Baseball Stew: Flashing back to the 1954 World Series

The 2014 San Francisco Giants are on a mission to stop a Kansas City Royals team that was on a wild postseason roll, winning its first eight contests – the first time that feat had ever been accomplished. Sixty years ago, the New York Giants had an even more difficult task. They figuratively had to serve as the braking system perched at the end of the railroad track in a depot, the kind that is designed to stop runaway trains.

Willie Mays and company did the improbable, though, as they put a halt to the ’54 Cleveland express, terminating a season long, non-stop Indians journey, a trip with a world championship title as its original destination.

The Cleveland Indians sailed along on a high-speed rail, racking up an incredible 111-43 record, eight games ahead of the dynastic New York Yankees – the highest win total in American League history at that point. Cleveland’s run allowed them to eclipse the former record of 110 AL wins set by the Murderers’ Row 1927 Yankees.

Currently, the 2001 Seattle Mariners hold the distinction of chalking up the most single-season victories, having won 116 contests during a season featuring a schedule eight games longer than what Cleveland had played. It should also be noted that the Indians’ 1954 win-loss percentage of .721 remains the apex for American League play to this day.

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Meanwhile, the Giants went 97-57 on the regular season and would soon raise their win total to 101 after they managed to sweep the juggernaut Indians. Just how did they accomplish that?

Start with holding the Cleveland hitters in check.

Second baseman Bobby Avila had won the batting title with his .341 average. He could muster only a 2-for-15 Series showing (.133). Larry Doby was coming off a season of 32 home runs and 126 runs driven in. In the World Series, he had two harmless base hits. Al Rosen, the 1954 MVP, drove in just one run while hitting .250. Together the normally ominous one-two punch of Doby and Rosen went 5-for-28, with all five hits being singles. The only Indian in the regular lineup who topped .250 was Vic Wertz (8-for-16), a man whose hitting feats were quickly forgotten. Now, all that people recall about Wertz is he was the man who launched the deep (estimated at 425-feet) drive which Mays miraculously hauled in during the opening game of the Series. You know, the catch.

In all, the Indians scored just nine runs over the four games while hitting an anemic .190. During the regular season they averaged close to five runs scored per game and hit .262 as a club.

In the meantime, the Giants’ attack began in earnest with a three-run explosion in the tenth inning of Game 1, giving them a 5-2 decision. It was an up-till-then obscure Dusty Rhodes who provided the lethal punch with his three-run pinch-hit shot against Bob Lemon; a home run that really wasn’t much more than a mere pop up, traveling around 270 feet.

The next day, New York put up a two spot in the fifth and an insurance run in the seventh to take a 3-1 game and a two game lead in the series. For the second day in a row, Cleveland left 13 men on base. Meanwhile, Rhodes again came through— first with a single to drive home two runs in the fifth, then again when he connected two innings later with a home run off Early Wynn in the Polo Grounds, a park which featured a ridiculously short porch down both lines.

Cleveland Stadium was the venue for the next two contests, and the games would draw 71,555 and 78,102 disappointed fans, respectively. On Oct. 1, a three-run third inning was really all the Giants needed to win— Cleveland would score a run in the seventh and eighth, but, outhit 10-to-4, they fell, 6-2. For the third consecutive game, Rhodes contributed, this time with yet another important pinch hit, his third in as many days—a bases loaded, two-run single off Mike Garcia.

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The finale was another fairly easy win. Cleveland did come up with a blast by a man who was a very unlikely one to connect, Hank Majeski. The 37-year-old third baseman had hit just three home runs all year, and he’d end his 13-year career with just 57 long-balls. His blow marked the fifth and final home run in a Series which was virtually devoid of slugging (and running— there was just one stolen base, by Mays, throughout the sweep). The Indians, nearly a 2-to-1 favorite going into the Series, would not play in the Fall Classic again until 1995.

Clearly, the 27-year-old Rhodes, frequently used as a pinch-hitter in 1954, was the Giants secret weapon. During the season he played in just 82 games, hit 15 homers, drove in 50 runs (both fine stats for a man who had just 164 at-bats all year long), and he put up a .341 batting average. Maybe he wasn’t such a secret weapon after all. In the four games he went a scorching 4-for-6, with the Giants’ only two homers and seven RBIs, four more than the output of the next most productive player on either squad. His slugging percentage was off the charts at 1.667 and his OPS stood at an incredible 2.381.

Other top performers included Al Dark (.412 batting average), Don Mueller (.389), and Hank Thompson (.364). For the record, Mays, then just 23-years-old, hit .286 with four runs and three RBI. He would be named the NL MVP thanks to his league-leading 13 triples, his 41 homers and 110 RBI, and for his lofty league-leading totals for batting (.345), slugging (.667), and OPS (.667).

On the pitching side of the ledger, Johnny Antonelli won his only start and baffled batters to the tune of an 0.84 ERA over 10 2/3 innings. Other victories went to Ruben Gomez (2.45), Marv Grissom (0.00 over just 2 2/3 innings) and Don Liddle, the pitcher who served up the pitch which Wertz crushed and Mays somehow corralled. Anyone who has seen that catch understands why someone once said Mays’ glove was “where triples go to die.” The only other Giants to pitch in the Series were Sal Maglie (2.57) and Hoyt Wilhelm (0.00 in 2 1/3 IP).

No matter what the Giants have or ever will accomplish (in 2014 or beyond), their stunning upset of the mighty Indians in a World Series studded with future Hall of Famers on both sides will remain one of their greatest feats of all-time.

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