Remembering Mickey Owen, 70 Years Later

October 5, 1941, 70 years ago today: A baseball game was played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn that made the home fans shudder.

Arnold Malcolm Owen, better known as Mickey Owen -- sometimes incorrectly listed as "Owens" -- was a 4-time National League All-Star as catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, was elected a County Sheriff, and ran the Mickey Owen Baseball School, and, for the last 64 years of his life, was decent enough to field questions about the one part of his life that everyone seems to remember.

I saw an interview once, with a Dodger fan, whose name I've forgotten, citing a far more important, and more traumatic, event that happened just 2 months later: "I was there. I remember that like I remember Pearl Harbor."

It was Game 4 of the World Series. The Yankees led the Dodgers 2 games to 1, but trailed the Dodgers 4-3 in the top of the 9th. Two out. Reliever Hugh Casey was on the mound for the Dodgers, and Tommy Henrich came to bat for the Yankees. Casey got two strikes. Then he threw...

He said it was a curveball. Henrich also thought it was a curveball. But many observers, including the Yankees' rookie shortstop, Phil Rizzuto, thought it was a spitball.

Henrich swung and missed. Strike 3. Ballgame over. Dodgers win, and the World Series is tied at 2 games apiece.

Except... Owen didn’t catch the 3rd strike. The ball tailed away from him, and he couldn't hold onto it. It rolled all the way to the screen. Henrich saw this, and ran to 1st, and Owen didn't even time to throw.

It is the most famous passed ball in baseball history, but if it was a spitball, which was and remains an illegal pitch anyway, then it should be the most famous wild pitch, and Casey rather than Owen should be faulted.

No matter. Casey only needed to get one more out. Even if Henrich represented the tying run and the next batter represented the winning run. Just one more out.

The batter was Joe DiMaggio.

Uh-oh, you don't give DiMaggio a written invitation to keep a game alive. Especially not in 1941, when he had his 56-game hitting streak and had become the most celebrated athlete in America, ahead of Ted Williams and his .406 average, ahead of football stars Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman and Don Hutson, ahead of even heavyweight champion Joe Louis.

DiMaggio singled to left. Now the tying run was on 2nd, the potential winning run on 1st. But there were still 2 outs. If Casey could get the next batter, it would still end with a Dodger victory.

The batter was Charlie Keller. At this point in his career, before a back injury curtailed it, he looked like he was headed to the Hall of Fame. And he did nothing to dispel that in this at-bat: He rocketed a Casey delivery off the right-field wall, and Henrich and DiMaggio scored.

Keller would later say, "When I got to 2nd base, you could have heard a pin drop in Ebbets Field." The noisiest, most raucous ballpark of his time had been stunned into silence.

The Yankees scored two more runs in the inning, won 7-4, and won the World Series in the next day's Game 5.

Keller would also say that, having won their first Pennant in 21 years, and having gotten past the arch-rival New York Giants to do it -- the Giants' last Pennant had been 4 years earlier and their last World Series win 8 -- Dodger fans were talking about "taking over New York," that they were now more popular than the Giants (probably true), and that soon they would beat the Yankees and were already more popular.

Sound familiar? It was just as stupid then as it has been in recent years when coming from Met fans, the children and grandchildren of the Dodger and Giant fans of the Forties and Fifties.

*

But don't blame Owen for losing the '41 Series:

* It was Dodger manager Leo Durocher who messed up the pitching rotation that had won the Pennant -- he admitted it, a rare occasion when Leo the Lip didn't blame someone else, such as an umpire or a dirty player on the other team, and didn't try to claim credit solely for himself.

* It was Yankee pitcher Marius Russo who, the day before, had not only pitched brilliantly but hit a line drive off the knee of his opposite number, Giant pitcher and Dodger nemesis turned Dodger hero Fred Fitzsimmons, literally knocking him out of the game and the Series.

* It was Henrich who was alert enough to realize he could take 1st, and it was DiMaggio and Keller who followed it up with key hits.

* And, frankly, it was the Yankees. They were just the better team. Certainly, with many of the men on that '41 team having played on World Championship teams of '39, '38, some '37 and '36, a few even in '32, they were much more experienced. The Dodgers had finished 2nd in '40 and 3rd in '39, but before that the team hadn't been in a Pennant race since '24 or a World Series since '20. Only Durocher, Joe Medwick (both '34 Cardinals), Fitzsimmons ('33 and '36 Giants), Billy Herman ('32, '35 and '38 Cubs), Johnny Allen ('32 Yankees) and a washed-up Paul Waner ('27 Pirates) had appeared in a World Series before.

*

Despite America's entry into World War II, Owen never went into the service. I wonder if some Dodger fans said, "Mickey Owen is such a bum, even the Army don't want him!"

I wonder if a lot of the accolades that would later come the way of Roy Campanella were due to "Mickey Owen's Muff." That Campy might have been cheered not just for what he was, a fantastic player and a good guy, but for what he wasn't: Owen.

It’s not fair to Owen. He was widely respected prior to the '41 Series, and most Dodger fans didn’t go on to hate him. Certainly, he escaped the scorn that was heaped on Ralph Branca after 1951. And neither one of them got the kind of treatment that Bill Buckner got from Boston fans after 1986.

Which is a good thing. Nobody deserves that. Well, maybe not nobody... But certainly not Buckner, nor Branca, nor Owen.

Owen died on July 13, 2005, in his home town of Mount Vernon, Missouri. He was 89. Henrich died on December 1, 2009, as the last survivor of this game. He was also the last surviving person who had been a teammate of Lou Gehrig. Herman Franks, who later helped steal a Pennant from the Dodgers as a 1951 New York Giant, had died earlier in 2009 as the last surviving '41 Dodger.

*

October 5, 1888: James "Pud" Galvin of the Pittsburgh Pirates defeats the Washington Nationals, 5-1, and becomes the 1st pitcher to win 300 games in a career. His career win total eventually reached 364, including 2 no-hitters, although it should be pointed out that he retired after the 1892 season, a year before the pitching distance became standardized as 60 feet, 6 inches.

