Unfortunately for Dodger fans, Reese drops the ball and suddenly the bases are full with none out and Joe DiMaggio at the plate. Taylor perhaps takes the expedient path – walking DiMaggio on four pitches, giving the Yankees an early 1-0 lead - and walking himself out of the game. Hal Gregg relieves and, with the Yankees poised to break open the game, gets the Dodgers out of trouble in sensational fashion by inducing McQuinn to pop up and then getting Billy Johnson to hit into a double play.
The Yankees come close to adding more runs to their total in the third. DiMaggio walks and McQuinn taps a slow roller in front of the plate. Edwards, the Dodger catcher, grabs the ball but his throw to first sails high and wide of Jackie Robinson and down the right field line. DiMaggio and McQuinn keep running and third base coach Charlie Dressen waives DiMaggio around third just as Dodger right fielder Dixie Walker gets to the ball. His throw home is perfect and DiMaggio is tagged out at the plate.
Adding a run in the fourth on a triple by Billy Johnson and a double by Lindell, the Yankees have a 2-0 lead that is cut to 2-1 in the fifth as the Dodgers tally a run without benefit of a hit. Bevens, who walked two in the first inning, one in the second and another in the third, opens the fifth by walking Jorgensen as well as the pitcher, Gregg. Stanky sacrifices the runners to second and third and Jorgensen scores as Reese grounds into a fielder’s choice.
As the game moves along, Bevens – although wild (he would issue a total of ten walks in the game) – has yet to give up a hit through the first eight innings. In the top of the ninth, the Yankees have an excellent opportunity to add to their run total as they load the bases with one out. But Hugh Casey is called in from the bullpen to face Henrich. Casey gets him to ground into an inning-ending double play.
And so the game reaches the last of the ninth with Bevens seeking to become the first pitcher in major league history to throw a no-hitter in the World Series. Catcher Bruce Edwards leads off the home half of the ninth by clouting a ball deep into left where Lindell makes a leaping catch for out number one. Carl Furillo is issued Bevens’ ninth walk of the game and the tying run is at first base. Bevens reaches back and overpowers Jorgensen who fouls out to McQuinn in back of first for the second out. The Yankee pitcher stands one out away from baseball immortality – one out away from a World Series no-hitter.
Dodger Manager Burt Shotton now calls on the injured Pete Reiser to pinch-hit for Casey. Reiser, limping noticeably, has sat out the game suffering from the ankle injury he sustained in yesterday’s game. With the count of two balls and one strike, Shotton attempts a move which – if not successful – could end the game as he calls on pinch runner Al Gionfriddo, running for Furillo, to attempt a steal of second. Berra makes a good throw but Gionfriddo is safe on a very close play. The pitch to Reiser on which Gionfriddo steals is wide, making the count 3-1. And now Harris, in the Yankee dugout, calls for Bevens to throw the next pitch high and wide to Reiser – an unorthodox move since it puts the potential winning run on base.
With runners at first and second and Bevens needing one more out to complete his no-hitter, the 33,433 fans at Ebbets Field are on their feet hoping for just one hit to tie the game. Shotton sends in Eddie Miksis to run for the injured Reiser and calls on Lavagetto to hit for Stanky. Lavagetto swings and misses the first pitch for strike one. He swings at the second pitch and does not miss it – sending in on a high arc toward right field where Henrich watches it hit high up on the screen. As the Yankee right fielder retrieves the ball and desperately hurls it to McQuinn, who fires home to Berra, both Gionfriddo and Miksis cross the plate to give the Dodgers and their fans a dramatic 3-2 win. It ruins the no-hit bid of Bevens in a game described as “one that surely drew a unanimous ‘well done’ from the grim busts of baseball’s immortals enshrined at Cooperstown.”
Pandemonium hits Ebbets Field. Lavagetto is mobbed by his teammates. “Friend belted friend…stranger whacked stranger…. and one guy even kissed his mother-in-law,” is the way one writer describes the scene.
In the frenzied Dodger clubhouse, Lavagetto manages to push his way into Shotton’s office to call his wife in California. Two weeks earlier she had given birth to the couple’s son. “Mr. Shotton told me to talk all I wanted to,” Lavagetto tells his wife. “He said the phone bill would be on the club.” With her baby son still in an Oakland hospital, Mrs. Lavagetto rushes back there. Photographers are waiting to take her picture with the baby, which is then wired to New York so that Lavagetto can get his first look at his son.
The Yankee locker room is glum as the Bombers realize their chance to take a 3-1 lead in the Series is now gone and the games are all tied at 2-2. “I never thought of a no-hitter,” Bevens tells the press. “Oh, I knew it but the game was too close to think of it. I only wanted to win. We lost. Those walks kill you. I was wild, that’s all.”
Harris is asked repeatedly about his strategy of walking Reiser with two outs in the ninth inning. “Baseball legend says you must not put the winning run on base. But with the count three and one on Reiser, if he hits one the tying run scores and he is on base. I’d do it again.” The writers also get on Berra who is having a terrible time against the speedy Dodgers. In the fourth inning, Reese steals second “and a typical Yogi throw went into center field. The kid seems to go to pieces whenever he has to throw to a base,” writes one local scribe.
The memory of the dramatic clout by Lavagetto will no doubt be recalled by Dodger and Yankee fans for years to come as they replay what is “unquestionably, the most dramatic World Series game ever played.”