60 Years Ago (1955): The Yankees Win . . . With 2 Games to Spare

For the 1955 Yankees, it came down to game 152, on September 23, with just two left on the schedule. Taking on the Red Sox in the second game of a doubleheader, they claimed a 3-2 victory after losing the opener to officially win the American League pennant for the sixth time in Casey Stengel's now seven years as their manager. Except for their 1953 pennant, which they won by 8 games, all of their pennants so far in the Stengel era had come down to the final few games.

(1955): The Yankees Win . . . With 2 Games to Spare

When last we left the American League pennant race, on September 13, the Yankees despite Bob Turley's 5-hit shutout of the Detroit Tigers trailed the Cleveland Indians by two games. They had 11 games remaining, and the Indians were left with nine. Cleveland was on a mission to become the first team not named the New York Yankees to win back-to-back AL pennants since the 1934-35 Tigers of Hank Greenberg, Charlie Gehringer, Mickey Cochrane, Tommy Bridges, and Schoolboy Rowe. 

The Yankees had won 103 games in 1954, more than in any of their five straight pennants under Stengel from 1949 to 1953, but that was eight fewer than the Indians, and so, no six in a row. They were determined to get back to their expected, assumed, even presumed rightful place in the baseball universe—the best team, period.

But there were no more head-to-head match-ups between the two contenders, so the Yankees were going to have to focus on winning their own games and hope that the Indians would stumble in their few remaining games. They might have considered whether their fate would be the same as Cleveland's back in 1952. In that year, the Indians entered the final month of September trailing the Yankees by just two games, but with only one chance to take on the Yankees face-to-face—in the middle of the month. That Indians team preceded to have their best month of season, with a 19-5 record. Despite that, however, they ended the final month of the 1952 season exactly where they were at the beginning of September, two games behind the Yankees, because the New Yorkers matched the Clevelanders win-for-win and had the same 19-5 September record. (FYI: The Yankees won their lone match-up in September.)

The Yankees' two-game deficit at the end of the day on the 13th was their largest in four months, since they were 2½ down back on May 15. They so far had spent the entire month of September in second place, keeping pace with the Indians They began each of the first nine days of the month just half-a-game behind. But Turley's 6-0 shutout of the Tigers was the first of eight straight wins—their longest winning streak of the year—that put them in a position to take the pennant with just one victory in their final season series, four games in Boston.

While the Yankees were winning eight in a row—two against Detroit, a three-game sweep of Boston in New York, and a three-game sweep of the Senators in Washington—the Indians had lost five of six to be suddenly on the brink of elimination at the start of play on the 23rd. Now trailing by 3½, with only three games left against the Tigers in Detroit and the Yankees with four in Fenway Park, Cleveland needed to win out and hope the New Yorkers lost all four of theirs just to end the 154-game schedule with identical 94-60 records and force a playoff for the pennant.

The Red Sox were not a team from which much was expected in 1955. After their disastrous end to the 1949 season—when they went into Yankee Stadium for two games on the last weekend of the schedule with a one-game lead, needing to win just win to go to the World Series, and lost both games (and the pennant)—and inability to make up for a poor start to the 1950 season, ending up just four games behind the Yankees, Boston had become mostly irrelevant in the American League. It surely didn't help that their star shortstop Vern Stephens hurt his knee in 1951 and was never the same again; that their star second baseman Bobby Doerr retired after the 1951 season; that their star third baseman Johnny Pesky was traded away in 1952; that their star center fielder Dom DiMaggio retired in 1953; and that their star of stars, Ted Williams, was flying combat missions in Korea in 1952 and 1953.

Although the Red Sox were technically a first-division ball club in 1954 by virtue of their fourth-place ending, they finished a whopping 42 games out of first place with a losing 69-85 record. Williams, who had threatened to retire after the 1954 season, was a no-show for spring training in '55 and did not join the club until late May, after his very contentious divorce was settled. Without their Splendid Splinter in the line-up, the Red Sox started poorly, but soon after his return, they began winning at a league-best torrid pace. A 41-17 record in June and July brought the Red Sox into contention, and on August 7 they were within a game-and-a-half of first, although still in fourth place. 

