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. 

60 Years Ago (1955): Brooklyn Back in the World Series, Milwaukee Waits For Next Year

The Brooklyn Dodgers clubbed the Milwaukee Braves into submission on September 8, 1955—sixty years ago—with a convincing 10-2 win that officially cinched the National League pennant. They were going back to the World Series for the third time in four years, after having finished second in 1954. Not only would National League fans not have the excitement of a September pennant race in 1955, but the Dodgers may have felt great satisfaction in the fact that they secured their return to the Fall Classic so early in the final month against an up-and-coming team that seemed on the threshold of greatness and a good bet to come in first in 1955. 

Brooklyn Back in the World Series, Milwaukee Waits for Next Year

The 1955 Dodgers arrived in Milwaukee on September 7 for the start of a 10-game road-trip—and their final games with the would-be rival Braves—on a hot streak that began on August 27 in Brooklyn when Sandy Koufax shutout the Reds on two-hits for his very first major league victory (the subject of a previous post on Baseball Historical Insight). They had lost only once since, to Milwaukee at home on the last day of August, while winning 11 of 12 to boost their league-lead to 15 games. That included a second shutout by Mr. Koufax for his second big-league win, against the Pirates. In only his third career start, Koufax surrendered five hits but walked only two—the inverse of two hits and five walks in his previous start—and did not allow the Pirates to advance anyone beyond second base. Koufax had yet to lose a game, and he was still nearly four months shy of turning 20.

The three runs scored by the Dodgers after two were out in the first of the two games in Milwaukee were all Billy Loes needed to outduel Lew Burdette, 3-1. If they lost all their remaining games, the Braves would still have to win all of theirs just to tie with Brooklyn at the end of the 154-game schedule. The next day, the 8th of September, the Dodgers emphatically put an end to the pennant race with four runs in the first off starter Bob Buhl, who did not get out of the inning, and four more in the fifth.

It was Brooklyn's 9th straight win and their 12th in 13 games. It was their longest winning streak and best stretch since beginning the season with winning streaks of 10 and 11 games on their way to a 22-2 record.

Being eliminated so early in September was surely a disappointment for the Braves, who expected to be a serious contender for the 1955 pennant. Robert Creamer's conclusion about Milwaukee in SI's pre-season prognostications issue was that "the Braves are a good bet for the pennant, particularly if [Bobby] Thomson proves healthy and the pitchers ["a top-notch pitching staff"] do as expected." He was arguably proven correct, in a negative way, on both calls.

Bobby Thomson struggled in his comeback year following a severe ankle injury in spring training 1954 that limited him to 43 games and opened the door for Hank Aaron's entry into the major leagues. Three times in '55 he was out of action for at least seven days, and his 12 home runs were his fewest yet in any season he had at least 100 at bats dating back to his big league debut in September 1946. He hit only.257 and his player value as measured by wins above replacement was that of a marginal big leaguer.

And the Braves' pitching was good, but not at the level of expectations. Rather than his customary 20 wins, Warren Spahn finished the year with a 17-14 record, although his 17 wins were third and his 3.26 ERA fourth in the league. Burdette's 13-8 record was among the league leaders in winning percentage, but his victory total was down from back-to-back 15-win seasons and his ERA had jumped from a second-best 2.76 in 1954 to a less-than-ace-like 4.06 in '55. Buhl rebounded from a mediocre sophomore year in 1954 to match the victory total of his rookie year in '53 with a 13-11 record. Gene Conley (11-7) and Chet Nichols (9-8), who each started 21 games, both had ERA's over 4.00.

But the real reason for the Braves' disappointing season in 1955 was that the Dodgers got off to such a phenomenal start, winning 22 of their first 24 games, to grab a 9½-game lead as early as May 10th. No matter how well they played, no matter that Hank Aaron had a breakout season with 24 home runs, 106 RBIs, and a .314 average, no matter than Eddie Mathews knocked out 41 home runs, falling 10 games behind—as the Braves did—before May was even half over was a tough deficit for any team to overcome. From then till the rest of the way, the Milwaukee Braves were only 3½ games worse than the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Now, on September 8, 1955, with 138 games gone, their record at 92-46, their lead up to 17 games, and just 16 games to go ... and with the Braves having just 15 games left... the Dodgers could lose every remaining game and Milwaukee could win every remaining game, and it would not make a difference. The middle three games of the 1955 World Series were going to be played in Brooklyn's Ebbets Field. Perhaps this year "wait till next year" would become a reality.

But first, the Dodgers would have to wait to see who would win out in the American League, where the Yankees and Indians were in a tight tango for the pennant and the White Sox were still hanging around.

As for the Braves ... Well, for the third consecutive year since moving to Milwaukee, more fans came to see their home games than any other team, including the Yankees in the AL. Over 2 million visited Milwaukee's County Stadium in 1955, and the Braves home attendance since 1953 now stood at just under 6 million (5,963,621 to be precise). They would finish second for the second time since moving to Milwaukee. But after their loss to the Dodgers on September 8, 1955, it was the Braves who were waiting for next year.

60 Years Ago (1955): Whitey Ford's Back to Back One-Hitters

Whitey Ford won his 17th game of the 1955 season on September 7, allowing just one hit in beating the Kansas City Athletics, 2-1. It was his second consecutive start pitching a complete-game one-hitter. Five days before, Ford had defeated the Washington Senators, 4-2, giving up just one hit. In between, he pitched an inning-and-a-third against the Senators to pick up a save, retiring all four batters he faced. Every win was important because both the Indians and White Sox were keeping pace with the Yankees, all three teams maneuvering within two games of the top.

Whitey Ford's Back-to-Back One-Hitters

Neither of Ford's one-hitters, both pitched in Yankee Stadium, came against one of the better teams in the American League. Only one of the 16 major league teams had a worse record than the 46-81 Washington Senators when Ford took the mound against them. Their most dangerous hitter was Roy Sievers, who had been red-hot in the month of August, batting .363 and hitting 6 of the 25 home runs he had at the end of the season. The Kansas City Athletics, who stood at 56-79 on the day they faced Ford, had the fourth-worst record in the big leagues. Gus Zernial, whose 30 home runs for the year would be second in the league, was KC's most potent power threat, but Vic Power, who finished with a .319 batting average and 19 home runs, probably their most dangerous hitter.

