July 14, 1964 - The word is that this New York-Baltimore series is “uncrucial.” Yankee manager Yogi Berri said it; Oriole manager Hank Bauer agreed.
But even if it is too early in the season to label a series “crucial,” it would seem that any game in which Mickey Mantle almost chokes on his bubble gum might be rated at least “big.”
It occurred as Mantle was scoring the winning run in the Yankees’ 4-3 victory over the Orioles before 38,102 paying customers at Yankee Stadium today. In the eighth inning, Mantle had blooped a single off Stu Miller. Mangle advanced to second on Roger Maris’ groundout. Then Tom Tresh came up with another bloop single, and this is when Mantle almost “choked” coming home.
Actually, he was beaned. Right fielder Gino Cimoli’s high throw to the plate hit Mantle right on top of the head.
“It glanced off and didn’t hurt, but I swallowed my gum,” Mantle recalled with a laugh. “I coughed it up, and the guys on the bench thought I was coughing up teeth. If the ball was a little lower, I would have been out cold.”
And if the ball had been on line, Mantle would have been out at the plate and the Yankees might not be just half a game back of the league-leading Orioles in the American League standings.
“Yeah, I would have been out all right,” Mantle agreed. “Stu Miller pulled one of the smartest plays I’ve seen. In fact, I’ve never seen it before. He just trotted in front of me when I was coming home, and I just automatically held up. He’s a smart guy. I should have run him down, and it would have been interference, but the natural thing to do was avoid him. I’ve been playing around here 14 years, and I have never seen that. Smart.”
It was Mantle’s night for near misses. In the fourth, he and Tresh brushed shoulders chasing Sam Bowen’s double to left-center.
“He runs around 200 and I go 190,” Tresh said. “If we’d collided, there would have been an awful lot of meat in the outfield.”
“It was one of those balls neither of us could have called for because neither really knew if he could get to it,” Mantle observed. “I had it right in my pocket, but it popped out.”
Tresh had a portion of his glove on it too.
“It nicked my glove and may have thrown the ball off for Mickey,” he said. “We both were so shook up about nearly hitting we didn’t even talk about it. In fact, we didn’t talk at all for a couple of innings.”
But the Yankees were talking after the victory. Baltimore, which has been in first place 23 straight days now, needs a victory either tomorrow or Thursday night to leave New York still on top.
“You can tell our guys is up,” Berra said. “They all were on that top step of the dugout in the last inning. Even Mickey after I’d pulled him. We know we’ve got plenty of times, but those are big games all right.”
Uncrucial — but big.
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