As late as September 7, the Red Sox were still ostensibly in the pennant chase, in fourth place but only three out. Then reality caught up with Boston. Twelve losses in the next 14 games, including three in a row at Yankee Stadium, revealed the true Red Sox of 1955, and when the Yankees came into Boston for the final four games, the Bosox were a distant 12 games out. They were, however, a team with a winning record . . . and a chance to play the role of spoiler—if they could beat the Yankees in all four games, set up as a Friday doubleheader, an off-day Saturday, and a Sunday doubleheader.

The Indians were off on Friday and could only hope that when they took the field again on Saturday for the first of their final three games, that the Yankees had lost their Friday doubleheader. After Boston won the opening game, 8-4, the Yankees scored twice in the first inning of the second game to take a lead they would not relinquish on their way to a 3-2 win. Stengel called on Whitey Ford in relief when starter Don Larsen gave up a run in the seventh, and Jackie Jensen took Ford deep in the eighth, but the Yankee southpaw retired the Red Sox in order in the ninth to put an end to the 1955 American League pennant race.

The Yankees proved once again in the Stengel era that they were at their best in games they had to win. Until they completed their three-game sweep of Boston at Yankee Stadium on September 18, the Yankees had played 12 games since the beginning of the month with first place directly at stake—meaning they began the day's game either tied for first (once, on September 16), no more than a game ahead (they had last been in first place on August 28), or no more than a game behind (nine times they started half-a-game out of first, and twice they were one game out). They were 9-3 in those games to keep the heat on Cleveland. In their first four pennant races under Stengel, all of which went down to the wire, the Yankees were 30-15 in September games with first place up for grabs.

The World Series was now set. The New York Yankees would take on the Brooklyn Dodgers, who had been waiting patiently to see who would win out in the American League since clinching the National League way back on September 8. 

The two teams had a history. Not one that the Dodgers wanted to be reminded of. 

But. . . 

Maybe this would be . . .

. . . Next Year. 

60 Years Ago (1955): Indians in Weak Command

When the Indians swept the Senators in a doubleheader on September 13, 1955, they took a two-game lead in the American League over the Yankees. With their record now at 90-55, they had played 145 games and had just 9 to go. The Yankees had 11 games remaining. The two teams would face off no more in the 1955 season, meaning Stengel's boys were going to have to play very well for their part and count on the Senators (who the Indians would play once more), the Tigers (six games remaining against the Indians), and White Sox (two left against the Indians) to derail Cleveland.

Indians Look to be in Command

The two-game advantage Cleveland held after defeating the Senators 3-1 and 8-2 in the Sept. 13 doubleheader at Griffith Stadium was their biggest lead of the season since they were three up way back on May 11, their 26th game of the season. For most of the summer, the Indians ran third. They were as far back as 8 games on July 2, hardly looking like the team that set the American League record for wins with 111 the previous year. By the end of July, Cleveland was back in the thick of things.

They began their stretch drive by taking two of three from the Yankees in late August and three of four from the White Sox at the beginning of September, all of those games played in Cleveland. Their three wins against Chicago, one each by their trio of aces—Early Wynn, Bob Lemon, and Mike Garcia—knocked the White Sox out of first place into third, and put Cleveland at the top of the standings, by half-a-game over the Yankees on September 4. Including their doubleheader sweep, the Indians since then had won 8 of 10, including splitting a vital two-game set against the Yankee played as a Sunday doubleheader in New York on September 11. 

