All-Star Break 60 Years Ago: Yankees Poised to Put '55 Pennant Race Away

At the end of play on Sunday, July 10, 1955, when the major league baseball season adjourned for the annual All-Star Game, the pennant races in both leagues had a clear favorite to advance to the World Series. On the strength of their 22-2 start to take a 9½-game lead as early as May 10, the Dodgers were just biding time till October. They had been playing a bit ragged of late, having lost 7 of the 13 games they had played so far in July, but Brooklyn was very comfortably 11½ games out front of Milwaukee. The Yankees had a more modest five-game lead heading into the break, but also looked to be likely unstoppable. This is the 12th article in a series on the 1955 season—60 years ago.

All-Star Break 60 Years Ago: Yankees Poised to Put 1955 Pennant Race Away

Less than a month earlier, on June 18, it looked like the American League might witness a tight three-team race when the White Sox pulled into a first-place tie with the Yankees after winning the first two in a four-game set at the Baseball Cathedral in the Bronx otherwise known as the Yankee Stadium; Cleveland was just 2½ behind the New Yorkers and Chicagoans. But the Yankees swept the White Sox in their Sunday double-header—the start of a stretch in which they won 12 of 13 to assume a 6½-game lead over second-place Chicago on July 2. And at eight games off the pace in third place, the defending AL-champion Indians looked like they might not put up much of a fight in defense of their 1954 bragging rights.

Seven of those wins were against the teams with the three-worst records in the American League—three against Kansas City (in sixth place), two against Baltimore (in last place), and two against Washington (in seventh). But in addition to their two wins against Chicago to start that streak, the Yankees had also taken three at home from the Indians, against whom they also lost their only game between June 18 and July 3. Cleveland had come into Yankee Stadium four games behind; they left six games out.  

The Yankees won just three more games before the All-Star break, all against the Senators in Washington on the final weekend before the season was adjourned, but had lost just a game-and-a-half of their lead. At the break, their record stood at 55-29, and four Yankees made the All-Star team, with Mantle and Berra voted into the starting line-up. 

The two other Yankee All-Stars were their top two pitchers—lefty Whitey Ford, whose record was 10-4 with a 2.69 ERA at the break, notwithstanding having given up eight runs in eight innings in his last two starts, and Bob Turley, whose shutout of the Senators on July 9 gave him an 11-7 record and 3.06 ERA to take into the American League All-Star clubhouse. Ford's recent ineffectiveness wound up extending to the All-Star Game, played in Milwaukee, when he came on to pitch in the seventh inning with the AL leading 5-0 and surrendered the lead without surviving the eighth. The NL won the game, 6-5, in the 12th on a Stan Musial walk-off home run.

Although each had highlight moments vs. the Yankees' two principal rivals for the pennant, Ford and Turley both had losing records against the White Sox and Indians. Ford was 1-2 in four starts against Chicago, but his win was a 1-0 seven-hit shutout on May 17. He had also thrown a four-hit shutout against Cleveland on June 26. The Indians had otherwise roughed up the slick lefty, however, hammering Ford for 13 runs in 10.1 innings covering another start and two relief appearances; he was the losing pitcher in only one of those debacles, however.

And Turley was 1-2 in three starts vs. the White Sox and 0-2 in two starts vs. the Indians. His one win was a one-hitter on April 26 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Sherm Lollar got the only hit, a second-inning single. Turley was less than sharp in his one-hit shall we call it a masterpiece (?), walking nine (that's "9") batters, striking out 10, and throwing an uncounted but presumably outrageous number of pitches. He was helped out by three double plays turned by the Yankee infield.

The Indians and White Sox both had five players named to the AL All-Star team. Chicago second baseman Nellie Fox was voted into the starting line-up and Billy Pierce, with only a 5-6 record but an excellent 2.11 ERA, was selected to start. White Sox catcher Sherm Lollar, shortstop Chico Carrasquel, and pitcher Dick Donovan, who had an outstanding 10-2, 2.38 mark at the break, rounded out the Chicago contingent to the AL All-Stars. 

Cleveland had nobody starting in the game, but position players Bobby Avila (second base), Al Rosen (third base), and Larry Doby (center field) made the team, as did rookie phenom Herb Score—whose record was only 8-7 but was setting the league afire by striking out more than a batter an inning—and Early Wynn (11-4, 2.71) as pitchers. Wynn had beaten the Yankees in complete games in all three of his starts against the team that seemed poised to run away with the title. 

The Yankees' 6½-game lead on July 2nd and July 3rd, despite their 5-0 loss that day to the visiting Senators, would be their biggest of the season. Their loss to Washington began a stretch straddling the All-Star break in which they dropped 13 of 18 to lose the entirety of their All-Star-break lead by July 23. On that date, the White Sox had moved into a tie with them for first and the Indians had closed to within a game of the top. It was now 94 games down for the Yankees with a 57-37 record and 60 to go. Cleveland had the same number of games remaining on their schedule after July 23, and Chicago had 62 left.

