October 12, 1964: Tim McCarver’s 10th-inning homer wins Game 5 for Cardinals

Tim McCarver’s major-league baseball life spanned 60 years, from his debut at age 17, through 21 seasons as a player, and into a broadcasting career covering 24 World Series and 20 All-Star Games.1 McCarver played on three World Series champions, made two All-Star teams, finished as runner-up for the 1967 National League MVP Award,2 and became one of only 31 major leaguers to appear in games in four different decades.3

But perhaps McCarver’s “biggest hit ever” came four days before his 23rd birthday, during the 1964 World Series.4

It was Game Five between McCarver’s St. Louis Cardinals – in the World Series for the first time in 18 years – and the New York Yankees, American League pennant winners for the fifth season in a row. They were tied at two games apiece and had spent the past two days trading one-run wins at Yankee Stadium, both games turning on clutch home runs. Mickey Mantle’s ninth-inning walk-off had won Game Three for New York; Ken Boyer’s sixth-inning grand slam put St. Louis ahead to stay in Game Four.

Game Five was played at Yankee Stadium on a Monday afternoon in front of a crowd of 65,633. The pitching matchup was a reprise of Game Two—Mel Stottlemyre for the Yankees and Bob Gibson for the Cardinals. Stottlemyre, a 22-year-old rookie whose nine wins after his August 12 debut were essential to the Yankees edging the Chicago White Sox by a game in the AL standings, was the winning pitcher in Game Two, allowing three runs on seven hits. Gibson, the losing pitcher, had allowed four runs on eight hits in his first-ever World Series appearance.

Before Game Five, Gibson told bullpen catcher Bob Uecker5 that he had been under the weather with the flu, hadn’t slept well, and didn’t have his best stuff. Uecker did his best to reassure the 28-year-old right-hander that he’d be fine.6

The first inning looked promising for the Cardinals, but they failed to score. Leadoff hitter Curt Flood worked the count full and earned a walk. Lou Brock, 2-for-17 in the Series so far, looked at strike three and argued with home-plate umpire Vinnie Smith. Bill White went down swinging.

Ken Boyer – playing third base for St. Louis, with his younger brother Clete at third for the Yankees7  – grounded to short for the apparent third out. The Yankees thought the inning was over and started leaving the field, but the umpires called them back—confusion reigned on the field and in the stands and press box. Catcher Elston Howard had made contact with Boyer’s bat, so Boyer was awarded first on catcher’s interference and the inning continued. (During Dick Groat’s at-bat, legendary Yankee Stadium “voice” Bob Sheppard made a public-address announcement to let the fans know what had happened.)

Groat walked to load the bases, bringing up McCarver, who had batted .288 in his second season as St. Louis’s starting catcher. McCarver was making the most of his opportunities in the World Series, —batting .417 (5-for-12) through four games. In Game One, he had connected for two extra-base hits against Yankees starter Whitey Ford and scored the go-ahead run during St. Louis’s four-run seventh inning.

Here, however, McCarver missed this chance to give his team an early lead, going down swinging hard.

Gibson faced the minimum in the bottom of the first—he struck out Phil Linz, allowed a single to Bobby Richardson, and induced Roger Maris to ground into a double play.

Dal Maxvill,8 filling in for the injured Julian Javier at second base, hit a one-out single in the top of the second. Gibson fouled off several pitches, including one off his ankle, but struck out. Flood grounded into a force out to end the frame.

Gibson walked Mantle on four pitches to start the bottom of the second and nicked Howard with a high-and-inside pitch. The runners moved up when Joe Pepitone grounded back to Gibson for the first out, and Tom Tresh was intentionally walked to load the bases—just as he was in the fourth inning of Game Two. Unlike in Game Two9 the strategy worked, as Gibson struck out Clete Boyer and Stottlemyre to escape the jam.

Neither pitcher allowed a baserunner in the third or fourth inning.

Gibson hit a one-out single in the fifth—it would have been a double but he fell down rounding first and had to scramble to his feet to get back to the bag. Flood followed with a sure double-play ball to second baseman Richardson, but the ball took a bad hop and all hands were safe. Richardson was charged with an error—the seventh for the Yankees in this Series.

