In the beginning, the World Series matchup of the Dodgers against the Yankees was a kind of charming intra-city showdown of two New York City boroughs, blue collar Brooklyn, equipped with a neighborhood called Gravesend, against the pretentious Bronx, with the fancy Grand Concourse.
It was an intriguing matchup that carried bragging rights in the city as well as baseball’s world championship, and it caught the attention of brilliant sports cartoonist Williard Mullin, who gave it the catchy nickname of “The Subway Series.” That was because, after all, New York City’s rapid transit system could get you from one ballpark to the other for just 5 cents.
The trip will cost considerably more when it resumes on Friday for the 12th time in a Broadway-meets-Sunset Boulevard version of baseball’s most frequent World Series rivalry. This one brings together this season’s winningest teams in a coast-to-coast collision featuring some of the game’s biggest stars in the Yankees’s Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, and the Dodgers’s Shohei Otani and Mookie Betts.
Their October showdowns have produced some of the game’s most memorable moments, from Don Larsen’s perfect game and Reggie Jackson’s three straight home runs to the one-handed circus catches of Al Gionfriddo and Sandy Amoros.
Yankees vs. Dodgers had a modest World Series beginning
The Dodgers won their first National League pennant in 21 years in 1941 and found the Yankees, already constructing a dynasty, waiting for them in the World Series. It was the first of their 12 Fall Classic meetings.
Mullin also gave them cartoon images—a down-and-out but very proud Brooklyn Bum shuffling along with a ragtag wardrobe and a high-and-mighty New York Yankee, strutting around with his chest out, celebrating his dominance of baseball.
This would be a match of the haves and the have-nots. The haves prevailed, but not without one of the strangest plays in World Series history—the last out strikeout that instead became a game-turning rally for the Yankees.
The teams split the first two games at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees won Game 3 at Ebbets Field, but the Dodgers were clinging to a 4-3 lead in Game 4—set, it seemed, to even the Series. Reliever Hugh Casey retired the first two hitters and went to a 3-2 count on Tommy Henrich and then broke off a wicked curveball—some thought it might have been a spitball. Henrich swung and missed, but the ball skipped past catcher Mickey Owen. Henrich raced to first base. The Yankees had life.
Casey still needed one out to seal the win. He never got it. Joe DiMaggio singled and Charlie Keller doubled, driving in two runs. The Yankees added two more for a 7-4 victory that left the Dodgers stunned and Owen the goat. The Yankees won the next day to clinch their ninth World Series triumph.
The 1947 World Series had Yogi and Jackie—but Bill Bevens was the story
When the sides next hooked up in the World Series in 1947, they included a few notable new faces. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with Brooklyn that season and won Rookie of the Year. And in Game 3, New York got the first pinch-hit home run in Series history by a rookie catcher named Yogi Berra.
But Game 4 was the most memorable of this Series because Bill Bevens, a marginal Yankees pitcher who won just seven games during the season, flirted with the first no-hitter in World Series history.
Bevens carried a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning despite issuing eight walks. He then walked Carl Furillo by mistake and Pete Reiser intentionally. Cookie Lavagetto batted for Eddie Stanky and smashed a double off the right-field wall, ending the no-hit bid and winning the game for Brooklyn. It was the last pitch Bevens threw in the major leagues.
The Yankees won Game 5 by 2-1, sending the Series back to the Bronx. The Dodgers led 8-5 in Game 6 but New York rallied in the sixth inning and had two men on base with two outs and DiMaggio at bat. The Yankees star sent a drive that seemed headed for the left-field seats. AL Gionfriddo, inserted for defense at the start of the inning, took off on a dead run with his back to the ball, twisted his body at the last moment and speared the shot for the out. DiMaggio, never one to show emotion on the field, kicked the dirt in frustration.
The Dodgers hung on to win that game, but New York took Game 7 and the Series. Like Bevens, Lavagetto and Gionfriddo never played another major league game.
The golden age of Dodgers vs. Yankees
Two years later, the two rivals were back at it again, this time with Casey Stengel managing the Yankees. The opening game of the 1949 Series was a classic. The two teams were scoreless through eight innings with Brooklyn’s Don Newcombe dueling the Allie Reynolds. Tommy Henrich led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a home run, giving the Yankees a 1-0 victory over the Dodgers ace, who never won a World Series start.
