Sport: Bullpen Victory

“All I knew,” said beaming Tommy Henrich, “was I had him in a hole. I was just looking at the ball, and it looked pretty good.” Henrich swung and the ball sailed into the Yankee Stadium’s right-field stands for a home run. In the last half of the ninth inning, ailing (back injury) First-Baseman Henrich had robbed Don Newcombe, the Dodgers’ towering Negro righthander, of a four-hit shutout in his first World Series pitching assignment, and won the Series’ opening game for the Yankees, 1 to 0.

With Yankee Veteran Allie Reynolds pitching brilliant, two-hit ball, the 66,222 fans had seen some of the tightest precision baseball since the days of Christy Mathewson and Chief Bender. But there was no delirium in the stands; coming as it did after cliff-hanger finales in both pennant races, this hitless brand of play was not the kind to inspire frenzied cheering. In the second game, the story was almost the same, in reverse. Brooklyn’s skinny, curve-balling lefthander, Preacher Roe, gave up only six scattered hits while his teammates babied the one-run lead they had acquired in the second inning to a 1-to-0 victory.

By Friday, when the Series moved to Ebbets Field, the fans were ready for Brooklyn’s usual wide-open, slambang style of play. Instead, for eight innings, the game jogged right along in the pattern : a pitching exhibition between Brooklyn’s usually erratic Ralph Branca, who settled down to retire 14 batters in a row and New York’s ace-in-the-sleeve Relief Pitcher Joe Page, who replaced Tommy Byrne in the fourth inning.

Then, in the ninth, the Giants’ castoff Johnny Mize (sold to the Yankees last August) returned to haunt the National League. At bat as a pinch hitter with two out and the bases loaded, he connected with his second pinch hit of the Series, a line drive to the right-field fence. When Jerry Coleman singled a moment later, the Yankees led 4 to 1.

In the Brooklyn half of the inning, the hard-fighting Dodgers smashed out two home runs, but they were not enough.

Next day the Dodgers fell apart. Having exhausted his slim staff of reliable starting pitchers, Manager Burt Shotton called on Don Newcombe again after only two days’ rest; the Yanks bombarded him and Reliever Joe Hatten to win 6 to 4. On Sunday, even virus-ridden Joe DiMaggio came to life with his first home run—and second hit—of the Series. The Yankees slugged their way through six Dodger pitchers to a 10-to-6 victory and their twelfth World Series crown. Said Yankee Manager Casey Stengel: “We won from the bullpen. The difference in the teams was the relief pitchers.”