Oct. 11, 1964 - One swing of the bat and eight innings of scoreless relief pitching enabled the St. Louis Cardinals today to even the 1964 World Series at two games apiece.
Ken Boyer’s grand slam home run provided all the Cardinal runs in a 4-3 victory over the New York Yankees before a crowd of 66,312 at Yankee Stadium. And it turned a developing rout back into a closely contested series.
Boyer, the 33-year-old third baseman on whom the Cards have depended for righthanded power for several years, hit his grand slam in the sixth inning off Al Downing, a 24-year-old Yankee southpaw. This wiped out a 3-0 lead the Yankees had acquired by making five straight hits in the first inning. In the rest of the game, New York made only one more single, permitted by Roger Craig. Craig replaced Ray Sadecki in the first inning, pitched through the fifth, and was removed for Carl Warwick, the pinch hitter who started the winning rally.
Then Ron Taylor, a Canadian with a blazing fastball, held the Yanks hitless through their last four turns at bat. Credit for the victory went to Craig, nurtured as a Dodger and seasoned as a Met, who had beaten the Yankees once before, in the 1955 Series.
As Boyer’s slam sailed down the left-field foul line and disappeared in a clutch of overcoats and grabbing hands, gloom descended on the pitching mound. Downing had been pitching a successful game. One pitch to the wrong spot, and he was a loser. The circumstances of the pitch could not have cheered him.
Downing shook off his catcher, Elston Howard, on the home run pitch. Howard, 34, had called for a fastball. Downing, 23, had shaken him off.
“I’m the catcher, and he’s the pitcher,” Howard said. “When that happens, it’s his pitch. He knows what he’s doing. Any pitcher who doesn’t shake off his catcher once in a while is the dumbest guy in the world.”
Downing wanted to throw a change of pace to Boyer — who had one hit in 13 Series at-bats. “If you get a changeup high and inside to anybody, it’s going to be a good pitch,” Downing said. “It was about waist high and out over the plate. He went out and got it. I didn’t think he hit it that well.”
It was hit well enough. Boyer watched the ball fly away. When it was over the outfield, he started to run. But not too fast.
It was the ninth grand slam homer in 64 years of World Series. The bases were filled only because the Yankees made no outs when they might have made two.
Pinch-hitter Carl Warwick singled to open the inning. Curt Flood singled. Lou Brock flied out. Then Dick Groat slapped a ground ball at Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson. Richardson — one of baseball’s premium second basemen — reached down for the ball, gathered it in — and then failed to release it.
“I could not get the ball out of the webbing of my glove,” Richardson said. “It was my fault, my error. It could have been a double play. But you don’t know. Tried to throw it with my glove. There was no way for Phil to handle it.”
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