Whitey and The Barber were ready to go as the game started out as a real pitchers' duel, with only five total hits through the first five innings, and remained scoreless despite two Dodger hits in the 1st and the Yanks putting the first two men aboard in the 4th. The Series-opening quiet spell is broken by New York in the 6th; with one out, Mickey Mantle walks and singles by Yogi Berra and Bill Skowron then load the bases to set up Gil McDougald for a two-run base hit. The Yankee shortstop delivers again in the 8th when his single drives Berra home from second after Yogi had started the inning with a double. Ford was hardly breaking a sweat until the bottom of the 8th, when he walked Sandy Amoros with one away and then gave up two-out hits to Jim Gilliam and Pee Wee Reese to get Brooklyn on the board and put the tying runs on the bases. After Ford then walked Duke Snider to load the sacks, Casey Stengel felt as if he had been left with no choice but to come get his ace and Tom Morgan was brought on to face Jackie Robinson with the game on the line. Jack grounded sharply to second, Billy Martin tossed him out at first, and the threat was over. Morgan wobbled in the 9th, allowing singles to Gil Hodges and Carl Furillo to start the final frame, but he found his footing - after Roy Campanella drove Hank Bauer up against the wall in right for a long, loud out - to record the final outs and put the Yankees on top in the Series. New York 3-9-0, Brooklyn 1-8-0. [scoresheet]
New York in the '50s, so perhaps unsurprising that we had two Dons battling on the hill. The Boys from the Bronx struck first, as Berra doubled to lead off the 2nd and Hank Bauer knocks him in one out later. Campanella belted one into the seats with the bases empty in the 5th to tie the score, but the Yanks responded in the 6th with a pair on doubles by McDougald and Joe Collins wrapped around Enos Slaughter's RBI single. The New York lead lasted for one inning, as Duke Snider launched a solo shot in bottom half and Amoros did the same (the third solo shot of the game for BKN, accounting for all of their runs) in the 7th. Snider doubled in the 8th and Brooklyn threatened to nose ahead, but Larsen whiffed Gil Hodges to end the inning, and we finished the regulation nine with the score tied at three runs apiece. The Dodgers ground into their third GIDP of the game to short-circuit the home 10th, and then New York went to work in the 11th after Newcombe (10 ip, 6 h, 3 er, 0 bb, 7 so) finally departed to the relief of the Yankee hitters. With one out, Slaughter doubled off of Ed Roebuck, Mantle walks, and Berra topped an infield hit to load the bases. Joe Collins then skipped one on the ground to Reese, but he dropped the ball on the exchange and the go-ahead run scored. Roebuck, clearly rattled, then bounced one to the backstop that allowed Mantle to sprint home before recovering to fan Bauer and get out of the inning. Dem Bums didn't make it easy on the Yanks, as Robinson doubled with one away and Amoros singled him home with two outs, but Carl Furillo could only manage to hit a routine grounder to Martin at third to end the game with BKN one tally shy. The Bombers win both games at Ebbets Field, and it looks like a long way back into the Series for Brooklyn. New York 5-8-0, Brooklyn 4-10-2. [scoresheet]
Now faced with a hostile crowd and a mountain to climb, the Dodgers got off to a quick start with three 1st-inning singles that produce the game's first run. But Mantle and Berra clubbed back-to-back fly balls into the short porch in right in the bottom of the inning and Brooklyn was chasing the game yet again. On this occasion, at least, they caught it by erupting for a six-run outburst in the 3rd; The first six men to face Strudivant in the inning knocked singles to score four runs and send the starter to the showers early, then Craig piled on with a two-out, two-run hit of his own to complete the carnage. Berra homered again in the 5th (this time with Mantle on board after another walk), but Craig pitched to the score effectively and Brooklyn tacked on another in the 6th on Robinson's RBI hit. An 8th-inning run for NY on the back of Cerv's pinch-hit RBI was much too little, and way too late, after Clem Labine had come on to slam the door shut on New York. Reese and Hodges had three hits each, while Robinson drove home three. Brooklyn 8-14-0, New York 5-10-2. [scoresheet]
Maybe it was a statement of intent when Jim Gilliam drove Bob Turley's first pitch of the game between Mantle and Slaughter and didn't stop running until he had pulled into third base standing up. And maybe it was a sign of resolve when Brooklyn played small ball (Hodges walk, Amoros sacrifice, Furillo single) to produce another run in the 2nd. But, after Berra hit yet another home run to cut the lead in half - his third in his last six at-bats - it was surely a measure of building momentum when the Dodgers beat Turley up for four more runs in the 4th to take a 6-1 lead. The NY hurler surely had some "help" as his teammates made three of their five errors for the day in the inning, but Amoros tripled home two and Gilliam later delivered a run-scoring fly ball to make those mistakes matter. And there was no coming back for the Yankees against Erskine as he ran through them like a hot knife through butter, retiring twelve of thirteen in the middle innings and the Brooklyns piled on four more runs on four extra-base hits in the final two innings. Five different Dodgers had at least two hits as they outplayed New York in every facet of the game and, suddenly, it was a Series again. Brooklyn 10-13-1, New York 1-7-5. [scoresheet]
