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Yanks Top Indians as Ford Gains Third Triumph

May 9, 1964 - Four homers carried the Yankees to their tenth win in the past 13 games today and brought Whitey Ford his third victory. The super southpaw wasn’t able to finish because his shoulder stiffened after six innings. Pete Mikkelsen finished up the 6-2 triumph over the Indians at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

Tony Kubek, Mickey Mantle, Joe Pepitone, and Hector Lopez hit for the circuit against loser Peter Ramos, for a total of 10 home runs in the last five games.

The Yanks and Mantle picked up where they left off last night — slugging. Kubek led off with his first homer, a 370-footer over the right field fence. Then Mick made Tony’s shot look like a bunt with a 430-foot bomb that landed in the far wing of the grandstand in right center. It was his fourth of 1964, and one of the longest he’s ever hit in Cleveland. Last night, Mickey belted a three-run circuit in the first to start the Yanks off to a 10-3 victory that knocked the Indians out of first place.

It became 3-0 in the fifth when Pepitone hit his first homer, a 375-foot drive over the right field fence. That was the Yanks’ ninth in five games since they began to find the range in Washington Wednesday night.

The boom was lowered again in the sixth when Lopez hit over the left field fence after Bobby Richardson singled. That was the third for Hector, who has been doing a whale of a job substituting for the injured Roger Maris.

Maris is unlikely to play on this road trip. He tried to run on his bad left hamstring today with the intention of getting back into action, but it hurt too much. “I can’t start to get a jump on a ball,” he reported, “and I can’t go very fast when I try running in a straight line. And I can’t cut at all.”

Attendance of only 20,000 last night was disappointing, as was today’s handful of 8,106. The Indians drew only 562,507 in 1963, and a repetition of that will mean the end of major league ball in Cleveland, with the Tribe taking off for California, where the city of Oakland is beckoning. In 1949, the Indians drew 556,619 for the 11 games with the Yankees alone.



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