1962 World Series: Renewing a Lost Rivalry

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It had been more than a decade since the last Yankees vs. Giants World Series in 1951, and times had certainly changed in the interim.

Never mind that in 1951 Mickey Mantle was a raw rookie who would blow out his knee in that Series which forever hampered his speed, Joe DiMaggio was still in center field, Whitey Ford was serving a military hitch, and Casey Stengel was the manager. How about this: The Giants were still playing across the Harlem River at the Polo Grounds.

In 1962, Mantle and Ford were both superstars and on their way to the Hall of Fame, same as DiMaggio and Stengel who were both retired (though not for long for Casey), and the Giants now called San Francisco home after their defection to the West Coast along with the Dodgers in 1958.

However, there was one eerily interesting similarity that carried forward from 1951 to 1962. In 1951, the Giants produced an incredible rally after falling 13.5 games behind and caught the Dodgers to necessitate a three-game series to decide the NL pennant. After splitting the first two games, the Giants won the rubber match by scoring four runs in the ninth inning, the last three coming on Bobby Thomson’s shot heard ‘round the world.

And in 1962, as Yogi Berra would say, it was déjà vu all over again as the Giants made up a four-game deficit in the final two weeks of the season to catch the Dodgers, and after splitting the first two games of the pennant-deciding series, San Francisco - down 4-2 in the ninth - scored four runs to pull out a 6-4 victory and it was on to the World Series to meet the well-rested Yankees who had cruised to yet another AL title.

The noise from San Francisco’s riotous celebration of the NL championship - a first for this city - had barely subsided when Roger Maris stepped up to bat in the top of the first inning of Game 1. With Bobby Richardson and Tom Tresh already aboard via singles, Maris silenced the frenzied mob at shiny new Candlestick Park with a double to right that would have been a home run had Felipe Alou not leaped over the chain-link fence to swat the ball back into play. Richardson and Tresh scored easily for a 2-0 lead.

Ford’s World Series record consecutive innings streak came to an end at 33 in the second inning, and after the Giants tied the game at 2-2 in the third, they were never heard from again. Ford settled down and earned what proved to be the 10th and final Series victory of his career and Clete Boyer hit a solo homer in the seventh to give the Yankees the lead for good and they went on to a 6-2 victory.

The Giants were far from distraught after the game and they weren’t making any excuses for the loss. “We weren’t tired,” manager Alvin Dark claimed. “We’ll be back tomorrow. It was just Ford. He pitched a great game. They can’t throw two guys in a row as good as he is.”

That wasn’t entirely true because in 1962 the Yankees could, and they did. Ralph Terry - who had served up the historic 1960 Game 7 Series-losing home run to Bill Mazerowski of the Pirates - was the Game 2 starter and he was even more effective than Ford. Terry led the AL that year in wins (23), starts (39) and innings pitched (298.2) and he was terrific in Game 2, but Dark’s starter, 24-game winner Jack Sanford, was even better. Sanford tossed a three-hit shutout at the Yankees and Terry lost despite giving up just two runs on five hits, his career Series record slipping to 0-4.

“I hope I get another shot at them,” said Terry, not knowing at that moment how sweet his retribution would be.

Terry made only two mistakes all day, and both cost him runs. Chuck Hiller led off the bottom of the first with a shot into right field that Maris nearly made a great catch on, but the ball bounced out of his glove as he hit the ground and Hiller sprinted into second with a double, scoring later on a ground ball. Then in the seventh Terry left a fat pitch out over the plate to Willie McCovey and he launched it way over the right-field fence for the only other run of the game.

The teams flew across the country to New York for the next three games, and excitement pulsated throughout the city when the Giants arrived. It was as if a long lost son had come home. There were thousands of leftover Giants fans in New York, still ardent followers of the team even though it now resided 3,000 miles away.

