Oct. 15, 1964 - The St. Louis Cardinals completed their dramatic climb to baseball’s pinnacle today when they defeated the New York Yankees, 7-5, and captured the 1964 World Series.
They won it in the seventh and final game before a roaring crowd of 30,346 persons in Busch Stadium after they had won the National League pennant in the final game of the regular season. And they won it in the same way — behind the fastball pitching of 28-year-old Bob Gibson, who struck out nine Yankees and survived three late home runs that knocked in all the Yankees’ runs.
Five Yankee pitchers struggled to withstand the Cardinals. But the Redbirds scored three runs in the fourth inning, three in the fifth, and one in the seventh to bring St. Louis its first championship in 18 years and send the Yankees to their second straight loss of the World Series.
The Yankees had not lost two years in a row since 1921 and 1922, the first two times they played in the World Series. Since then, they had appeared in 25 Series in 40 years and won 20 of them. The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated them in four games last year.
Today, the Bronx Bombers threatened until the last out to overpower the Cardinals in the winner-take-all game. Five home runs were struck, two by the Cardinals and three by the Yankees. Two were hit by the Boyer brothers — Ken of the Cards and Clete of the Yanks — while Lou Brock hit one for St. Louis and Mickey Mantle and Phil Linz for New York in the late innings.
But when Gibson got the Yankees’ hitting star of the Series, Bobby Richardson, on a high pop-up to Dal Maxvill at second base in the ninth, the titanic struggle was over.
Busch Stadium erupted into shouting, chanting, singing, bugle-blaring, and fireworks as fans emptied the grandstand and besieged the team that had won the Series after having trailed the Philadelphia Phillies by 7½ games with 15 to play in the National League.
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