Nothing Like It

The tension was hemispheric. In a Calgary, Alberta court, the Crown interrupted his address to the jury to glance at a note. Then he passed it on to defense counsel, who broke into a grin and quickly apologized: "Pardon me, gentlemen, but I have just received today's ball score." The judge suggested drily that the jury would like to know the news too. "Of course, your Lordship," came the answer. "The Dodgers won 9-8."

It was like that almost everywhere last week, over the weirdest World Series in the memory of man.

It began lacklusterly, got worse before getting better, and ended in a nerve-twisting climax that practically stopped the normal pursuits of commerce in every U.S. city & town for three hours every afternoon. There were moments when it seemed as if the entire citizenry of the Borough of Brooklyn might be carried off in one collective heart attack. For in losing, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the beloved Bums, had run the gamut from derring-do to derring-don't.

Insolence Regained. The New York Yankees, a team of wealth, poise, and the standoffishness of rich kids, had gone into the Series 2-1 favorites. Venturing into the vast, triple-tiered Yankee Stadium to give battle, even the Dodgers were on their dignity and obviously respectful. By the second game they were playing like demoralized sandlotters, dropping sure catches, and swinging feebly at the plate. It wasn't until they moved to Ebbets Field and breathed again the stimulating air of Flatbush that the Dodgers recovered their normal insolence. By then the odds were 6 to 1 against them: no team since 1921 had ever lost the first two games and won a series.

But the Dodgers won the next one. Then in the ninth inning of the fourth game came the big moment. There were two men out, and two men on. The Dodgers were trailing 2-1. On the mound was the Yankees' big Bill Bevens, who was just a pitch or so from baseball immortality: in sight of the first no-hitter in World Series history.

Victory Dance. The loudspeaker roared out "Lavagetto batting for Stanky." Oldtimer "Cookie" Lavagetto, a near has-been, who had been a Dodger longer (eleven years) than anyone else on the team, rubbed dirt on his hands and strode up to bat. He swung viciously at the first pitch, trying too hard. The next pitch was high but Cookie swung again--and this time connected. The ball screamed toward right field, hit the fence six feet over Outfielder Tommy Henrich's head.

Cookie Lavagetto's double was one for the history books, to put beside Mickey Owen's disastrous dropped-third-strike in 1941, or Babe Ruth's homer in the 1932 Series. It broke up the game. Little noticed in the Dodger's victory dance around home plate, Pitcher Bill Bevens, a forgotten man, trudged toward the dugout with bowed head and tears in his eyes. He had pitched a one-hitter--and lost the game.

From that moment, the improbable became the possible: the unpredictable Dodgers had a chance. Anything could happen: the Dodgers even tried to make the Lavagetto lightning strike twice. The Dodgers were in a fix again next day. Joe DiMaggio had slammed his second homer of the Series into the upper tier of the center-field stands, and the Yanks were leading. With two out in the ninth inning, the Dodgers had the tying run on second base. Pinch-Hitter Cookie Lavagetto stepped up to the plate--and struck out. Now the Yankees were in the lead, three games to two, and there was no joy in Mudville.

History by Twilight. Sunday's crowd of 74,065 in Yankee Stadium was the biggest in history, and had spent a record $327,659 to get in. What they saw set some kind of a record, too; for bad pitching, and for edgy, spectacular play. It was the longest nine-inning game (3 hrs. 19 min.) in Series history; the Yankees used more players (21) and both sides more pitchers (ten) than ever before. This time it was the proud Yankees, hustled to distraction by Brooklyn's irreverent Bums, who looked sloppy. The Dodgers won, and evened the Series, 3-3.

How did the Dodgers do it? Certainly without elegance. They were held together with baling wire, audacity, speed, and the uncanny strategy of Manager Burt Shotton. His tactic was unvarying: somehow to get through six or seven innings without getting too far behind, and then send for reliable old Relief Pitcher Hugh Casey.

By the seventh day, a game didn't seem official without Casey trudging unhurriedly in from the bull pen. Big Hugh Casey, who weighs 219 lbs. and runs the Dodgers' favorite beer parlor in Brooklyn, is a man of immense calm. There were often men on bases when he came in; but Casey had a tavernkeeper's instinct for quelling disturbances. He pitched in six of the seven games (another record), won two of them, saved another.

He was in there pitching, his team three runs behind, when the last game ended. He had come in too late. Bucky Harris' Yankees were normal and steady again. And no one was steadier than Pitcher Joe Page, the Yankees' hero of the day. For five straight innings he shot his fast ball across the plate, and only one Dodger reached base. It was the end of the Dodgers.

The celebration was just getting under way in the Yankee dressing room when Yankee Boss Larry MacPhail made a little speech. It was his first World Series championship in 18 years of baseball and also his last. He was retiring, he said. "Thank the Lord I can go out with a winner."

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