Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 349

swept in four games for the first time in franchise history. In Game 1, Mantle struck out twice against Cy Young Award winner and National League MVP Sandy Koufax, who finished with a record setting 15 strikeouts in a World Series game. In Game 4, Mantle hit a home run off Koufax to tie Babe Ruth's record of 15 in the World Series. However, with the tying run on base in the ninth inning, Mantle struck out against Koufax for the third time. He finished the series 1 for 15 with five strikeouts.

In 1964, Mantle hit .303 with 35 home runs and 111 RBIs, and played center field in the All-Star game. He again finished in

second place in the MVP voting. The Yankees faced the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1964 World Series. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 3, Mantle hit a walk off home run into the right field stands at Yankee Stadium to win the game for his team by a score of 2–1. This was his 16th home run in the World Series,

breaking Ruth's record of 15. He hit two more home runs in the series to set a new record of 18, including an opposite field shot off Cardinals star Bob Gibson in St. Louis, and hit .333 with 8 RBIs overall. Despite Mantle's performance, the Cardinals won the World Series in seven games behind Gibson's overall excellent pitching.

On April 9, 1965, the Houston Astros and the Yankees played an exhibition game to inaugurate the Astrodome, the world's first