Ford had already beaten the Senators twice in two starts, winning blowout games by 19-1 (on opening day) and 7-2 , and was 3-0 in his three starts against the Athletics, winning 6-1, 7-3, and 3-2.

And neither of his one-hitters was a work of art, especially not for a pitcher whose reputation already was, or would soon become, that of a sublime left-hander—at only 5-10 and 178 pounds, hardly an imposing figure on the mound—who was an artist in the craft of pitching. Ford walked four batters in his September 2 start against the Senators, although one was intentional, and he walked six in his September 7 start against the Athletics, two intentionally. In both games, the only hit Ford allowed came in the seventh inning—late enough in the game for the fans in the Stadium to take notice that a no-hit possibility was in the offing, building drama, but not so late in the game that the drama built to compelling anticipation. 

And, as the final scores indicate, neither game was a shutout.

On September 2, Ford held the Senators hitless through six innings, allowing just two base runners on walks in the first (so much for the perfect game) and fourth. But after Ford's party-hearty running-mate Mickey Mantle had just hit a three-run home run off Bob Porterfield to break-up a scoreless pitching duel, the top of the seventh was uncharacteristically sloppy for Ford and the Yankees. Ford walked Mickey Vernon for the second time to start the inning, got the dangerous clean-up hitter Sievers to foul out, and then witnessed not only Carlos Paula break up his no-hitter after 6.1 innings with a single to left, but left fielder Irv Noren throw the ball away to allow Vernon to score and Paula to reach third. He scored on a Tommy Umphlett grounder to short. Ford allowed another walk, then retired the final seven batters he faced.

With both Cleveland and Chicago winning, Ford's one-hitter kept the Yankees tied with the Indians in second place, a mere half-game behind the White Sox. It was an important victory, if for no other reason than the Yankees had been playing somewhat raggedly since winning 13 of 16 to take a 1½-game lead on August 25. Since then they had lost four of six, including two of three in Cleveland that left the two teams tied for first.

Two days after the one-hitter, manager Casey Stengel called on Ford to relieve Bob Turley in the eighth inning with two outs and the Yankees leading, 7-3, but with two runners on. Switch-hitter Ernie Oravetz, in his first of only two years in the majors, was at the plate. No problem. Ford retired him, and all three Washington batters in the ninth to preserve the victory. The Yankees were still half-a-game behind. 

On September 7, Ford again had a no-hitter going when he took the mound in the 7th inning, the Yankees with a 1-0 lead on a fifth-inning single by Billy Martin, another of Ford's (and Mantle's) party-heart running-mates. The seventh once again proved messy for Ford and the Yankees. Ford, who had already walked three, made that four with four pitches the umpire called balls to Hector Lopez. This was after retiring the first two batters in the inning. Jim Finigan rapped a ground-rule double to break up the no-hitter, after which Stengel chose discretion as the better part of valor with pinch hitter Enos Slaughter at the plate, batting .312, by having Ford intentionally walk him to load the bases. Sadly for the shutout bid, Ford unleashed a wild pitch with pinch-hitter Elmer Valo at the plate, on which Lopez scored and the two other runners moved up. Valo was intentionally walked to load 'em up, but as in his previous start, Ford again retired the last seven batters he faced. 

Perhaps ironically, because the Athletics had six runners reach base on walks against Ford, the Yankees won this game on a walk-off walk. The Yankees had the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the ninth for Irv Noren, whose plate discipline led to a walk down to first for him, and to home for the runner on third to secure a 2-1 triumph for the Bronx "Bombers," whose only two extra-base hits were doubles.

The victory gave the Yankees an 83-54 record in the 137 games they had played so far as the September stretch loomed ahead. With both Cleveland and Chicago again winning, Ford's second consecutive one-hitter kept the Yankees half-a-game back of the Indians. The White Sox were now a game behind the Yankees in third. (And for Red Sox Nation, Boston was still in the race, three games out of first.) Just 17 games remained for the New Yorkers.

60 Years Ago (1955)--Introducing a Kid Named Koufax

On August 27, 1955, Sandy Koufax won his first major league game, doing so by shutting out the Cincinnati Reds, 7-0, on just two hits, walking 5, but striking out 14. His victory ended a three-game losing streak that had cut the Dodgers' lead from a season-high 15½ games on August 14 to 10 games. It had been a rough month for runaway Brooklyn. The Dodgers had lost 8 of their previous 11 games and were 9-13 so far in August.

60 Years Ago in 1955: Introducing a Kid Named Koufax

Manager Walt Alston had three starting pitchers he relied on in 1955. Don Newcombe at this point in the season was 18-4, but had lost all three of his decisions in August, although all three were "quality starts." Carl Erskine, the Dodgers' best pitcher the three previous years (two of which Newk was in the service) was 10-6, and Johnny Podres, only 22 years old in his third season, was 8-9. Russ Meyer, Billy Loes, and since the beginning of July, rookie southpaw Karl Spooner, had also contributed as starters to the Dodgers' big lead in the standings. 

The Dodgers had another rookie southpaw all season on their 1955 roster. Fresh out of high school and in Brooklyn only by virtue of being a "bonus baby"—meaning he accepted a signing bonus in excess of $4,000—Sandy Koufax was only 19 years old and very much in a learning mode that more appropriately should have taken place several rungs down the minor league ladder. 

He did not appear in a big-league game until June 24, the 66th game of the season for Brooklyn, in a Dodgers' loss in Milwaukee. His team was already down 7-1 when Alston called upon him for two innings of relief beginning in the fifth. Johnny Logan, the first major league batter he ever faced, singled. After throwing Eddie Mathews' comebacker into center field trying to start a doubleplay and walking Hank Aaron, Koufax found himself in a bases loaded, nobody out situation in his very first game. Still trying for his first out, Koufax escaped the inning unscathed, striking out Bobby Thomson (yes, that Bobby Thomson, now with the Braves), and inducing a doubleplay grounder by Joe Adcock.

Alston next used Koufax five days later to pitch the ninth inning in a game the Dodgers were being blown out, 6-0, by the Giants. Once again Koufax loaded the bases with nobody out on two singles and a walk to Willie Mays, and once again he escaped without surrendering a run as he retired the next three batters, none on a strikeout.

