Yanks Take Rubber Match against Red Sox

May 20, 1965 - It isn’t often the Yankees take the deciding game of a series any more. It happened today, 6-3, over the Red Sox. It isn’t often Mel Stottlemyre’s wife has a son the day he pitches either. “I don’t have that many kids,” the winning pitcher said while passing out cigars reading: “It’s A Boy.”

The cigar industry was enjoying a boom in the Yankee clubhouse. Pedro Ramos, who made two pitches to save Stottlemyre’s fourth victory, was also passing out cigars. The label on his read: “Ralph Houk.”“A big baby,” Ramos joked.

Joe Pepitone and Tom Tresh puffed with more relish than anybody else. Home runs will do that to smokers. The victory didn’t bother manager Johnny Keane either, a little man who kept to his own brand of little cigar.

Stottlemyre posed with his cigar and said, “I was lucky to be in there today after the fourth inning.”

He was hit hard, giving up 11 hits and four walks and needing outstanding defensive plays by Pepitone and Clete Boyer before leaving with Red Sox on first and second and one out in the ninth. “I was very tired then,” he said. “I made more pitches (140) than I’ve ever made in a major league game. I’m tired now — but very happy.”

As Keane smoked his little cigar, he was looking ahead at the schedule and realizing there is a lot of catching up to be done. “I’m encouraged by the hitting,” the manager said. “A couple hit the ball real plus.”

Pepitone hit the ball hard all four times. The big one was a two-run homer in the third after Mickey Mantle doubled. Then Pepitone went out to right field for the fourth inning and misplayed Rico Petrocelli’s liner into a double.

“You should have heard those people out there,” Pepitone said. “They had been cheering me when I come out. Now, they switch to booing. I had one guy on my side. He crumpled a guy’s hat over his face and said, ‘Ah, let up, he ain’t Maris.’”

Stottlemyre was sure it was the kind of day he would tell 13-hour-old Todd Vernon about in the future. “You bet your life,” the pitcher said. 

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