1940 Bobo Newsom Game 5 Tigers 8 Red 0 Game Score 86
1941 Marius Russo Game 3 Yanks 2 Dodgers 1 Game Score 78
1942 Ernie White Game 3 Cards 2 Yanks 0 Game Score 81
1943 Spud Chandler Game 5 Yanks 2 Cards 0 Game Score 72
1944 Mort Cooper Game 5 Cards 2 Browns 0 Game Score 83
1945 Claude Passeau Game 3 Cubs 3 Tigers 0 Game Score 85
1946 Harry Brecheen Game 2 Cards 2 Bos 0 Game Score 80
1947 Spec Shea Game 5 Yanks 2 Dodgers 1 Game Score 77
1948 Johnny Sain Game 2 Braves 1 Clev 0 Game Score 85
1949 Allie Reynolds Game 1 Yanks 1 Dodgers 0 Game Score 88
For those of you who missed part one, I’m going through every World Series and trying to pick the best pitched game. Then I let the guys from Bill James online pick the best pitched World Series game of the decade. Here are comments on the games I selected:
1940 Bobo Newsom Game 5 Tigers 8 Red 0. This is the game Newsom pitched after his Farther died. What a sendoff for his Dad. Newsome came back to pitch game 7 with one days rest. He lost the deciding game 2-1, another great effort.
1941 Marius Russo Game 3 Yanks 2 Dodgers 1 This is the game before the game where Hugh Casey struck out Tommy Henrich to end the game only to have a pass ball and Henrich make it to first and keeping the Yankees arrive. Casey then allowed 5 more Yankee baserunners to lose 7-4. In this game Casey came into tied at zero in the eighth. With one out he allowed 4 consecutive singles to fall behind 2-0. Russo allowed one run in the bottom of the eighth but pitched a scoreless ninth for the victory.
1942 Ernie White Game 3 Cards 2 Yanks 0 Game Score 81 Easy pick, not much competition this World Series. His base runners allowed equaled his strikeouts six each.
1943 Spud Chandler Game 5 Yanks 2 Cards 0 He allowed 10 hits and 2 walks but pitched a shutout to end the series.
1944 Mort Cooper Game 5 Cards 2 Browns 0 The series was even before this game and the Cardinals won game 6 to win the series. Cooper struck out 12. I don’t hear much about Mort Cooper but I have him as my 230th greatest pitcher.
1945 Claude Passeau Game 3 Cubs 3 Tigers 0 His game score is probably as high that has been pitched with only one strikeout. He allowed a two out single in the second and a lead off walk in the sixth, which the runner got wiped out on a double play. He faced only 28 batters. He didn’t pitch as well in game 6 or game 7 in relief as the Cubs lost the series.
1946 Harry Brecheen Game 2 Cards 2 Bos 0 In addition to throwing a shutout to tie the series, he kept St. Louis alive with a game 6 victory, then won game 7 in relief.
1947 Spec Shea Game 5 Yanks 2 Dodgers 1. This performance was needed by the Yankees as it was the game after Bill Bevens lost his no-hitter and the game on the last pitch of the game the day before. The Yankees went up 3 games to 2 and won the series in seven.
1948 Johnny Sain Game 2 Braves 1 Clev 0 This was a great pitching duel as Bob Feller had a game score of 73 in the loss. Gene Bearden, the pitching hero for the Cleveland victory in the series almost matched Sain’s game here in game 3.
1949 Allie Reynolds Game 1 Yanks 1 Dodgers 0 This series started with the two teams swapping 1-0 victories. This game was overall the better pitched game of the two and Reynolds definitely had the best pitching performance of the four pitchers. After the first two games, the Yankees just outscored the Dodgers every game as the scores kept increasing.
We had another tie, Claude Passeau and Allie Reynolds. I voted for Reynolds, so Passeau was the winner. Throwing a one hitter with one walk helps. He went only one batter above the minimum facing 28 batters. Rudy York a darn good batter got the one hit. The only thing about the game is Passeau had only one walk.
Personally, I have Passeau as my 183rd greatest pitchers. In 1940 he led the league in WAR and according to WAR hit the All-Star level in 4 seasons of his career.
On an even more personal note, my father-in-law grew up in Chicago and was 12 at the time. He remembers going to one of the games in the series but can’t remember which one.