As for his potentially giggle-inducing nickname, it was said that Jim Galvin "made the hitters look like pudding."

October 5, 1889: New York wins the pennant on the final day of the season, by beating Cleveland 5-3, while Boston loses in Pittsburgh 6-1. Yet another New York edges out Boston story. Except this might be the first, the League is the National, the New York team is the Giants, and the Boston team is the Beaneaters, who would later be renamed the Braves.

October 5, 1910: Philadelphia Athletics manager/co-owner Connie Mack inserts his son Earle Mack behind the plate in a game against the New York Highlanders. This appears to be the first time a manager father put his player son in a game.

Earle‚ who hit .135 in 26 minor league games this year‚ responds with a single and triple while catching Eddie Plank and Jack Coombs. The Highlanders beat the A's 7-4, but it was hardly Earle’s fault.

Earle will mop up in late-season games next year and again in 1914‚ and serve for 25 years as his father's coach, before moving into the front office. His brother Connie Jr. would also play for the A's. In 1950, Earle, Connie Jr. and their other brother Roy would finally maneuver their 88-year-old father out of the day-to-day operations of the club. No manager would again put his son into a game until 1985, when Yogi Berra played his son Dale with the Yankees.

*

October 5, 1942: The St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series over the Yankees in 5 games, taking the last 3 at Yankee Stadium after splitting the 1st 2 in St. Louis. It is the only World Series the Yankees will lose between 1926 and 1955. It beings a 5-season stretch in which the Cards win 4 Pennants and 3 World Championships. The year they will miss the World Series will be 1945 -- the 1st full season since his arrival that Stan Musial was not in Cardinal red. (He was in Navy blue instead.)

October 5, 1949: Game 1 of the World Series. Allie Reynolds of the Yankees and Don Newcombe of the Dodgers pitch a scoreless game, taking it to the bottom of the 9th. Tommy Henrich leads that inning off for the Yankees, and shows why Yankee broadcaster Mel Allen nicknamed him "Old Reliable." Or maybe he just liked hitting against the Dodgers. Or maybe he liked October 5 – it was, after all, the 8th anniversary of his benefit of Mickey Owen's Muff. Henrich hits a home run into the right-field stands, and the Yankees win, 1-0.

That was pretty much the Series: Despite putting together one of the best teams in franchise history, the Dodgers couldn’t beat the Yankees, winning only Game 2 on a shutout by Preacher Roe. Henrich's shot is the first game-ending home run in the history of postseason baseball, the 1st October "walkoff."

Newcombe is the only Dodger still alive who played in this game, 62 years later. Yogi Berra and Jerry Coleman are the last surviving Yankees from it.

On this same day, Bill James is born. He would later be known as the author of the Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning the serious study of baseball statistics. Later still, he would join the front office of the Boston Red Sox, where he would become a dirty bastard.

*

October 5, 1950: Game 2 of the World Series. An exhausted Robin Roberts somehow manages to hold the Yankees to a 1-1 tie for the Phillies, into the top of the 10th inning. But Joe DiMaggio hits a home run into the left-field stands at Shibe Park, and the Yankees win, 2-1.

The 1st 3 games of this Series are all close, so the Phillies did have their chanes. And it should be noted that their 2nd-best pitcher, behind the future Hall-of-Famer Roberts, was Curt Simmons, and he had been drafted to serve in the Korean War. But the Yankees would sweep the Series.

Still alive from this game, 61 years later: Berra and Coleman for the Yankees; for the Phillies, 3 reserves, Stan Lopata, Ralph "Putsy" Caballero, and Jackie Mayo, who was a defensive replacement for Sisler in the bottom of the 10th. Whitey Ford would start and win Game 4, and is still alive, but did not appear in Game 2.

*

October 5, 1953: Game 6 of the World Series. Billy Martin singles up the middle in the bottom of the 9th, his record-tying 12th hit of the Series, driving in Hank Bauer with the winning run.

It is the Yankees' 16th World Championship, and their 5th in a row. Three in a row has been done since, but not four, and certainly not five. The Montreal Canadiens would soon start a streak of five straight Stanley Cups, but they were unable to make it six. The Boston Celtics would later win eight straight NBA Titles, but basketball didn't exactly get the best athletes then.

This was the last World Series, and the last Pennant in either League, won by an all-white team. The next season, the Yanks would lose the American League Pennant to the well-integrated Cleveland Indians, and the argument of, "Why integrate? We’re winning with what we've got?" goes by the boards. Elston Howard becomes the 1st black man to play for the Yankees the following April, and the team wins 9 Pennants and 4 World Series in the next 10 years.

Still alive from this game, 58 years later: Yankees Berra and Ford, and Dodgers Carl Erskine and Bobby Morgan. (Newcombe was in the Army for the Korean War in 1952 and '53, as Ford was in '51 and '52.)

October 5, 1957: The 1st World Series game in the State of Wisconsin is played. The Yankees beat the Milwaukee Braves 12-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium in Game 3.

*

October 5, 1966: In the 1st World Series game in the State of Maryland, Polish-born reliever Moe Drabowsky has to bail out Dave McNally, and sets a Series record with 11 strikeouts in relief. Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson both hit first-inning home runs, and the Baltimore Orioles beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-2. They would go on to sweep, with McNally redeeming himself by winning the clinching game.

McNally and Drabowsky, and Dodger starter Don Drysdale, have died. Still alive from this game, 45 years later: Orioles Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, John "Boog" Powell, Luis Aparicio (though better-known as a Chicago White Sock), Russ Snyder, Andy Etchebarren, future Yankee World Series hero Paul Blair, and future Met manager Davey Johnson; and Dodgers Maury Wills, Tommy Davis, Lou Johnson, Jim Lefebvre, Wes Parker, Ron Fairly, Joe Moeller, Jim Barbieri, and Fair Lawn, New Jersey native Ron Perranoski.

