October 10, 1957: The Milwaukee Braves Win the World Series

Left to right: Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron,

Bob Hazle, Don McMahon and Wes Covington.

October 10, 1957: Game 7 of the World Series. Warren Spahn, the only remaining Brave from the 1948 Boston Pennant winners, is the intended starter for the Milwaukee Braves, but he's got the flu. So manager Fred Haney turns to Lew Burdette on 2 days' rest.

Lew comes through, notching his 3rd win and 2nd shutout of the Series, as the Braves beat the Yankees 5-0. A 4-run 3rd inning does the job, including a double by Eddie Mathews, followed by a single by Hank Aaron. The last out, in front of a stunned 61,207 at Yankee Stadium, is Skowron grounding to Mathews, who steps on 3rd base for a force play.

It was stunning because most people outside the Upper Midwest -- the Braves' "territory" at the time included Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and States that would later belong to the Minnesota Twins, such as Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and even northern Iowa -- didn't give the Braves a chance. Some Yankees had actually called Milwaukee "Bushville" for the way they'd reacted to their team, after having been a minor-league town for half a century.

Many years later, in 2012, John Klima would title his book about the '57 Braves Bushville Wins! The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball. It's a wonder he had room for the actual book.

Burdette, a 30-year-old righthander from West Virginia, is named the Series MVP, having tossed 24 consecutive scoreless innings -- longest in Series play to that point except for Babe Ruth's 29 2/3rds -- and posted a 0.64 ERA in his 3 Fall classic victories. Oh yeah: The losing pitcher in Game 7 was the previous season's Series hero, Don Larsen.

At the time, the Yankees were criticized for having traded Burdette to the Braves in 1951, for All-Star pitcher Johnny Sain. However, Sain helped the Yankees win 3 World Series; the Braves won just 1 with Burdette.

Amazingly, considering how long their careers lasted, this was the only World Championship won by either Aaron or Spahn. But it was the 2nd for Red Schoendienst, Del Rice and Nippy Jones, who had been on the 1946 St. Louis Cardinals. And Mathews would win another, closing his career with the 1968 Detroit Tigers.

This remains the only World Series ever won by a Milwaukee team, 65 years later. Despite all that talent, the Braves lost the Series in 1958, and never got back into the Series until 1991. From 1914 (in Boston) to 1995 (in Atlanta), this was the only World Series they won in a span of 81 years.

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October 10, 1957 was a Thursday. This was the day that Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged was published. I have a separate entry for that event.

I don't know if Rand paid attention to sports. She probably just shrugged at it. She had, she believed, more important things to be concerned with.

Game 7 of the World Series was the only baseball game played. Football was in midweek. The NBA season wouldn't start for another 12 days.

There were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-1 at the Montreal Forum. The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins were not scheduled.