Who's a Bum? For Once, the Yanks

October 4, 1955
By LISA SWAN

Given that the rivalry has been dormant for decades, it’s hard to remember just how heated the Yankees-Dodgers rivalry once was. The New York Yankees-Brooklyn Dodgers rivalry had the intensity of Yankees-Red Sox, with the proximity of Yankees-Mets. And it had two teams who faced each other in the World Championship five times in nine years, and whose fan bases despised each other.

But until 1955, it was a one-sided rivalry as far as games won on the field, kind of like the way the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry was before 2004.

As the clichés went, the Yankees were U.S. Steel, while the Dodgers were Dem Bums. But that’s not the half of it. The Bombers rattled off five World Championships in a row, from 1949 to 1953. They were so dominant, it took the Cleveland Indians winning 111 games in 1954 to prevent them from winning the pennant that year.

After decades of bringing up the rear, the Dodgers had a very good team, but they weren’t the Yanks. Prior to 1955, Brooklyn had made it to the World Series seven times, and had been defeated each time. And it wasn’t just that they lost each time – they lost to the mighty Yankees in five of those times.  Their Subway Series losses in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953 left Dodgers fans with nothing but the infamous "wait ‘til next year" epithet.

And 1955 looked to be more of the same, when the two teams faced each other in the Fall Classic for the sixth time. The Yankees were expected to win the World Series every year. The players expected it, their ownership expected it, and their fans expected it.

It was similar to the way the Yankees were expected to win the 2000 World Series against the Mets. After all, the Yanks had defeated the Dodgers four times since 1947. Nobody expected the Dodgers to have a chance – nobody, that is, except maybe the Dodgers themselves.

In October 1955, the Yanks won the first two games in the World Series against the Dodgers and seemed assured of another ring, since no other team had ever come back from an 0-2 deficit to win a baseball world championship.

But that year was different. When the series went to Ebbets Field, the Dodgers won all three games on their home turf, stunning the Yanks.

Brooklyn had the chance to win the series in Game 6 at Yankee Stadium, but the Yanks, behind Whitey Ford's great pitching performance, won that game to even up the series, and set up a dramatic Game 7.

But Brooklyn’s Game 3 winner Johnny Podres was even better in Game 7, and completely shut down the Yankee bats. The only time the Bombers really threatened to take the lead was the sixth inning, when the Yanks had runners on first and second with nobody out, and Yogi Berra at the plate. Yankee fans at the Stadium thought that Yogi would save the day, and the series.

But Dodgers’ defensive replacement Sandy Amoros made an incredible game-saving catch in left field to rob Berra of a line drive and double up Gil McDougald at first to end the rally.

Podres later recounted the play. “When Yogi hit the ball, I thought it would be an easy out to left. But when I looked up the ball was slicing toward the foul line. Amoros was on his horse. He had been playing Yogi to pull.”

“I kept my eyes on the ball…never looked anywhere else,” Amoros told reporters that day. “It stayed up just long enough to fall into my glove like this.”

The Dodgers held on to win the game, and the series. The Yankees didn’t really make any boneheaded decisions or plays in the series. But they still lost, in seven games. To the Dodgers. And that was hard to take.

On the other hand, Dodger fans were positively jubilant. Former Daily News writer Pete Hamill described that day for Brooklyn fans as being "a combination of the Liberation of Paris, V-J Day, and New Years Eve as car horns blared, trolley cars ding-dinged their bells, church bells rang, pots were beaten outside fire escape windows, kids and grown-ups leaped with joy and exultation. Next year! It was true. This was Next Year! The Dodgers beat the script. No: they wrote a new one."

The Yankees were stunned by the loss. Yankee president Dan Topping said to manager Casey Stengel, “Well, Case, it looks like we’ll have to learn how the other half lives for a while.”

When asked that day whether he thought the Dodgers should win, Stengel told a reporter, “Put it this way, son. I don’t think the Yankees oughtta ever lose.”

And Yankee fans lost bragging rights – at least temporarily. Much like how Red Sox fans considered 2004 evening the two teams on the ledger, Dodger fans considered 1955 payback for all the times the Yanks had bested their team.

But those bragging rights were short-lived for Brooklyn fans. The Yankees faced the Dodgers again in the 1956 World Series, and beat them, capped with a perfect game by Don Larsen.

One year later, Brooklyn packed up to Los Angeles, breaking the hearts of millions of fans. Although the Los Angeles Dodgers would go on to win five World Series (two of them against the Yankees), 1955 would remain as the only world championship ever won by the Brooklyn Dodgers.