Future Hall-of-Fame pitchers Sandy Koufax and Jim Palmer, both still alive, would start Game 2; it would be Koufax's last, though only he and a few others knew it at the time, while Palmer was just getting started.

*

October 5, 2001: At what was then known as Pacific Bell Park (now AT&T Park), Barry Bonds hits his 71st and 72nd home runs of the season, to set a new major league single-season record... which we now know is bogus. The first-inning homer, his 71st, is off Dodger pitcher Chan Ho Park. But the Dodgers win the game, 11-10, and, to make matters worse, both clinch the NL West and eliminate the giants from Playoff eligibility.

Bonds will raise his total to 73*. With teammate Rich Aurilia’s 37 (as far as I know, his are legit), they set a (tainted) NL record for homers by teammates, 110. The real major league record remains 115, by Mickey Mantle (54) and Roger Maris (still the legit record of 61) in 1961.

Good A.J., Grabbin' Grandy, Big 8th Keep Yanks Alive

A.J. Burnett was Good A.J. tonight. He got help from 2 Holy Cow catches by Curtis Granderson. And 6 runs in the 8th put it away.

Yankees 10, Tigers 1. WP: Burnett. LP: Rick Porcello.

It got so bad for the Tigers that Boone Logan pitched the 9th. Even he couldn't blow a 9-run lead. In fact, he struck out the side.

Sure, Logan, there was no pressure on you!

There was loads of pressure on A.J. But he came through, big-time.

There was also loads of pressure on Rafael Soriano after he blew Game 3, but he got the last out in the 6th and all 3 in the 7th, before the Yanks unloaded the lumber in the 8th.

There will be a Game 5, in The Bronx, on Thursday night. Ivan Nova will take the hill on 4 days' rest.

It's October. The temperatures drop. The leaves fall. The sweaters come out of the closet. Political campaigns get nasty. McDonald's brings back the McRib sandwich.

And Yankees win. Theeeeeeee Yankees win!

October 4, 1955: Remembering Brooklyn Triumphant

October 4, 1955, 56 years ago today: The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the New York Yankees, 2-0, in Game 7 of the World Series.

After losing the World Series to Boston in 1916, to Cleveland in 1920, and to the Yankees in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953; blowing Playoffs for the National League Pennant to St. Louis in 1946 and to the New York Giants in 1951; and blowing Pennants on the last weekend of the season to St. Louis in 1942 and Philadelphia in 1950, the Dodgers had finally won their first undisputed World Championship in 55 years, since they finished the 1900 season as National League Champions, with no postseason series available.

But in 1955, it all seemed to come together. True, the Dodgers had traded away two of the beloved players who would later be known, in the title of the book that Roger Kahn wrote in remembrance of his days covering them for the New York Herald Tribune, as "The Boys of Summer": Pitcher Elwyn "Preacher" Roe and third baseman Billy Cox. The team was in transition: Jackie Robinson was still a factor, but his replacements had arrived in Jim "Junior" Gilliam and Don Zimmer. Ralph Branca, the goat of the 1951 Playoff, had retired, but the Dodgers still had Don Newcombe and Carl Erskine, and they were joined by a hotshot lefty named Johnny Podres.

The Dodgers won their first 13 games of the '55 season, and finished 13 games ahead of the preseason favorites, the Milwaukee Braves. But the Yankees took the first two games of the World Series, despite Robinson's steal of home plate in Game 1. But the Dodgers took the next three at Ebbets Field. Then the Yankees tied it up. In fact, the home team won each of the first 6 home games.

October 4, 1955. Game 7 of the World Series. Yankee Stadium. The Boys of Summer were getting old. The younger Dodgers didn't quite seem ready. The team was in transition, and it did seem like it had been a seamless one; but for veterans like shortstop Pee Wee Reese, first baseman Gil Hodges, center fielder Duke Snider and catcher Roy Campanella -- along with Robinson, all but Hodges are in the Hall of Fame and he damn well should be -- it was now or never.

Podres was the choice of manager Walter Alston, having won Game 3. Yankee manager Casey Stengel, with ace Whitey Ford having pitched brilliantly in Game 6, had to go with Tommy Byrne, a lefty who was occasionally wild, but had come up big for Stengel in several big games.

The Dodgers scored a run in the 4th and another in the 6, to take a 2-0 lead. But the Yankees got two men on in the bottom of the 6th. And Yogi Berra, as much a "Mr. October" as the Yankees have ever had, was coming up. Yogi had delighted in hitting Series homers off the Dodgers, and would again. To hell with the lefty-on-lefty matchup: Yogi had no fear. And, despite usually being a pull hitter, Yogi hooked the ball down the left-field line, into the corner.

Left field had long been a troublesome position for the Dodgers. Gene Hermanski. Cal Abrams. George "Shotgun" Shuba. Andy Pafko had played it well, but for whatever reason they got rid of him. Now Zimmer was the usual left fielder, though he was a natural infielder. But Alston had pinch-hit Gilliam for Zimmer, and put Gilliam in at second, replacing the righty-throwing Zimmer in left with lefty-throwing Sandy Amoros, a Cuban whose English was halting but whose play, on this day, changed baseball history.

A righthanded fielder, like Zimmer, never could have caught this ball, no matter how fast he was. But Amoros was fast and lefthanded, and he stuck out his right hand and caught the ball. Then he wheeled it back to the infield. Reese relayed it to Hodges, and Gil McDougald was unable to get back to first in time. Double play end of threat.

Doris Kearns was a 12-year-old girl living in Rockville Centre, Long Island at the time. Years later, award-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin would cite Amoros' robbery of Berra and the ensuing rally-killing double play as a sign that the Dodgers would win. "There's always these omens in baseball," she said. Translation: If the Dodgers could get Yogi out in a key situation, then that was it, the Yankees would not threaten again.

