September 8, 1955: Karl Spooner’s pitching clinches Dodgers’ National League pennant — early

“That is the way this game is — you win, you lose, you celebrate and you suffer.”1 – Vin Scully

Before divisional play came to the American and National Leagues in 1969, the pennant winners – the soon-to-be World Series opponents – were determined during the regular season. The turning of the calendar to the season’s home stretch brought pennant clinchers and the World Series, each with their own form of celebration and suffering.

The Dodgers had celebrated NL pennants in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953 but lost the World Series to the New York Yankees each time. In two successive seasons, agony also struck Brooklyn in the last game of the season before the World Series. First, Dick Sisler’s 10th-inning home run and then Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” denied them the NL crowns in 1950 and 1951, respectively.2

Sometimes the pennant clincher happened long before the schedule’s final day. For the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, it was on September 8, with more than two weeks of games to play, when they were closing out a two-game series at Milwaukee’s County Stadium with a 16-game lead over the second-place Braves.

With the pennant in sight on this Thursday afternoon, Dodgers manager Walter Alston started rookie Roger Craig. The 25-year-old right-hander had been used as a starter and reliever, contributing a 4-3 record and 3.06 ERA, since his spectacular major league debut in mid-July at Ebbets Field. Craig pitched a three-hitter and combined with another rookie pitcher, Don Bessent, to sweep a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Redlegs.3

Braves manager Charlie Grimm turned to righty Bob Buhl, who was leading the NL with a 2.87 ERA but pitching on only two days’ rest.4 The 27-year-old Buhl had already borne the brunt of another Dodgers pennant clincher, two seasons earlier. On that day, Buhl yielded only one earned run but couldn’t match Carl Erskine’s 19th win that secured the 1953 NL flag for the Dodgers.5

This time, Buhl’s afternoon was brief. Seeking his 14th win against nine defeats, he retired the first two Dodgers he faced, but control abandoned him quickly. After Duke Snider walked, Buhl hit Roy Campanella on the right wrist and walked Carl Furillo and Jackie Robinson for the first Dodgers run.6 When Gil Hodges singled, Erskine – running for the injured Campanella – and Furillo scored, and Buhl’s day was over, replaced by reliever Phil Paine.7 Don Zimmer singled to right, scoring Robinson, and the Dodgers had a 4-0 lead before Craig set foot on the mound. The four runs that Buhl yielded cost him the league lead in ERA, 3.05 to Don Newcombe’s 3.00, and left him with a 5.24 ERA in 10 appearances against Brooklyn.8

The Dodgers threatened to add to their lead in the third inning against reliever Dave Jolly. They loaded the bases with two outs for Craig, whose 1-for-23 big-league batting ledger included a three-pitch strikeout in the first inning. Craig flied out to center to end the inning.

When Craig returned to the mound in the bottom of the third, the Braves began to rally. Bill Bruton opened the inning by walking. Two groundouts and Henry Aaron’s infield single advanced Bruton to third. Johnny Logan’s triple to right-center scored two runners and cut the Dodgers’ lead in half.

In the fourth, Milwaukee rookie left fielder Chuck Tanner led off with a line-drive single to center. One out later, Bobby Thomson, now a Milwaukee Brave, hit for Jolly.9 Tanner moved to second on Craig’s wild pitch and advanced to third on Thomson’s line-drive single to left. It was time for Alston to go to his bullpen for southpaw Karl Spooner, who struck out rookie pinch-hitter Bob Roselli and Danny O’Connell to end the inning.

Nearly a year had passed since Spooner made his major league debut in spectacular fashion at Ebbets Field – a three-hit, 15-strikeout shutout of the New York Giants followed by a season-ending, 12-strikeout shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates.10 After Spooner injured his shoulder during spring training, Alston had been cautious with the southpaw’s early season pitching load, both as a starter and a reliever. The timing was perfect for this early September appearance having been preceded by Spooner’s best starts of the season, a complete game win over the St. Louis Cardinals and a shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He now owned seven wins and two saves.

The Dodgers quickly regained their offensive momentum in the fifth inning against the fourth Braves pitcher, Ernie Johnson. Furillo lined a single to center and Robinson hit Johnson’s next pitch just inside the left-field foul pole for a two-run homer, his eighth of the season. With two outs and Zimmer on third after a single and outfield bobble by Aaron, Crowe fielded Gilliam’s drag bunt and threw wildly to first for a third run. Pee Wee Reese finished the four-run inning with a bad-hop grounder over third baseman Eddie Mathews’ head, scoring Gilliam for an 8-2 lead.

“The Brooks,” as they were often called in the New York Daily News, finished the rout in the sixth inning with two runs against Lew Burdette, the fifth and last Braves pitcher.11 Burdette pitched three innings as the starter the night before in a 3-1 loss to the Dodgers. A pass to Rube Walker, who replaced Campanella, and singles by Robinson and Hodges accounted for the first run. When Zimmer grounded to Mathews at third, Robinson’s baserunning acumen was on full display. He was trapped between third and home but managed to get back to third. Spooner’s push-bunt sacrifice scored Robinson. Dodgers 10, Braves 2. Burdette retired the last 10 Dodgers he faced, but by then there was no doubt about the outcome.

