October 10, 1956: Johnny Kucks’ 3-hitter and home runs give Yankees the title

It was the “best pitching in my career,” exclaimed an elated Johnny Kucks after the struggling pitcher’s improbable three-hit shutout in Game Seven of the 1956 World Series.1 After losing the first two games of the Series, the New York Yankees’ 9-0 thrashing of the reigning title-holding Dodgers in Brooklyn was a “loud and emphatic vindication,” gushed sportswriter John Drebinger of manager Casey Stengel’s strategic moves and belief in a maligned pitching staff supported by a record-setting home-run smashing lineup.2

The “Ole Perfessor’s” Bronx Bombers cruised to the best record in the majors (97-57) to capture their seventh pennant in eight years. Triple Crown winner Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Hank Bauer, Bill Skowron, and company formed the core of baseball’s most formidable offense, led the American League with 190 home runs and 5.6 runs per game. Despite finishing second in the AL in ERA (3.63), the Yankees’ pitching staff seemed to be its Achilles’ Heel. Other than ace Whitey Ford (19-6), it consisted of a quartet of inexperienced and unpredictable starters. Defying all expectations, that erratic staff proved to be the club’s strength when it was in a two-games-to-none hole in the World Series. The starters reeled off four straight complete games for the first time all season, beginning with Ford, Tom Sturdivant, and Don Larsen’s perfect game to complete the sweep at Yankee Stadium. Bob Turley’s 1-0 loss in a 10-inning heartbreaker in Game Six completed a stretch during which Yankees’ pitchers yielded just five earned runs in 36⅔ innings.

Stengel faced a dilemma in the series clincher at Ebbets Field, a notoriously difficult ballpark for left-handed pitchers against the Dodgers’ right-handed-heavy lineup. Instead of calling on Ford, Stengel gambled on 23-year-old Kucks. Described by sportswriter Dick Young as a “lanky side-arming sinkerballer,” Kucks (18-9) hadn’t won a game in more than five weeks and struggled down the stretch.3 He looked bad in two relief appearances against the Dodgers, yielding three hits and two runs (one earned) in two innings. Stengel recognized the “distinct risk” with Kucks on the mound, opined Young, and had Sturdivant warming up before the game even began.4

Skipper Walter Alston’s Dodgers (93-61) were an aging club that still possessed a daunting pill-bashing lineup, finishing second in the NL in scoring (4.7 runs per game) and home runs (179). Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese were 37; Roy Campanella and Carl Furillo, 34; Gil Hodges, 32, and Duke Snider, 30. Dem Bums were collectively slumping at the most inopportune time. In Games Three through Six, they had scored just six runs and collected only 18 hits. Smoky Alston had a trump card for the deciding game: the 1956 NL MVP and the big leagues’ Cy Young Award winner, 30-year-old right-hander Don Newcombe. Big Newk had led the majors with 27 wins and possessed a stellar 112-48 career slate, but also carried some immense baggage. He had been walloped for six runs in 1⅔ innings in Game Two, giving him 16 earned runs allowed in 19 World Series innings dating back to 1949. Newcombe had added pressure: after being pulled in Game Two, he stormed out of the clubhouse while the game was still in progress and was involved in an altercation with a parking attendant.5 Litigation was pending and Newcombe had sought legal counsel by the time Game Seven took place.

A capacity crowd of 33,782 packed Ebbets Field on Wednesday afternoon with temperatures in the low 50s and an “autumnal tinge” in the air, wrote Drebinger.6 Few fans could have predicted that they were witnessing the last World Series game played in the venerable ballpark, which opened in 1913.

In addition to Kucks, Stengel “baffled the experts” with other tricks up his sleeve for Game Seven, wrote Irving Vaughn.7 He replaced 40-year-old Enos Slaughter, who had collected seven hits in the first three Series games, but had gone hitless in the last three, with 27-year-old Elston Howard. Skowron, the 25-year-old slugger, who had been benched after Game One in favor of veteran utilityman Joe Collins, was back at first base for additional power in the bandbox ballpark. And finally, spark plug Billy Martin batted in the two-hole, up four spots. All four of those moves proved decisive.

The Bronx Bombers’ relentless offensive explosion might have led them to victory no matter whom Stengel tabbed to pitch. Bauer led off the game with a single and stole second. Newk fanned Martin and Mantle and had two strikes on Berra, before Yogi “hatched at the high buzzer,” quipped Young, and knocked the ball over the right-field fence and into a parking lot off Bedford Avenue to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead.8 Newcombe fanned Skowron to end the frame. “He had good stuff and threw it hard,” said Campanella of his batterymate, but noted that he struggled with location.9

In the third, Berra came to the plate with two outs and Martin on first via a single. The heart of soul and the Yankees, Berra was coming off a typical season (30/105/.298), while slugging a career-best .534. Newk had two strikes on him again, but the St. Louis native connected with a low fastball for a “prodigious poke,” wrote Drebinger.10 Berra sent the ball sailing over the scoreboard in right-center to double the score, 4-0. His third round-tripper of the series gave him a record 10 RBIs in the World Series, breaking Lou Gehrig’s mark of 9 in 1928.

