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The World Series programs sold at Shibe Park (left)
and at Yankee Stadium (right)
October 7, 1950, 75 years ago: The World Series comes to an end. It was considerably closer than the results would suggest.
The New York Yankees won the American League Pennant, but it wasn't a runaway: The Detroit Tigers finished 3 games back, the Boston Red Sox 4, and the Cleveland Indians 6. Casey Stengel had managed them to their 2nd straight Pennant, having led them to win the World Series the year before.
But the team was in transition, and the team's veterans, who had starred under manager Joe McCarthy and had been loyal to him, led by Joe DiMaggio, didn't get along with him. Piece by piece, Stengel and general manager George Weiss replaced them with Stengel-loyal men: Yogi Berra became the starting catcher, left fielder Charlie Keller was replaced by Gene Woodling, right fielder Tommy Henrich was replaced by Tommy Henrich, 2nd baseman George "Snuffy" Stirnweiss was replaced by Jerry Coleman and Billy Martin, and 1st baseman George McQuinn was replaced by Joe Collins.
Phil Rizzuto was still the team's shortstop, and the Queens native became a Yankee in large part because, when he tried out for his favorite team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, their manager told him he was too small. He held a grudge against that manager. His name was Casey Stengel. Stengel came to admire Rizzuto, but the feeling was never mutual. In 1950, Rizzuto was rightly named the AL's Most Valuable Player.
Stengel had also built a new starting rotation, with alternating styles: Righthanded fastball pitcher Allie Reynolds, a Native American known as the Superchief; lefthanded off-speed pitcher Eddie Lopat, known as Steddie Eddie and the Junkman; and righthanded fastball pitcher Vic Raschi, from Springfield, Massachusetts and known as the Springfield Rifle. Late in the season, a rookie lefthander from Queens was promoted, Eddie Ford, not yet widely known as Whitey, but he would become so due to his very light blond hair. Joe Page was the team's top relief pitcher.
It would take until the next season for Mickey Mantle to arrive, and another for him to replace DiMaggio in center field. Also in 1951, 3rd baseman Billy Johnson was replaced by Gil McDougald.
In the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies edged the defending Champion Brooklyn Dodgers on the last day of the season, October 1, when Dick Sisler, son of Hall-of-Famer George Sisler, hit a 10th-inning home run. Managed by Eddie Sawyer, the Phils were the youngest team, on the average, ever to win the NL Pennant.
The outfield was Del Ennis in left, Richie Ashburn in center, and Sisler in right. Like Ford, Ashburn had very light blond hair and was nicknamed Whitey, although it didn't catch on as much. Like Rizzuto, Ashburn was his team's sparkplug, a scrappy hitter and a fine defensive player. Also like Rizzuto, he went on to become a beloved broadcaster for the team, telling stories about the old days, wishing people happy birthdays, happy anniversaries, and get-wells. And, like Rizzuto, it took a long time for him to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, but he did live long enough to enjoy it.
Eddie Waitkus played 1st base for the Phils, Mike Goliat was at 2nd, Granville "Granny" Hamner was at short, and Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones was at 3rd. Their catcher was Andy Seminick. Their pitching ace was Robin Roberts, and Jim Konstanty had such a good season, he became the 1st relief pitcher, in either League, to be awarded the MVP. Had there been a Cy Young Award at the time, he probably would have won that, too.
The Phillies hadn't won a Pennant in 35 years, since 1915, before television, before radio, before newsreels had sound. The City of Philadelphia hadn't won a Pennant in 19 years, since the 1931 Athletics, or a World Series in 20 years, since the 1930 A's, and the Phillies had never won one. So this was an exciting moment for the Delaware Valley.
But the Phillies had a problem: Their Number 2 starter, Curt Simmons, had been drafted into the Korean War. Their remaining starters weren't as well regarded. And Roberts was exhausted: He had lost a game on September 7 with 2 days' rest, won a complete game in his next start with 4, started and gone 7 innings of a 19-inning Phils win with 2, lost a complete game with 3, lost after 8 innings with 4, pitched 5 innings and lost with 3, pitched a complete game and lost the very next day, and pitched all 10 innings of the clincher with 2. For Game 1 of the World Series against the Yankees, at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, he would have only 2 days of rest, and Sawyer felt he couldn't risk him again so soon.
Sawyer told the press, "My starting pitcher is Jim Konstanty." He told them that it wasn't quite the gamble that it seemed, because Konstanty had pitched long relief during the season. He had pitched 10 innings of the 19-inning game on September 15, 9 innings in a 15-inning game on August 25, 5 innings on May 28, and at least 3 innings on 12 other occasions that season. Saywer had confidence in him.
October 4, Game 1: The gamble nearly paid off: Konstanty was fantastic, pitching 8 innings, allowing only 1 run, in the top of the 4th. Bobby Brown led off with a double, Bauer hit a flyout that advanced Brown to 3rd base, and he scored on Coleman's sacrifice fly. But Raschi was even better, tossing a shutout with 2 hits and 1 walk, and the Yankees won, 1-0.
October 5, Game 2: This time, Sawyer started Roberts, on 3 days' rest. He somehow managed to hold the Yankees to a 1-1 tie. Both runs scored on sacrifice flies: The Yankees' in the top of the 2nd, Coleman scoring on Woodling's; the Phillies' in the bottom of the 5th, Goliat on Ashburn's.
The Phillies had their chance. With 1 out in the bottom of the 9th, Hamner doubled. Stengel ordered Reynolds, who had also gone the whole way, to intentionally walk Dick Whitman to set up the double play. It worked, as Goliat grounded into one.