The third game for Koufax was his first start, on July 6 in the second game of a doubleheader in Pittsburgh. He lasted only two outs into the fourth inning. Alston came to get him with the bases loaded, the score tied at 1-1, after he walked consecutive batters to force in the tying run. The control problems that plagued Koufax in the early years of his career were certainly evident this day; he walked 8 of the 23 batters he faced and also gave up 3 hits. But under the rules then in place for receiving his big signing bonus, the Dodgers could not send the kid down to the minors to work on his command and control issues. Koufax was spared the loss in his first big-league start because his relief, Ed Roebuck, stranded the bases loaded.

Since then, Koufax had pitched three times in relief in games Alston already considered a lost cause. In four innings, he had given up two runs. When he took the Ebbets Field mound on August 27 for the second start of his big league career, it had been nearly two months since his first.

The Reds were in fifth place, no more in contention than any other National League club, but were an imposing team offensively. Cincinnati ended the season with the second-most runs in the National League after Brooklyn. They had one of baseball's best-slugging line-ups. Ted Kluszewski ended the season with 47 home runs—his third straight year with at least 40 round-trippers; Wally Post hit 40; Gus Bell 27; and Smoky Burgess 20. 

Unintimidated, Koufax pitched the first great game of his career. Kluszewski singled in the first, Sam Mele doubled with two outs in the ninth, and in between only five Cincinnati batters reached base. Before Mele's hit, the Reds had runners in scoring position just twice—in the sixth, when Koufax walked Johnny Temple and Burgess back-to-back and committed a balk that put runners on second and third with two out; and in the seventh, when Koufax gave up a pair of two-out walks. He got the third out both times, no problem. Everyone in the Reds' starting line-up went down on strikes except for Temple and Post. Burgess and Roy McMillan each fanned twice, and the left-handed batting Gus Bell was definitely overmatched this day, striking out against Koufax in all four of his at bats. After Mele's two-out double in the ninth, Koufax finished off by getting Rocky Bridges to pop out to the shortstop.

When Sandy Koufax walked off the mound with his first major league win and a record of 1-0 so far in a career whose prospects were still uncertain, the Dodgers led the second-place Braves by 10 games with an 81-45 record. With 126 games down and just 28 to go, Brooklyn was in coast mode on the way to a third World Series in four years. Who they would play was far from certain. The Yankees ended the day tied with the Cleveland Indians for first, and the Chicago White Sox were breathing hard down their necks, a half-game back.

.

60 Years Ago (1955)--Frank Lary: Yankee Killjoy

On August 23, 1955, the Yankees' lost their half-game lead in the standings when they were beaten in Detroit by the score of 7-2. They were now tied for first with the White Sox, and the Indians were only a game behind. The winning pitcher for the Tigers was 25-year-old rookie right-hander Frank Lary. He had now beaten the Yankees twice in four starts, which included a loss and a no-decision in a game Detroit lost after he left the mound. It was the beginning of Frank Lary's career as . . . "The Yankee Killer."

Frank Lary—Yankee Killjoy

Frank Lary, who relieved in three games at the very end of the 1954 season, was not even mentioned by Robert Creamer in his preseason American League preview for SI. The Tigers, according to Creamer, did have "three or four reasonably dependable starting pitchers," although he named only veterans Ned Garver—whose career has been unappreciated in part because he pitched for bad teams—and Steve Gromek. Beyond that, Detroit manager Bucky Harris's challenge was to "find starters and relievers from an unholy mess of rookies and proven undependables." (Nice turn of phrase, that.)

The Tigers opened the 1955 season with Garver, Gromek, Billy Hoeft, and the rookie Frank Lary as their four principal starting pitchers. Lary stayed in the rotation all season long, ending his rookie year with a 14-15 record, a 3.10 earned run average, 16 complete games in 31 starts, and a team-high 235 innings pitched.

Lary took the mound against the Yankees on August 23 having lost his previous start five days before against Cleveland. He entered the game with an 11-12 record and 3.38 ERA. This was the fourth time he would be facing the Yankees. Apparently not intimidated by the Yankees' lore, Lary beat them in a 3-1 complete game the first time he faced them on June 8 and the next time, on June 16, took a 2-0 lead at Yankee Stadium into the bottom of the ninth. Unfortunately, Yogi Berra's two-run home run to tie the game and Elston Howard's walk-off pinch-hit single with the bases loaded did him in. In Lary's 24.1 innings against them, the Bronx Bombers had scored just 6 runs on 21 hits.

Opposing him was hard-throwing right-hander Bob Turley, who the Yankees had acquired over the winter to be one of their aces. He came into the game at 13-11, probably a disappointment given the Yankees' expectations. This day, Turley failed to escape the second inning. After giving up a run on two walks and a single in the first, Turley hit the first batter he faced in the second, walked the next two (the second of who was his pitching opponent, Lary) to load the bases with nobody out, and then took a walk himself to the showers when Stengel brought in Johnny Kucks to try to control the situation. Two of Turley's base runners scored. 

Lary did fine protecting Detroit's lead on his way to a complete game victory. He walked just two, while the four Yankee pitchers Casey Stengel used that day were definitely not in control, walking a total of 11 Detroit Tigers in addition to the 8 hits they surrendered.

Every now and again a pitcher for a noncompetitive club emerges who seems unbeatable against an elite team. In his rookie season of 1908, the fourth-place Phillies' Harry Coveleski beat the New York Giants three times in five days to earn his enduring nickname as the "Giant Killer." Coveleski won only four games that year and by the end of the season had appeared in only 10 major league games. But while the chaos that ensued in the Fred Merkle game may have cost the Giants the 1908 pennant, Coveleski's three takedowns of McGraw's team in the final week of the season is what really denied them the top prize.

There would be nothing so dramatic about Frank Lary's ritual takedowns of the New York Yankees. There were no pennants denied the Bronx Bombers because they couldn't solve the mystery of Frank Lary. Lary's reputation as the "Yankee Killer" was nonetheless well-deserved, particularly because the Yankees were such a dominant club at the time he pitched for the Detroit Tigers: 

·        Lary pitched nine complete seasons in Detroit, from 1955 to 1963, and the Yankees won the pennant in eight of them.