They were angry at owner Horace Stoneham for moving the club five years earlier, but not at the players who they continued to root for. Upon arriving at Yankee Stadium on the off day Willie Mays walked onto the field, stared up at the rows of empty seats and raised his hands as if to say, “I’m back.” The photographers loved it.

Game 3 featured a fierce pitching duel between the Bill Stafford of the Yankees and Billy Pierce of the Giants, neither man permitting a run in the first six innings while combining to allow just three hits.

When the bottom of the seventh inning started, the three scheduled Yankee hitters were Tom Tresh, Mantle and Maris and there was a sense throughout the ballpark that something had to happen right here if the Yankees were going to win. And something happened as all three men singled and thanks to errors on the hits by Alou in left and Willie McCovey in right, two runs scored on Maris’ single. Maris later scored when former Yankee World Series hero Don Larsen relieved Pierce and allowed an RBI grounder by Boyer to make it 3-0.

That proved to be just enough when Ed Bailey ruined Stafford’s shutout by hitting a two-run homer with two outs in the ninth. Stafford retired Jim Davenport on a fly to left and the Yankees were up two games to one with a 3-2 victory.

“I can’t remember a Series where there’s been such great pitching for the first three games,” Yankees manager Ralph Houk said.

There would be plenty more, but not much of it came from the Yankees in Game 4. Ford hooked up with young Juan Marichal who had won 18 games in his third big-league season, but their much-anticipated battle was short-lived. Marichal hurt his hand while batting in the fifth inning and had to leave the game. And after the Yankees scored twice in the bottom of the sixth to tie the score at 2-2, Houk lifted Ford for a pinch-hitter and Yogi Berra came through by drawing a walk to load the bases, but Tony Kubek grounded out to spike the rally.

Exhilarated by that narrow escape, the Giants lit up Jim Coates and Marshall Bridges and Hiller’s grand slam in the seventh sent the Giants on to a 7-3 victory. Ironically, on the sixth anniversary of his perfect World Series game, Larsen was the winning pitcher. He’d faced only two batters - Berra and Kubek in the sixth - and then was pulled for a pinch-hitter in the seventh, but his timing was perfect to get the win.

In what would become commonplace for this Series, rain interrupted play the next day, though it really had no bearing on the pitching matchup for Game 5. It was going to be a rematch of Game 2 with Terry opposing Sanford that just had to wait an extra 24 hours.

Terry looked sharp at the start, but Sanford looked better. Again. The Yankees were having a devil of a time hitting Sanford, and their confidence was wobbling. Terry, however, gritted his teeth and kept plugging away in the hope that his teammates would shake their offensive doldrums. His hard work was finally rewarded when Tresh followed singles by Kubek and Bobby Richardson with a game-winning three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth.

Visiting the Yankee clubhouse following the 5-3 victory, Stengel walked over to Terry and said of his long-awaited first Series triumph, “I’m glad you finally did it.” Terry replied, “I’m only sorry I couldn’t have done it for you.”

Now it was back to San Francisco, and all that could be said is that it was a good thing the Yankees’ team hotel had laundry service. Typhoon Frieda arrived in the Bay Area just around the plane was touching down, and she drenched the region for four straight days creating the longest World Series delay since 1911 when rain forced a week’s worth of postponements between the Athletics and Giants.

Considering this storm killed about 50 people in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, Canada, delaying the World Series seemed rather inconsequential.

At one point during the relentless rain, both teams trekked 80 miles south to Modesto, California where the storm wasn’t active to conduct workouts at the tiny ballpark that was home to the minor-league Modesto Colts. That was quite a treat for the 5,000 fans who were allowed to watch the workouts.

When the sun finally shined, it took extraordinary measures to get the sixth game in, including the use of three helicopters called in to hover over the soaked grass to speed up the drying process.

With a well-rested Ford on their side, the Yankees were confident this was going to be their last game of the season, but Ford simply didn’t have it. He allowed nine hits and five runs, committed an error on a vain pickoff attempt, and with Pierce stifling the Yankees on three hits the Giants won easily, 5-2.