The Cardinals had turned Yankees errors into unearned runs in three of the first four games, and they did so again after Richardson’s error. Lou Brock singled to right, scoring Gibson and sending Flood to third. That run was earned, but an unearned run came when Flood scored on White’s grounder to second—the Yankees got an out at second but Brock’s slide slowed Linz’s throw enough to avoid a double play.10 First baseman Pepitone and manager Yogi Berra argued the call—to no avail.11 The Cardinals led, 2-0.

Starting with the two strikeouts to end the second, Gibson set down 10 Yankees in a row. Stottlemyre’s single with two outs in the fifth ended the string, but Gibson fanned Linz to end the inning, then followed Richardson’s leadoff single in the sixth by getting Maris to fly out and striking out Mantle and Howard.

Stottlemyre kept the game close with scoreless innings of his own. Mike Shannon hit into a double play in the sixth after McCarver’s one-out single. Two-out singles by Brock and Flood put Cardinals on first and third in the seventh, but White lined out to end the inning, leaving him 1-for-19 in the Series.

After getting cheers from the Yankee Stadium crowd when he batted in the seventh, Gibson allowed Pepitone’s single to start the home half of the inning. But three straight outs – including strikeouts of Tresh and Hector Lopez, batting for Stottlemyre – left Pepitone at first.

Hal Reniff came out of the Yankees bullpen in the eighth. He allowed one-out singles to Groat and McCarver, triggering another pitching change, this time to Pete Mikkelsen.12 Mikkelsen rose to the occasion, striking out Shannon and inducing Maxvill to ground into a force play to get out of the inning with the score unchanged.

There were no baserunners in the bottom of the eighth or the top of the ninth. Gibson batted in the top of the ninth and received an ovation from the crowd. The Cardinals were three outs from taking a three-games-to-two lead, but the Yankees had the heart of their order coming to the plate.

Mantle reached first when shortstop Groat bobbled his grounder for an error. After Howard fanned for the first out, Pepitone grounded back to the mound, and the ball bounced off Gibson’s hip toward the third-base line. A former Harlem Globetrotter,13 Gibson was a great athlete. He jumped off the mound and threw toward first while falling backward. To quote radio broadcaster Harry Caray, the ball “beat him [Pepitone] by an eyelash” for the second out. The play was close—the news photo caught the ball and White’s foot in the air inches from their targets.14 The Yankees argued that call as well—with the same result as their argument in the fifth.

One more out to go, but Tresh stepped up to the plate. Gibson left a fastball down the middle and Tresh didn’t miss it.15 He lined the ball into the center-right field stands at the 407-foot mark, tying the game.

Pedro González, who had taken over at third base in the eighth, popped out to send the game to extra innings.

Mikkelsen walked White on a full count to start the 10th. Ken Boyer bunted past the mound—and was credited with a hit when Mikkelsen didn’t field the ball.16

Groat tried to bunt and missed, and catcher Howard threw to second trying to pick off White. White ran for third and beat Linz’s low throw.17 Groat grounded into a force play, bringing up McCarver with one out and two on.

He worked the count full, then Mikkelsen left a sinker up.18 The lefty-swinging McCarver pulled it to right. Mantle – shifted to right field in September 1964, after many years in center – went back to the wall, but the ball cleared the fence and landed in the lower-deck stands for a three-run homer, giving the Cardinals a 5-2 lead.19

“This has got to be the biggest thrill of my life,” McCarver, whose parents had come from Memphis to see the game, said afterward.20

“When McCarver hit that homer I was the happiest man in the world,” Gibson added.21

Gibson took the mound for the bottom of the 10th, again needing just three outs for victory. Pinch-hitter Mike Hegan went down on strikes, Gibson’s 13th strikeout of the game. Linz’s first-pitch infield popup was the second out.

