Oct.
5, 1963 - Those incredible Dodgers moved to within one stride of nailing down the World Series today as they brought down the proud Yankees for the third straight time before a roaring crowd of 55,912, the largest attendance ever in Dodger Stadium.
With Don Drysdale outpitching the Yanks’ youthful Jim Bouton in a gripping duel, Walter Alston’s National League champions won this one, 1-0.
This gave the Dodgers a 3-0 lead in games.
They could wrap up the Series tomorrow behind the pitching of the brilliant Sandy Koufax, who set a Series record of 15 strikeouts in last Wednesday’s opener in New York.
Whitey Ford is the last hope of Ralph Houk’s reeling Yanks to escape a four-game sweep.
Never in the history of World Series play have the Yankees lost in four games.
Three singles were all the towering, right-handed Drysdale allowed the Yankees.
The 24-year-old Bouton, making his first Series appearance, yielded only four hits, all singles.
Two tough breaks in the first inning sealed Bouton’s downfall.
A walk, a wild pitch, and a sharp grounder that took a bad hop for a hit just as the Yankee second baseman, Bobby Richardson, was set to field it produced the run that decided the issue.
However, it took some tremendous pitching by Drysdale to make that run stand up.
He struck out nine men in doing so.
Big Don was the man of the hour as he relived his biggest moment for the benefit of hundreds of reporters.
“I don’t know if this was the best I’ve ever pitched,” he grinned, “but I had real good stuff and I was able to put almost every pitch right where I wanted it to go.
These Yankees are tremendous.
I have a lot of respect for them, and I knew I would have to be good — and lucky.
Those left-handed hitters are tough.
I wasn’t sure about that last ball [Joe Pepitone’s fly that ended the game].
I didn’t know how far it was going to go when he hit it.
Then I saw Ronnie getting under it by the fence, and I knew it wasn’t going out.” The 360-foot drive was easily the longest of the day for the Yankees.
Alston said he would have neither Drysdale or Podres in the bullpen for the possible clincher.
“We’ll have Perranoski and Miller there.
I believe it’s Houk who will have to have his entire staff ready.” Podres echoed the club’s feeling when he said: “I’ll be happy if I don’t have to pitch again.
I’d like to make other plans for Monday.”
