In my earlier post “Fernando, Sears, The Yankees, and The Beatles” (here) I told of Fernando’s being a Yankees’ fan as a kid and how he and his childhood friends would run to Sears in Coral Gables to see the prior night’s baseball scores and stats. He was also a Beatles fan and would run to Sears to see where the group’s songs were on the Hit Parade.

Thinking about Fernando, led me to my childhood friend, Anne. In my prior post (here), I told of her enthusiasm for The Beatles in 1964. At the club one day that summer, she had rushed me to the shortwave radio to listen to them. 

In stream of consciousness fashion, thinking about Fernando and Anne, reminded me about the shortwave radio which reminded me of my father, who would tell us about his own childhood in Cuba where he and his friends would spend hours in the mining camp club during the baseball season to see the scoreboard of the Yankees’ games. The bartender would receive information by telegraph at the end of each inning and would walk to the board and chalk in the runs for the inning. The kids would whoop and holler whenever he’d chalk in a Yankees’ run, and groan with loud disappointment and exasperation when he’d chalk in a run for the opposing team.

With no radio, and certainly no TV, that is how they “watched” baseball in his childhood in Cuba.

By the time of my childhood, mining clubs had shortwave radios which broadcast the ball games. And, in 1964, the Big One was that year’s World Series.

The radio and also the television play by play was shared between Joe Garagiola and Phil Rizzuto in New York and Curt Gowdy and Harry Caray in St. Louis. However, in El Pao, we heard the play by play in Spanish and, unfortunately, I do not know who did so nor have I been able find it out. If a reader knows, I would very much appreciate hearing from you.

I do remember it was very colorful. One of the most memorable lines was in Game 7, when Tom Tresh came up to bat and for some reason decided to swing at a very high pitch. The Spanish broadcaster yelled out, “Estaba tumbando piñata!” [He was striking a piñata!]. The image that expression evoked is still fresh in my mind today, over 50 years later.

There were many great names of the baseball pantheon in that series: Yogi Berra, Curt Floyd, Roger Maris, Lou Brock, Mickey Mantle and more. Lesser names, but nonetheless memorable, included MVP brothers on opposing teams: Ken and Clete Boyer, for the Cardinals and Yankees, respectively. 

In the case of Mickey Mantle, this turned out to be his last World Series. By the end of it, he had played in 12, of which the Yankees had won 7.

In that year, Mantle capped his World Series career with a performance for the record books, including a Game Three, bottom of the ninth, game-winning walk-off home run. The fifth in World Series history at the time and the only one in Mantle’s storied career. It was a Mickey Mantle home run: a low pitch, met by the “Mantle turn”, driven deep, towering and majestic, into right field, well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium. The game was won with one swing of his bat. He ended the series with a .333 average, three home runs, and eight RBIs.

Mantle is still in the record books with the second most at bats — 230 (second only to his teammate, Yogi Berra, with 259), the most base on balls — 43 (Babe Ruth is second, with 33), most extra base hits — 26 (no one comes close), second most hits — 59 (second to his teammate, Yogi Berra with 71), second most World Series games — 65 (second to his teammate, Yogi Berra, with 75), and most home runs in World Series history — 18 (followed by Babe Ruth, with 15). He is highest or second highest in runs scored, RBI’s, and total bases. The only switch hitter to have won the Triple Crown, Mantle’s is a truly great record.

But by the 1964 series, Mickey Mantle was injury-plagued. The St. Louis Cardinals knew it and they strategically decided to run against him, stretching singles into doubles and doubles into triples or home runs.

Another performance for the ages was Lou Brock’s. In what turned out to have been the best trade in Cardinals history, and the worst in Cubs history, Brock was traded by the Cubs to the Cardinals in 1964. That awakened the then fading Cardinals and spurred them on to overtake the Phillies and win the National League pennant. He was one of the best hitters and base stealers in baseball history. And, much to my chagrin, he displayed his hitting prowess with painful effectiveness in the 1964 World Series. Painful to me, that is!

Lou Brock played in three World Series and his adjusted OPS (“On Base Slugging” score) for the World Series was fourth best of all time, just behind Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Reggie Jackson (“Mr. October”). In other words, although Brock was a Hall of Famer for his overall performance, he really turned on the juice in the World Series. For comparison, Mickey Mantle is not in the OPS stats for World Series play, but is in 7th place in all-time adjusted OPS career leaders, whereas Brock is not in the top twenty. 

