The 1958 Yankees- Revenge with a "Bullet"

Bob Turley Does in the Braves

Ford pitched well in the first game for the 1958 Yankees, but Warren Spahn of Milwaukee was just as good. The game was tied at 3-3 in the tenth, with Ford long gone but Spahn still on the hill. The 1958 Yankees had their premier reliever, Ryne Duren, going into his third inning of work. Duren, who possessed a wicked fastball that he sometimes could not control, had struck out over a batter an inning during the year for the 1958 Yankees, saving twenty games. Spahn had given up his runs on homers by ex-Marine Hank Bauer and Bill "Moose" Skowron. The Braves led off the tenth against the 1958 Yankees with an Aaron strikeout, but sandwiched a pair of singles around a fly out. Pinch hitter Bill Bruton then singled in Joe Adcock with the game winner, putting the 1958 Yankees into a 1-0 Series hole.

The hole became a crater for the 1958 Yankees the next day when Bob Turley failed to get out of the first inning. He gave up a homer to Bruton, and Stengal pulled him after he had given up three hits and a walk to the first five batters. Duke Maas, who had been 7-3 for the 1958 Yankees, then proceeded to make the move look really bad when he gave up a three run homer to the opposing pitcher, Lew Burdette, who now must have looked like Superman to New York. Maas didn't make it out of the first either, and when the dust cleared, Milwaukee had beaten the 1958 Yankees 13-5, whose only bright spot was Mantle's two homers off of the Braves' starter, who had pitched yet another complete game against New York.

Don Larsen is famous for his perfect game in the 1956 World Series; perfection being a hard act to follow, his performance in Game Three for the 1958 Yankees is all but forgotten. Larsen pitched shutout ball for seven innings, allowing six hits, and when Hank Bauer knocked in all four runs with a single and his third homer of the Series, Duren came in to finish the blanking of Milwaukee. The 1958 Yankees had managed only four hits off of Bob Rush and Don McMahon, three of them by the always tough Bauer. Hank was known for his play in the Fall Classic; depending on the Series shares to supplement his income, he would often warn rookies that came aboard the team to play heads up ball by telling them, "Don't @*&# with my money!"
Over 71,000 fans turned out the next day to watch Warren Spahn mow down the 1958 Yankees with a two-hitter. The future Hall of Famer, who would win 363 games in a 21 year career, showed why he would be enshrined in Cooperstown one day, giving up only a triple to Mantle and a single to Skowron. Spahn, who played for Casey Stengal as a member of the Boston Braves when he began his career, and as a Met when he ended it, once joked that "I played for Casey before and after he was a genius." Stengal and the 1958 Yankees looked like they were finished, as no team had come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Series since the 1925 Pirates. However, "Bullet" Bob Turley and Stengal had other ideas.