Cardinals P Curt Simmons and Yankees P Jim Bouton were both very effective in Game 3 of the 1964 World Series….as Simmons got 17 ground-ball outs….wherein the Yankees scored a run in the second on Clete Boyer’s RBI double with two on….but Simmons’s RBI single tied the game in the fifth….all the while Yanks Bouton stranded the go-ahead run four times….and held the top five hitters in the Cardinal lineup to a 2 for 21 day.
In the bottom of the ninth, Mickey Mantle reached deep for one of the last ounces of Yankees magic….when with the game tied at one, leadoff hitter The Mick told on-deck hitter Elston Howard to go back to the clubhouse because he was going to hit a home run….as he swung at the first pitch from Barney Schultz….which was a knuckleball that failed to move….and he hit it into the right field stands to win the game for the Yankees. Schultz had been a mainstay of the Cardinals’ stretch run and Yankee scouting reports had advised that his knuckler was most vulnerable on the first pitch when he threw harder than usual to try for a strike. Mantle’s home run….which was number sixteen in his World Series career….broke Babe Ruth’s record for most home runs hit in World Series play.
