Customer Reviews

1950 World Series - New York vs Philadelphia [VHS]

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The Philadelphia Phillies were the unlucky team that became the victim for the New York Yankees when the Bronx Bombers won their 13th World Series in 1950. Even though the "Whiz Kids" were swept in four straight baseball history would show they were confronting a Yankee juggernaut that was winning the second of an unprecedented five consecutive world titles under Casey Stengel. To be fair, the Phillies had given their all in the stretch drive to win the National League title with 20-game winner Robin Roberts pitching three times in the last five days of the season, which meant manager Eddie Sawyer could not use his ace in Game 1. To add insult to the injuries suffered by their pitching staff, the Phillies had lost 17 game winner Curt Simmons to the Army. Which explained why Jim Konstanty, who had not made a single start during the season but still won 16 games, was named the starting pitcher for the Series opener. The choice was brilliant, because Konstanty gave up only four hits and one run in eight innings (Bobby Brown hit a double and scored after two sacrifice flies). Unfortunately, Vic Raschi gave up only two hits in pitching a shutout. This set the tone for the series, which became the most competitive sweep in World Series history.

Roberts and Allie "Big Chief" Reynolds dueled in Game 2 to a 1-1 tie at the end of nine before Joe DiMaggio lead off the 10th with a homerun. Game 3 saw Ken Heintzelman with his 3-9 season record taking a 2-1 lead into the 8th with two outs against the Yankee's Eddie Lopat, at which point three consecutive walks and an error tied the game. Again, in their final at bat, the Yankees won on three consecutive singles with two outs. So the first three games had scores of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2. Gee, what would the score be in Game 4? Stengle pitched a rookie named Whitey Ford who had a shutout going into the 9th inning and Yogi Berra hit a home run to help build a 5-0 lead. An error let in two runs and Reynolds came in for the save.

Clearly Yankee pitching dominated, giving up only 3 earned runs in the four games for a team E.R.A. of 0.73; but the E.R.A. of the Phillies was only 2.27. Gene Woodling for the Yankees and Granny Hamner for the Phillies each batted .429. The sweep was the sixth for the Yankees in a 24-year period. This black & white video of highlights run a bit more than half an hour, but we are talking World Series baseball from half a century ago with big moments by several future Hall of Famers. Even Phillies fans have to be pleased with the gutsy performance by the Whiz Kids.