History of the World Series – 1965
While Koufax, coming off a 26-8 season in which he boasted a 2.04 earned-run average and tossed a perfect game (his fourth no-hitter in four seasons), obviously had Series-opener credentials, he didn’t start Game 1 because it fell on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Drysdale got the call, and the 6-foot-6 righthander lasted 2 2/3 innings at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minn. Don Mincher solved Drysdale for a bases-empty homer in the second inning and Zoilo Versalles blasted a three-run homer in Minnesota’s six-run third, an inning in which Frank Quilici singled and doubled for the American League champions. Minnesota went on to win, 8-2, behind Grant.
Koufax was on the mound the next day, and he and Kaat matched ciphers through the fifth inning. The Twins, helped by an inning-opening error by Dodgers third baseman Jim Gilliam, burst into a 2-0 lead in the sixth on Tony Oliva’s run-scoring double and Harmon Killebrew’s RBI single. Minnesota roughed up reliever Ron Perranoski for three runs in the next two innings, and Kaat sailed to a 5-1 triumph. Left fielder Bob Allison’s lunging, one-handed catch on rain-soaked turf of Jim Lefebvre’s curving liner in the fifth, with a man on, proved crucial for Kaat in what was still a scoreless game.
Having shown emphatically that they could beat the best the Dodgers had to offer, the Twins took their two games-to-none Series lead to Dodger Stadium and showed they couldn’t beat the third-best pitcher that Los Angeles had to offer — at least not on this day. While lacking the statistics and reputation of Koufax and Drysdale, lefthander Claude Osteen was a gifted pitcher in his own right. Acquired after the 1964 season from Washington at considerable expense (the multiplayer trade sent slugger Frank Howard to the Senators), Osteen had won 15 games and posted a 2.79 ERA for the ’65 Dodgers. In Game 3 of the Series, he got Los Angeles back on the right track with a five-hit, 4-0 triumph. Batterymate John Roseboro supplied Osteen with all the offense he needed with a two-run single in the fourth off Twins starter Camilo Pascual.
While the loss surely was disappointing to the 31-year-old Pascual, the Series start undoubtedly was a gratifying experience to the Havana native. He had labored non-stop for this Washington Senators-turned-Minnesota Twins franchise since 1954 and had pitched for some pretty down-and-out clubs in Washington, for whom he compiled such records as 2-12, 6-18 and 8-17 preceding the team’s relocation to Minnesota in 1961.
Drysdale rebounded from his rough first-game treatment and struck out 11 Twins in Game 4. Getting three RBIs from Ron Fairly and home runs from Wes Parker and Lou Johnson, Drysdale and the Dodgers notched a Series-evening 7-2 conquest. Homers by Killebrew and Oliva accounted for Minnesota’s runs.
Koufax then matched — even surpassed — Drysdale’s turnaround, yielding only four hits (all singles) and striking out 10 batters in Game 5. The contest was Dodger baseball at its best: Los Angeles mounted an 11-single attack (and threw in three doubles for good measure), stole four bases, executed three double plays, played errorless ball and got great pitching. It all added up to a 7-0 victory, in which Wills rapped four hits and Willie Davis stole three bases, and a Series lead of three games to two.
Hoping that a return to Metropolitan Stadium would be just the tonic that Minnesota needed, Twins Manager Sam Mele sent 21-game winner Grant back to the mound after only two days of rest. Allison, who would bat only .125 in this Series, gave the veteran pitcher a 2-0 lead in the fourth when he homered off Osteen following an error by Dodgers second baseman Dick Tracewski, Then, in the sixth, Grant powered a three-run homer off Howie Reed (working in relief of Osteen, who again had pitched effectively) and the Twins were en route to a 5-1 victory.
Minnesota, having deadlocked the Series, now was confronted with the necessity of beating one of the Dodgers’ two pitching greats for a second time. Despite the fact he would be working with only two days of rest, Koufax was selected as the seventh-game starter over Drysdale by Manager Walter Alston. For the third time, his opponent would be Kaat, who had won 18 games for Minnesota in ’65. Kaat, like Koufax, had pitched in Game 5.
Koufax won out. He tossed a three-hit shutout and fanned 10 Twins. Kaat left the game three batters into the fourth, an inning in which he surrendered a leadoff home run to Johnson, a double to Fairly and a run-scoring single to Parker. The homer capped a notable season for the 32-year-old Johnson, a minor-league veteran who proved to be a Dodger leader after being summoned from Spokane in May following a disabling ankle injury to outfielder Tommy Davis.
While relievers Al Worthington, Johnny Klippstein, Jim Merritt and Jim Ferry shut down Los Angeles the rest of the way, the Twins could not break through against Koufax and went down to a 2-0 defeat. The Dodgers were World Series champions for the second time in three years.
Koufax and Drysdale weren’t invincible — until the chips were down, anyway.