Bottom of the 9th. Two out. Podres has pitched a stomach-churning game: Eight hits, but no runs. The last batter is Elston Howard. Six months earlier, Howard had become the first black man to play in a regular-season game for the Yankees, and was now the left fielder and Yogi's backup at catcher. In 1959, they would switche positions, and Ellie would become one of the game's best catchers. In 1955, he was a 26-year-old "rookie," having played in the Negro Leagues for a while.

Howard grounded to short. It was so appropriate that it went to Harold Henry Reese, the Dodgers' Captain and senior player. Pee Wee threw it to Gil Hodges, and Hodges, perhaps the best-fielding first baseman of his era, had to trap it on the ground to keep it from being an error and bringing the tying run to the plate. But he got it.

Ballgame over. World Series over. With Red Barber having been chased out of Brooklyn by team owner Walter O'Malley after the 1953 season, it was Vin Scully who got to make the announcement over the airwaves: "Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the World Champions of baseball."

Not exactly how Mel Allen, Phil Rizzuto or John Sterling would have described it.

It had been 55 years -- or 52 years if you count only from the first World Series forward. The 0-for-7, and 0-for-5 against the Yankees, no longer mattered.

“Please don’t interrupt,” Shirley Povich wrote for the next day's Washington Post, “because you haven’t heard this one before: The Brooklyn Dodgers are World Champions of baseball.” (Povich wrote for the Post from 1924, when Walter Johnson finally pitched them to the World Series, until his death in 1998. His son is the TV journalist Maury Povich.)

And they did it at Yankee Stadium, no less. They never clinched a World Championship at Ebbets Field -- although the Yankees had, in '41, '49 and '52, and would again in '56. Not until '63 would the Dodger franchise clinch a World Series win on their home field.

The party in Brooklyn was the biggest since V-J Day ended World War II 10 years earlier. Scully told the story for Ken Burns’ miniseries Baseball: "When we were riding through Manhattan, it was fall. Football was in the air. We came out the other end of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and it was New Orleans chaos!"

No more "Wait 'Til Next Year." This was Next Year. The next day's New York Daily News had the famous headline, "WHO'S A BUM!" Willard Mullin, who had drawn the "Dodger Bum" cartoon character, drew him again, a big nearly-toothless smile, for that front page, consisting only of that headline and that drawing.

Two personnel notes should be made. One is that Mickey Mantle was injured and unable to play in Game 7 for the Yankees. Does that mean the one and only World Series won by the Brooklyn Dodgers should have an asterisk? No. There's no guarantee that Mickey would have made the difference, even though he had hit the Dodgers hard in the '52 and '53 Series, and would again in '56. Although he was one of the true Mr. Octobers, he didn't always have a good Series, and in fact went only 2-for-10 in the 3 Series games he did get into in '55, even if one of those hits was a homer off Podres in Game 3.

The other personnel note is that Jackie Robinson was not put into the lineup in Game 7. The noblest character in the history of baseball was deemed unworthy of this moment by his manager. Alston was not a Jackie Robinson fan. Neither was owner O'Malley. But on the highlight film, you can see Number 42 running onto the field. After all he'd been through, at 36 he still had enough energy to be one of the first men into the celebratory pile, if not enough energy to persuade his manager to put him into the lineup. But can we really argue with the decision? After all, it worked.

There are still 7 living members of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers. Zimmer and Shuba are the only 2 who played in the game, plus Carl Erskine, Roger Craig, Ed Roebuck, and two lefthanded pitchers worth mentioning.

One was a Brooklyn kid who had made his major league debut that season, appearing in 12 games, nothing remarkable yet. He wanted to be an architect, and had so studied at the University of Cincinnati. He also preferred basketball to baseball. Eventually, he would get his pitching straightened out, and become one of the very best men ever to mount a pitcher’s mound. His name was Sandy Koufax.

The other was a chunky guy from outside Philadelphia who had starred for the Dodgers’ Triple-A farm team, the Montreal Royals, but his entire big-league career consisted of 4 games for Brooklyn in both the ’54 and ’55 seasons, then 18 more the next season for the Kansas City Athletics. Despite his pitching for that team, he never got on the Kansas City/Bronx shuttle. Maybe it was because he got into a fight with Yankee 2nd baseman Billy Martin. But by 1977, he and Billy were shaking hands in World Series pregame ceremonies, as Pennant-winning managers. And Italians. His name was Tommy Lasorda. Ironically, it was Lasorda’s Dodgers who went back to his old stomping grounds of Montreal and ended the one and only postseason run ever made by the Royals’ National League successors, the Expos.

There are 11 living members of the 1955 New York Yankees. Berra, Bill “Moose” Skowron, Bob Cerv and Bob Turley played in Game 7; also on the roster were Ford, Jerry Coleman, Don Larsen (still a year away from his moment in time), Johnny Kucks (a Hoboken, New Jersey native whose moment came 2 days after Larsen’s), Irv Noren, Andy Carey and Tom Carroll (a Queens native who was a defensive replacement in 2 games and only played 64 games in the majors).

October 4, 1955, 3:43 PM Brooklyn Standard Time. Dem Bums had finally dooed it.

Two years later, it would all be over. And only one man had imagined such a blasphemy. Unfortunately, the blasphemer was the caretaker of the faith, Walter Francis O'Malley.

In 1962, the Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York -- that was the original corporate name of the team we know as the Mets -- did something that had previously been done only by hatred of the Yankees: United the fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the fans of the New York Giants. Until 1996, including even the Yankees' quasi-dynasty of 1976-81, the Mets were New York's most popular team.

That is no longer the case, and a person would have to be at least 60 years old to have any memory of the previous National League teams of New York; more like 65 to remember such events as the '55 win and Willie Mays' catch in '54, nearly 70 to accurately remember Bobby Thomson's homer in '51, 75 to remember Jackie Robinson's debut season in '47, about 80 to remember the '41 season that began the Dodgers' renaissance, and at least 85 to remember the Giant teams that won 3 Pennants in the 1930s.

