October 2, 1955: Duke Snider’s blasts move Dodgers to precipice of first title

Duke Snider, Clem Labine, Roy Campanella, and Gil Hodges helped Dem Bums finally capture an elusive World Series title in 1955. (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)

“It may have been the most thrilling game of the postseason festival,” opined sportswriter Arthur Daley of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ “brutal clubbing” of the Yankees in Game Five of the World Series.1 Dem Bums’ 5-3 victory completed a “stunning home-ground three-game sweep,” declared scribe Dick Young, moving the club to within a game of the franchise’s first championship ever.2 “What a team job,” exclaimed Dodgers skipper Walter Alston. “It was a combination of home runs, double plays, and clutch hitting.”3

It was indeed a dramatic turnaround. After losing the first two games of the fall classic at Yankee Stadium, the Dodgers returned to Brooklyn and Ebbets Field, where they exploded for eight runs in both Games Three and Four to tie the Series. No team had ever lost the first two games of the World Series and won the next three, let alone the title.

Despite an NL-best team ERA (3.68), Alston’s pitching staff was reeling. Club ace and 20-game winner Don Newcombe had lost the opener and was suffering from arm and back miseries, and his status for the remainder of the Series was doubtful.4 Longtime standout Carl Erskine, plagued by arm pain for months, had been pummeled in Game Four. Holding hard-throwing rookie southpaws Karl Spooner and Johnny Podres in reserve for Yankee Stadium, Alston tabbed Roger Craig to start Game Five in what sportswriter John Drebinger declared a “daring move.”5 A year earlier, the 25-year-old right-hander was pitching in the Class B Piedmont League. After going 10-2 with the Triple-A Montreal Royals in 1955, Craig was added to the Dodgers’ injury-riddled staff in mid-July. The lanky hurler made 10 starts among his 21 appearances and posted an impressive 2.78 ERA. He has a “good fast ball, good curve, good change-up and plenty of poise,” asserted Roy Campanella, displaying confidence that his young hurler would rise to the occasion few rookies had ever experienced in World Series competition.6 “[Craig] can throw hard,” proclaimed Alston. “The only thing I have to worry about is his control.”7

On a seasonably warm Sunday afternoon with temperatures in the 60s, Ebbets Field was packed with 36,796 spectators, a record crowd in the bandbox ballpark in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, according to New York dailies.8

The 300th game in World Series history began tentatively. Craig escaped unscathed from a second-inning jam caused by consecutive leadoff walks. After Gil Hodges collected the game’s first hit, a one-out single in the second, the Dodgers’ shortest player, 5-foot-7, Cuban-born Sandy Amoros belted a home run over the right-field wall and onto Bedford Avenue to give Brooklyn a 2-0 lead.

After Craig set down the Yankees in order in the third, Duke Snider led off with a blast that landed about where Amoros’s had. “[It] was on a punk pitch,” said a frustrated Grim. “[A] change-up high that wasn’t doing a thing when it got to the plate.”9 Campanella followed with a bullet to center field, but Irv Noren’s “headlong plunge,” opined Drebinger, robbed Campanella of an extra-base hit.10 Grim flashed his heater to fan Carl Furillo and Hodges.

Yogi Berra led off the fourth with a single, the Yankees’ first hit of the game, followed by Eddie Robinson‘s walk two batters later. Billy Martin‘s single drove in Yogi Berra to put Craig on the ropes. Dodgers reliever Don Bessent began warming up, as he had done in the second. With two on and one out and trailing 3-1, Stengel made a chess move. He sent Moose Skowron to pinch-hit for weak-hitting Phil Rizzuto. The plan backfired as Skowron popped up to Campy and Grim lined to short.

The Duke of Flatbush was in a groove when he came to bat with one out and none on in the fifth. In Game Four he smashed a three run-run home and flashed his brilliance in the outfield. As far as Dodgers fans were concerned, Snider was as good as his Yankees counterpart, the injured Commerce Comet, and was coming off yet another Snider-esque season, whacking 42 home runs and leading the majors in RBIs (136) and runs scored (126). Grim pitched Snider carefully, but the 29-year-old Los Angeles native walloped one to deep right-center field to give the Dodgers a 4-1 lead. “[The pitch was] away and low,” muttered a perplexed Grim after the game, “breaking about as much as a slider can and catch some of the plate.”11 With that solo shot, Snider became the first major leaguer to hit four home runs in two different World Series (also in 1952); it was also his ninth career home run in the World Series, one more than Joe DiMaggio, and trailed Lou Gehrig (10) and Babe Ruth (15); and it accounted for Snider’s NL-record 20th RBI in the World Series. It was the Dodgers’ ninth home run of the World Series, breaking the NL mark they set in 1953. “Snider was the turning point,” moaned an exasperated Stengel.12

Through six innings Alston looked like a mastermind with his decision to start Craig, who had yielded only a run on three hits and four walks. Bob Cerv, pinch-hitting for Grim to lead off the seventh, connected for a solo shot. After Elston Howard drew a walk to bring the tying run to the plate, Alston replaced Craig with Clem Labine.

