Oct. 15, 1964 - The whole season was a popup to Dal Maxvill. It was the easiest popup of the season. “No wind, no twist, not too high,” the Cardinal second baseman said. But it was going to be the last out of the World Series. That made it a special popup.
As Maxvill waited underneath it, he heard a voice. It was Dick Groat saying, “Don’t get hit in the coconut.” So, Maxvill caught Bobby Richardson’s popup, and the World Series was over.
Later, Maxvill recalled the moment. “I said to myself, ‘Let’s not drop this one, baby. You’ll be the goat all winter long.’ I didn’t want to get hit on the coconut.”
Maxvill was playing only because injured Julian Javier couldn’t. “You think it’s an ordinary game,” he admitted later. “But you know in the back of your mind it’s not.”
Lou Brock defined the last game of the World Series: “Today, the steaks were on the fire,” he said. “You either put them where you want them or leave them where they are.”
Roger Craig sulked for 24 hours when he wasn’t nominated to pitch the last game. “You know when I stopped being mad?” he asked. “When we won the game.”
Manager Johnny Keane was asked to name the key play of the game. He settled on the double play started by Mike Shannon in the fifth. With runners on first and second and one out, Phil Linz dunked a fly to short right field. But Shannon ran hard, caught the ball low, and threw to second to double up Tom Tresh. “It was a great play; it was a big play,” Keane said.
Keane was going to ask for a conference tomorrow morning with beer baron Gussie Busch in St. Louis. Yogi Berra was likely to meet with general manager Ralph Houk in New York. Neither manager has been signed yet for next season.
Keane was almost fired in August. He is in the driver’s seat now. There is some thought that he might tell Busch to soak his offer in a vat of Busch Bavarian. But Keane has been in the organization for 35 years and likes the job he has.
Berra was likely to be offered a new contract; he was likely to accept.
Berra visited the Cardinal clubhouse. When he returned to the Yankee clubhouse, he had champagne over the front of his uniform and confetti in his hair. He said he didn’t miss drinking the champagne. “I don’t like it,” he said.
In the Cardinal clubhouse, friends tried to rush catcher Tim McCarver into dressing, but he rebelled. “I’m staying in my uniform all night,” he said. “I’m never going home.”
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