Long time passing.

*

October 4, 1948: In a one-game playoff for the AL pennant at Fenway Park‚ the Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox 8-3, behind 30-year-old rookie knuckleballer Gene Bearden, who wins his 20th game.

It was the year of a lifetime for Bearden: He had never been that good before, and he never would be again. Red Sox manager Joe McCarthy, who had won so much with the Yankees, ignores the well-rested rotation pitchers Ellis Kinder and Mel Parnell to go with journeyman Denny Galehouse, who was 8-7. It wasn’t a totally crazy pick: Galehouse had helped the St. Louis Browns win the 1944 Pennant. With the score 1-1 in the 4th‚ Ken Keltner hits a 3-run home run over the left-field fence. Indians shortstop-manager Lou Boudreau gets 4 hits‚ including a pair of homers‚ and finishes the year with just 9 strikeouts.

Who is still alive from this game, 63 years later? For the Indians, only Allie Clark (a South Amboy, New Jersey native whom the Yankees had traded with Joe Gordon to get Allie Reynolds). For the Red Sox, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky and Tom Wright.

That same day, in St. Louis‚ Taylor Spink‚ publisher of The Sporting News, writes in a Baltimore newspaper that Baltimore will have an AL team within two years: "You can put a clothespin in this: Baltimore will be in the American League‚ if not next year‚ then surely in 1950."

He turned out to be off by 4 years. It was his hometown Browns who became the new major-league version of the Baltimore Orioles, following previous major- and minor-league teams with those names. Spink and the NL’s Cardinals were tight, and he didn’t particularly care whether the Browns moved.

October 4, 1959: Game 3 of the World Series is played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, in front of a record crowd of 92,394. It is the first World Series game played in Los Angeles, in the State of California, indeed anywhere west of St. Louis. The Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-1.

October 4, 1962: Game 1 of the World Series is played at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, the first World Series game played in Northern California. The Yankees beat the Giants, 6-2.

October 4, 2001, 10 years ago today: Rickey Henderson hits a home run for the San Diego Padres, allowing him to score his 2,246th career run, passing Ty Cobb as baseball's all-time leader. The Padres beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-3 at Jack Murphy Stadium.

And on the same day, Tim Raines Sr. plays left field for the Baltimore Orioles, while Tim Raines Jr. plays center field for them. It is only the 2nd time, and there has never been a 3rd, that a father and son have played in the same major league game. The first was Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. in 1990. The Orioles lost to the Red Sox, 5-4 at Camden Yards.

Yankees' Backs to the Wall

Backs-to-the-wall games are never fun. Winning them is, but playing them is not.

The rain-suspended Game 1 meant that last night's Game 3 had the 2 aces back on the mound, CC Sabathia for the Yankees, and Justin Verlander for the Tigers at Comerica Park in Detroit.

The Yankees started off fine, with a Curtis Granderson triple and an RBI groundout from Alex Rodriguez making it 2-0 to the Pinstripers before the Tigers even came to bat. But CC didn't have it: He allowed 4 runs on 7 hits and 6 walks before Joe Girardi took him out in the bottom of the 6th, trailing 4-2.

He picked a hell of a time to have a bad game, just as Randy Johnson did in Game 3 of the ALDS in 2005 against the Whatever They Were Calling Themselves That Year Angels of Anaheim and in 2006 against the Tigers. At least CC, unlike the Big Unit, has the goodwill of having helped the Yankees win a World Series (2009), rather than stopping them from doing so (as Johnson did in 1995 and 2001).

The Yankees tied the game in the 7th on a 2-run single by Brett Gardner, but Girardi put the wrong man on the mound to take CC's place: Rafael Soriano. Soriano gave up a home run to Delmon Young, and a 9th-inning comeback fell short, as Derek Jeter -- seriously denting his "Captain Clutch" aura -- struck out with the tying and go-ahead runs on.

Tigers 5, Yankees 4. WP: Verlander. SV: Jose Valverde. LP: Soriano.

This being Tuesday night, NCIS night, I'm thinking there ought to be a Gibbs Rule about this: Never let a man named Soriano play for the Yankees in the postseason.

True, Alfonso Soriano hit what could have been the World Series-winning home run in 2001, but his strikeouts in the 2003 World Series foreshadowed the rest of his career, which has been a horrendous disappointment for a man who was touted as a possibility for the first 50-50 season: 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same season. (He peaked in 2006 with the Washington Nationals: 46 homers and 41 steals.)

*

So tonight, Game 4, and it's win and go home for Game 5, or lose and go home for the winter.

And who is the Yankee starter, because Girardi didn't trust Phil Hughes with the ALDS rotation or Bartolo Colon with the ALDS roster at all?

Allan James Burnett of North Little Rock, Arkansas.

Who, the last 2 seasons, postseasons included, has been 21-27, with an ERA of 5.24 and a WHIP of 1.473.

Oy vey.

For most of the last 2 seasons, he has been "Bad A.J." Tonight, more than at any time in his Yankee career, except for Game 2 of the 2009 World Series (when we were down 1-0 and he won, although he lost Game 5), we need him to be "Good A.J."

