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October 1964

Page 43

by David Halberstam


  Elston Howard, who had played in the Negro leagues for the Kansas City Monarchs, was the first black player to make the Yankees. A thoughtful, careful man, Howard handled with great skill the pressure of being a pioneer in a reluctant organization. He had a good bat and was an excellent receiver, and his pitching staff greatly admired him. In 1963 he became the first black MVP in the American League. Nine out of the previous ten National League MVPs were black. (National Baseball Library, Cooperstown, N.Y.)

  Roger Craig (right) came over from the Mets in an off-season trade and gave the Cardinals a number of critical wins, including a great performance in the fourth game of the Series. Here he is with pitching coach Howie Pollet. (AP/Wide World Photos)

  The two left-handers who were to start the opening game of the Series, Whitey Ford of New York and Ray Sadecki of St. Louis, pose before Game One. Neither finished the game. (UPI/Bettmann)

  Yogi Berra posing with Johnny Keane before the start of the Series. These were the last games for either manager in the uniform he was wearing, despite the fact that each had won a pennant. (The Sporting News)

  The brothers Boyer of Alba, Missouri, pose before the first game: Ken of the Cardinals and his younger brother

  Clete of the Yankees. Both were exceptional fielders, although some observers thought Clete had the edge on the field while Ken was the better hitter. (The Sporting News)

  Lou Brock scores the first run of the World Series. He had singled and then gone from first to third on Dick Groat’s single to right while Mantle did not even try to make a throw. Then he scored when Ken Boyer died out. The play reflected the Cardinals’ more aggressive baserunning and convinced them that they could run on Mantle. (UPI/Bettmann)

  Mike Shannon helps drive White Ford from the mound in the first game with this enormous home run to left field in Busch Stadium. The score is 4—2 New York, and Ken Boyer is at second as Shannon swings. McCarver would follow with a double, and Ford, the winningest pitcher in World Series history, would leave the mound for the last time in a Series. (National Baseball Library, Cooperstown, N. Y.)

  Bill White of the Cardinals (left) poses with Joe Pepitone of the Yankees before the second game. White was one of the steadiest influences on the Cardinals and went on to become the president of the National League; Pepitone, one of the shakiest of the Yankees, squandered most of his talent as the Yankees began to slide. (UPI/Bettmann)

  This is pure power against power. Bob Gibson threw as hard as he could, and his follow-through seemed to carry him to first base. The batter is Roger Maris, who leveraged his body as completely as Gibson did. Here Gibson strikes him out in the first inning of the second game, which was won by the Yankees. (UPI/Bettmann)

  Jim Bouton was a power pitcher, but a relatively small one—he once compared himself to a Volkswagen at the Indy 500. He had to use his entire body on every pitch, but he played well in all three of his World Series starts before his arm finally gave out. Here he pitches in the first of his two wins in the 1964 World Series. (AP/Wide World Photos)

  When Mantle hit a ball, it made a sound distinctly louder and sharper than that made by other hitters. Here is a rare picture of Mantle as he absolutely crunches the knuckleball thrown by Barney Schultz in the third game. A moment earlier Mantle had told Ellie Howard, the on-deck hitter, that he was going to drive Schultz’s knuckler for a home run. (UPI/Bettmann)

  Mickey Mantle trots home after his massive home run off Schultz in the ninth, and a delighted Frank Crosetti follows. Notice that Schultz is almost to the Cardinal dugout by the time Mantle reaches home. (UPI/Bettmann)

  Mickey Mantle poses with winning pitcher Jim Bouton after the Yankees’ 2-1 victory in the third game. Mantle holds up the hall he hit for his home run off Barney Schultz. It was his sixteenth World Series home run, which not only won the game but broke Babe Ruth’s record. The ball may not actually be the one Mantle hit, but a bogus one foisted on him by his pal Whitey Ford.

  (UPI/Bettmann)

  This is the play that helped seal the Yankees’ fate in the fourth game. Bobby Richardson has trouble digging the ball out of his glove and getting it to shortstop Phil Linz (34) in time, and the ball arrives after he crosses the bag. Curt Flood (21) comes in hard on Linz, knocks the ball loose, and the Yankees fail to get a double play or the slow Croat for even one out at first. This brings up Ken Boyer with the bases loaded. (UPI/Bettmann)

  With the bases loaded after the misplay at second, Downing shook Howard off and went to his change; Boyer, swinging on the change here, expected a fastball, but adjusted in midswing for his grand slam. (AP/Wide World Photos)

  Ken Boyer, the National League MVP that year, crosses home plate after his grand-slam home run off Al Downing in the fourth game. Waiting for him are (from left) Curt Flood, Dick Groat, and Carl Warwick, while a disconsolate Ellie Howard looks on. In what was probably the decisive moment of the Series, Boyer has just turned a 3-0 Yankee lead into a 4-3 Cardinal one. (UPI/Bettmann)

  Ken Boyer (left), Tim McCarver, and Mike Shannon all hit home runs in the World Series. Here they pose for photographers before the sixth game.

