Curve ball, 3 & 2, guard the plate. Ball -- high -- starts to break. I start swinging - Ball doesn't stop -- keeps curving -- I try now to hold up -- too late -- ump calls me out -- but as I realize what the ball is doing (believe me) I say to myself, maybe Mickey is having trouble, and I look back and there goes the ball. I reach first easily & our power hitters take over. Final 7-4, series 3-1 instead of 2-2. We win WS next day 3-2.
The year was 1941 and the Yankees were playing the Dodgers in the first of what would become seven World Series meetings between the cross-town rivals. The teams exchanged 3-2 victories at Yankee Stadium, with the Yankees winning the first. Following a day off, the series moved to Ebbets Field for the next three games.
The Yankees won Game 3 by a score of 2-1 behind the four hit pitching of Marius Russo, but the Dodgers were leading Game 4 by a single run with two outs in the Yankees half of the ninth inning when Henrich came to the plate and by striking out, started the rally that led to a 7-4 Yankees victory. The World Series ended the next day when the Yankees beat the Dodgers, 3-1.
Tommy Henrich may be best known for his strikeout in the 1941 World Series, but he had a magnificent career and is considered one of the best clutch hitters of all time. The 1949 World Series once more matched the Yankees and Dodgers, and Henrich would again became a hero, but not by striking out.
Game 1 was in Yankee Stadium with Yankees right hander Allie Reynolds, who had won 17 games while losing only 6, facing Dodgers ace right hander Don Newcombe, who had also won 17 and lost 8. The game was scoreless going to the bottom of the ninth inning. Reynolds struck out nine, walked four, and allowed only two hits. In his eight innings of pitching, Newcombe more than matched the Yankees “Superchief” by striking out eleven, did not issue a base on balls, and allowed only four hits. The fifth hit would do him in.
Tommy Henrich led off the bottom of the ninth with a game winning home run. Don Newcombe would never win a World Series game.
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