*

The history of the Yankees in backs-to-the-wall postseason games is mixed, as you would expect anyone's to be:

1921 World Series: Lost Game 8. (It was a best-5-out-of-9.)
1922 World Series: Lost Game 5.
1926 World Series: Lost Game 7.
1942 World Series: Lost Game 5.
1947 World Series: Won Game 7.
1952 World Series: Won Games 6 and 7.
1955 World Series: Won Game 6, but lost Game 7. (More on this later, as it's the anniversary.)
1956 World Series: Won Game 7.
1957 World Series: Won Game 6, but lost Game 7.
1958 World Series: Won Games 5, 6 and 7 -- only the 2nd 3-1 comeback ever ('25 Pirates).
1960 World Series: Won Game 6, but lost Game 7.
1962 World Series: Won Game 7.
1963 World Series: Lost Game 4 (got swept).
1964 World Series: Won Game 6, but lost Game 7.
1976 ALCS: Won Game 5.
1976 World Series: Lost Game 4.
1977 ALCS: Won Games 4 and 5.
1978 AL East Playoff: Won.
1980 ALCS: Lost Game 3.
1981 ALDS: Won Game 5.
1981 World Series: Lost Game 6.
1995 ALDS: Lost Game 5.
1997 ALDS: Lost Game 5.
2001 ALDS: Won Game 5.
2001 World Series: Lost Game 7.
2002 ALDS: Lost Game 4.
2003 ALCS: Won Game 7.
2003 World Series: Lost Game 6.
2004 ALCS: Lost Game 7.
2005 ALDS: Lost Game 5.
2006 ALDS: Lost Game 4.
2007 ALDS: Lost Game 4.
2010 ALCS: Won Game 5, but lost Game 6.

So that's an overall record of 20-22, including 3-9 in the Jeter/Rivera era. Not good, even since 1996.

Two things to keep in mind, though:

* Most of the Yankees' postseason series, both before and since 1996, have been wrapped up without the need for a Game 7 (or Game 5 of an ALDS or a pre-1985 ALCS).

* And those 22 wins in backs-to-the-wall games? That's as many postseason games as the Florida Marlins and Houston Astros have won in their entire histories; and more than the Toronto Blue Jays, Kansas City Royals, Seattle Mariners, Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres, Texas Rangers, Tampa Bay Rays, Colorado Rockies, Milwaukee Brewers and Washington Nationals.

In fact, the Yankees have won more backs-to-the-wall games than the Rockies, the Nationals (who have never reached the postseason and only did so once as the Montreal Expos) and, until this season, the Rays and Brewers had even played in.

*

But all that History, Tradition, Mystique, Aura, whatever you want to call it, means very little. As Joe Torre taught us, "Momentum is tomorrow's starting pitcher."

If A.J. Burnett isn't Good A.J. tonight, tomorrow's starting pitcher is CC Sabathia -- and tomorrow is April 6, 2012.

If he is Good A.J., tomorrow is actually the day after tomorrow, and Ivan Nova will go in Game 5 at The Stadium II.

Another backs-to-the-wall game.

Tonight is not going to be a night to watch the game with Uncle Mike. Tonight is going to be a night to leave me alone.

I have no problem with losing to the Detroit Tigers. They're a class franchise and their fans are not especially obnoxious. And, for all that the City of Detroit, the State of Michigan, their economy and their sports teams have gone through the last few, or even the last 40-odd years, God knows they deserve a World Championship.

No, my problem isn't losing to this particular team. My problem is losing. At all.

Why It Is NOT Panic Time for the Yankees

Game 1 of the American League Division Series at Yankee Stadium II was unusual, but once it was restarted, the story was not either of the men originally scheduled to start -- CC Sabathia for the Yankees or Justin Verlander for the Detroit Tigers -- but the man who "started" for the Yankees, Ivan Nova.

Like Ron Guidry and Andy Pettitte before him, this kid pitches like he doesn't know the meaning of pressure. He pitched from the 3rd into the 9th, and until the 9th he didn't allow the Tigers a single run.

The Yankees pushed a run across in the 5th, and 2 more in the 6th before loading the bases that same inning, and Robinson Cano called up Babe Ruth's Deli and ordered a grand salami.

The 9th was a bit of a hiccup, as Nova did allow 2 runs, and Luis Ayala got us worried enough that Joe Girardi brought in Mariano Rivera. But mo slammed the door. Final score, Yankees 9, Tigers 3.

It takes 11 wins in the postseason to win the World Series. 1 down, 10 to go.

*

Game 2 was not nearly as good for the Yankees. They didn't even get a hit off of Max Scherzer until the 6th, while Freddy Garcia did not have his good stuff, and Girardi decided to send my blood pressure, and possibly a few fly balls, heading for the roof by bringing in Boone Logan, Cory Wade and Ayala. Incredibly, none of those 3 numpties made the situation any worse.

But a Yankee comeback fell a little short. Curtis Granderson homered in the 8th, and Nick Swisher did so in the 9th. The Yankees got the tying run to the plate, but it wasn't enough: Tigers 5, Yankees 3. Series tied 1-1.

*

So we go to Detroit.

A few years back, there was a Reebok commercial, showing basketball players sitting in the lotus position and looking up at a really big screen, showing a big fat black man wearing a turban and sunglasses, dispensing wisdom. Giving a whole new meaning to the words "Big Brother is watching you."

"But, Master," one of the players looked up and asked, "what if we behave badly?"

The "master" lowered his shades, looked over them, and said, "You go to Detroit."

Well, regardless of whether the Yanks had won last night, they would still have had to play at least one game in Detroit.

A lot of Yankee Fans are panicking, because they have to face Justin Verlander tonight in Game 3, and A.J. Burnett is scheduled to pitch Game 4.

They're also concerned that this could be a repeat of the 2006 season:

* The Yankees were well behind the Boston Red Sox at one point.

* The Yankees stormed back, and the Sox crumbled, missing the Playoffs completely while the Yankees took the AL East.

* The Yankees had to play the Detroit Tigers in the ALDS, and won Game 1, but then both the bats and the arms cooled off, and we lost Game 2, before heading out to Detroit for Games 3 and 4 -- and, as it turned out, the next game at Yankee Stadium (the old one) was the next season's home opener.

* The St. Louis Cardinals are in the NL Playoffs.

Actually, aside from the Yanks, Tigers and Cards, it's a very different Playoffs. In 2006, the other Playoff teams were the Minnesota Twins, the Oakland Athletics, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the San Diego Padres and... the Mets! All of whom fell well short this season. Whereas this year, the other teams are the Tampa Bay Rays, the Texas Rangers, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Milwaukee Brewers and the Arizona Diamondbacks -- all of whom, except for the Phillies, were well short in '06.