Chicago, meanwhile, had gone into a bit of a tailspin beginning when they lost the last three of their four-game series in Cleveland from September 2 to 4. That was the start of 8 losses in 13 games that now had the White Sox 4½ games out of first. Although not officially done, they had realistically faded from contention. Like the nearby Milwaukee Braves in the other league, the White Sox were an up-and-coming club that had been expected to contend but who were not quite ready for prime time.

The Yankees had not been in first place since August 28, but refused to go away. This had been a remarkable characteristic of the pinstripers ever since Stengel took over as their manager in 1949, testifying to both their resilience and relentlessness. With the exception of 1953, when the Yankees won the pennant by a blowout margin, and 1954, when the Indians returned the favor, the Yankees were in a dogfight for the pennant in every September since 1949, and their record in each of those Septembers was better than their winning percentage for the season. The same would be true in 1955.

As the season was now headed into its final 12 days, the Indians with a two-game lead controlled their own destiny. Although they had just one game remaining against a losing team—the Senators, whose record now stood at 50-91, the second-worst record in the big leagues—and the Yankees had three left against Washington, it was arguable which contender faced the more formidable opposition the rest of the way.

The Indians would return home for three against the fifth-place Tigers, who were 72-72 as of the 13th, followed by two in Chicago and their final three games in Detroit. The White Sox, of course, had been a true contender for most of the summer and had a formidable 85-59 record, and while faded from contention, they were still a dangerous team. In their series so far in 1955, Cleveland had done well against both teams, winning 10 of 16 against Detroit and 11 of 20 against Chicago.

The Yankees had one remaining with Detroit before taking on the Red Sox for three at Yankee Stadium, going to Washington for three, and finishing the season with four games at Fenway Park in Boston. With an 82-61 record as of September 13, the Red Sox had played much better than expected for a team that won just 69 games in 1954. In their series so far in 1955, the Yankees had beaten the Red Sox in 9 of 15 games and the Senators in 13 of 19. 

Trailing by two, with 143 games down and only 11 to go, the Yankees were surely regretting that they had lost 13 of the 22 times they had played Cleveland. It was the first time in the Stengel era, beginning in 1949, that the Yankees had lost a season-series to a pennant-race rival. Coming into the season, they had faced off against 9 teams in six years that won at least 90 games in the American League, winning six of those series and splitting three—including against Cleveland in both ’53 and ’54. 

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.

Fading Feller, Rising Score (60 Years Ago, May 1, 1955)

Sixty years ago, Cleveland's Bob Feller won the first game of a May 1st doubleheader against the Boston Red Sox by pitching the twelfth one hitter of his remarkable career, which had begun nearly twenty years before as a 17-year old in 1936. In Game 2 of the doubleheader, Feller's teammate, 21-year-old rookie southpaw Herb Score, did his best imitation of the young Rapid Robert with a breakout performance, striking out 16 batters in a complete-game 2-1 victory.  

Fading Feller, Rising Score (May 1, 1955)

When he took the mound against Boston for the first game of the May 1 doubleheader, the Indians tied with the Yankees one game behind the Tigers, Feller had made only one previous start—a poorly pitched loss in Chicago. Feller was now playing out the end of his brilliant career, which would have been even more impressive had he not lost nearly four full seasons serving in the US Navy during World War II. He was no longer a dominant, overpowering pitcher, and had made only 19 starts with a 13-3 record in Cleveland's 111-win 1954 season.

Score was to start the second game. As noted in the first article in this series on the 1955 season, Sports Illustrated's first-ever preseason prognostications observed that the defending-AL champion Cleveland Indians not only were returning "three superb first-line starters in Bob Lemon (23-7 in 1954), Early Wynn (23-11), and Mike Garcia (19-8)," who had given them "one of the most impressive pitching staffs in major league history," but were adding Herb Score, the "best pitcher in the minors last year ... who has been described as so good, you can't believe it." In only his third professional season, Score had gone 22-5 in 32 starts for the Indians' Triple-A club in Indianapolis in 1954, and more to the point, whiffed 330 batters in 251 innings—nearly 12 strikeouts for every nine innings of work. It seemed likely that Herb Score was the second-coming of Bob Feller, except left-handed.