·        Lary won 123 games with the Tigers, 28 of them against the Yankees. His highest victory total against any other team was 18 at the expense of the Senators-Twins franchise, who were one of the worst teams in baseball in the first six of Lary's years in Detroit, when they were in Washington before their move to Minnesota.

·        Lary’s 28-13 career record against the Yankees gave him by far his highest winning percentage (.683) against any team, and was very substantially higher than his career winning percentage of .528 (123-110) in a Tigers uniform. His career mark against the Senators-Twins was 18-15 (.545).

·        Indeed, the Yankees and the Senators-Twins were the only non-expansion franchises that Frank Lary had a winning record against. He was 14-14 in his career against both the Red Sox and White Sox, and had a 3-1 mark against the expansion Los Angeles Angels. Against the four other pre-expansion-era AL franchises and the new expansion team in Washington (also called the Senators), Lary had a losing record.

The Yankees had been riding a hot hand when they were beaten by Frank Lary. They had won 10 of their previous 11 games. But their winning ways had meant just one game in the standings, from a game behind the the White Sox on August 9 to tied with the White Sox on August 23, and Cleveland was just a game back. 

For the Yankees at 75-48, it was now 123 games down with 31 left on the schedule in a tight race in which all the contenders were playing well. There might well have been relief in the Yankee clubhouse that they had just one two-game series remaining with the Tigers, meaning they would have to see Frank Lary starting against them only one more time at most.   

The Tigers at 63-60 had also played 123 games, but they were 12 games back and playing out the string. Perhaps mercifully for the Yankees, since they trailed by a game-and-a-half when they next played the Tigers in mid-September, Lary had started against the Senators the game before that series began, and so the Yankees did not see him again until next year.

60 Years Ago (1955)--Newcombe Again

On the last day of July in the 1955 season, the visiting Brooklyn Dodgers gave the St. Louis Cardinals an 11-2 beat down at Busch Stadium (the new name for Sportsman's Park since beer magnate August A. Busch had bought the Cardinals). The Dodgers not only ran their record to 73-32 and their NL lead to 13½ games, but made a winner of Don Newcombe for the 18th time. Newcombe had lost only once all season, and his earned run average was 2.95.

Newcombe Again

This is the 15th article in a continuing series on the 1955 season, and the third with a focus on Dodgers' ace Don Newcombe. This might seem a bit excessive, but Newcombe's was a compelling story that year, especially because he had struggled mightily in his first year back from two years in the service of his country during the Korean War. In his first three major league seasons before being drafted, Newcombe had won two-thirds of his decisions in quickly becoming the ace of the Brooklyn staff. His record going into the Army was 56-28 with a 3.39 earned run average. He was in his prime.

But his return in 1954 was less-than-stellar. Newcombe was not the imposing, intimidating, go-the-distance pitcher he was before he changed uniforms to that of the USA. After averaging 261 innings and completing 56 percent of his 102 starts from 1949 to 1951, Newcombe in 1954 made just 25 starts, was in at the end of only six of them, and threw only 144 innings—not enough to even qualify for the ERA title, as if his 4.55 earned run average was anything but extraordinarily disappointing for a pitcher of whom so much was expected. His record was 8-9. And the Dodgers, who won back-to-back pennants the two years he was serving his country, did not win in 1954. If anything, Carl Erskine, whose 14-6, 20-6, and 18-15 records led the Dodgers in wins each of the three previous years, had perhaps the best claim to being Brooklyn's top pitcher as the 1955 campaign started up.

At first it looked like 1955 might be a repeat of '54, even though he won his first two starts of the season. Newcombe's ERA in the opening month of April was 5.50; he benefited from terrific support from his Boys of Summer teammates, who tallied 27 runs in the first three games he pitched, while Newk himself gave up 14.

Then he got his swagger on. Newcombe won all five of his starts in May, four of which were complete games, and added a sixth victory pitching two shutout innings of relief at the beginning of the month. His ERA for May was 1.80. Including that win in relief, Newcombe started the season 10-0 before losing to the Cubs at home on June 12th. He was done in by a 6-run 4th inning, with a two-out three-run home run by Harry Chiti the big blow. Although five of those runs were unearned, Newcombe really didn't have it this day.

Since then, Newcombe had made 11 starts and won 8 without a loss. His record in June was 5-1 with a 2.14 ERA. Including his victory against St. Louis on the last day of the month, Newcombe was a perfect 5-0 in July with 5 complete games. Unfortunately for his ERA that month, he was roughed up for 11 earned runs in five innings in the two games he did not complete, both games that the Dodgers won anyway. And he also had a poor outing in relief at the beginning of the month in which he gave up three runs in 1.2 innings wrapping up a Dodgers loss. His earned run average for the month was officially 4.01, but take away those three bad outings and Newcombe pitched to an exceptional 1.80 ERA in his 5 complete-game victories.

The bottom-line, however, was not only that Don Newcombe was back to being an elite starting pitcher, but that he was every bit the Brooklyn Dodgers' stopper. His team had lost only 2 of the 22 games he started, and he personally was the losing pitcher just once. Seven of his 18 victories came after Dodger losses. One stopped a four-game losing streak in May—their longest of the season until September—and another stopped a three-game skid around the All-Star break. Newcombe had completed 13 of his 22 starts, and 15 of his starts were so-called "quality starts."

If there was a criticism to make, it was that Newcombe had a propensity for giving up the long ball. Through the end of July, Newcombe had surrendered a total of 69 runs, both earned and unearned—39 of which trotted home on 23 home runs. That was more home runs than he had given up in any of his first three big-league seasons before he was drafted, and one shy of the 24 he gave up in all of 1954. In his victory against the Cardinals to close out July, home runs by Red Schoendienst and Stan Musual accounted for both runs St. Louis scored that day. In six of the games he pitched, home runs accounted for all the runs scored against him.

After Newcombe's victory against St.Louis to run his record to 18-1, it was 103 games down for the Dodgers and 51 left to go. Even if the second-place Braves were to win two-thirds of their remaining games, the Dodgers could have a losing 22-29 record the rest of the way and still prevail. It may not have been August 11th yet—the anniversary of when the Brooklyn Boys also led by 13½ (up on the Giants) in 1951—but the Dodgers had only two games more on their schedule than the 49 remaining four years before. This time, the Dodgers would take nothing for granted.