Consider that, in 2006 ALDS Game 3, Randy Johnson tanked; and, in Game 4, Jaret Wright didn't have it at all.

In 2011 ALDS Game 3, the Yankees will have Sabathia, a far more dependable pitcher in Pinstripes than the Big Unit was. And, in Game 4, despite having been "Bad A.J." for most of the last 2 years, Burnett has been "Good A.J." in postseason play much more recently than had 1997-98 Yankee postseason nemesis Wright.

You say Verlander will be starting for the Tigers, bringing his 24-5 record, his 0.920 WHIP, and his 170 ERA+? I say the Yankees have already won 3 games started by Verlander this season -- including Game 1 of this series.

And while the Yankees' do have slumping players in Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira, they do NOT have wantaway "slugger" Gary Sheffield in this one; instead, they have Cano and Granderson, who will make the difference.

Yes, this series could very well be over in Game 4.

See you at Yankee Stadium II for Game 1 of the ALCS against either Tampa Bay or Texas.

Oh, by the way: The Cardinals beat the Phillies last night, to even their NLDS at 1-1. The losing pitcher for the Phils? Cliff Lee. In his last 3 postseason appearances, he's 0-3 with a 7.13 ERA and a 1.642 WHIP.

Yeah, that's the kind of postseason pitching we missed out on by not signing Cliff Lee. He's a bum.

Thomson-Winfield Day

October 3, 1951, 60 years ago today: Bobby Thomson hits a home run that wins the National League Pennant for the New York Giants, 5-4 over the Brooklyn Dodgers, at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan.

"Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again."
-- Red Smith, in the next day's New York Herald Tribune. If Red wasn't the greatest sportswriter ever, this paragraph certainly shows why he's a contender for the title.

Thomson died on August 16 of last year, at age 86. The home run ended the most amazing Pennant race New York City, perhaps any city, has ever seen. It was beamed around the U.S.A. in the 1st nationally-televised (NBC) broadcast of any non-World Series game, and the Armed Forces Radio Network played it for every U.S. military base from London (the writer George Plimpton claimed to have heard it while studying at Cambridge University in England) to Korea (where a war was raging that would soon claim as draftees Willie Mays, the Giant batter who was on deck, and Don Newcombe, the Dodger pitcher who'd nearly won the game before being relieved). This was reflected in an episode of the TV show M*A*S*H.

The pitcher who gave up the home run, Ralph Branca, is now 85, and has finally written a memoir of his checkered career and life, A Moment In Time. In spite of the scorn he's received for giving up that home run, he admits he's had a pretty good life.

And, besides, he's remembered. Larry Jansen, the Giant pitcher who relieved Sal Maglie in that game, ended up as the winning pitcher in a game that's on the short list for the title of "greatest game ever played," would have won the NL Cy Young Award had it existed then, and was a member of the Giants' 1954 World Champions as well; yet when he died in 2009, I didn't hear of it immediately. Jansen was forgotten; Branca is remembered. Alternately a blessing and a curse.

For this worldwide coverage, it was called "The Shot Heard 'Round the World," after the description in poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson of the musket shot that began the War of the American Revolution on the Lexington Green, outside Boston, in 1775.

The following men who played in that game, 60 years ago today, are still alive: Giants Willie Mays, Monte Irvin, Don Mueller (the entire starting outfield) and Alvin Dark; and Dodgers Branca, Don Newcombe (whom Branca relieved), Andy Pafko (over whose head in left field the ball traveled). Giant pitcher George Spencer did not appear in the game, but was on their roster and is also still alive; so are Dodger reserves Carl Erskine, Johnny Schmitz, Rocky Bridges, Tommy Brown and Wayne Terwilliger.

Just in the last 3 years, the following players from that day have died: Giants Thomson, Jansen, Whitey Lockman, Clint Hartung, Davey Williams, Jack Lohrke and Artie Wilson; and Dodgers Duke Snider, Preacher Roe, Gene Hermanski, Don Thompson, Clyde King, and future legendary manager Dick Williams.

*

The same day Thomson hit that homer, 1,200 miles to the northwest, David Mark Winfield was born in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Dave Winfield would star for the San Diego Padres and the Yankees, help them to a Pennant in 1981 but infamously go just 1-for-22 in the World Series, fall short with the Yanks in the Division races of 1985, '86, '87 and '88; lead George Steinbrenner to (unfairly) tag him as "Mr. May," hire a criminal to dig up dirt on him, and finally exile him to the California Angels; finally win a World Series as he got the game-winning hit for the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 6 in 1992, collect his 3,000th career hit with his hometown Minnesota Twins, and retire with the Pennant-winning Cleveland Indians of 1995.

His Number 31 was retired by the Padres, but while the Yankees gave him a Dave Winfield Day following his Hall of Fame election in 2001, he has not yet received a Plaque in Monument Park, and his Number 31 has been worn by some rather mediocre Yankees:

Brian Dorsett, Hensley "Bam-Bam" Meulens, Mike Humphreys, Xavier Hernandez, Brian Boehringer, Dan Naulty, Ben Ford, Glenallen Hill, Steve Karsay, Jason Anderson (the first former member of the Staten Island Yankees to reach the majors), Aaron Small (he of the 10-0 record in 2005 but 0-1 in the ALDS and was soon rightfully gone from the majors), Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez, Josh Phelps and Michael Dunn.

But it has also been worn by some good players; all of these were former or future All-Stars, regardless of what they did as Yankees: Bob Wickman, Frank Tanana, Lance Johnson, Ian Kennedy, the execrable Javier Vazquez (in his 2nd and hopefully last go-around with the Yankees), currently Rafael Soriano, and a man who should one day join Big Dave in the Hall of Fame, Tim Raines, a contributor to the 1996 and 1998 World Champions.

So why hasn't Dave gotten his number retired and his Plaque? Could there still be a grudge held by George Steinbrenner's children, after all this time?