“I didn’t think Billy was nearly as sharp as he had been in New York,” Elston Howard said, referring to Pierce’s hard-luck Game 3 performance when he lost to Stafford. “He seemed to be just laying the ball in there and daring us to hit it. But we couldn’t.”

The game was scoreless when the Giants came to bat in the fourth, but with two men on, Ford’s wild pickoff throw to second sailed into the outfield and Alou raced home with the first run. Orlando Cepeda then doubled home a second run, and he scored on Davenport’s single to give the Giants a 3-0 lead. The Yankees never caught up.

Over in the Giants clubhouse, Dark’s troops were ecstatic. With the home-field advantage and Ford out of the way, they were the confident team now, and for the third time in this Series, Sanford would square off with Terry. The Giants liked their chances. “I’ve been saying all along that we’re going to win this Series in seven games,” Dark said. “We’ve got the club to do it.”

The Giants gave it all they had, and it wasn’t enough.

Terry was flat out brilliant. He retired the first 17 Giants he faced, his bid for a perfect game broken up with two outs in the sixth by, of all people, the opposing pitcher, as Sanford lined a clean single into right-center. By that time Terry was working with a 1-0 lead as Moose Skowron had singled, taken third on Boyer’s single, and scored on Kubek’s double play grounder.

Terry avoided trouble in the seventh when he struck out Cepeda after McCovey had tripled, and then the Giants escaped a real jam in the eighth when the Yankees loaded the bases with none out, chasing Sanford in the process. However, Billy O’Dell strolled into this beehive and came out with nary a sting. Maris’ grounder forced Richardson at the plate, and Howard grounded into a double play to end the inning.

The score was still 1-0 when Terry trotted out to the mound three outs away from completing the pinnacle performance of his career. It started badly when pinch-hitter Matty Alou beat out a bunt for a single, it improved when Terry whiffed Felipe Alou and Hiller, and then terror set in as Mays dug himself into the batters box. “I wanted to get them in order so I wouldn’t have to face Mays and McCovey with anybody on,” Terry recalled.

With that plan scuttled, Terry was forced to confront Mays. “I threw two fastballs inside trying to keep the ball in on him because the wind was blowing in real strong from left field so if he hit the ball I wanted him to drive it into that gale,” Terry said. “And after two pitches inside I figured I better not stay in there because he’s strong enough where he can still knock it out of anywhere.”

Terry threw a very good pitch, low and away about knee-high with good velocity, but Mays punched it down the line in right for a double and for a moment it looked as if Matty Alou was going to be able to score the tying run. With the crowd screaming in excitement, Maris showed why he was so much more than just a home run hitter. He tracked the ball down and made a perfect throw to Richardson which held Alou at third, quietly the play that ultimately won the game.

Now Houk and Howard visited the mound and they asked Terry if he wanted to intentionally walk McCovey and pitch to Cepeda, a right-handed hitter. It was the obvious move, but Terry reasoned that if the bases were loaded, his room for error dwindled because a walk would force in a run. He decided to battle McCovey, and Houk let him. Two pitches later, the game was over as McCovey ripped a liner right into Richardson’s mitt. A foot either way and the Giants would have been world champions.

Someone asked Terry if he had flashbacks to 1960 and Pittsburgh when McCovey hit the ball. “I saw it go by me and right at Richardson,” said Terry. “I didn’t have time to worry about anything. I knew I had a man over there somewhere. He hit my best pitch very hard and it went right to Bobby.”

And in that moment, Terry’s nightmares about the day in Pittsburgh when Mazeroski hit what remains the only Game 7 walk-off home run in World Series history were gone.

“I was thankful to have the opportunity to pitch a seventh game, to have a real shot at redemption,” he said. “A lot of people in life never get a second chance. And a lot of players never even got into a World Series.”