The Yanks were going to have to lean on Whitey to slow down the suddenly rampaging Bums, and he was as usual up to the task in the early going, holding Brooklyn to just one single over the first five innings after escaping a bases-load mess that he created in the 1st with three bases on balls. Meanwhile Yogi was at it again with the bat, doubling home Mantle in the bottom of the 1st and belting a two-run homer (his 4th of the Series) in the 3rd. Ford kept the Dodgers off the scoreboard until two were out in the 7th, when his uncharacteristically poor command (seven walks) caught up with him and led to a Gilliam RBI single. McDougald (three hits) singled one home in the Yankee 8th, though, and Ford survived two singles and a run in the 9th to go the distance and put New York back in the catbird seat - one win away from another title after a win by the home team for the first time in the Series. New York 4-7-0, Brooklyn 2-6-0. [scoresheet]
New York looked to come right out and silence Ebbets Field from the start, loading the bases in the 1st, but Labine got Martin to ground to first to end the threat and the roar inside Ebbets Field carried right over into the home half of the inning. Gilliam led off with a triple, scored on Snider's double, and then three straight two-out singles pushed home two more runs before Kucks could stop the early bleeding. When NY got one back in the 3rd on Collins' triple and Mickey's sac fly, their defense let them down again the home half as McDougald's fumble put a man on base who later scored on Furillo's hit. Gilliam's error helped balance the scales as NY scored in the 5th, but Labine held fast until he served up a solo shot to mantle in the 8th to cut the Brooklyn lead to a single run. This would be the last whimper for the Yankees, however, as the Rhode Island righty put away the final five Yanks to protect the slim edge and finsh off the game. After winning two slugging affairs, the Dodgers show they can come out ahead in a tight, low-scoring affair and they send the Series to a decisive seventh contest. Brooklyn 4-7-1, New York 3-5-3. [scoresheet]
They were hanging from the rafters at Ebbets Field as the season came down to one more game, and it was the Yanks who would strike first. Bill Skowron took Newcombe deep in the 2nd to give the visitors the lead briefly, but Gilliam tripled (again!) with Campanella aboard in the 3rd to knot the scores. In the 5th, Andy Carey singled with one out and Larsen helped his own cause by ripping a double down the line to send him home and give NY the lead once more. In the home 6th, with one away, Snider hit a long drive to deep center field which was just out of the reach of Mantle and, as the Yankee centerfielder slammed into the wall and the ball caromed into the LCF corner, Snider circled the bases before Elston Howard could get it back towards the plate. An inside-the-park round-tripper to tie the game! Perhaps that play took the stuffing out of more than Mantle, because the Yankees could manage only two baserunners over the final three innings and Brooklyn scored in both the 7th (Gilliam double, Snider single) and 8th (Amoros leadoff homer) to take the lead and secure it until Don Bessent retired Carey on a diving play by Gilliam at second for the final out of the Series. A World's Championship goes to the Lords of Flatbush after coming back from 2-0 and 3-2 Series deficits. Brooklyn 4-6-0, New York 2-6-0. [scoresheet]
The Yankees had Mantle, Berra and Ford and the Dodgers had everything else. While New York's ten errors in the Series certainly didn't help, they also turned ten GIDPs (seven in the first three games) to regularly snuff out potential Dodger rallies. The Yankee team ERA in innings pitched by men not named Whitey Ford was well north of 5.00, and Mick and Yogi had half the team's extra-base hits (and the latter scored or drive in 14 of the club's 23 runs) despite Mantle being given very little to hit (eight walks in the seven games). The Dodgers, on the other hand, got one sub-par starting pitching performance in the entire Series (in a game where they were ahead 7-2 after three innings) and had four batters who slugged at least .500. [Series stats]
Dodgers 2B Jim Gilliam (13-for-29 with three triples and a 1.278 OPS) was in the middle of everything out of the leadoff spot for Brooklyn. He had six multi-hit games, five extra-base hits in the final four games of the Series, and scored the eventual game-winning run in Games Four and Six.
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