October 5, 1953: Billy Martin’s walk-off single lifts Yankees to fifth consecutive World Series title

The New York Yankees entered Game Six of the 1953 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers looking to secure a record fifth consecutive World Series title. The Yankees had taken control of the Series by beating Brooklyn 11-7 in Game Five at Ebbets Field to take a three-games-to-two lead.

Billy Martin had been the star of the fall classic. The feisty second baseman entered Game Six hitting .526 with four extra-base hits in the Series. Game Six would only add to his October legacy.

The Yankees sent Whitey Ford to the mound. Ford had gone 18-6 with a 3.00 ERA during the regular season, but had a disastrous Game Four start just two days earlier, when he lasted only one inning and allowed three earned runs.

Brooklyn countered with Carl Erskine, who’d gone 20-6 with a 3.54 ERA during the regular season and was coming off a masterful performance in Game Three, when he allowed two runs in a complete-game win and struck out a World Series-record 14 batters. However, Erskine was taking the mound on only two days’ rest.1

After Freddy Parent, shortstop for the 1903 Boston Red Sox, threw out the first pitch to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first World Series, the two teams took the field at Yankee Stadium in front of 62,370 fans on a chilly, overcast day.

The Yankees wasted no time getting to Erskine. Gene Woodling drew a walk to lead off New York’s half of the first. After Joe Collins struck out, Hank Bauer singled to left. Yogi Berra then brought home the first run of the contest on a liner to right field, “the ball skipping and bouncing along before being deflected into the stands by (Carl) Furillo’s mitt for a ground-rule double as Woodling scored,” wrote Joe Trimble of the New York Daily News.2

Mickey Mantle was intentionally walked to load the bases for the red-hot Martin, who hit a one-bounce liner to the right of second baseman Jim Gilliam. Gilliam managed to knock it down, but failed to make a play as the ball dribbled away from him. All the runners were safe, as Bauer raced home.

Aware that Martin was approaching the record for hits in a single World Series, those in attendance did not take kindly when Gilliam was charged with an error, rather than Martin being awarded a hit. When an “E” was put on the scoreboard, “there was a roar of disapproval from the crowd and virtually every player on the Yankees bench stood and waved derisively at the press box.”3

“I’ve fielded others like that – and I’ve missed ’em too,” Gilliam said of the misplay. “But I expected to get the ball. It was a low liner that came on a short hop. It hit my glove but it didn’t stick.”4

The Yankees continued to put pressure on Erskine in the second inning. Phil Rizzuto and Ford each singled to put runners at the corners with no outs. Woodling hit a sacrifice fly to deep left field to bring Rizzuto home for the Yankees’ third run. Collins hit a tapper up the third-base line that Erskine fielded, but he threw over Gil Hodges’ head at first, allowing Ford to go to third and Collins to second. Bauer was then walked to load the bases.

Berra stepped to the plate with a chance to break the game wide open. He hit a fly to deep center field that Duke Snider caught, and “the blow was so deep that Duke conceded the run, throwing to second to keep Bauer at first.”5 But as Gilliam caught the ball, “he heard Campy (catcher Roy Campanella) screaming for a throw.”6 Gilliam fired home to Campanella who applied the tag on Ford for an inning-ending double play.

Ford later explained why he didn’t score on what looked like an easy sacrifice fly.

“I was unable to see Duke Snider complete the catch and left early,” he said of the mishap. “(Third base coach) Frankie Crosetti told me to return and tag up. I did and was an easy out at the plate.”7

Erskine left the game after the fourth inning, having allowed three runs on six hits and three walks. He was replaced by rookie Bob Milliken, who tossed two shutout innings.

The only run Ford allowed came in the sixth inning. Jackie Robinson doubled to left field with one out. He stole third without drawing a throw and came home when Campanella hit a slow groundball to short.

After the seventh inning, “in a move as startling as any in his brilliant managerial career,” Casey Stengel removed Ford and replaced him with Allie Reynolds.8 “A murmur of disapproval from the crowd” met the pitching change.9 Ford seemed to have been rolling, allowing only one run on six hits and a walk, while striking out seven.

