1951 World Series: End Of The Line For The Giants

If there was ever a time when Game 1 of a World Series felt anticlimactic, it happened on Oct. 4, 1951, at Yankee Stadium.

The day before, one of baseball’s most iconic moments, one that some historians remain convinced is the greatest moment in the sport’s history, occurred across the river at the Polo Grounds.

That’s where Bobby Thomson hit his National League pennant-winning home run to lift the Giants over the Dodgers, the shot heard round the world, capping a remarkable comeback that had seen New York overcome a 13.5-game Brooklyn lead over the final six weeks to tie for first place.

The old rivals then split the first two games of the best-of-three series to decide the pennant, and the Dodgers led 4-2 in the bottom of the ninth when the Giants came roaring back to win when Thomson took Ralph Branca over the left-field wall.

Over in the American League, it had been business as usual for the Yankees who won their third straight pennant, five games clear of Cleveland, and after all the drama the Giants endured, it felt like there was no way they could keep it rolling and get past Casey Stengel’s two-time defending world champions.

Instead, they managed to corral their emotions 24 hours after their historic elimination of the Dodgers and they strafed Allie Reynolds for eight hits and five runs during a 5-1 victory.

Thomson had said in the moments after his triumphant home run that he hoped “this cloud I’m on never gets to find a landing field. I could keep riding it the rest of my baseball life.”

In Game 1, he grabbed young left-hander Dave Koslo and took him along for the excursion. Koslo, starting only because manager Leo Durocher had started Sal Maglie, Jim Hearn and Larry Jansen in the playoff series, stymied the Yankees on seven hits in a complete game that moved Stengel to say, “Control was the big thing in this game. The other fellow had it and my man didn’t. Koslo pitched a good game, we couldn’t hit him.”

The Giants jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first, Monte Irvin’s steal of home the highlight, then stretched their advantage to 5-1 in the sixth when Alvin Dark hit a two-out, three-run homer which ended Reynolds’ day. The Yankees never really threatened to make it close and the Giants, who were starting to look more and more like destiny’s darlings, were up one game.

The Yankees won Game 2 behind junk-balling Eddie Lopat’s five-hitter, but their 3-1 victory came at a price.

By the time his career was finished, Mickey Mantle rated as one of baseball’s all-time greats, but who knows how much greater Mantle would have become if he hadn’t torn his knee to shreds in the fifth inning in this game?

Willie Mays lofted a fly ball into right-center and Joe DiMaggio glided into the alley from center field while Mantle ran full speed from right. When the ball was hit, Mantle didn’t think the aging DiMaggio had a chance of making the play, but what Mantle hadn’t noticed was that DiMaggio had gotten a great break. DiMaggio always got a great break because he knew every hitter’s tendencies, he knew what the pitch was and how the pitcher was throwing it, and he used this information like no outfielder ever had.

When Mantle realized DiMaggio was going to make the catch, he tried to stop his momentum to avoid plowing into the Yankee Clipper. He happened to pick the tiny spot in the outfield where a drainage cover was located, his spikes caught, and his knee buckled like someone had chopped it with an ax. Mantle went down just as DiMaggio was closing his mitt, and then he lay there in agony.

Years later Mantle revealed that he held a grudge against DiMaggio, claiming that DiMaggio never called for the ball until he was absolutely certain he could make the catch look easy. DiMaggio prided himself on making every play look routine, and Mantle’s assertion was that on this play, DiMaggio wasn’t sure he’d get there so he waited to make the call. It was DiMaggio’s late call, Mantle said, that caused his injury.

Mantle was never the same player after that. He would never again possess the legendary speed he displayed in his turbulent rookie year, and this injury seemed to lead to a series of later ailments which caused Mantle to play in constant pain. It was such a shame.

The last time anyone saw Mantle run freely was in the top of the first inning when he laid down a gorgeous drag bunt and beat it out for a single. Phil Rizzuto followed with his own bunt single, and Mantle eventually scored on Gil McDougald’s blooper to right. A big inning was spoiled when DiMaggio grounded into a double play.

