An inning later Gene Woodling smacked another hard line drive, this one toward the seats in right field. Andy Pafko put his right hand on the box seat railing and launched himself toward the ball. He caught it at the top of his leap. What looked like a two-run homer died in the pocket of Pafko's glove. To cold-eyed observers, these two smashes suggested that Erskine was making mistakes. To the more mystical, the catches meant something else. This was Erskine's day. He could make mistakes and get away with them.
His curve was formidable. His fastball was good enough and his change of pace kept the big Yankee hitters off stride. Going into the fifth inning he was pitching a one-hitter and no Yankee had reached second base. The Dodgers chipped away at Ewell Blackwell and when [Duke] Snider homered in the top of the fifth inning, Brooklyn moved ahead 4-0.
Suddenly Erskine lost his touch. He walked Hank Bauer. [Billy] Martin singled. Irv Noren batted for Blackwell and singled home Bauer. Gil McDougald forced Noren, but Rizzuto singled and Martin scored. Mantle fouled out and when Johnny Mize came to bat, [sportswriter] Rud Rennie said, "The deuces are on the table." The Yankees had scored two runs. Two men were out. Two runners were on base.
Erskine got two strikes on Big John Mize. "Four of a kind," [sportswriter] Red Smith said. Erskine wasted a breaking ball. Then Mize hit a fastball deep into the lower stands in right. It was his third home run in three days, his third homer in three World Series games. He was having a rebirth at thirty-nine....
The Dodger lead and Erskine's mystique suddenly were history. [Charlie] Dressen marched mournfully toward the mound, right hand in the right back pocket of his uniform. Erskine's description of what happened next is splendid:
"I see Dressen coming and ... I think the numbers are against me. October fifth, it was. That was a wedding anniversary, my fifth. The fifth inning. I've given the Yankees five runs. Forget thirteen. Five must be my unlucky number.
"Charlie says to give him the ball. You weren't allowed to talk when he came out. He was afraid you might argue him into leaving you in, and you had to wait on the mound for the next pitcher, so's you could wish him good luck. Now Charlie has the ball. I'm through. The fives have done me in. Suddenly Dressen says, 'Isn't this your anniversary? Are you gonna take Betty out and celebrate tonight?'
"I can't believe it. There's seventy thousand people watching, more than lived in Anderson [Indiana] where I grew up, and he's asking me what I'm doing that night. I tell him yes, I was planning on taking Betty someplace quiet.
"'Well,' Dressen says, 'then see if you can't get this game over before it gets dark.'"
Berra followed Mize and drove a fastball into deep right centerfield. Snider, Erskine's roommate, ran hard and leapt prodigiously and caught the ball.
....Johnny Sain relieved Blackwell in the sixth. Sain was Stengel's best reliever -- after the protean Reynolds -- and the Yankees, ahead 5-4, looked in healthy shape. Long John Sain's variety of curves had produced a remarkable career, although he did not become a winner in the major leagues until he was twenty-eight years old. Sain spent six seasons in the minors, then, as [Casey] Stengel knew, served as a Navy test pilot in World War II, learning aerodynamics, which he said deepened his grasp of pitching.. "The stitches on the ball," he said, "like the wings of an airplane, are an airfoil. They can provide lift. Hopping fastball. Or sideslip. Curve and slider."....
With Blackwell gone, Dressen benched Shuba, switched Pafko to left and sent Carl Furillo to play right field. Furillo celebrated with a lead-off double in the sixth, but Campanella and Pafko popped up and Hodges struck out. The big first baseman had come to bat twelve times without hitting safely. Erskine, recovered from The Curse of the Fives, retired the Yankees easily in the sixth. Snider tied the game at 5-all in the seventh, singling home Billy Cox. Then it was Sain and Erskine, the test pilot and the choir boy, matching magnificent efforts. Inning after inning, the Yankees went out in order and at the end of nine innings the teams were still tied.
Sain opened the bottom of the tenth with a grounder to Jackie Robinson's right. Robinson threw to the outfield side of first base. Hodges stretched and the umpire, Art Passarella, called Sain out. Bill Dickey, the first base coach, leaped in indignation. The call stood. Erskine then retired McDougald and Rizzuto.
Cox singled in the eleventh, [Pee Wee] Reese singled him to third. Snider's double to right center sent Cox home. Snider had driven in four runs. The Dodgers led, 6-5.
Mantle rolled back to Erskine. One out in the last of the eleventh. Here came Johnny Mize again. Mize drove another huge liner toward the right field seats. Furillo jumped as though striving for orbit. At the top of his extravagant leap he snared the ball. For the second time a Dodger outfielder had intercepted a home run. [Yogi] Berra stepped up, pumping two bats .... Erskine fanned Berra and broke into a shining smile. He had retired nineteen men in a row. He had beaten the Yankees, 6-5. The Dodgers were one game away from their grail.
A dramatic report reached the press box as the game ended. An Associated Press photograph showed that in the disputed tenth-inning play, Johnny Sain's left spiked shoe was creasing the first-base bag while Robinson's throw was still a yard away from Hodges. And reaching for the ball, Hodges appeared to have taken his foot off the base....
Discussion of the game and the call persisted past the Series, and the umpire, Art Passarella, announced at length that he was "resigning" from the American League staff.
"It turns out," [sportswriter] Dick Young said through a nasty smile, "that Erskine didn't really retire nineteen straight Yankees. He retired eighteen Yankees and one umpire."
Memories of Summer, Roger Kahn
copyright 1997 Hook Slide, Inc
University of Nebraska Press
IMAGE: Erskine congratulated by Roy Campanella and Jackie Robinson
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