Don Newcombe started only 9 more of the Dodgers' 51 games, with a 1-3 record and 3.20 ERA in August and a 1-1 record and 5.23 ERA in September. Having thrown 213 innings going into the final month after just 144 innings in 1954, and zero innings the two years prior to that because he was in the Army, Newcombe appears to have run out of gas. 

Even so, Newcombe finished 1955 with a 20-5 record to lead the league in winning percentage; his 20 wins were second to Robin Roberts' 23; his 3.20 earned run average was second in the league to Pittsburgh's Bob Friend (2.82); he led the league by allowing only 1.1 runners on base by hit or walk per inning; and he finished seventh in the National League MVP voting.

The following year, 1956, it would all come together for Don Newcombe, when his 27-7 record and 3.06 earned run average merited him not only the NL Most Valuable Player Award, but the first-ever major league Cy Young Award for being the best pitcher in the game.

60 Years Ago (1955)--White Sox Catch Up to the Yankees

After reliever Billy Pierce struck out Jerry Coleman in the bottom of the 9th at Yankee Stadium on July 28 with the bases loaded, the tying run at third, the winning run at second, and his team up by 3-2, the Yankees' lead that had been five games at the All-Star break, and as many as 6½ games going into July Fourth, was gone. The White Sox had pulled into a first-place tie with the Yankees. If the Dodgers were in no danger in the National League, there was now a full-fledged pennant race in the American League. This is the 14th article in a series on the 1955 season.

White Sox Catch Up to theYankees in 1955 Pennant Race

The Yankees went back to the baseball wars sluggish following the three-day All-Star break. On a western swing that took them to Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and Kansas City they had lost 8 of 12 games. The Indians, playing at home, had won 8 of 12 to close to within a game of the Yankees on July 24.

The White Sox, starting the second half of the season in third place, 6 games behind, but playing at home, cut that down to a game-and-half with six straight wins (including two doubleheader sweeps) against the Orioles and Senators—both bad teams—in their first four days back in action. Temporarily knocked back by consecutive losses, they beat the Yankees twice at home and then the Red Sox to reach the top of the AL standings, along with New York, on July 22nd. Boston, however, won two of the next three games in their series.

So now the White Sox were off to take on the Yankees again . . . in New York . . . having won 10 of 14 since the break . . . down one game in the standings . . . tied with the Indians.

Starting pitching was one of the Chisox' strengths singled out in SI's 1955 pre-season preview, although Robert Creamer identified the staff's depth—"once you get past the big men"—as "thin." The key "rookie hope," wrote Creamer, was Dick Donovan, "a veteran minor leaguer," who in fact was having quite the rookie season. Well, technically he wasn't a rookie, having pitched 62 innings in the big leagues for the Braves and the Tigers over parts of four seasons prior to this one. Anyway, Donovan's 10-2 record and 2.38 ERA at the break was good enough to get him named to the AL All-Star team. 

Donovan was the first Chicago pitcher to take the mound when the White Sox showed up at Yankee Stadium on July 26 for a three-game series. He was now 13-3 on the year, but had won his last seven starts, including winning all three of his starts against the Yankees since June. After limiting the Yankees to 9 hits and 4 runs in 17 innings in his first two victories, the Yankees roughed him up a tad in their last meeting, scoring 5 runs on 9 hits off him in 6.1 innings just six days before at Comiskey Park—a game the White Sox won anyway, 8-6. It was Donovan's 13th win, and this was his first start since that game.

This time, Donovan was superb. He pitched a complete game, giving up only one run, but Yankee starter Tommy Byrne (8-2 coming into the start) was nearly unhittable, although he did have his usual control issues, walking five while striking out three. Yogi Berra smacked Donovan for his 17th home run of the year in the sixth inning . . . and that was all the scoring to be had that day.

The White Sox were now two games back, though still in second place, but might have been forgiven after such a tough loss for thinking that maybe the Yankees were about to take off again, especially since they would be facing Eddie Lopat (who may have been 4-7 and was in his last year but had quite the reputation of big-game pitcher in recent years to fall back on) and Bob Turley.

Pitching for Chicago against Lopat was Harry Byrd, whose most notable black ink in baseball record books was leading the AL in losses when he went down in defeat 20 times for the 1953 Athletics. Notwithstanding his winning 5-4 record coming into the game, Byrd had neither Lopat's credentials and his  4.47 ERA at the time was almost exactly a full run higher than Eddie's 3.49 earned runs per nine innings. It was Lopat, however, who failed to survive the third inning, henpecked by five singles—including four in a row to knock him out of the game—that gave Chicago a lead they would not surrender, and Byrd who pitched into the eighth inning for the win. They now trailed by one.

Even so, Connie Johnson, who started the season in the minor leagues but who had pitched well in five starts (2-1) since being called to Chicago at the beginning of July, against Turley (one of the Yankees' aces with an 11-8 record at the time) for the final game of the series seemed a mismatch to New York's advantage. This time an unearned run in the first and a two-run home run by Walt Dropo in the third gave the White Sox a 3-0 lead that Johnson held until the ninth. 

Dropo, whose 33 home runs, league-leading 144 RBIs, and .322 batting average with Boston in 1950 not only made him AL Rookie of the Year but seemed to presage a great career, never lived up to expectations and had become a journeyman player, being traded by the Red Sox to the Tigers and now to the White Sox. SI's pre-season analysis considered his acquisition an important one for the Chisox chances since he had a power bat that the speed-based White Sox desperately needed. This was his 14th home run of the season, and Dropo wound up leading the team with 19.

Anyway, back to the game, the White Sox leading 3-0 on the back of Dropo's blast. A single by Berra and Mantle's 22nd home run to start the last of the ninth was a reminder of just how dangerous the Yankees could be. After the next batter reached on an error, manager Marty Marion brought in his best pitcher—Billy Pierce—to get the final two outs. It took some work, but after two walks (one intentional after a sac bunt) that loaded the bases, Pierce finally did. And the White Sox were back in a practical tie for first place, although statistically they were .002 percentage points in front.

With a 59-38 record, it was 97 games down for Chicago with 57 to go; for the Yankees at 60-39, 'twas 99 down and 55 to go; and the 59-40 Indians were only one game behind, also with 55 to go.

As for Dick Donovan, two days later he wound up hospitalized when his appendix flared. He did not make another start until August 21, but picked up where he left off, with a complete-game victory against the Tigers giving up just two runs, only one earned, to run his record to 14-4. Whether the appendicitis had taken too much of a physical toll, or perhaps he came back too soon, Donovan pitched poorly in losing his next five starts before shutting out Kansas City in his final start of the year. It was Chicago's next-to-last game of the season, by which time their third place destiny was sealed.

Sixty Years Ago: Fueled by Mantle, the 1955 Yankees Make Their Move

While the Dodgers were running away with the 1955 National League pennant, their lead at 7½ games on June 2, the New York Yankees were threatening to do the same in the American League. After being swept at home by the Indians in a two-game series on May 10 and 11, which put them four games back of Cleveland in third place with a 14-10 record, the Yankees won 19 of their next 22 games against mostly second-rate teams to put themselves up in the standings by three games over the Clevelanders. Mickey Mantle, the Yankees' emerging superstar, broke out of a two-week batting funk to fuel his team's drive into first place.

Fueled by Mantle, the 1955 Yankees Make Their Move

So far in 1955, the Yankees' season pretty much tracked with both Mickey Mantle's batting average and the quality of teams that they played. They won 7 of their first 10 games, all against teams with losing records in 1954—the Senators, Orioles, and Red Sox—in which their burgeoning young superstar center fielder hit .353. Over the next thirteen games, the Yankees had a pedestrian 7-6 record while Mantle hit only .167 with 8 hits in 48 at bats, although half of his hits were home runs. Three of his four long balls helped the Yankees to victory as they struggled to get untracked but fell behind both the Indians and White Sox. 

Against the three other American League teams that had winning records as of May 10—the Indians, White Sox, and Tigers—New York had lost four of seven. Chicago, meanwhile, had won seven of eleven against the Indians, Tigers, and Yankees and Cleveland had won seven of twelve against the White Sox, Tigers, and Yankees.

When the Yankees took the field in their home stadium on May 11 for the second of their two-game set with the Indians, they trailed Cleveland by three and Mickey Mantle's slump had diminished his batting average to .244 with six home runs and 14 RBIs through the first 23 games of the season. Early Wynn ran his record to 3-0 while handing Yankee flamethrower Bob Turley his first loss of the year against five victories, but Mantle came out his his slump in a losing cause, driving in a run with a first-inning single and tagging Wynn for a home run in the eighth. 

The Detroit Tigers, whose 15-11 record on May 11 put them in a virtual tie with the Yankees in third place, came next to Yankee Stadium. And Mickey Mantle reached deep to recover his inner superstar. Suggesting his batting slump was an anomaly, in the first game of the series the Mick went 4-for-4 with three home runs. It was the first and only time in his career Mantle hit as many as three home runs in a single game. Right-handed Detroit starter Steve Gromek was the victim for two and southpaw reliever Bob Miller for one.

The next day, the Yankees went into the bottom of the ninth trailing the Tigers, 6-4, with Detroit starter southpaw Billy Hoeft still on the mound. Down to their last out with two runners on, Mickey Mantle singled to score one, and right-hander Al Aber was brought in to face to the right-handed-batting Elston Howard, who already had one hit for the day. Howard lashed a triple to win the game, Mantle crossing the plate with the winning run.

After the Tigers left town, essentially having been eliminated from the pennant race (although they didn't know it yet), the Yankees had the privilege of playing 18 of their next 20 games against losing teams that were not expected to be remotely competitive.

Robert Creamer wrote in his 1955 forecast for the American League in Sports Illustrated's first-ever preview of a major league season that the key to which of the three most-likely contenders—the defending champion Cleveland Indians, the New York Yankees, whose bid for six championships in a row was derailed by the Indians' 111 wins in 1954, and the up-and-coming Chicago White Sox—would win the pennant was likely to come down to which team had the best record "against the other five teams." In 1954, for example, the Indians' final eight-game margin over the 103-win Yankees was more than accounted for by their 89 wins against "the weak clubs," twelve more than the Yankees managed against those same teams. The Yankees and Indians had played each other to a draw in their 22 meetings during the 1954 season.

The Yankees lost the first game in their window of scheduling-opportunity to the Athletics, but then won seven straight—one against Kansas City, both games against the visiting White Sox, and a four-game sweep of the Orioles. Mantle was instrumental in both Yankee wins against pennant-race rival Chicago: on May 17, Mantle (who also had a single) walked in the sixth inning, advanced to second on a walk to Yogi Berra, stole third, and scored the only run of the game as Yankees ace Whitey Ford (now 5-1) outdueled White Sox ace Billy Pierce (now 2-2); and the next day, with the Yankees ahead 7-6, Mantle hit a seventh-inning grand slam to break open the game.

Up by three over Cleveland after sweeping the Orioles, the Yankees lost to the Senators before winning the next three against them, then went on the road where they took three straight in Baltimore, split two in Washington, and trounced the Athletics three times in Kansas City. 

The Yankees won all four games they played against winning teams during their 19-3 stretch from May 12 to June 2—two against the Tigers and two against the White Sox—but, just as important and in a long-established Yankee tradition, beat up on losing teams. They were 4-2 against the Senators, 4-1 against the Athletics, and 7-0 against the Orioles—the teams that were sixth, seventh, and eighth all with winning percentages below .400 by the time the Yankees were through with them. They did what Creamer said they must.

Mantle got a hit in sixteen straight games beginning in the second game of the Indians series at Yankee Stadium, during which he batted nearly .500 with 26 hits in 53 at bats, boosting his average up to .341 on May 27. His .340 batting average for the month of May was his best for the 1955 season. 

Mickey Mantle ended the year with a .306 average, but got on base in 43 percent of his plate appearances, leading the league. The Mick also led the league in home runs for the first time with 37 and in triples with 11, and in slugging (.671) and on-base plus slugging percentage (1.042). His 9.5 wins above replacement was the best in all of major league baseball—better even than Willie Mays who had a 9.0 WAR and was Mantle's rival for the apple of The Big Apple's eye. Next year, Mantle would win the Triple Crown.

With 46 down and 108 games to go, the Yankees record stood at 33-13, largely the result of having beaten up on second-tier competition in the American League. The Yankees, however, still had 18 to left to play against the team that had dethroned them in 1954. They had played arch-rival Cleveland just four times in having completed nearly 30 percent of their 1955 schedule, and had lost three of those games. 

Tougher competition was just ahead, beginning the next day, June 3, with the first of four games against the 27-16 White Sox (4½ games behind in third), followed by four games against the 24-20 Tigers, followed by four games against the defending AL-champion Indians, then three more against the Tigers and four more against the White Sox.

If anyone was going to catch the Yankees, the beginning of June would be the time.

Don Newcombe Channels Babe Ruth

Strategy aside, opposite arguments in the debate about whether the National League should adopt the DH rule so there is uniformity across the major leagues have been very much in play in the first two months of the 2015 season. On the one side, the month of May saw Mets pitchers Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard both go 3-for-3 at the plate in a game, and Giants right-handed ace Madison Bumgarner hit a home run to help his own pitching cause in outdueling Clayton Kershaw. On the other side, the month of April saw Cardinals ace right-hander Adam Wainwright rupture his Achilles tendon trying to run out an infield popup, ending his season, just two days after Nationals ace righty Max Scherzer injured his thumb while batting. An angry Scherzer, a veteran of the DH American League, complained about NL pitchers having to bat for themselves, prompting Bumgarner to take issue with his comments that nobody really wants to see pitchers hit—a sentiment long popular with the "all-DH" crowd. Sixty years ago, in 1955, there was no such debate because there was no DH anywhere to be had. Had there been, Dodgers ace right-hander Don Newcombe would have been squarely on Madison Bumgarner's side, even if Bumgarner is ... a "Giant."

Don Newcombe Channels Babe Ruth

On May 30, 1955, in the second game of a doubleheader at Ebbets Field, Don Newcombe ran his record to 8-0 with a 2.86 ERA as he beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-3. As satisfying as the pitching victory surely was, Newk might have been more proud of his excellent all-around day. Newcombe went 3-for-4 at the plate to raise his batting average to a robust .357. Who says pitchers can't hit? Two of his three hits were home runs. His two-run fourth-inning blast off Pirates starter Ron Kline with two outs and Gil Hodges on base vaulted the Dodgers ahead in the game, 3-2. He tagged Kline for another home run in the sixth to make the score 5-2.

Don Newcombe now had four home runs and seven runs batted in for the season. It was the second time in 1955 that Big Newk had hit two round-trippers in a game to help his own cause, the first time coming in his first start of the season against the defending-champion and arch-rival New York Giants. See the following article in my series on the 1955 season, sixty years ago: http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2015/04/60-years-ago-april-14-1955-enough-with.html

Newcombe was one of the best-hitting pitchers in the game, and 1955 turned out to be his most productive at the plate (even if not his best on the mound, although he wound up the season with a 20-5 record to lead the league in winning percentage as he also did with his 1.1 walks and hits allowed per inning pitched). Big Newk batted .359 on the year with seven home runs and 23 runs batted in. His on-base plus slugging percentage was 1.028. So potent was his bat, manager Walt Alston used Newcombe as a pinch hitter 23 times during the season, in which role Newk was 8-for-21 for a .381 average and drove in four of his 23 runs. All seven of his long balls, however, were in support of his personal pitching efforts.

Over the course of his career, Newcombe batted .276 as a pitcher with 15 home runs and 98 runs batted in. He struck out in only 14 percent of his plate appearances and had a .308 batting average for the times he did not strike out. His hitting prowess was such that Newcombe appeared in 106 games as a pinch hitter, batting .227 without any home runs but with 10 RBIs. Don Newcombe is in the argument about the best-hitting pitchers of all time. 

Historical comparisons for pitchers as hitters must start with The Bambino, George Herman Ruth. From 1914 to 1917 when Ruth was exclusively a pitcher, but also got into games as a pinch hitter, Babe batted .299 with 9 home runs and 50 RBIs, striking out in 16 percent of his plate appearances. One of those home runs was as a pinch hitter. His season-high as a pitcher was 4 home runs in 1915. Of course, these were the "Dead Ball" days.

Ruth had five more home runs as a pitcher in 1918 and 1919, the years he began his conversion from the mound to become a day-to-day regular. Leading the majors in home runs both years with 11 and 29, Ruth was inaugurating both his legend and a revolution in how the game was played. Once he moved to New York and became a full-time outfielder, Ruth pitched only five more games in his career, during which he hit two more circuit-clouts, giving him a total of 16 home runs (out of his 714) in the games he pitched. The Babe's last home run as a pitcher came the last time he took the mound—the final game of the 1933 season, in the bottom of a three-run fifth inning that gave the Yankees a 6-0 lead, after which Ruth the pitcher gave back five runs to the Red Sox.

The players who hit the most home runs in major league careers exclusively as a pitcher, with the occasional pinch-hitting and rare fielding-position appearances, were Wes Ferrell (who surrendered four of the Babe's home runs) with 38, Bob Lemon with 37, Red Ruffing with 36, Warren Spahn with 35, and Earl Wilson with 33. Don Drysdale just missed 30 with 29. Lemon and Spahn were contemporaries of Newcombe's pitching generation. 

Wes Ferrell's most productive years with the bat were when he hit nine home runs in 1931, seven in 1933, and seven in 1935—probably his best year at the plate, since he also batted a career-high .347 and drove in a career-high 32 runs. One of his home runs in 1935 was as a pinch hitter. Ferrell, whose lifetime average was .280 with 208 RBIs, hit two home runs in a game five times. 

Red Ruffing, a direct contemporary of Ferrell's, hit .269 for his career with 273 runs batted in—the most by a pitcher since RBIs became an official statistic in 1920—and twice hit as many as four home runs in a season (4 in 1930 and 5 in 1936). Two of his career home runs were as a pinch hitter.

Bob Lemon, who failed to make the major league grade as a third baseman but had a Hall of Fame career as a pitcher, had a .232 lifetime average with 147 RBIs. He hit five home runs in 1948, seven in 1949, and six the following year. Lemon's only multi-homer game was in 1949. Two of his career home runs came as a pinch hitter.