The “difference is in the bullpen,” observed sportswriter John W. Fox about the Dodgers and Yankees.13 And no reliever epitomized that difference more than 29-year-old right-hander Labine, who had tied for the majors’ lead with a Dodgers-record 60 appearances. Making his fourth appearance in the Series, he was coming off a 4⅓-inning stint in Game Four. With his trademark sinking fastball, he was an ideal hurler for the cozy dimensions of Ebbets Field. Noren chopped his sinker to first. Affected by a “badly swollen right knee,” noted sportswriter Dick Young, Noren had no chance as the slick-fielding Hodges initiated a 3-6-3 twin killing.14

The Dodgers “took a gamble,” opined sportswriter Jim McCalley, in the seventh, when third-base coach Billy Herman held speedy Jim Gilliam at third on Snider’s two-out double.15 Both were left stranded when reliever Bob Turley punched out Campanella to strike out the side.

Herman’s decision seemed ill-advised when Berra homered off Labine to lead off the eighth to pull the Yankees to within one run. Two batters later Eddie Robinson singled and was replaced by 19-year-old pinch-runner Tom Carroll. In what might have been the most critical defensive play of the game, Martin hit a bounder to third, where a 36-year-old Jackie Robinson began a soul-crushing 5-4-3 double play.

Jackie Robinson, who set career lows with a .256 batting average and 105 games in an injury-laden campaign, laced a one-out single in the eighth to drive in Furillo for the last run of the game.

It was the Labine show in the ninth. He retired pinch-hitters Andy Carey and Tommy Byrne, and Howard on just four pitches to end the game in 2 hours and 40 minutes.16 Alston “handled his pitchers with a touch of genius in the last three games,” proclaimed sportswriter Jack Hand.17 Labine’s pitching, Snider’s slugging, and the team’s excellent defense complemented Craig’s “stout-hearted” performance.18

One win away from the first World Series title in franchise history for the second time in three years, the Dodgers hoped to avoid a repeat of 1952, when they lost Games Six and Seven at Ebbets Field. With no offday, the World Series returned to Yankee Stadium, where the Bronx Bombers had lost only one deciding game, in 1942 against the St. Louis Cardinals.

SOURCES

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

McGowen, Roscoe. “Alston Discovers Questions (and Answers) Are Different After a Victory,” New York Times, October 2, 1955: S3.

Associated Press, “Play-by-Play Story of the Sixth Series Tilt,” Troy (New York) Times Record, October 3, 1955: 1.

NOTES

1 Arthur Daley, “Sports of the Times,” New York Times, October 3, 1955: 31.

2 Dick Young, “Dodgers Go 1 Up; Win 5th, 5-3,” New York Daily News, October 3, 1955: 56.

3 United Press, “Snider Couldn’t Kid Yogi,” Binghamton (New York) Press, October 3, 1955: 17.

4 Roscoe McGowen, “Alston Will Send Newcombe or Spooner Against Yankees at Stadium Today,” New York Times, October 3, 1955: 30.

5 John Drebinger, “Dodgers Triumph, 5 to 3; Lead Yankees, 3-2, in Series,” New York Times, October 3, 1955: 1.

6 Associated Press, “Alston Picks Boy for Man’s Job,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2, 1955: S1.

7 Dick Young, “Dodgers Go 1 Up; Win 5th, 5-3.”

8 Associated Press, “Series Weather,” Fort Lauderdale (Florida) News, October 2, 1955: 2-C.

9 John W. Fox, “Happier Snider Still Not Sure if Dodgers’ Fans Deserve Title,” Binghamton (New York) Press, October 3, 1955: 17.

10 Drebinger.

11 John W. Fox, “Happier Snider Still Not Sure if Dodgers’ Fans Deserve Title,” Binghamton Press, October 3, 1955: 17.

12 Jack Hand (Associated Press), “Brooks Tops Yanks, 5-3,” Syracuse Post-Standard, October 3, 1955: 1.

13 John W. Fox, “Happier Snider Still Not Sure if Dodgers’ Fans Deserve Title.”

14 Dick Young, “Dodgers Go 1 Up; Win 5th, 5-3.”

15 Jim McCulley, “‘Home Now,” Dodgers Shout; ‘Cheap’ Home Runs Disgust Yankees,” New York Daily News, October 3, 1955: 57.

16 Jack Hand (Associated Press), “Brooks Tops Yanks, 5-3,” Syracuse Post-Standard, October 3, 1955: 1.

17 Hand, “Brooks Tops Yanks, 5-3,” Syracuse Post-Standard, October 3, 1955: 10.

18 Hand: 10.