In the second inning, Joe Collins poked a home run to right, and Lopat was on cruise control the rest of the way. “I’d say Lopat pitched excellently,” said Durocher.

During Whitey Ford’s first spring with the club in 1950 he said he learned more about pitching in one month than he had in three minor league years. Why? Because pitching coach Jim Turner schooled him on mechanics, and Lopat taught him how to think on the mound. Thinking was the key to Lopat’s success as a major leaguer, the main reason why he won 113 games and lost only 59 during his eight-year Yankee career.

Lopat was a scientist on the mound. He couldn’t throw hard, so he relied on an assortment of curves, screwballs, sliders and knucklers, all thrown at different speeds, to baffle American League hitters. Ben Epstein of the New York Mirror tabbed Lopat “The Junkman” and never was there a more appropriate sobriquet.

“Lopat looks like he’s throwing wads of tissue paper,” Stengel once said. “Every time he wins a game fans come down out of the stands asking for a contract.”

He looked harmless, but batters couldn’t hit him, especially the Indians who he beat 40 times in 52 decisions during his 12-year career. One of the great Lopat stories was the time he snuck into Municipal Stadium in Cleveland to watch the Indians take batting practice. It was four hours before game-time, but Lopat was bored at the hotel so he and Johnny Sain walked to the park. Normally teams don’t take batting practice until about 90 minutes before a game, but there were the Indians taking whacks against a pitcher named Sam Zoldak.

Lopat noticed that Zoldak was trying to imitate Lopat’s motion and array of pitches in order to give his teammates a better chance that night. When he returned to the ballpark later, Lopat told Yogi Berra to call mostly fastballs the first time through the order. Berra did, and the surprised Indians couldn’t touch Lopat who could sneak a fastball by you when he needed to. The next time through he reverted to his junk and by game’s end, the Indians didn’t know what was coming. They were losers again, scoreless for the night.

The Indians became so desperate, they held a special promotion in 1951 - Beat Eddie Lopat Night. The organization handed out 15,000 rabbit’s feet, and one fan even ran onto the field and threw a black cat at Eddie. It worked because after losing 11 decisions in a row to Lopat, the Indians beat him that night.

The first trade George Weiss made as Yankees general manager was acquiring Lopat from the White Sox for three players. During the Yankees’ run of five straight world championships Lopat put together a fabulous record of 80-36, topped by his 21-9 All-Star season in 1951.

“They’d put Lopat in between Raschi and Reynolds who could really throw smoke, and Eddie would fool ‘em with his junk,” said backup catcher Charlie Silvera. “He’d come at you with this jerky type of shoulder motion. People would be swinging at the ball before it got to the plate.”

Lopat was a New York City kid, born and raised in the Bronx. He toiled in the minor leagues for seven years and nearly quit baseball as he grew tired of making almost no money and living the life of a bush leaguer. He finally earned a shot with the White Sox during the war in 1944, though had it not been for the weakened state of baseball, he may never have gotten that opportunity.

When the Series shifted over to the Polo Grounds the Giants regained the lead as they roughed up Vic Raschi inside of five innings and ran off with a 6-2 Game 3 victory. This loss was not all Raschi’s fault, though, as two Yankee errors led to five unearned runs in the fifth inning.

Already leading 1-0 after Thomson doubled in the second and scored on Mays’ single, the resourceful Giants put this one away with a typically gritty flair. With one out in the fifth, Eddie Stanky drew a walk, then attempted a steal of second base. Berra made a perfect throw to Rizzuto who put the tag on, but Stanky craftily kicked the ball out of Rizzuto’s glove and was called safe by umpire Bill Summers. As the ball rolled into the outfield, Stanky sprang up and raced to third. Rizzuto immediately went after Summers claiming Stanky never touched second base, but Summers disagreed. “Stanky hasn’t touched second base yet,” Rizzuto fumed in the clubhouse afterward.

