0.721 by Gary Webster

Author:Gary Webster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2013-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

The White Sox topped Boston, 6–4, to reduce their first place deficit to one game. The Yankees were three back. In his notes column of June 25, Jones pointed out that New York was having no problems winning games against the league’s first division, having compiled a record of 21–11 versus the Indians, White Sox and Tigers (whose record had dropped below the .500 mark.) The Indians, meanwhile, had lost 13 of the 24 games they’d played against the same three teams.

Following their victory over the Indians, the Yankees were established by Las Vegas odds makers as 7–5 favorites to win their sixth straight pennant. Odds on the Indians were 5–2, and 3–1 on the White Sox. In the National League, the Giants were 7–5 favorites to dethrone their bitter rivals, the Dodgers, as pennant winners.

The Yankees torched Tribe pitching for 11 more runs in the second game of the series, sending Wynn to the showers and erasing a 4–2 deficit with a four-run fourth inning. Cleveland enjoyed more success than usual against Lopat, driving him from the game with two outs in the fifth inning after scoring four times on eight hits, but the Tribe bullpen couldn’t contain the rampaging New York bats. Smith’s three-run seventh inning homer off Bob Grim sliced the Yankees’ lead to 9–8, but that was as close as the Indians could come. Sain relieved Grim and held the Tribe in check the rest of the way, allowing a harmless ninth-inning run that made the final score 11–9, sending 46,192 patrons home both unhappy and concerned that the Indians were about to be overtaken by the dreaded Bronx Bombers yet again. The loss shaved Cleveland’s lead over New York to two games. The White Sox lost to Boston and missed an opportunity to forge a tie for first place.

The final game, with a paid attendance of 47,782, began less than promisingly for the home team. Lemon had to leave the game after pulling a muscle while popping up a Whitey Ford pitch in the second inning. Lopez called on Newhouser, who pitched four scoreless innings before tiring and allowing single runs in the seventh and eighth. By that time, Wally Westlake’s sixth inning two-run homer had broken a 1–1 tie and given the Indians a lead they didn’t relinquish. Six-innings, was Newhouser’s longest outing of the season, and he told Lopez he was out of gas after the Yankees closed to within 4–3 in the eighth. Lopez sent Garcia to the mound in the ninth. Garcia closed it out and the Indians had salvaged one game.

“Afternoons like this make me glad I stuck with baseball,” Newhouser said in the Tribe clubhouse after notching his third win in four decisions. “I didn’t have much on the ball and had to be very careful where I put it. That’s why I was behind the batters so much.”28

The Indians’ lead over the Yankees grew to three games. They picked up a half-game on Chicago, which split a doubleheader with the cellar-dwelling Red Sox.

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