60 Years Ago: Cleveland Gives the 1955 Yankees a Reality Check

When last we left the 1955 Yankees, they had just when 19 of 22 games beating up mostly on the second-tier teams in the American League; gone from four games under to three games up; and seemed poised to run away with the pennant the way the Dodgers were doing in the other league. They were embarking on a stretch of 19 consecutive games against the AL teams with winning records, including eight with the White Sox and four with the Indians—the two other teams expected to contend with the Yankees for the right to go to the World Series. If the Yankees were to be stopped from taking a commanding lead in the pennant race, this was the time. By June 12, their lead was down to 2½ games after losing three of four to the Indians.

Cleveland Gives the 1955 Yankees a Reality Check

After their sweep in Kansas City ran their record to 33-13 on June 2, the Yankees split their four games in Chicago and split four in Detroit but had still upped their lead to five games when they pulled into Cleveland on June 10 for a four-game series with the team that was the defending AL champions, and hence the must-beat team for the pennant. When Tommy Byrne outdueled Mike Garcia, 3-2, to win the opening game of the series, the Yankees' lead was 5½ over the White Sox and 6½ over the Indians. So far on the season, the pinstripers were 6-6 against their presumed primary competition for the pennant. (They were also 5-3 against the fourth-place Tigers, but Detroit was never presumed to be more than a pretend-contender for the throne.)

They were certainly holding their own against the AL's other best teams, but given their recent past ... was that enough?

Beginning when Casey Stengel took charge in 1949, the Yankees had made a habit of beating up the teams they were competing with for the pennant on their way to top honors. Until their blowout pennant in 1953—their fifth in a row in the Casey Regime—that excellent habit was the foundation for winning four straight close pennant races, none of which were decided till the final week of the season.

In 1949 they won the pennant by a single game on the last day of the season, beating the Red Sox in 13 of their 22 meetings, including each of the last two games on their schedule. Then they won the World Series.

In 1950 the Yankees either won or split their season series with each of the three other American League teams that won 90 games that year. New York took the pennant by three games over second-place Detroit, against whom they split (11-11) but won two of three in mid-September to bump the Tigers from the top spot, then never themselves relinquished first place. They finished four over third-place Boston, against whom they were 13-9 including a two-game sweep later in September to essentially dash any Red Sox hopes still remaining. And they ended eight ahead of Cleveland, against whom they were 14-8 including a three-game sweep at the end of August that all but sealed the Indians' fate. Then they won the World Series.

In 1951 the Yankees took 15 of 22 against the Indians—a seven-game advantage that exceeded the five games by which New York beat them for the pennant. Then they won a third straight World Series.

And in 1952, the Yankees' final two-game margin of victory over the Indians precisely matched the two-game edge of their 12-10 record against Cleveland in their season series. Although the Indians were not eliminated until the next-to-last game of the season, it was the Yankees beating them three in a row in mid-June that sent them from being tied at the top of the standings to having to play catch-up forever thereafter in 1952. The Indians stayed close, caught up for one day in late August (another tie), and that was that—except for the Yankees winning the World Series part, which the New Yorkers had down pat by now.

The Yankees split their season series with the Indians in both of the blowout pennant races of the next two years, first when they outdistanced Cleveland by 8½ games in 1953 (after which, another Fall Classic triumph) and then when they lost by eight games to Cleveland in 1954. For good measure, they were 13-9 against 89-win, third-place Chicago in 1953 and 15-7 against 94-win third-place Chicago in 1954. (They split against the third-place, never-in-contention Red Sox in 1951 and were 14-8 against the third-place White Sox in 1952).

For the record, the Yankees did not lose a single season series against any American League team that finished second or third or won at least 90 games on their way to winning five-and-five-in-five from 1949 to 1953, nor did they when they didn't win the pennant in 1954.

In building their 5½-game lead this week sixty years ago, the Yankees up to now were 5-3 against the White Sox and, after Byrne's victory, 2-3 against the Indians. Had they taken two of the remaining three in Cleveland on Saturday and Sunday, the Yankees would have knocked the Indians 7½ back—a staggering blow from which the Clevelanders might not have recovered. But instead it was the Indians who made the statement, "not so fast, guys, we're still playing for keeps. There will be no embarrassing failure to put up a fight for American League bragging rights."

On Saturday, Cleveland overcame five first-inning Yankee runs to knock out Eddie Lopat in the fourth and won the game on a two-out, ninth-inning walk-off single by 1954 batting champion, Bobby Avila, who was off to a sluggish start batting just .273.

In Sunday's doubleheader, they hammered Bob Turley for four runs in the sixth and six in the seventh to win the first game, and in the second game, the Indians scored three in the first off starter Bob Grim and four in the seventh off Whitey Ford on their way to a 7-3 triumph. The Yankees were still first, but their 5½-game lead was now down to 2½ over the White Sox and 3½ over the Indians.

For the Yankees, now 38-20, it was 58 games gone and 96 to go in the 1955 schedule of games for the American League pennant. The pennant race was on!

(Over in the other league, meanwhile, the Dodgers' lead was an imposing 10½ games with 56 down and 98 to go.)

Note: This is the tenth post in a series on the 1955 season. See earlier posts on Baseball Historical Insight.