*

October 3, 1947: Floyd "Bill" Bevens takes a no-hitter into the bottom of the 9th in Game 4 of the World Series. He gets to within 1 out of the first World Series (and thus first postseason) no-hitter ever. But 10 walks put him in danger, and Harry "Cookie" Lavagetto pinch-hits a double-off the right-field wall at Ebbets Field, and the Dodgers win, 3-2.

Two days later, Al Gionfriddo will rob Joe DiMaggio with an amazing catch to preserve the Dodgers' lead in Game 6, but the Yankees win the Series in Game 7. By a weird twist of fate, neither Bevens, nor Lavagetto, nor Gionfriddo will ever play again.

Who is still alive from this Series, 64 years later? For the Yankees, just Yogi Berra and Bobby Brown. For the Dodgers, no one: Duke Snider was the last survivor, and he died earlier this year. Gene Hermanski was the last survivor of the Dodgers who actually played in this Series, and he died last year.

A better day for the Brooklyn franchise was October 3, 1900, when the team, then known as the Superbas, beat the Boston Braves at South End Grounds to win the NL Pennant -- and, with the setup then in place, the unofficial World Championship of baseball. They would not win another for 55 years, but, then, it would be official.

I didn't post yesterday, but October 2 is the anniversary of the Yankees' World Championship of 1932, completing a 4-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field; and the baseball Giants' World Championship of 1954, completing a 4-game sweep of the Cleveland Indians at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. These are the earliest-ending World Series ever, and are likely to remain so.

October Rain

October 1, 1921, 90 years ago today: The New York Yankees sweep a doubleheader from the Philadelphia Athletics at the Polo Grounds -- before there was a Yankee Stadium. The 1st game is a 5-3 win that clinches the Yankees' 1st Pennant. The second game was a 7-6 Yankee win in 11 innings. Pitching the last 4 innings and winning for the Yankees... Babe Ruth.

I don't have footage of this game. I do have footage of another of note on this day.

October 1, 1961, 50 years ago today: The Yankees defeat the Boston Red Sox, 1-0. The Yankees had long since clinched the Pennant, and the Red Sox were terrible, so this game was meaningless. Or was it?

Here's how Phil Rizzuto called the only run of the game on WCBS radio. Go to it, Scooter:

Here comes Roger Maris, they're standing up, waiting to see if Roger is going to hit Number 61.

Here's the windup, the pitch to Roger, way outside, ball one. And the fans are starting to boo. Low, ball two, that one was in the dirt. And the boos get louder. Two balls, no strikes on Roger Maris.

Here's the windup, fastball, hit deep to right! This could be it! Way back there! Holy cow, he did it! Sixty-one for Maris!

And look at the fight for that ball out there! Holy cow, what a shot! Another standing ovation for Roger Maris, and they're still fighting for that ball out there, climbing over each other's back. One of the greatest sights I've ever seen here at Yankee Stadium.

Here's a neat trivia question: Who played right field for the Yankees the day Roger Maris hit his 61st home run?

No, not Maris himself. He was playing center field, in place of the injured Mickey Mantle. Johnny Blanchard started the game in right field, before moving behind the plate in relief of Elston Howard; Hector Lopez, who had taken Yogi Berra's place in left field, moved to right, and Jack Reed moved to left, taking Howard’s place in the batting order.

Of the players who appeared in this game for the Yankees, 50 years ago, the following 8 players are still alive: Yogi, Lopez, Reed, Bill "Moose" Skowron, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Bob Hale (relieving Moose at 1st base and appearing in his final major league game), and Luis Arroyo. Whitey Ford is still alive, but did not appear in the game.

For the Red Sox, there are 7 still living: Tracy Stallard, who gave up the home run but otherwise pitched well, Carl Yastrzemski (the Southampton, Long Island native was in the 1st of 23 seasons of a Hall of Fame career), Frank Malzone (a Bronx native), Chuck Schilling (a Brooklyn native and no relation to Curt), future big-league manager Russ Nixon, Don Gile, and Elijah "Pumpsie" Green, who, 2 years earlier, became the 1st black player on the Sox, the last team to integrate, but who proved so inept on the field that he was cut by the Mets after the 1963 season and never played in the majors again.

Seriously, how bad do you have to be to get cut by a 111-loss team, when you're only 30? Actually, Green had his best season in 1961, batting .260 with 12 doubles.

*

In 1998, Mark McGwire would hit 70 and Sammy Sosa hit 66. In 1999, McGwire hit 65 and Sosa hit 63. In 2001, Barry Bonds hit 73 and Sosa hit 64.

But who's kidding who? Those guys used steroids. If I'm wrong, they can sue me, and testify under oath that they didn't.

Oh, wait, Bonds already did testify, and as a result was convicted of obstruction of justice. And McGwire has since confessed.

The real single-season home run record is still Roger Maris: 61 in '61. And it was accomplished 50 years ago today.

Oh, another big thing that happened on October 1, 1961, 50 years ago today: RCA Records released "Can't Help Falling In Love" by a singer you might have heard of, named Elvis Presley.

*

This isn't about the Yankees, but it's worth mentioning:

October 1, 1950: Dick Sisler hits a home run in the top of the 10th inning at Ebbets Field, and the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 4-1, to clinch the National League Pennant. It is the only Pennant the Phils would win in a 75-year stretch from 1915 to 1980.

Still alive from this game, 61 years later: For the Phillies, 3 reserves, Stan Lopata, Ralph "Putsy" Caballero, and Jackie Mayo, who was a defensive replacement for Sisler in the bottom of the 10th; for the Dodgers, Don Newcombe (who gave up Sisler's homer) and Tommy Brown.

*

Game 1 of the American League Division Series between the Yankees and the Detroit Tigers was stopped after an inning and a half, with the game tied, 1-1. It is supposed to resume tonight, in about an hour -- weather permitting. It may not.

Time for Commissioner Bud Selig to make a choice: The best interests of baseball, or Rupert Murdoch's dirty Fox TV money.