“Whitey pitched well,” Stengel said, “but that Bobby Morgan’s fly at the end of the seventh was hit real hard. I didn’t want to take any chances against those good hitters the Dodgers would have coming up in the eighth. I figured Reynolds with a two-run lead would hold it for two innings.”10

“I felt bad when Casey took me out,” Ford said. “Then I thought, ‘Well, he hasn’t been wrong in five years.’”11

Reynolds had strained a muscle in his back while starting the Series opener. He’d returned to the mound to record the final two outs of Game Five. As he walked to the mound to try to secure the Yankees’ fifth consecutive championship, the stadium lights turned on. It was only slightly after 3 P.M., “but the raw, cold, overcast weather made it seem like nightfall.”12

Reynolds surrendered a harmless single to Robinson in the eighth inning. In the ninth, Snider worked a one-out walk to bring Furillo to the plate as the game’s tying run. Furillo drilled a two-run home run to right field, as “the stadium roared in the wildest moment of the Series, the lights went on again in Brooklyn and Dodgers bench-warmers streamed out to shake the hand of the man who had brought them from the jaws of death.”13

Furillo’s game-tying home run was the 17th homer hit by the two teams in the Series, breaking the record set by the same two teams a year earlier.

Reynolds rebounded after Furillo’s big blast to strike out Billy Cox and Clem Labine and send the game to the bottom of the ninth tied, 3-3.14

Labine, who’d entered the game in the seventh inning, took the mound for the Dodgers in the ninth. He walked Bauer to start the inning, but was able to get Berra to line out to right field for the first out. Mantle then hit what Trimble called “a sleazy little roller to the third base side of the mound” that went for an infield hit.15

That brought Martin, who’d already doubled in the fifth inning for his 11th hit of the Series, to the plate with runners at first and second. The Series star hit the second pitch he saw back through the box and into center field. Bauer “stormed home from second, as Snider forlornly trotted in and fielded the ball.”16

“When I was up there, I don’t know exactly what I was thinking, except that I just wanted to get that run home,” an exuberant Martin said.

The victory gave the Yankees their 16th World Series championship and record-setting fifth in a row. Many Yankees players believed the team was only getting started.

“I don’t see why this ball club shouldn’t keep winning pennants indefinitely,” Rizzuto said. “After all, we’re loaded with young players. I’m the only old guy on the club.”17 (Rizzuto was 35.)

But this Series was all about Martin’s performance. His 12 hits tied Buck Herzog (1912), Shoeless Joe Jackson (1919), Pepper Martin (1931), and Sam Rice (1925) for the most hits in a World Series. Many of his teammates felt he should have had one more hit and broken the record – if the groundball to Gilliam in the first inning had been scored a hit rather than an error.

“I never saw such lousy scoring,” Yankees coach Bill Dickey complained. “A hit if I ever saw one. What have you got to do to get one these days? Hit one into the seats? It’s a shame to take that one away from him.”18

Martin, who batted .257 during the season, finished the series 12-for-24 with two home runs, two triples, one double, one walk, five runs scored, and eight RBIs.

Rizzuto, who’d just finished playing in his eighth fall classic, proclaimed that Martin “played the greatest Series I ever saw.”19

“We got beat by a .250 hitter,” Dodgers manager Chuck Dressen complained. “That little stinker is the best damned ballplayer they got.”20

“He’d run through a buzz saw to beat you,” Dressen added.21

“Biggest moment of my life,” an elated Martin said of his Series-winning hit. “I was damn glad to get that 12th hit. The hell with the 13th. We won, didn’t we? That’s all that counts.”22

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA195310050.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1953/B10050NYA1953.htm

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Erskine struggled in the opening game of the Series, also played at Yankee Stadium, when he allowed four earned runs and lasted only one inning.

2 Joe Trimble, “Yankees Win 5th Series in a Row,” New York Daily News, October 6, 1953: 62.

3 Trimble, 62.

4 Roscoe McGowen, “Vanquished Praise Martin of Victors,” New York Times, October 6, 1953: 36.

5 Trimble, 62.

6 Trimble, 62.

7 Louis Effrat, “Hurling Strength Needed, Pilot Says,” New York Times, October 6, 1953: 35.

8 John Drebinger, “Yankees Capture 5th Series in a Row, a Record; Martin’s Hit in 9th Beats Dodgers, 4 to 3,” New York Times, October 6, 1953: 35.

9 Trimble, 60.

10 Effrat.

11 Red Smith, “Martin Hits in 9th, New York Wins Yanks 5th Series in Row,” New York Herald Tribune, October 6, 1953: 26.

12 Trimble, 60.

13 Trimble, 62.

14 Despite allowing Furillo’s two-run home run in the game’s final frame, Reynolds recorded the win, giving him seven career World Series wins, tying Red Ruffing for most all time.

15 Trimble, 62.

16 Trimble, 62.

17 Dave Anderson, “Giants Lost Out on Martin in Cash-and-Carry Trade,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 6, 1953: 15.

18 Dana Mozley, “Martin Wuz Robbed, Yell Yanks,” New York Daily News, October 6, 1953: 61.

19 Anderson, 15.

20 Dick Young, “Like Being Hit by Son Moans Chuck,” New York Daily News, October 6, 1953: 61.

21 Young.

22 Mozley.