Three Homers Save Yankees as Series Goes Seven Games

Oct. 14, 1964 - The Yankees marched to the brink of losing their second straight World Series today but were saved by three mighty home runs that defeated the Cardinals in St. Louis, 8-3, and deadlocked the Series at three games apiece.

The home runs were hit by Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle on successive pitches in the sixth inning and by Joe Pepitone with the bases loaded in the eighth. They knocked in six runs, overpowered the Cardinals, and forced the Series into a seventh and deciding game to be played at Busch Stadium at 2 p.m. EST.

The opposing pitchers will be two right-handers who played leading roles in their teams’ dramatic drives to pennants during the final five weeks of the season: Bob Gibson and Mel Stottlemyre.

The Cards jumped off to a 1-0 lead today and seemed to have their first championship in 18 years within their grasp. Then a stirring pitchers’ duel between Jim Bouton and Curt Simmons suddenly came undone before an excited, awed crowd of 30,805.

First, Bouton gave himself a reprieve with two out in the fifth and Tom Tresh on third base — he lined a single to left that tied the game. One inning later, the Yankee power was unleashed on two consecutive swings of the bat, and the complexion of the game and the Series abruptly changed.

Maris struck the first blow with one out in the sixth and the bases empty. On a 2-2 count, Simmons threw a pitch that had been stifling the Yanks all afternoon — a slow curveball — and Maris knocked it high and deep down the right-field line, close to the foul pole and over the roof. That made it 2-1.

Simmons then threw a fastball to Mantle, who bombed it even farther — a towering drive to right-center field that landed on the grandstand roof and wedged in a protective screen at the base of a light tower.

It was only the fourth time in World Series play that two players had hit consecutive home runs, and it was the first since 1932, when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig did it against the Cubs.

In the top of the eighth, the Yankees produced the biggest inning by either team in the Series — five runs on three hits and two walks. The big drive was Pepitone’s grand slam, driven onto the roof in right-center, as this gave the Yanks an 8-1 lead.

It was Pepitone’s first home run in a World Series, the second grand slam in four days in this Series, and the 10th in Series history. Ken Boyer broke up Sunday’s game with a grand slam in Yankee Stadium, and Pepitone’s put today’s game beyond the reach of Cardinal rallies in the last two innings.

After the game, Stan Musial, the Cardinal great and now a club vice president, walked into the quiet St. Louis dressing room.

“All good things are worth waiting for,” he told his ex-teammates. “Winning the seventh game of the Series will be a sweet victory.”

“I said at the start of this Series that it could go down to the wire just like the 1960 Series when I was with Pittsburgh,” said Dick Groat, the Cardinal shortstop. “It looks like I may be right. I think it’ll have about the same result.”

The Pirates beat the Yanks in that one.

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