[Big Six]

St. Louis Post, October 7, 1940

CARDS WIN SERIES!!

SEVENTH GAME AN 18-INNING, 2-1 THRILLER
One Of Greatest Games In Baseball History

ST. LOUIS—One of the greatest of all World Series ended yesterday with one of the most thrilling games in history. The St. Louis Cardinals dueled the New York Yankees for eighteen full innings before a soft single by Johnny Hopp drove Rick Ferrell across with the run that decided the game and the championship and triggered a celebration that has barely calmed down twelve hours after it began.

Both starting pitchers—Dizzy Dean of the Cardinals and Gene Schott of the Yankees--entered the game with the desire to redeem themselves for less-than-sterling performances in Game Four. Under the pressure of a Series-deciding contest, both Dean and Schott were sharp, allowing only a single run apiece during their stints upon the hill.

Schott surrendered only four hits in nine innings, and the run he allowed was unearned, coming as it did with the assistance of a throwing error by catcher Joe Glenn. Dean was slightly more generous, giving up seven hits to the Yankees over ten stanzas.

Both managers may one day need to answer for their decisions to remove their most dangerous hitters from the game for pinch-runners. The Yankees’ Buck O’Neil, the Series’ leading batsman at .517, left the contest in the top of the eighth. Teammate Joe DiMaggio, who hit .370 for the Series with two home runs and seven RBI, exited in the same inning. The Cardinals’ Willard Brown, who had already smacked four homers, driven home eight runs, and batted .393 during the Series, was pulled in the twelfth.

None of the three players are base-cloggers; DiMaggio is, in fact, a superlative baserunner, though not a threat to steal. Do the Yankees, today, regret the fact that they gave eight plate appearances—eight trips to the plate during extra innings—to Red Rollings, Max West, and Jesse Hill instead of Buck O’Neil and Joe DiMaggio?

These managerial foibles should not, however, distract us too much from the proper appreciation of the yeoman work each team’s bullpen delivered yesterday. Max Lanier and Mort Cooper pitched eight innings of two-hit, shutout baseball for the Redbirds, while the New York trio of Joe Beggs, Johnny Lanning, and Lefty Gomez allowed only five hits and the single, Series-deciding run in eight-plus innings.

Nor should anyone call Gomez a goat, simply because he was unfortunate enough to be on the hill when the Cardinals scratched out the run that clinched the victory. “He made a very good pitch,” said Hopp. “I barely got my bat on it, and the ball barely cleared the second baseman’s glove. I was lucky. That’s baseball.”

The Cardinals, then, become the first repeat World Series champions since Bill Carrigan’s Red Sox of 1932-1933. Only the Red Sox have won more Series titles than the Cardinals’ five…