But what a World Series performer! A World Series batting average of .391, with multi hits in 12 of his 21 World Series games, including two hits in Game 7 of the 1964 Series. He is tied, with Mickey Mantle and Eddie Collins, for 11th most all-time series multi hits games. Incredibly, Brock is tied with Eddie Collins for most stolen bases in World Series history: 14. But he did not attempt to steal a base in the 1964 Series! He stole 7 bases in 1967 and 7 more in 1968. No one else has stolen 7 bases in a World Series. As for 1964, Brock let Tim McCarver and Mike Shannon do the stealing. That was enough to defeat my team.

Nevertheless, to me, the most memorable players (besides Mickey Mantle, Lou Brock, and Tresh’s Piñata swing, that is) were Whitey Ford and Bob Gibson.

In the case of Whitey Ford, I couldn’t figure out or understand why he only played in Game One, and lost. It was many years later that I realized that he had been playing that whole season in great pain. But I did not know that nor did I think of asking my father about it. Whitey Ford was considered the archetypical Yankee: clean cut, decent, fair. Deceptively fair, that is. Meaning that just because he was fair, that did not mean he’d let you hit his pitches. 

His baseball career spanned 16 years, all with the New York Yankees. He is tied for first place for starting pitchers with the most World Series titles (6), is the all-time leader in World Series starts (22), innings pitched (146), strikeouts (94) and wins (10). In 1960 he threw 283 innings without allowing a single stolen base. Still a record.

In 1961, he won both the Cy Young and the MVP awards. The Cy Young award was introduced in 1956; many baseball connoisseurs believe he would have won easily in earlier seasons, making him a multiple Cy Young winner.  But to us kids, he just seemed like an all-around, likable, nice guy. A nice guy who did not finish last. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1974 with a career ERA of 2.745, in the top 100 of all time. He is the 4th winningest pitcher of all time, with a winning percentage of .6901. Ford demonstrates that a pitcher can be very successful even without a powerful fastball. The 1964 World Series was to have been his last. 

And he remained unseen after Game One. As a kid, that bothered and saddened me to no end.  I rooted for him until injuries finally had their way, forcing his retirement three years later, in 1967.

And then there was Bob Gibson. He pitched three games in that series: 8 innings in Game 2, which he lost against Mel Stottlemyer, 10 innings in Game 5 where he remained on the mound till the very end, picking up the win, and all 9 innings of Game 7, when I kept wishing he’d be too tired to pitch that day.

This man was a machine and even over the radio, he provoked fear. Which helps explain his being in thirteenth place with the most shutouts in baseball history. He had a 17-year career, all with the St. Louis Cardinals. A two-time World Series champion and two-time Cy Young Award winner, Bob Gibson was a fierce competitor on that mound, yet a kind, approachable individual when off the field. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1981, his first year of eligibility.

I remember watching him pitch against the Boston Red Sox in 1967. I wanted the Sox to win because they were in  the American League, which was the closest I could get to the then perpetually slumping Yankees. But I could not help but admire that powerful pitcher with the opposite side “kick” to his pitch. And there he was again, on the mound, in the last inning of the last game, picking up yet another seventh game win. He was something to behold.

Between them, they won 17 World Series games. Ford won a record-setting 10 games, but lost 8; Gibson won 7, and lost 2. Ford’s World Series ERA was 2.71 to Gibson’s 1.89. Ford’s ERA was 1.98 before his injury-plagued 1964 performance. His 10 games won record still stands. Gibson’s is in second place, tied with two other pitchers.

That year, 1964, marked the end of the Yankee dynasty. They would not play in another series till 1976, and that team was a shadow of their days of glory, in my opinion. They’ve not been the same since.

The Cardinals went on to play in the 1967 and the 1968 World Series, with Gibson pitching and Brock stealing in both. They won in 1967 on the 7th game against the Boston Red Sox and lost in 1968 on the 7th game against the Detroit Tigers. Both were exciting series, which I was able to see on television in Miami, Florida. But, to me, neither came close to the exhilarating thrill of the 1964 event.

Mickey Mantle passed away on August 13, 1995. He had returned to his childhood faith, expressing genuine repentance for his years of hard drinking and hard living. He considered himself to be a “reverse role-model”: “Don’t be like me,” he said. Whitey Ford was one of his pallbearers.

Lou Brock passed away on September 6, 2020. Roughly a month later, both Bob Gibson and Whitey Ford died on October 2 and October 8, respectively. 

At the time of his death, Whitey Ford (91) was the second oldest living member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame. 

I guess I’ll always remember the World Series of 1964.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWUFDoxAiE