1963 Yankees: Three Aces and We're Flushed.

If you were into baseball in the '50s and early '60s, there was no doubt in your mind that God was a Yankee fan. By 1963, your Bombers made the World Series 12 of the last 14 years. 

Your baseball card collection was in high gear. You spent your summers on the beach and your boys win another pennant, this time by a lofty 10.5 games over the second-place White Sox. Life is good. 

Elston Howard became the fourth Yankee in a row to win the MVP. Whitey finished with 24 wins, Jim Bouton had 21 and Tom Tresh –the first of many anointed "the next Mickey Mantle" – was fresh off his Rookie of the Year award. 

Our boys now face one of their crosstown rivals, now relocated across the country.  

The Dodgers had three ace starters in Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Johnny Podres and a formidable stopper in Ron Perronaski. All true, but those bums can't hit for beans. This should be easy. Get the floats ready.

In game one, Koufax was nothing short of sensational. I remember him striking out the first five batters he faced and by games end Sandy sets a new record of 15 along with a 5-2 Dodger victory. "Roseboro got lucky with that three run homer,we'll be ok, it's only game one." 

In game two, I remember we could not get anything going against Podres. To add insult to injury, the previous winter, the front office broke off a piece of the family by trading Moose Skowron to LA for journeyman pitcher Stan Williams. Who?! (Our second favorite Yankee trivia question.) Moose homers in game two, leading the Dodgers to a 4-1 victory. Lets not panic."Time to wake up boys."

Pitching remained the name of the game as we headed west to Los Angeles.

Bouton gave up a run in the first then shut the Dodgers down the rest of the way, but the 1-0 margin was sufficient for Drysdale as he shuts us out on three hits. Now we start to get nervous, enough of this. Where are our bats?!

We are now on red alert. It's all hands on deck. No way we get swept, is there? It's time to put all our Yankee baseball cards around the picture tube for luck. Kubek leads off and strikes out, here we go again!

The Dodgers score one in the fifth, I believe it was an opposite field home by big Frank Howard, (where is my oxygen) but Mickey ties is with a Ballentine Blast to left center in the seventh. Whew, OK. Now we're back in it, but an error by Pepitone in the bottom half kills us and Koufax has his second complete game victory 2-1.  

I remember three hours after that game Mickey and Sandy were on the Ed Sullivan show. Ed asked Sandy if he would have done anything different in the series.

"Yeah Ed, I should have never thrown Mickey that fastball in the seventh." Mickey had on a grey suit with a thin black tie, funny how things just stick in your mind. 

The next day was not good, we were not amused as we looked at the Daily News composite. Are you kidding me? The Dodgers held us to a measly four runs and .171 team average in the four games as they win their second championship in the last five years. Heads must roll. 

For the first time we understand what they mean by pitching is 70 percent of the game, I think they were wrong, It's 90 percent. 

Hey Mom, where is my football?