson to Brooklyn.

I said I wanted to be traded but Mr. (Branch) Rickey the Brooklyn boss, asked us to hold off until we saw this guy play It wasn't long before I appreciated his play and saw what a wonderful man Jackie was. We soon became very close friends, Bragan said.

In that sixth game, Bragan was summoned out of the bullpen with the Dodgers down by a run to hit for Branca, who had made his second relief appearance in the series after starting the opener.

I was nervous when I was walking to the bat rack, but as I got closer to the plate I grew more calm, Bragan said. I felt good that Page was left handed and that might help. He hung a curve and I drove it down the line for a run-scoring double. Pee Wee Reese got a two-run-scoring single and suddenly we had an 8-5 lead.

Shotton sent Gionfriddo, all of 5-foot-6, to the Brooklyn outfield in the bottom of the sixth to replace Miksis, an infielder by trade who got into the game as a pinch hitter for left fielder Gene Hermanski and played one inning in the outfield. Now the Yankees, trying to close out the Series in six games, rallied again against left-hander Joe Hatten. They got a couple of runners on with DiMaggio at bat. The Yankee Clipper caught one of Hatten's high fastballs and drove it to the deepest part of left-center field in Yankee Stadium. The left-handed-throwing Gionfriddo, with the glove on his right hand, raced back and to his right for the huge drive. He lost his cap near the rail, reached up, and snatched the baseball out of the air as he crashed into the low railing of the visiting team's bullpen.

I was back in the bullpen warming up pitchers again by then so I probably had the best view of the catch, said Bragan. Frankly, with Al's small size, I never thought he had a chance to catch it. Somehow he stretched out as far as he could and grabbed the ball just before it disappeared into the bullpen for a game-tying homer.

Gionfriddo has always recognized the catch as the highlight of his short big-league career over four seasons in Pittsburgh and Brooklyn.

It was not only an amazing catch, Gionfriddo once said, "but it was against the great DiMaggio. I think that is why it is as