Soon, an error by Berra and a three-run homer by Whitey Lockman made it 6-0, and though Lockman never should have batted in the inning, Raschi wasn’t seeking excuses. “That Lockman homer was the crusher,” he said. “They might be unearned, but they all count.”

The Yankees were in an unfamiliar position, trailing in a World Series after three games, staring at a virtual must-win situation against the Giants ace, Maglie, with their leader, DiMaggio, mired in an 0-for-11 slump. Stengel announced he was going to pitch Sain in the fourth game, but he caught a huge break when heavy rain forced a postponement. This allowed Stengel to come back with his Game 1 starter, Reynolds, and this is where the Series turned in favor of the Yankees.

Reynolds shook off his first-game routing and, with the help of four double plays, pitched a complete-game eight-hitter as the Yankees chalked up a 6-2 victory. Reynolds wasn’t the only Yankee making amends. DiMaggio snapped out of his funk with a two-run homer in the fifth that broke open a 2-1 game, his last home run as a big-leaguer. “It was a great feeling to see it go out,” DiMaggio said.

Lopat had gotten the Yankees back on track in Game 2, and it was the crafty lefty who got the call in the pivotal fifth game against the Giants’ Janzen, not that it mattered. McDougald hit a grand slam in the third inning to chase Jansen to the showers, Rizzuto hit a two-run shot in the fourth, and DiMaggio drove in three runs as the Yankees rolled to a 13-1 victory. Meanwhile, Lopat allowed just five hits and the only run was unearned thanks to an error by Gene Woodling in the first inning. So in 18 innings Lopat yielded just 10 hits and one earned run.

Chub Feeney, the vice-president of the Giants, facetiously chided Durocher afterward when he said, “Look here, I’ve got news for you. I’m getting damned tired of you doing things the hard way. Seven games we’ve got to go to win, what the heck.”

But it never made it that far. The next day back at Yankee Stadium the Yankees jumped on Game 1 hero Koslo to take a 4-1 lead through six innings, then held off another improbable Giants rally. Durocher’s stout-hearted team put eight men on base in the final three innings against Raschi, Sain and Bob Kuzava, but the Yankees wiggled out of each jam and the closest the Giants could get was the 4-3 final.

“They’re all champions in my book,” Durocher said of his players. “They played all the way, right up to the ninth inning.”

Raschi and Koslo dueled through five innings with the score knotted at 1-1 before the Yankees produced what proved to be the winning rally in the sixth, capped by Hank Bauer’s bases-clearing three-run triple which sent the crowd into a frenzy. And Bauer wasn’t through impacting this game.

Sain, who pitched out of trouble in the seventh and eighth innings after relieving Raschi, was right back in a pickle in the ninth. Stanky led off with a single, Dark beat out a bunt for a single, and Lockman singled to load the bases with none out. Stengel hobbled out to the mound and made a pitching change that had everyone questioning his sanity. With two right-handed power hitters due up, Irvin and Thomson, Stengel called for Kuzava, a left-hander of little renown who hadn’t even pitched in the Series.

Five minutes later, Stengel looked like a genius.

Irvin drove a deep fly to left that Woodling caught, but all three runners advanced with Stanky scoring to make it 4-2. Thomson did the same thing and Dark trotted home to inch the Giants even closer, but now the Giants were down to their final breath.

With Lockman perched at second, Durocher sent up pinch-hitter Sal Yvars who, like Kuzava, had yet to play in the Series. Kuzava laid his first pitch down the middle figuring Yvars would take a strike, but Yvars was hacking immediately and he lined a shot into right field that for a moment looked as if it was going to drop in for a game-tying hit. Instead, Bauer raced over and made a fine catch, tumbling to the ground just as the ball nestled into his mitt.

Just like that one of the greatest baseball seasons in history was over, and the Yankees were champions again. Stengel was joyously relieved. He knew the Giants were going to be tough to beat, but as he said, “The Yankees are still the Yankees.”