Tag Archives: World Series

Dodgers In Spring Training – 1963

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Podres, Koufax And Perranoski Get Ready For A Great Season – March 1963

Podres Koufax Perranoski 1963 March

Three of the anchors of the Dodger pitching staff, Johnny Podres, Sandy Koufax, and Ron Perranoski reach for the same ball at spring training in March 1963.

This trio of Los Angeles Dodgers hurlers would play a big part in helping propel the Dodgers to a World Championship in 1963. The 99-63 Dodgers would humble the 104-57 Yankees in a four game World Series sweep holding the Yankees to a measly four runs.

Johnny Podres hero of the Brooklyn Dodgers 1955 World Series Championship would go 14-12 in 1963 and win game two of the World Series against the Yankees pitching eight and a third innings and allowing just one run in a 4-1 Dodger victory at Yankee Stadium.

Sandy Koufax had his breakout year in 1963 going a magnificent 25-5 with a 1.88 ERA and chalked up 301 strikeouts in 311 innings pitched. He won the Cy Young Award and National League Most Valuable Player Award. In the World Series he won game one and game four allowing just three runs while striking out 23 batters!

Dodgers relief ace Ron Perranoski had his best season ever in the majors with a 16-3 record and 21 saves to go along with a miniscule 1.67 ERA. He received the save in Podres’ victory.

Don Drysdale pitched the third game in the World Series and shut out the Yankees 1-0.

A Close Play At The Plate In Game 3 Of The 1951 World Series

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Alvin Dark Slides In Safely As Yogi Berra Drops The Ball And The Yankees Fall Apart

Giants shortstop Alvin Dark is safe at home plate as Yankees catcher Yogi Berra can't handle the ball

Giants shortstop Alvin Dark is safe at home plate as Yankees catcher Yogi Berra can’t handle the ball

NEW YORK: ERROR FOR BERRA – Giant Alvin Dark is safe at the plate as Yogi Berra drops the ball trying to tag him. Bobby Brown threw to Berra from third on Monte Irvin’s grounder in the Giants big five-run sixth inning. The National League champs made it their second victory over the Yankees in the third game of the 1951 World Series at the Polo Grounds, Oct 6, with a 6-2 score.  Credit (ACME) 10-6-51

The New York Giants had every reason to believe that this was the year they would win the World Series. They had defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers just days before in a best of three tie-breaker playoff series. On October 3, Giants fans witnessed the “Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff” – Bobby Thomson’s dramatic 9th inning home run off of Ralph Branca that propelled them into the Series against the Yankees.

The World Series would be a match-up between cross-river rivals and their respective rookie stars Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle and it would end up being the finale for Joe DiMaggio’s career.

On October 6, 1951 with 52,305 fans packed into the Polo Grounds, the largest crowd ever to see a World Series game in a National League ballpark, the Giants fans were cautiously optimistic.

The series was tied at one game apiece and the Giants were holding a slim 1-0 lead in the fifth inning, when depending on how you look at it, the Giants erupted or the Yankees fell apart. Continue reading →

Joe Collins Second Home Run In Game 1 Of The 1955 World Series

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Yankees Win Game 1, But Brooklyn Wins Their Only World Series

Duke Snider Joe Collins home run WS 9 28 1955

The World Series began on September 28, 1955. Yes, they actually used to begin the “fall classic” right after fall began. Yankee first baseman Joe Collins slugged his second home run of the game, a two run shot in the bottom of the sixth, to put the Yankees up 6-3 in a game they would go on to win 6-5. The outfielder in the photograph leaping in vain for the baseball is Dodger centerfielder Duke Snider.

This was also the game where Jackie Robinson stole home, which to this day is still disputed by Yankees catcher Yogi Berra who insists Robinson was out.

As covered previously by stuffnobodycaresabout, this World Series would be the Brooklyn Dodgers moment of glory as they ended up beating the Yankees in seven games.

The Day Brooklyn Will Never Forget – October 4, 1955 The Brooklyn Dodgers Become World Champions

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Johnny Podres Shuts Out The Yankees to Win Game 7 of The 1955 World Series

Cover Daily News Oct 5 1955

The Brooklyn Dodgers had appeared in seven World Series previous to 1955. They had lost all of them. But on Tuesday, October 4, 1955, a magical afternoon (yes the World Series was always played in the daytime until 1971) occurred at Yankee Stadium in front of 62,485 fans. Amazingly the game was not sold out.

Johnny Podres, after winning game three of the World Series, was matched up in game seven against Yankee veteran Tommy Byrne. An interesting side note: Byrne rode the IND subway from 59th Street to Yankee Stadium unrecognized by anyone. Podres ended up pitching the game of his life – an eight hit, 2-0 shutout. The Dodgers had finally vanquished the Yankees who had beaten them in five previous World Series.

The Dodgers played without Jackie Robinson who was nursing a strained Achilles tendon. And the Yankees were equally handicapped without Mickey Mantle, who, even though he pinch hit in this game, missed most of the Series with a torn leg muscle. Other Yankees and Dodgers stars like Duke Snider and Hank Bauer played despite being injured.

First pitch of Game 7, 1955 World Series Yankee Stadium. Tommy Byrne throws a strike past Jim Gilliam

The Dodgers scored one run in the fourth when Roy Campanella doubled and a single by Gil Hodges drove him home. The Dodgers added a run in the sixth with Hodges hitting a sacrifice fly to drive in Pee Wee Reese.

Sandy Amoros Catch 10 4 55

The acknowledged defensive play of the game was made by Dodgers left fielder Sandy Amoros.