  (AP/Wide World Photos)

  The look of pain on his face is one that his teammates had become accustomed to and opposing pitchers had begun to recognize: Here in batting practice before the sixth game, Mantle grimaces after a swing. (National Baseball Library, Cooperstown, N.Y.)

  It was one of the last manifestations of the famous Yankee power in a World Series. Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and Joe Pepitone all hit home runs in the sixth game, which evened up the Series, 3-3. (The Sporting News)

  Ken Boyer, the Cardinal third baseman, rushes over to hug Bob Gibson after his gritty performance in the seventh game of the Series. Running out to the mound is catcher Tim McCarver, while fans are already hurdling the fence and coming down onto the field. (National Baseball Library, Cooperstown, N. Y.)

  Yankee manager Yogi Berra congratulates Johnny Keane of the Cardinals in the St. Louis locker room after the seventh game, without realizing that the people he works for have already decided to fire him and replace him with Keane. ( UPI/Bettmann)

  Johnny Keane (right) with Gussie Busch, owner of the Cardinals (center), and Bob Howsam, the team’s general manager, as he announces that he will not accept a contract renewal and a large raise. Keane was furious over the way Busch had fired his close friend Bing Devine, and, besides, he was on his way to manage the Yankees. It was a rare moment when the imperial Busch did not get his way, and it shows on his face. (The Sporting News)

  A Biography of David Halberstam

  David Halberstam (1934–2007) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author. He is best known for both his courageous coverage of the Vietnam War for the New York Times, as well as for his twenty-one nonfiction books—which cover a wide array of topics, from the plight of Detroit and the auto industry to the captivating origins of baseball’s fiercest rivalry. Halberstam wrote for numerous publications throughout his career and, according to journalist George Packer, single-handedly set the standard of “the reporter as fearless truth teller.”

  Born in New York City, Halberstam was the second son of Dr. Charles Halberstam, an army surgeon, and Blanche Levy Halberstam, a schoolteacher. Along with his older brother, Michael, Halberstam was raised in Westchester County and went to school in Yonkers. He attended Harvard University, where he was the managing editor of the Crimson, the student-run newspaper. Dedicated to forging a career in journalism, Halberstam worked with the West Point Daily Times Leader in Mississippi after graduation and at the Nashville Tennessean, where he covered the civil rights movement, a year later. Halberstam joined the Washington bureau of the New York Times in 1960. He worked as a Times foreign correspondent, moving to Congo and then to South Vietnam to cover the war in 1962.

  Throughout Halberstam’s coverage of the Vietnam War, he was committed to reporting what he saw despite intense and continuous political pressure. Halberstam reported on the corrupt nature o
f the American-backed government in Saigon. Unlike many of his colleagues, he refused to report the misinformation that American commanders fed to the press, choosing instead to talk to soldiers and sergeants on the frontlines. His steadfast dedication left President Kennedy so infuriated that he personally asked Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, then-publisher of the New York Times, to replace Halberstam. Sulzberger refused.

  Halberstam won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Vietnam and worked for the Times’ Warsaw bureau after the war. After leaving the Times in the late sixties, Halberstam turned his focus to writing books and magazine articles. He described his books as stories of power—sometimes used wisely, sometimes disastrously. Halberstam quickly established himself with The Best and the Brightest (1972), a blistering, landmark account of America’s role in Vietnam. For each social or political book he published—such as The Powers That Be, The Fifties, and The Children—Halberstam wrote one on sports, one of his favorite subjects. His books were regularly praised for their impeccable detail as well as for their absorbing narrative style.

  Halberstam died in a car accident in Menlo Park, California, in 2007, at the age of seventy-three. He was en route to an interview for an upcoming book about the 1958 National Football League championship game between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts. His obituary in the Guardian hailed him as “one of the most talented, influential and prolific of the American journalists who came of age professionally in the 1960s.”

  Young Halberstam and his typewriter in the Congo in 1960.

  An editorial meeting at the New York Times office, around 1962. Halberstam is at far right; Scotty Reston, who hired Halberstam, is to his right.

  Halberstam, shown second from left, walking with military officers in Vietnam, around 1962.

  Halberstam with Robert F. Kennedy, around 1967.

  Halberstam and his daughter, Julia, at a Fourth of July parade in Nantucket, in 1983.

  Halberstam and his friends James T. Wooten (in the poncho), a New York Times and ABC reporter, along with Richard C. Steadman and Gerry Krovatin in Nevis in the early 1990s.

  Novelist John Burnham Schwartz (Reservation Road) and Halberstam in Nantucket in the mid-1990s.

  Halberstam took an interest in rowing because of his work on The Amateurs, a study of four rowers striving for a place on the US Olympic team, published in 1996.

  Halberstam and friends.

  Halberstam, second from right, on a New York Times panel. Journalist Dexter Filkins (The Forever War) is to his right, discussing the Iraq war. This is one of the last photos of Halberstam before his death in 2007.

  A memorandum written for Halberstam following his fatal car accident in 2007.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  copyright © 1994 by The Amateurs Limited.

  cover design by Angela Goddard

  978-1-4532-8891-7

  This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

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