Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 131

in sole possession of first place since the third game of the season. The Red Sox took the lead the following day with a comeback win in a makeup game, as Stengel lost his temper at the umpire for the first time in Yankee uniform. Although he was not ejected, he was fined by the league.

The season came down to a two game set with the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium, with the home team one game behind and needing to win both. Stengel, during the 1949 season, had shown himself more apt than his peers to bring in a relief pitcher, and when during the first game, starter Allie Reynolds gave up the first

two runs in the third inning, the manager brought in Joe Page. Though Page walked in two more runs, he shut out the Red Sox the rest of the way as the Yankees came back to win, 5–4. This set up a winner-take-all game for the league title. The Yankees took a 5–0 lead before Boston scored three in the ninth, but Vic

Raschi was able to prevent further damage, giving the Yankees the pennant, Stengel's first as a major league manager.

In the 1949 World Series, Stengel's first as a participant since 1923, the Yankees faced the Brooklyn Dodgers, who were assembling the team that would challenge the Yankees through much of his time in New York. The teams split the first two

games, at Yankee Stadium. Before Game 3 at Ebbets Field, Stengel was called upon to introduce his surviving teammates from the