Blast From the Past: Memories of the 1965 World Series

I first became aware of Major League Baseball during the 1965 season at the age of 9.  I listened to a handful of Giants games on the radio and listened to a lot of conversation about the pennant race between the Giants and Dodgers.  There was also a lot of talk about the awesomeness of Sandy Koufax, how hard he threw, the arthritis in his elbow, his general unbeatableness.  Naturally I was disappointed that the Giants had lost out in the Pennant race and was intrigued by a team that seemed to have come out of nowhere, the Minnesota Twins.  I barely even knew that the state of Minnesota existed and first learned about the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Back in those days, the standard pitching rotation was just 4 deep and pitchers typically started every 4'th game and were expected to pitch complete games as long as they were winning.  That meant that in the World Series with it's travel days, teams could start their ace pitcher in games 1, 4 and 7 and still have him on his normal schedule of 3 days rest.  A team with a pitcher like Sandy Koufax seemed unbeatable in that scenario.

The Dodgers had Koufax and Drysdale and not a whole lot else.  Their offense basically consisted of Maury Wills getting on base, stealing a lot of bases and scoring a run or 2 per game on things like groundouts and sac flies.  The Twins were a more balanced team with young starters Jim "Mudcat" Grant and lefty Jim Kaat.  They also had a much more potent lineup with AL batting champ Tony Oliva, slugger Harmon Killebrew and AL MVP Zoilo Versalles who had hit 18 HR's as a SS but also committed 39 errors.  It seemed like nobody in our community had ever heard of these Twins players, though.  It was all Koufax and Drysdale and how the Dodgers had beaten the Giants in the pennant race.

I remember being pleasantly surprised when the Twins dominated the first two games in Minnesota and jumped out to a 2 games to 0 lead in the series.  I remember Koufax creating a stir when he refused to pitch the opener because it fell on Yom Kippur.  The Twins lineup battered Drysdale and Grant pitched well for an 8-2 Twins win in the opener.  Then came the real shocker!  In game 2, Jim Kaat outpitched Sandy Koufax and the Twins won game two 5-1.  Hmm... maybe the arthritis had finally gotten to Koufax?  Maybe the young Jim Kaat was the next Sandy Koufax!  Suddenly it was the Twins who were looking unbeatable.

The series moved to LA where Claude Osteen, the forgotten man in the Dodgers rotation was going to try to stave off a third Twins victory and an almost certain Dodgers series defeat.  Well, the forgotten guy went out and pitched a complete game shutout as the Dodgers won game three 4-0.  Grant and Drysdale squared off in game 4 for a redo of Game 1 and this time it was the Dodgers who won easily 7-2.  The series was now evened up.  Koufax and Kaat reprised game 2 with Koufax easily winning 7-0.  So far, the home team had won every game and the series went back to Minnesota for the final two games with the Twins needing to win both to win the series.

The now desperate Twins sent Mudcat Grant out on 2 days rest to face the guy who turned the series around for the Dodgers, Claude Osteen.  Bob Allison hit a 2 run HR early while Grant pitched great and the Twins easily won Game six 5-1 with Grant going all the way on the aforementioned 2 days rest.

For game 7, the Twins sent out Jim Kaat, again on just 2 days rest while the Dodgers countered with Koufax on 2 days rest.  Dodger manager Walter Alston announced his decision to go with Koufax during a tense pregame meeting.   Sweet Lou Johnson, a career minor leaguer who was filling in for the injured Tommy Davis told Koufax he would get him a lead and made good on it with a solo HR in the 4'th.  The Dodgers added another run in the same inning.  Kaat was pulled from the game and the Twins bullpen shut down the Dodgers the rest of the way.  Koufax, on the other hand, pitched a complete game 3 hit shutout while striking out 10 Twins for the second time in the series giving the Dodgers the 4 games to 3 World Series victory.

Of the 14 starts in the series, 4 pitchers, Grant, Kaat, Drysdale and Koufax started 11 of them.  3 of the starts came on 2 days rest.  All 7 winning pitchers threw complete games, the only time that has happened since something like 1913.  It will, obviously, likely never happen again.

This early experience in my baseball fandom taught me some important lessons about the World Series:

1.  Teams that get to the World Series are good and you can't ever count them out until one of them wins 4 games.

2.  Good pitching trumps good hitting.

3.  World Series leads do not mean much until a home team loses.

There have been way too many World Series since then to remember them all.  I'm pretty sure not many have actually played out like the 1965 World Series, but first impressions and experiences are hard to shake.