The Braves were in charge of the Series and knew it. They were defending World Champions and their most effective pitcher, whom the Yankees had yet to beat, would be on the mound. The Yankees’ chances seemed to be slim and none, but as Yogi Berra once said, “In baseball, you don't know nothin’.”
The game started innocently enough with neither team scoring in the first two innings. The Braves failed in the top of the third, but Gil McDougald hit a drive off the left field foul pole in the bottom of the third to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. It was still 1-0 in the sixth inning when one play turned the game and Series around.
With one out and the speedy Billy Bruton on first base for the Braves, Red Schoendienst hit a looping line drive into left field that seemed to be a certain hit. Bruton had been off with pitch and was near second base when the slow footed but sure handed Elston Howard lunged, caught the ball off the top of his shoes, and fired to first base to double up Bruton.
The Braves rally was quashed and the score remained 1-0. In the bottom of the sixth the Yankees finally got to Burdette and scored six runs to wrap up the game. They would be going back to Milwaukee, where they would win a gut wrenching, 10 inning Game Six and an equally tension-filled Game Seven in which the aforementioned Mr. Howard would knock in Yogi Berra with the game winning run in the eighth inning.
Yogi Berra makes complicated things simple. Elston Howard was playing left field that day because Yogi was the Yankees’ regular catcher and manager Casey Stengel wanted Howard’s bat in the lineup. Yogi made a hero out of Elston Howard because his presence forced Howard to play left field and not catch. Of course that is simplistic, but that is the way it happened.