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Game 1 Of The 1957 World Series Yankees vs. Braves

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Action At Second Base, Fifty Five Years Ago Today

Don’t let anyone tell you that the players of yesteryear weren’t as good as today’s players.

They were.

And they played as hard then as they do now. Considering an average player’s salary was around $15,000, the World Series provided extra lucrative income for ballplayers, many of  whom worked at regular jobs in the off season. The winning player’s share of the 1957 World Series was $8,924, the losing player’s share was $5,606.

This news photograph captures the Milwaukee Braves Wes Covington sliding hard into second base to break-up a double play. The news photo is captioned as follows:

Got One, Trying For Two

NEW YORK: New York Yankees second baseman Jerry Coleman leaps to get off the ball (lower center) to first after putting out sliding Milwaukee Braves’ Wes Covington on a force play at second in the fifth inning of the first World Series game of 1957 here at Yankee Stadium October 2nd. Bill McKinley umpires.  McDougald took Crandall’s bouncer and threw to Coleman. The Yanks missed a double play when Elston Howard dropped Coleman’s throw for an error. The Yanks took this opener, 3-1.

United Press Photo      10/2/57

The Braves would end up coming back to win the Series in seven games. Braves right-handed ace Lew Burdette won three games.

1955 World Series The Brooklyn Dodgers Win Game 3 Behind Johnny Podres

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Johnny Podres, The Birthday Boy, Wins A Critical Game 3

This news photograph’s caption reads as follows:

NEW YORK; SEPT. 30 — VICTORY ON HIS BIRTHDAY

Johnny Podres kicks, fires and follows through — with eyes on ground — during third World Series game against New York Yankees at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn today. Johnny celebrated his 23rd birthday with an 8-3 victory over the American League champs. Slender lefty thus put Dodgers back into contention for Series. (AP wirephoto)

The New York Yankees looked like they were on their way to beating their crosstown rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers once again in another World Series. The Yankees had taken the first two games of the 1955 World Series by scores of 6-5 and 4-2. Continue reading →

Billy Martin, Mickey Mantle Prepare For The 1952 World Series

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Martin, Mantle Prepare Series Strategy

60 years ago, the World Series started on the first day of October. This year the World Series will begin October 24!

Here is another one of these great baseball news photographs. This one is from UPI dated September 30 1952. The caption reads: Continue reading →

Joe DiMaggio’s Comeback 1949

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The Yankee Clipper Gets Ready To Return To Play – June 21, 1949

Many who saw Joe DiMaggio play say he was the greatest all-around ballplayer who ever lived. Everything he did seemed effortless. Of course this is a huge exaggeration. Everything DiMaggio did so well required practice, patience and hard work.

When DiMaggio missed the first three months of the 1949 baseball season with a painful heel injury, many fans, players and sportswriters thought he might never play again.

So it was hush-hush when DiMaggio went to an empty Yankee Stadium to test out his heel in a full workout on June 21, 1949.

Things went well and DiMaggio returned to the Yankee line-up on June 28, 1949 at Fenway Park against the Red Sox to start a three game series. He hit a homerun in the first game which the Yankees won by a score of 5-4. The Yankees swept the series and when DiMaggio left Boston, he had hit four homeruns and driven in nine runs.

The impact of his return cannot be understated. In the 76 games DiMaggio played for the remainder of the year, he batted .346, hit 14 homeruns and drove in 67 runs. His on base percentage was the highest of his career, .459. In 329 plate appearances he struck out only 18 times.

The Yankees ended up edging the Red Sox by one game in the final season standings, propelling the Yankees into the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

DiMaggio would go on to have the worst World Series performance in his storied career, batting just .111. But the Yankees still defeated the Dodgers four games to one, starting their stretch of winning five World Championships in a row.

Additional Baseball Playoff Wildcard Is An Abomination

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New Watered Down Playoff System Brings Lesser Teams New Hope

In 2011 the team that tied for the tenth best record in major league baseball won the World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals were a good team at 90-72, but were they the best team in baseball? If your measurement is winning the World Series the answer is yes. Using any other criteria the answer is definitely not. They were a team that got hot at the end of the year and that carried over throughout the postseason.

The real question is: should a team that has the tenth best record in baseball have the right to play in the World Series? Continue reading →

The Agony of Defeat

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The Day After The Yankees Were Swept in a Late Season Doubleheader – 1954

The day of September 13, 1954 was not a happy one for Yankees fans as can be seen above. Reality sank in for eleven-year-old Walter Golle as he sat in front of Yankee Stadium. The dejection shown in Walter’s face reflected the fact that the Yankees would not be in the World Series for the first time since 1948 when Walter was five-years-old. The Yankees had won five consecutive World Series from 1949-1953.

The day before, on September 12, the Cleveland Indians had swept the Yankees in a doubleheader in Cleveland. The games were witnessed by 86,563 fans, the largest crowd to ever see a baseball game in the cavernous Municipal Stadium.

September 12, 1954 Municipal Stadium Filled

Bob Lemon won the first game 4-1 for his twenty-second win of the year and Early Wynn triumphed 3-2 in the second game for his twenty-first victory. The Yankees ended the day being 8 and a half games behind the Indians, reducing Cleveland’s magic number for clinching the pennant to three games.

The Indians would go on to win an American League record 111 games. They finished the season eight games ahead of the Yankees.  Miraculously the New York Giants defeated the heavily favored Indians four games to none in the World Series.

Walter eventually got over the Yankees 1954 failure. Maybe that is an assumption.

Here is what Walter looked like 46 years later in 2000 featured in The Norwood News Inquiring Photographer section.