In a word, Spooner was unhittable. In fact, he struck out two future Hall-of-Famers, Mathews and Aaron, on seven pitches in the fifth, retiring the first 13 Braves he faced, eight on strikeouts, and seven of those on swing-and-miss. Finally, with two outs in the eighth, Spooner walked Logan and George Crowe consecutively, both on full counts. He retired pinch-hitter Andy Pafko, a former Dodger, on a fly ball to center to end any threat.12

Spooner set down the side in order in the ninth, ending the game by coaxing pinch-hitter Del Rice into another swinging strikeout. The Dodgers were the National League champions. Spooner held the Braves hitless in 5⅔ innings of relief, striking out nine, for his eighth win.

As New York Daily News sportswriter Dick Young described, “They won the clincher, just as they won the flag – easy.”13 A 10-game winning streak at the start put them in first place to stay on April 15, the fifth day of the season. The clincher put them 17 games ahead of the second-place Braves, securing their ninth pennant since 1900 on the earliest calendar date in league history. After the game, Grimm walked over to the Dodgers’ dugout for a handshake with Alston, and later commented, “The best team won.”14   

How did the Dodgers celebrate another National League flag? There was the usual clubhouse celebration but champagne, dinner and song were reserved by the entire team for the menu at Mader’s in Milwaukee after the game.15 Three days later, they were introduced by Happy Felton, Knot-Hole Gang host, on The Ed Sullivan Show, a Sunday night TV fixture in households across the country.16

In full uniform from Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, the players emerged one-by-one from their dugout after the game to the cheers of over 1,000 enthusiastic fans remaining at the ballpark. Felton briefly interviewed Campanella and Snider, in addition to captain Reese, and manager Alston. To cap off the pennant-winning celebration, borough president John Cashmore promised a parade/motorcade through Brooklyn and a reception one week after the pennant-clincher that would be “the biggest in the borough’s history.”17

Meanwhile, it took two weeks before the American League crown was celebrated. An eight-game winning streak and a pennant clincher against the Red Sox at Boston’s Fenway Park gave the Yankees their 21st pennant.18 The 1955 World Series would have a familiar ring to it – the New York Yankees versus the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Spooner’s first appearance against the Yankees in Game Two went well, three innings of one-hit relief work in a losing cause.19 That outing earned him the starting assignment in Game Six at Yankee Stadium, an opportunity to close out the World Series title for the Dodgers.20 The Yankees won the game in the very first inning to knot the World Series, 3-3, scoring five runs against Spooner. As several accounts of the game in the New York Times noted, the outcome was not entirely Spooner’s fault.21 Spooner retired only one batter, striking out Billy Martin, but was unsettled by play in the field and Bill Skowron’s three-run homer.

Of course, the outcome of Game Seven at Yankee Stadium was different, the first and only World Series crown won by the Brooklyn Dodgers.22 Baseball history will never forget those celebrations, on the field and in the clubhouse, and another parade that followed.23

As for Spooner now barely one year removed from his record-setting debut performances, he had to know that his pitching career was over – “Over the winter all the adhesions and everything I had from the tears just kind of drawed up and tightened … And you know the arm isn’t the same. You know it. I just couldn’t throw at all.”24 That walk off the mound in Milwaukee on an early September afternoon was his last as the winning pitcher.

Author’s note

These many years later, the Brooklyn Dodgers celebration is still noted in the celebrity guest list posted on the Mader’s Restaurant website. In 2017, the Milwaukee Record completed its own ranking of Mader’s celebrity customers – 74 noted musicians, accomplished actors, presidents, prominent politicians, and sports figures.25 Unsurprisingly, Vince Lombardi, legendary football coach of the Green Bay Packers, was ranked #1. The Brooklyn Dodgers, the only sports team identified in their entirety on the list, were ranked #43, just ahead of the Beach Boys. It was quite a celebration!

Remembering three Dodger southpaws, sportswriter George Vecsey once said,” “Before Sandy Koufax became Sandy Koufax, before Clayton Kershaw was invented, there was Karl Spooner.”26 Baseball history celebrates each one of them.

Acknowledgments

This essay was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Keith Thursby.

Sources

The author accessed Baseball-Reference.com for box scores/play-by-play information (baseball-reference.com/boxes/MLN/MLN195509080.shtml) and other data, as well as Retrosheet.org (retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1955/B09080MLN1955.htm). The photo of Karl Spooner on the mound is from the SABR – Rucker Archive.

Notes

1 Blake Williams, “Remembering the Best Vin Scully Calls & Quotes,” DodgerBlue.com, August 2, 2023, dodgerblue.com/remembering-the-best-vin-scully-calls-quotes/2023/08/02/.