The great southpaw (363 victories) Warren Spahn never hit more than four round-trippers in a single season (twice, in 1955 and 1961), did not hit much for average (a lifetime mark of .194), but does hold the mark for the most consecutive years with at least one home run by a pitcher—seventeen, from 1948 to 1964. Unlike the other top pitchers who could hit with unaccustomed power for a twirler, Spahn was rarely used off the bench to pinch hit.

Like Spahn, Earl Wilson's lifetime average was below .200 at .195, but he hit seven home runs in both 1966 and 1968, six in 1965, and five in 1964. Two of his career home runs were as a pinch hitter, and he had only one game in which he went deep twice.

But back to 1955. Newcombe's offensive outburst and triumph on the mound on May 30 made it 42 games down and 112 to go for the Dodgers. Their 32-10 record was the best in all of major league baseball and had them comfortably in front of their prime would-be competitors for the NL pennant—the Giants, who were 10 games behind in third place, and the Milwaukee Braves, who were 11½ games out in fourth place with a losing record. The Chicago Cubs were second, six back of Brooklyn, but nobody took them seriously. Indeed, while the Dodgers would have the best record in the NL in games played after May 30, the Cubs would have the worst on their way to a 72-81 record and sixth place.

May 10, 1955 (60 Years Ago): NL Race All But Over (Except for the Playing Out the Schedule Part)

The 1955 Dodgers' longest winning-streak of the season reached 11 games on May 10 when Don Newcombe shut out the Chicago Cubs, 3-0. It was only 24 games into the season, but the Dodgers already had a stunning 9-1/2-game lead with a 22-2 record. As it turned out, the NL pennant race was already over, because Brooklyn continued to play the best baseball in the league.

May 10, 1955: NL Race All But Over (Except for the Playing Out the Schedule Part)

The Brooklyn Dodgers were obviously not buying into the narrative that their failure to win the 1954 pennant after having won back-to-back in '52 and '53 was indicative of the "boys of summer"—as Roger Kahn would later christen them—being past their peak and on the down slide. When Newcombe took the mound at Wrigley Field on May 10, the Dodgers had lost only twice all year. 

Both losses were to the defending-champion New York Giants, who beat them 5-4 on April 22 and 11-10 in ten innings two days later. Those victories trimmed the Dodgers' lead on April 24 to 2-1/2 games over the second-place Milwaukee Braves. Since then, the Dodgers had won ten straight, the Braves were still second, but just one game over .500 at 12-11, and the Giants were in third, struggling to get untracked with an 11-11 record.

As hot as the Dodgers had been, Don Newcombe was still finding his footing in his second year back from two years as a US Army draft pick occasioned by the Korean War. Newcombe had an impressive 56-28 record and 3.39 career earned run average after three seasons when duty called, but struggled with a 9-8 record and 4.55 ERA in his first year back in 1954. Particularly with the Giants defending a championship and the Braves a fast-rising club, Brooklyn's prospects in 1955 were said to rest to a great extent on whether the power right-hander would recover his pre-military-draft excellence. 

So far, Newcombe had won two of his first three starts, which included a no-decision in the Dodgers' April 24 loss to the Giants, but he also had a less-than-ace-like 5.50 ERA. This was his first start since then, with his only appearance in the previous 15 days a victory in two innings out of the bullpen in an extra-inning game against the Phillies on May 6.

Newcombe was brilliant this day against the Cubs. Pitching his first shutout since the late September heat of the 1951 pennant race, Don Newcombe allowed the Cubs only one base runner while striking out six. Gene Baker's single up the middle in the fourth inning was the only hit Big Newk allowed. It was the second and last one-hitter of his career (he never pitched a no-no); Newcombe had one-hit the Pirates in June 1951, although—like in this one—there was no drama of flirting with a no-hitter because Ralph Kiner singled in the first inning. 

The Dodgers were an offensive juggernaut early in the 1955 season. Their three runs against the Cubs gave them 152 in the first 24 games—by far the most in the major leagues. Even with Newcombe not pitching at his Newcombesque-best, at least until this game, the Dodgers had given up the far fewest runs in the National League, only 83. 

It may have been only 24 games into the season—there were still 130 remaining on the schedule—and the Dodgers' .917 winning percentage was certainly unsustainable for much longer. Their winning streak came to an end the next day and the Dodgers lost six of their next nine, which shaved three games off their lead.

But still, a 9-1/2-game lead so early was a huge deficit for would-be competitors to make up. The Braves ultimately finished second with 85 wins. The Dodgers could have had a losing 64-66 record the rest of the way and still finished first. 

Brooklyn's hot start did in fact basically settle things, and even with 84 percent of the schedule yet to be played after May 10, there would be no drama of a National League pennant race. The Dodgers did not let up. While they could not match their torrid start to the season, the played as the best team in the National League the rest of the way, with a record 3-1/2 games better than any other NL team in games played after May 10. 

The closest any team came to the Dodgers after May 10 was Chicago pulling within 5-1/2 games of Brooklyn on the last day of May. But nobody considered the Cubs a legitimate contender, and they ended up sixth with a losing record. After that slump in the standings, the Dodgers put the pennant race away for real by winning 10 of their next 11 to take a 10-1/2-game lead with a 42-12 record on June 11. They were still on a pace, more than a third-of-the-way through the season, to pass the 1906 Chicago Cubs' major league record of 116 wins in a single season. In the remaining 100 games they had left after that, Milwaukee would be one-game better, but Brooklyn's lead was never less than those 10-1/2 games.

Meanwhile, over in the American League, as predicted, a three-team race was developing. The Indians went into Yankee Stadium for a two-game set on May 10, a week after the teams had split two games in Cleveland. The Indians won, 9-6, even though their ace Bob Lemon did not pitch well in running his record to 6-1. The next day, a three-run fourth proved decisive in the Indians' 4-3 win over the Yankees.

The loss kept the Yankees in third place. They were now four games behind with a 14-10 record, which would turn out to be their biggest deficit of the season. The Indians, at 19-7, now led by three games over the second-place White Sox, which would turn out to be their biggest lead of the season.

After May 11, it was 24 games down for the Yankees and 130 to go.