Score would be making only the fourth start of his career. Although his record was 1-1 with a less-than-stellar 5.48 earned run average, he was as advertised with overpowering stuff, having struck out 24 batters in his first 23 innings in the big leagues.

Just as the young Feller was impressive with his strikeouts but lacked command of his control, so too was Score on the wild side—he had walked 18 batters in those 23 innings—even while racking up strikeouts. In his big league debut on April 15 at Detroit, the Indians' third game of the season, Score not only struck out nine batters, but also walked nine, in a complete-game victory.

This was reminiscent of Feller's fifth big league start, still only 17 years old, on September 13, 1936, when he whiffed 17 Philadelphia Athletics tying the record for strikeouts by a single pitcher in a nine-inning game, while also walking nine. Feller had struck out 15 St. Louis Browns in his first major league start (after six relief appearances) on August 23, but walked only four. For what it's worth, the Browns and the Athletics were the two worst teams in the American League.

The two pitchers were a study in contrasts in the games they pitched on May 1. No longer in possession of his once fearsome fastball, Bob Feller pitched with a veteran's savvy making do with what he had. He shut out the Red Sox, 2-0, allowing only two base runners, walking one while striking out only two. Boston's clean-up hitter, catcher Sammy White, broke up Feller's bid for a fourth career no-hitter with a one-out single in the seventh. This was the last great game pitched by Feller, who made only nine more starts in 1955—finishing the season with a 4-4 record in 25 games, 3-4 as a starter—and just four in 1956 (he was 0-4 for the year) before calling it a career.

Herb Score overwhelmed the Red Sox in his start. His first nine outs were all strikeouts, although they were interrupted by a pair of doubles by Sam Mele and Ted Lepicio that resulted in Boston's only run of the game—and of the day. Score gave up only two other hits and walked only four while striking out 16 batters. Those 16 strikeouts included whiffing the Red Sox' left fielder four times. That unfortunate player, however, was not the great Ted Williams, but Faye Throneberry (brother of Marv, for any long-suffering Mets fans out there). Teddy Ballgame sat out the beginning of the 1955 season waiting for his divorce proceedings to be resolved before signing his contract.

This was the first of eight starts during the 1955 season in which Herb Score fanned at least 10 in a game. Score would finish the season with 16-10 record and 2.85 ERA in 32 starts, striking out 245 in 227.1 innings of work. He also walked 154 batters, an average of 6.1 walks every nine innings. Score's 9.7 Ks per nine innings was the first time any major league pitcher qualifying for the ERA title had averaged more than a strikeout an inning.

(Bob Feller's highest qualifying K/9 rate was 8.4 strikeouts per nine innings in 1946 when he struck out 348 batters, one shy of Rube Waddell's 349 Ks in 1904 for most strikeouts since the turn of the century. Feller had averaged 11 strikeouts per nine in his rookie season of 1936 and 9.1 in 1937, but—still a teenager—in neither year did Rapid Robert pitch enough innings to qualify for the league-lead in that category.)

Score had an even better year in 1956, with a 20-9 record, 2.53 ERA, and 263 strikeouts (along with 129 walks) in 33 starts and 249.1 innings—averaging 9.5 Ks per nine. Entering his fifth start of the 1957 season, Score was again averaging better than a strikeout an inning when fate intervened in the worst possible way: Gil McDougald, the second batter of the game for the Yankees, slammed a line drive up the middle that crashed into Herb Score's face ... ending his season ... and short-circuiting what looked to be a brilliant career in the making.

As for 1955, the Indians' double-header sweep on May 1 left them alone in first place with an 11-6 record, half-a-game ahead of the Yankees and Tigers, both teams at 10-6. It was 17 games down and 137 to go for Cleveland, 16 down and 138 to go for New York.