2 C. Paul Rogers III, “October 1, 1950: Dick Sisler’s 10th-inning home run clinches Phillies’ pennant on the last day of the season,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Scott Ferkovich, “October 3, 1951: The Giants Win The Pennant!,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

3 Steven C. Weiner, July 17, 1955: Dodgers’ Roger Craig pitches three-hitter to beat Redlegs in major-league debut, SABR Baseball Games Project. Steven C. Weiner, July 17, 1955: Don Bessent completes Dodgers’ debut sweep of Redlegs, SABR Baseball Games Project.

4 Bob Wolf, “Dodgers Trim Braves, 10-2; Clinch National League Flag,” Milwaukee Journal, September 9, 1955: Sec.2-22.

5 Roscoe McGowen, “Dodgers Clinch Flag, Beating Braves, 5-2; No. 19 for Erskine,” New York Times, September 13, 1953: Sec.5-1.

6 Roscoe McGowen, “Dodgers Take Eleventh Pennant,” New York Times, September 9, 1955: 1. Snider finished 1955 with a league-leading 126 runs, the third consecutive season that he led the NL in runs scored.

7 Erskine was a pinch-runner for Campanella so ice packs could be applied to his bruised right wrist after being hit by Buhl. Rube Walker replaced Campanella behind the plate. Campanella was hit in the left hand by Bob Buhl in the second inning of the Dodgers pennant-clinching victory over the Braves in 1953. He stayed in that game. (Roscoe McGowen, “Dodgers Clinch Flag, Beating Braves, 5-2; No. 19 for Erskine.”)

8 Newcombe (3.20) and Buhl (3.21) finished behind Pittsburgh’s Bob Friend (2.83) as the NL season’s ERA leader.

9 On February 1, 1954, the New York Giants traded Thomson and Sam Calderone to the Milwaukee Braves for Johnny Antonelli, Billy Klaus, Don Liddle, Ebba St. Claire and $50,000.

10 Steven C. Weiner, “September 22, 1954: Karl Spooner strikes out 15 in Dodgers’ debut,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Steven C. Weiner, “September 26, 1954: Karl Spooner pitches another shutout on the way to the record book,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

11 Dick Young, “Brooks Capture 8th Pennant,” New York Daily News, September 9, 1955: 64.

12 The Dodgers traded for Pafko in June 1951 in their eight-player swap with the Chicago Cubs to help solve their left-field problem. In January 1953, Pafko was traded to the Braves for second baseman Roy Hartsfield and $50,000. Hartsfield never played for the Dodgers.

13 Young, 64.

14 Young, 66.

15 Associated Press, “Brooklyn Harmony,” New York Times, September 9, 1955: 28. R.G. Lynch, “Maybe I’m Wrong,” Milwaukee Journal, September 9, 1955: Sec.2-19.

16 “Brooklyn Dodgers Celebrate Winning the 1955 National League Pennant on the Ed Sullivan Show,” YouTube.com, September 11, 1955, youtube.com/watch?v=5wbUW8HHl6k. (Background on Happy Felton’s Knot-Hole Gang is provided in the following essay: Steven C. Weiner, “May 21, 1952: Dodgers rout Reds with 15-run first inning,” SABR Games Project.) One year later, the Dodgers appeared again and were introduced on the Ed Sullivan Show, this time as the defending World Series champions. (“Ed [Sullivan]Talks to Announcers and Players from the Brooklyn Dodgers, Milwaukee Braves and Cincinnati Redlegs,” YouTube.com, September 16, 1956, youtube.com/watch?v=ROwNiKR_Hg0)

17 “Brooklyn Will Hail Champions Sept.16,” New York Times, September 9, 1955: 28.

18 Associated Press, “Time for Exultation,” New York Times, September 24, 1955: 13. John Drebinger, “Yankees Win 21st Pennant, Their Sixth in Last 7 Years,” New York Times, September 24, 1955: 1.

19 Thomas J. Brown, Jr., “September 29, 1955: Tommy Byrne’s pitching gives Yankees 2-0 lead in World Series,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

20 Thomas J. Brown, Jr., “October 3, 1955: Yankees’ Whitey Ford shuts down Dodgers to send World Series to deciding game,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

21 Roscoe McGowen, “Bombers Benefit by Infield Lapses,” New York Times, October 4, 1955: 42. Arthur Daley, Sports of the Times: Suit for Non-Support,” New York Times, October 4, 1955: 42.

22 Steven C. Weiner, “October 4, 1955: Brooklyn Dodgers win first World Series as ‘Next Year’ finally arrives,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

23 “Dodgers win 1955 World Series,” MLB.com, October 4, 1955, mlb.com/video/dodgers-win-their-first-series-c20006571. “1955 Brooklyn Dodgers Parade 8mm,” YouTube.com, October 5, 1955, youtube.com/watch?v=HLdlx9kfRKU.

24 Goldenbock.

25 Tyler Maas, “Mader’s Celebrity Customers, Ranked,” Milwaukee Record, April 10, 2017, milwaukeerecord.com/food-drink/maders-celebrity-customers-ranked/.

26 George Vecsey, “Instant Memories of a Dodger Phenom,” GeorgeVecsey.com, August 13, 2014, accessed September 3, 2019, georgevecsey.com/home/10.