October 3, 1946: For the 1st time, one of baseball's two major leagues saw its regular season end with two teams in a tie for 1st place. The Brooklyn Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals each won 96 games and lost 58. There had to be a Playoff for the National League Pennant, a best-2-out-of-3 games series.
There was no such suspense in the American League: The Boston Red Sox went 104-50, and won the American League Pennant, finishing 12 games ahead of the 2nd-place team, the Detroit Tigers.
Game 1 of the Playoff was played at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Howie Schultz hit a home run for the Dodgers, but Terry Moore and a rookie catcher named Joe Garagiola each got 3 hits. Stan Musial, whom Dodger fans had nicknamed "Stan the Man," went 1-for-4, his hit a triple.
Ralph Branca, the 20-year-old pitcher with only a fastball that manager Leo Durocher had chosen as the Dodgers' starter, didn't get out of the 3rd inning. It was his 1st major late-season failure. It would not be his last. On the other side, Howie Pollet went the distance for his 21st win of the season. (In such Playoffs, all statistics count with regular-season stats.) The Cardinals won, 4-2.
Game 2 was played 2 days later, at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Murry Dickson started for the Cards, Joe Hatten for the Dodgers. The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in the 1st inning, but Dickson helped his own cause with a triple, and it was 2-1 St. Louis in the 2nd. The Cards added 2 runs in the 5th, 1 in the 7th, and 1 in the 8th, to lead 8-1.
The Dodgers gave it a shot in the bottom of the 9th, preventing Dickson from finishing the job. The Cards' lead was reduced to 8-4, and the bases were loaded, bringing the tying run to the plate. Cards manager Eddie Dyer brought Harry Brecheen in, and he stopped the bleeding. The Cardinals had won the Pennant, and Game 3 was not necessary. The Cards went on to beat the Red Sox in the World Series.
From 1941 to 1949, Cardinals vs. Dodgers was the best rivalry in the NL. The Dodgers edged the Cards for the Pennant in 1941, the Cards edged the Dodgers in 1942, the Cards won in 1943 and 1944, the Chicago Cubs got past both in 1945, they had this Playoff in 1946, the Dodgers edged the Cards in 1947, the Boston Braves got past both in 1948, and the Dodgers needed to win on the final day to eliminate the Cards in 1949.
By that point, the Dodgers had become the team that desegregated baseball. The Cardinals didn't desegregate until 1954. By 1964, they had enough of a mix of black and white to win their 1st Pennant since 1946. By which point, the Dodgers had been in Los Angeles for 8 years, and had lost 2 more Pennant Playoffs, 1 in Brooklyn, 1 in Los Angeles.
*
October 3, 1946 was a Thursday. Football was in midweek. The NHL season didn't begin until October 16. And the NBA season, the league's 1st, began on November 1. So there were no other scores on this historic day.
No comments:
Post a Comment