History of the World Series – 1964

The Yankees were in a particularly good groove at the end of the 1964 season, having earned their 14th Series berth in 16 years. Under first-year Manager Yogi Berra, the Yankees had won the pennant by one game over the Chicago White Sox.

The’64 World Series — matching New York against the St. Louis Cardinals — would be the 15th fall classic in Yankee pinstripes for Berra, who first appeared in the Series in 1947, last performed in it in 1963 and along the way established the record for most Series games played, 75.

Mickey Mantle was about to play in his 12th Series for the Yankees, Whitey Ford in his 11th and Elston Howard in his ninth. Bobby Richardson at 29, was gearing up for his seventh fall classic in a New York uniform, while Tony Kubek, not yet 28 when the action got under way at Busch Stadium, also would have made a seventh appearance if not for a disabling wrist injury. Roger Maris, in his fifth season as a Yankee, would be competing in his fifth fall classic.

Being a Yankee meant playing in the World Series, so the Yankees were doing business as usual in October 1964. Little did anyone realize, though, that business was about to turn bad for this storied franchise.

New York’s four-game loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1963 Series perhaps gave hint of impending trouble for the Yankees, as did a monumental struggle to win the ’64 American League pennant.

Then came a first-game pounding by the Cardinals, a team that had overcome the mid-August turmoil surrounding the ouster of General Manager Bing Devine and roared from fifth place to first (with considerable help from the Philadelphia Phillies, who blew a 6 1/2-game league lead with 12 games to play). Ford took a 4-2 lead into the sixth inning of the Series opener, but St. Louis right fielder Mike Shannon walloped a long two-run homer off the veteran lefthander. When catcher Tim McCarver followed with a double, the 35-year-old Ford was through for the day, and, because of arm problems, he was through for the Series.

St. Louis scored two more runs in that inning, with pinch-hitter Carl Warwick singling home the go-ahead run and center fielder Curt Flood following with a triple. The Cards won 9-5.

Saddled with a five-game losing streak in Series play, the Yankees suddenly revived. Rookie Mel Stottlemyre, a key contributor to the Yanks’ pennant cause after his call-up from Richmond in August, beat Bob Gibson in Game 2, a contest in which New York erupted for four ninth-inning runs (after Gibson had left the game) and made off with an 8-3 victory. In Game 3 at Yankee Stadium, Cardinals veteran Curt Simmons and the Yankees’ Jim Bouton were locked in a 1-1 tie through eight innings. Manager Johnny Keane used a pinch-hitter for Simmons in the ninth as the Cards threatened, but failed, to score. Barney Schultz, a stellar reliever down the stretch for St. Louis, entered the game in the last of the ninth and threw one pitch, which Mantle deposited into the right-field stands.

After its dramatic 2-1 triumph, New York nailed Ray Sadecki for three first-inning runs in Game 4 and lefthander Al Downing protected the lead through the fifth. Ahead two games to one in the Series and on top by a 3-0 score midway through the fourth contest, the Yankees had things going their way until St. Louis third baseman Ken Boyer rifled a bases-loaded home run off Downing in the sixth. With relievers Roger Craig and Ron Taylor combining for 8 2/3 innings of two-hit, scoreless relief, St. Louis evened the Series with a 4-3 victory.

The next day Gibson was one out away from a 2-0 victory when the Yanks’ Tom Tresh ripped a two-run homer, but Gibson prevailed, 5-2, in 10 innings when batterymate McCarver launched a three-run homer off Yanks reliever Pete Mikkelsen.

Game 6 was a 1-1 tie entering the sixth inning, but Simmons yielded consecutive-pitch homers to Maris and Mantle. New York’s Joe Pepitone then erased any doubt as to the game’s outcome when he socked a bases-full homer off reliever Gordon Richardson in the eighth. New York won, 8-3.

The climactic game of the 1964 World Series, featuring a Stottlemyre-Gibson pitching matchup, was scoreless through three innings. Then the Cardinals broke loose for three runs in the fourth and three in the fifth, touched off by a homer by Lou Brock, the mid-June acquisition from the Chicago Cubs who proved to be a catalyst in the Cardinals’ offense (he batted .348 and stole 33 bases for St. Louis in 103 games).

Mantle cracked a three-run homer in the sixth and the Yanks’ Clete Boyer and Phil Linz connected in the ninth, but Gibson pitched doggedly and went all the way in a 7-5 Cardinals triumph. Since St. Louis’ Ken Boyer already had hit two homers in this Series — the second coming in the seventh inning of Game 7 — Clete’s blow meant that the Boyers had become the first brothers to hit home runs in the same Series (and, of course, they even accomplished the feat in the same game).

The Series championship ended a long drought for the Cardinals, who hadn’t even appeared in a fall classic since 1946. Having regained the pennant-winning knack, St. Louis would find its way into two more Series before the end of the 1960s.

It was a different story for the aging and injury-racked Yankees, who within two years would tumble all the way to last place. There would be no more World Series for Mantle, Ford, Richardson, Kubek and Boyer, among others. Howard would appear in the classic once more, with the Boston Red Sox; Maris was destined to play in two more Series with the Cardinals.

Mantle bid the competition a fitting adieu, breaking the Series homer record he shared with Babe Ruth when he belted No. 16 off Schultz to end Game 3 and slamming two more horners. Richardson also went out in style, setting a one-Series mark with 13 hits against St. Louis.

Both Series managers were out of work the day after Game 7. Yankees management, unhappy with the way the team was handled, fired Berra. Keane, on the other hand, quit the Cardinals as an outgrowth of the Devine dismissal. While Keane soon surfaced as the Yanks’ new manager, the fact that neither would return to his club was a stunning development.

Not quite as stunning, perhaps, as the fact the mighty New York Yankees would not be back in the World Series for considerably longer than three years. Would you believe 12 years?