Brooklyn responded with its own 1-0 victory in Game 2, with Preacher Roe outdueling Vic Raschi. Game 3 was tied 1-1 into the ninth inning when the Yankees scored three times and then hung on for a 4-3 victory. Brooklyn was on the ropes and New York moved in for the kill, besting Newcombe again in Game 4 and then charging to a 10-1 lead in Game 5 and hanging on for a 10-6 victory in the clincher.
The rivalry resumed in 1952, starting a stretch of four Subway Series in five years. Stengel’s Yankees won three of them, missing only in 1955 when the “Wait till next year!” Dodgers finally captured their first World Series championship.
Brooklyn led the ’52 Series 3-2 before home runs in Game 6 by Berra and Mickey Mantle helped New York stay alive. Mantle’s homer and RBI single had New York clinging to a 4-2 lead in Game 7 when the Dodgers loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. Robinson hit an infield popup that seemed destined to drop before second baseman Billy Martin made a mad dash to corral it for the third out. Brooklyn never threatened again, and the Yankees had a fourth straight World Series title.
The Stengel dynasty claimed its fifth consecutive title in 1953, again dispatching the Dodgers. Martin’s RBI in the bottom of the ninth sealed it in Game 6, and the future Yankees manager batted .500 in the Series.
After a year off, the Subway Series resumed in 1955 and finally after five tries, Brooklyn defeated the Yankees. The Dodgers also became the first team in Series history to drop the first two games and recover to capture the title. The star was left-hander Johnny Podres, who won Game 3 to start the Dodgers recovery and Game 7 to clinch the title. Gil Hodges drove in two runs and Brooklyn was sitting on a 2-0 lead when freshman manager Walt Alston made a defensive change in the sixth inning, sending Cuban Sandy Amoros to play left field.
With two runners on, Amoros was positioned toward center when Berra sent a slicing drive toward the left-field line. Amoros chased it down, thrusting his glove out for the catch and then relaying the ball to Pee Wee Reese, who threw to Hodges, completing a rally-killing double play. Podres took it from there and finally, next year had arrived for Brooklyn.
A year later, Yankees right-hander Don Larsen pitched a perfect game, the first no-hitter in World Series history. Larsen had been knocked out in the second inning of Game 2 but returned in Game 5 to throw his gem. He needed just 97 pitches, and when plate umpire Babe Pinelli called strike three on pinch-hitter Dale Mitchell, it sent Berra hurtling into his arms.
The Dodgers responded with Clem Labine, primarily a reliever, throwing 10 innings in a 1-0 victory. The Yankees came back to claim another title, riding a grand slam by Bill Skowron and the airtight pitching of Johnny Kucks to a 9-0 win in Game 7. It was the final game of Robinson’s career and the last time Brooklyn hosted a World Series.
The Dodgers leave Brooklyn, and Koufax, Jackson, and Steinbrenner enter the rivalry
After the Dodgers left for Los Angeles in 1957, the rivalry cooled until 1963 when it held a coast-to-coast showdown. This time, the Dodgers got even for all the old disappointment with a four-game sweep. In the opener, Sandy Koufax struck out 15, breaking Erskine’s Series record. Podres won Game 2 by 4-1 and then LA completed the sweep at home when Don Drysdale shut New York out 1-0 and Koufax returned to win 2-1.
By 1977, free agency had changed the face of baseball and the biggest prize at the start of that era was slugger Reggie Jackson, who signed with the Yankees.
Jackson’s relationship with manager Martin was contentious, but in the World Series against the Dodgers, the outfielder carved a space for himself in Series history. In the decisive sixth game, Jackson hit three home runs, each on the first pitch, matching a Series record set by Babe Ruth. His five home runs in the Series helped the Yankees to another world championship and earned Jackson the nickname Mr. October.
The two teams returned for the 1978 Series and the Dodgers jumped in front, sealing the second one when Jackson struck out for the final out of the game. But the Yankees were not done. They returned to New York and won the next four games, the first Series team to drop the first two and then win the Series in six games.
The next time they met, in 1981, the Dodgers reversed the outcome, dropping the first two games and then winning four straight to capture the crown. Were the Yankees frustrated? Well, owner George Steinbrenner got into a hotel elevator dispute with some fans and emerged with a hand in a cast.
Now, 43 years later, with two vastly different casts, the rivalry resumes. It is no longer a Subway Series, but still compelling for the history it already had written.
—Hal Bock, Associated Press