Sawyer sent Roberts out to pitch the top of the 10th. His 1st pitch was to DiMaggio, who sent it into the upper deck of the long bleachers that extended from the left field pole to the center field corner at Shibe Park. (It was home to the Athletics from 1909 to 1954, the Phillies from 1938 to 1970, the NFL's Eagles from 1944 to 1957, and was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953.) Roberts got the next 3 outs, but it was now 2-1 Yankees.
The Phils had one more chance. Sawyer sent Jackie Mayo to pinch-hit for Roberts, and Reynolds, pretty tired himself, walked him. Waitkus sacrificed him to 2nd. Ashburn popped up to 1st. The batter was Sisler. Could lightning strike for him again? Not this time: Reynolds found something left in his tank, and struck him out.
The Phillies had gotten courageous performances from their best starter and their best reliever, and had held the defending World Champions to 3 runs. But they were down two games to none.
October 6, Game 3: The action moved to Yankee Stadium. And, since the ballparks were only 105 miles apart, there was no day off for travel. In other words, presuming Sawyer wanted to give Roberts sufficient rest, he would have to wait until Game 6 to pitch him again, and then hope that somebody, or a collection of somebodies, could hold the Yankees off in Game 7 -- if it got that far.
For this game, Sawyer started Ken Heintzelman. Stengel started Lopat. At 3-9 with a 4.09 ERA, he was no Robin Roberts, no Curt Simmons, not even a Jim Konstanty. And with Shibe Park limited to 33,000 seats, the Bronx crowd of 64,505 might have been overwhelming to the Phillies.
But Heinztelman pitched very well. The Yankees took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the 3rd, when Rizzuto scored on a Coleman single. The Phillies tied it in the top of the 6th, when Sisler singled Ennis home. They took the lead in the top of the 7th, when Goliat singled Hamner home. It was 2-1 Phillies.
Heintzelman got through the 7th, and got the 1st 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th. But he was out of gas. He walked the next 3 batters: Coleman, Berra and DiMaggio. Brown hit a grounder to Hamner at shortstop, and he mishandled it, allowing Coleman to score. Russ Meyer came in to relieve in the bottom of the 9th, and got the 1st 2 outs. But he allowed 3 straight singles: Woodling, Rizzuto, Coleman, the last of these scoring Woodling with the winning run. Yankees 3, Phillies 2.
The Phils had now played 3 games in this Series, and lost each of them by 1 run. They had held the Yankees to a combined 5 runs in 3 games, to no avail. For fans from Scranton in the north to Rehoboth Beach in the South, from Atlantic City in the east to Harrisburg in the west, this 1950 World Series must have seemed like rotten luck.
But a champion finds a way to win those games. The Yankees did. The "Whiz Kids" were hardly outclassed, but, against the more experience team, the defending World Champions, some of whom had been winning World Series going back more than a decade, they were outplayed.
October 7, Game 4: Ford started, and he outpitched Bob Miller. A Berra single and a DiMaggio double gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead in the 1st inning. In the 6th, Berra hit a home run, DiMaggio was hit by a pitch, Brown tripled him home, and Bauer hit a sacrifice fly to bring Brown home.
Ford took a 5-0 lead into the top of the 9th. But he allowed a leadoff single to Willie Jones, and hit Ennis with a pitch. No big deal, right? He got Sisler to ground into a force play, then struck Hamner out. One out to go, and there would be a sweep and another title.
The batter was Seminick. He hit an easy fly ball to left, where Woodling was under it. But the Autumn Sun combined with the roof of the pre-renovation old Yankee Stadium led to left field being difficult to play. As Berra would say in 1960, after switching positions with Elston Howard, who had become the 1st black Yankee in 1955, "It gets late early out there." Seminick's fly was easy, "a can of corn" in baseball lingo, and Woodling dropped it. Jones and pinch-runner Ken Johnson scored. It was 5-2.
Stengel came out to relieve Ford with Reynolds. The crowd of 68,098 started booing, and Ford thought they were booing him, for not finishing the job. But when he walked off the mound, they gave him a standing ovation, and he realized they were booing Stengel for taking him out. Reynolds then struck Stan Lopata out to end it.
It was the 1st of 10 World Series games, still a record, won by Whitey, who would go on to be nicknamed "The Chairman of the Board." He liked that nickname, not so much because it rhymed with his surname, but because he was a big fan of the other celebrity with it, singer Frank Sinatra. For the rest of his life, Sinatra would remain friends with Ford, Rizzuto and Berra. But his once-strong friendship with DiMaggio would be ruined over Marilyn Monroe, and the 2 most famous Italian-Americans ever feuded until Sinatra's death in 1998.
Ford spent the next 2 years serving in the Korean War, but when he returned for the 1953 season, he became the Yankees' ace, the best starting pitcher the team has ever had, and one of the most beloved Yankees.
The Phillies had their chances in the 1950 World Series, but didn't make the most of them. They also did not hit a home run in the World Series, and this has not happened since.
As it turned out, the 1950 Phillies, the Whiz Kids, were the last all-white team to win the National League Pennant. The last one in the American League was the 1953 Yankees.
The Phillies did not reach the postseason again until 1976, and didn't win another Pennant until 1980, when they won their 1st World Series, beating the Kansas City Royals. They lost the World Series to the Baltimore Orioles in 1983, and to the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993. They won another in 2008, beating the Tampa Bay Rays; and lost it in 2009, to the Yankees, and in 2022, to the Houston Astros.
A Yankees-Phillies World Series remains possible as the 2025 season moves into the Division Series.
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