This happened 70 years ago today:
Oct. 2, 1953, Game 3 of the World Series between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees at Ebbets Field.
New York has won the first two games of the series, so this is a proverbial must-win game for Brooklyn, who calls on gutsy right-hander Carl Erskine to take on the powerful Yankees. This also was a chance at redemption for ‘Oisk,’ who would be pitching on two-days’ rest after being destroyed in Game 1. Brooklyn manager Charlie Dressen thought Carl could handle the job.
“I felt like I had something to prove,” Carl told me over the phone in a February 2021 conversation. “And Charlie Dressen was a bit of a gambler. He knew what I could do with little rest. And he had a lot of faith in me. I told my teammates that I was going to throw every pitch like it was my last.”
Here they are, linked forever by a historic World Series moment (and in my hand as baseball cards).
He did, and he proceeded to dominate the bombers from the Bronx, and the strikeouts kept piling up. He struck out Mickey Mantle four times! It became apparent to everyone except Erskine that he was threatening Howard Ehmke’s 24-year-old World Series record for strikeouts in a game. Erskine didn’t know who the hell Howard Ehmke was.
With the Dodgers leading 3-2 in the top of the ninth, Erskine struck out Yankees pinch hitter Don Bollweg on three pitches. That was strikeout number 13, tying the record Ehmke, a junkballer for the Philadelphia Athletics, set against the Chicago Cubs in the 1929 Fall Classic. The fans were going nuts as Yankees manager Casey Stengel sent big, menacing John Mize up as a pinch hitter.
“I didn’t know I’d tied a record, and didn’t care, but I could tell the fans were excited,” Erskine said. “I was busy thinking about Johnny Mize. He was tough, maybe the best hitter I’ve seen or faced. Didn’t swing at bad pitches. And I remembered what he did to me in 1952.”
In the 1952 Series, Mize had abused Carl, hitting a long home run at a critical juncture. Erskine hadn’t forgotten.
Meanwhile, throughout Game 3 of the 1953 Series, Mize had been sitting on the bench criticizing his teammates: “Hit a good pitch for Christ’s sake,” he’d grumble as his fellow Yanks swung feebly at Erskine’s breaking ball.
“He kept telling the guys to stop swinging at that junk curve ball in the dirt,” Whitey Ford remembered during an interview for my upcoming book, Big Cat: The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize. “They looked at him like he was crazy.”
A few minutes later, some of the Yankees were snickering quietly after Mize went down swinging at a low curveball, giving Carl Erskine his record 14th strikeout.
“Johnny Mize was kind of a nemesis for me,” Carl told me, then added after a slight pause, a happy lilt in his old voice, “So, I’d say it was poetic justice, striking him out to set the record.”
EXTRA INNING: By the way, exactly 10 years after Erskine set his World Series strikeout record, another Dodger, Sandy Koufax, broke it, also against the Yankees. Pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the lefty fireballer fanned 15 New York Yankees on Oct. 2, 1963. THEN … five years to the day after that, Oct. 2, 1968, Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals set a Series record that still stands, striking out 17 Detroit Tigers.
JerryGrilloWriter.com 