Richardson singled into center, leaving Maris as the Yankees’ last hope. He fouled out—Ken Boyer made a dramatic catch leaning well into the boxes behind home plate, securing the ball just over Warren Giles, the National League president.22

Thanks to Gibson’s pitching and McCarver’s home run, the Cardinals returned to St. Louis one win from the championship (which they would win in seven games). They were greeted by 10,000 fans at the St. Louis airport—enough to cause a major traffic jam.23

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks John Fredland and Mark Shirk for their suggestions.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, watched the highlights, and listened to the radio broadcast by Harry Caray and Curt Gowdy on YouTube.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA196410120.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1964/B10120NYA1964.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCv5hm1vhWo (radio broadcast)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwa0noYSrE0 (video highlights)

Notes

1 Bill Ladson, “McCarver, Champion Catcher Turned Famed Broadcaster, Dies at 81,” MLB.com, February 16, 2023, https://www.mlb.com/news/tim-mccarver-dies-at-81.

2 McCarver’s St. Louis teammate Orlando Cepeda received the 1967 NL MVP Award.

3 David Adler and Andrew Simon, “These MLB Careers Spanned Four Decades,” mlb.com, January 7, 2022. https://www.mlb.com/news/four-decade-players-c300996490.

4 Tom Pendergast, “McCarver’s Drive Makes Bob Gibson Happiest Man,” Springfield (Missouri) Leader and Press, October 13, 1964: 15.

5 Uecker, the backup catcher, did not play in the Series. In New York he spent his time in the bullpen, throwing back the garbage that the Yankees fans were throwing into the bullpen. Richard Sandomir, “World Series, as Told by Bob Uecker,” New York Times, October 15, 1995: 55.

6 Ed Wilks, “Gibson Took Pill, Threw Aspirins,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 13, 1964: 16.

7 Clete Boyer (Yankees) and Ken Boyer (Cardinals) were brothers, both playing third base. A third brother, Cloyd Boyer, pitched for St. Louis 1949-1952 and for Kansas City in 1955.

8 Maxvill had appeared in only 37 games in 1964 and 17 of those appearances were as a pinch-runner. He became a full-time player in 1966, won a Gold Glove in 1968, and had a 14-year career through 1975.

9 In Game Two, the next batter (also Clete Boyer) hit a sacrifice fly, tying the game, 1-1.

10 “Brock and the Block That Rocked,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 13, 1964: 2C.

11 Neal Russo, “Tim, Who Got Away, Puts Yanks on Hook,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 13, 1964: 1C.

12 Stottlemyre, Reniff, and Mikkelsen were all righties, so the changes were not based on matchups.

13 Bob Broeg, “Cards Blowing Taps for Tired N.Y. Myths,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 13, 1964: 2C.

14 Russo. This play is included in the highlight video listed in the sources for readers who want to review it for themselves.

15 Ted Meier, “McCarver Hero, Gibson Also-Ran,” Elmira Star-Gazette, October 13, 1964: 15.

16 Ed Wilks, “Berra Is Still Chasing Birds,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 13, 1964: 2C.

17 Ed Wilks, “Berra Is Still Chasing Birds.”

18 Ed Wilks, “Berra Is Still Chasing Birds.”

19 An argument could be made that McCarver’s three-run homer in the fifth inning of Game Three of the 1968 World Series was more valuable (win probability added of 43 percent vs. 28 percent for his three-run homer in this game). However, Cepeda hit a three-run homer later in the 1968 game that would have been enough to win the game for the Cardinals, and the Cardinals lost that World Series when the Tigers roared back to take the last three games. Looking at a different measure, McCarver’s team had a 97 percent chance of winning the game after this 10th-inning homer, but only a 77 percent chance after his fifth-inning 1968 homer.

20 Jim McCulley, “Big Hit in 10th Put McCarver on Baseball Map,” New York Daily News, October 13, 1964: 52.

21 Pendergast, “McCarver’s Drive Makes Bob Gibson Happiest Man.”

22 “Big Catch” (AP Wirephoto), Elmira Star-Gazette, October 13, 1964: 15.

23 “10,000 Welcome Redbirds Home; Bleacher Line at Park Grows,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 13, 1964: 1.