Howard continued the Yankees’ barrage in the fourth with a leadoff home run that landed on top of the scoreboard and sent Newk to the showers while a chorus of boos echoed throughout the park. “I feel sorry for Don Newcombe,” said an empathetic Ford after the game. “It is awful the way fans booed him.”11 Despite a warning from Dodgers VP Buzzy Bavasi, a frustrated and angered Newcombe once again showered and left the game while it was in progress. In hindsight, this game was a turning point in Newcombe’s career.12

Held in check by reliever Don Bessent for three innings, the Yankees savagely whacked Roger Craig, whom Young disparaged as a “pathetic figure.”13 The starter and loser in Game Three faced five batters and all reached base. Martin singled, Mantle walked, and Yogi was intentionally passed after a wild pitch enabled runners to advance. Skowron cleared the bases with a home run to deep left field to extend the lead to 9-0. It marked the first time in World Series history that a team hit two grand slams in the same Series (Berra had one in Game Two). Howard’s double mercifully ended Craig’s afternoon. Ed Roebuck and Carl Erskine retired the next nine Yankee hitters.

While the Yankees smashed home runs, the Dodgers beat Kucks’ sinkers “weakly into the dirt,” wrote Young.14 The opening frame proved to be the right-hander’s most difficult inning. With one out Reese walked and Snider singled. Kucks fielded Robinson’s slow roller to the mound and fired to second to start a 1-4-3 twin killing. “Jackie howled” at the call at first base, as did the spectators, reported Young, but that was the “last noise the crowd was to make.”15

Kucks cruised, retiring 19 of the next 21 batters, yielding only a walk in the fourth inning and one in the seventh. “I was nervous until I was helped out of that first-inning jam by that double play. After that I was loose,” he said. “I never once shook off a sign from Berra.”16 With one out in the eighth, Furillo singled meekly to center.

“I kept the ball low,” said Kucks whose outfielders recorded just two putouts. “You can’t pitch high here. I threw about 75 percent fastballs and the rest were sliders and a few curves.” His pitching coach, Jim “Milkman” Turner, said: “Kucks made great pitches.”17

With two outs in the ninth, Kucks surrendered a scratch single to Snider that glazed off his shoulder. He emphatically ended the game by recording his first strikeout, whiffing Robinson, ending the game in 2 hours and 19 minutes.18

While the Yankees slugged their way to the 17th title in franchise history, belting a Series-record 12 home runs, and Stengel was lauded for his chess-game moves, the star of the show was Johnny Kucks, whose moment in the national spotlight was brief. Author of one of the best-pitched Game Sevens in postseason history, Kucks won only 28 more games in his career and was out of the majors after the 1960 season with a 54-56 record. But for one day, he was the king of the mound.

“We shouldn’t lose to a pitcher like that,” quipped a salty Robinson, who went 6-for-24 in the Series. “He’s got a good sinker, and that’s about all. He’s not fast and he has a nickel curve.”19 Reese was more diplomatic. “He beat us and beat us good,” he said. “We couldn’t even hit the ball.”20 The Dodgers set an unenviable record with the lowest team batting average (.195) in a seven-game Series.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, and SABR.org.

NOTES

1 Louis Effrat, “Ford of Bombers Defends and Sympathizes with Brooklyn’s Routed Pitcher,” New York Times, October 11, 1956: 65.

2 John Drebinger, “Yanks Champions; Kucks’ 3-Hitter Tops Dodgers, 9-0,” New York Times, October 11, 1956: 1.

3 Dick Young, “Yankees Homers Take It All, 9-0,” New York Daily News, October 11, 1956: C24.

4 Young.

5 Dana Mozley and Joe Trimble, “Newk Walks Out on Pals After Being KO’d Again,” New York Daily News, October 11, 1956: C24.

6 “The Forecast,” New York Times, October 11, 1956: 57; Drebinger, “Yanks Champions.”

7 Irving Vaughan, “Players Put Over Stengel’s Strategy,” Chicago Tribune, October 11, 1956: Part 6, 1.

8 Young.

9 Dana Mozley, “Don Didn’t Choke; Young Hurler OK: Casey,” New York Daily News, October 11, 1956: 25.

10 Drebinger, “Yanks Champions,” New York Times, October 11, 1956: 1.

11 Effrat, “Ford of Bombers Defends and Sympathizes with Brooklyn’s Routed Pitcher,” New York Times, October 11, 1956: 65.

12 Seemingly at the top of his game, the NL MVP and major-league Cy Young Award winner had a swift fall. He went just 11-12 in 1957, was involved in a deadly car crash, striking and killing a 4-year old in August, and was charged with assault in December. After the Dodgers’ relocation to Los Angeles in 1958, Newcombe began the season 0-6 and was subsequently traded to Cincinnati. Following his MVP season, Newcombe was just 37-42 in four seasons.

13 Young, “Yankees Homers Take It All, 9-0,” New York Daily News, October 11, 1956: C24.

14 Young.

15 Young.

16 Effrat.

17 Joe Trimble, “Don Didn’t Choke; Young Hurler OK: Casey,” New York Daily News, October 11, 1956: C25.

18 Berra dropped the strike and threw to Skowron to officially end the game. Game Seven also marked the end of umpire Babe Pinelli’s career. One of the most respected umpires in baseball history, Pinelli retired after 22 seasons and in excess of 3,400. “Babe was one of the finest umpires ever to work a ball game,” said NL President Warren Giles. Dana Mozley and Joe Trimble, “Newk Walks Out on Pals After Being KO’d Again,” New York Daily News, October 11, 1956: C24.

19 Mozley, “Don Didn’t Choke.”

20 Mozley.