Phillies struggled in 1950 Series against Yankees

There were big names, a couple of big East Coast cities and a big prize, same as now.

Of course, the first Yankees-Phillies World Series, in 1950, was a different era.

Curt Simmons would have been the Game 1 starter for the Phillies – the “Whiz Kids,” with 13 players 24 years old or younger – at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, but he’d been called into service in the National Guard three weeks earlier.

The Yankees were also “The Yankees,” in the midst of a run of five straight World Series crowns. They swept the Phillies, who’d nearly blown a 7 1/2 -game lead in the National League with 13 games to play, behind a starting rotation that was pretty fearsome.

“The Phillies were a good club on a surge, the Whiz Kids. We had a pretty good club too,” Yogi Berra said in a statement released on Monday. “Our starters were Reynolds, Lopat, Raschi and Whitey was a rookie. That’s not bad.”

They also had Joe DiMaggio, in his next-to-last season, plus Phil Rizzuto, Berra, Jerry Coleman, Hank Bauer and veteran Johnny Mize.

The Yankees allowed only five runs in the sweep. Looking back, Phillies ace Robin Roberts said it was a miracle that the Phillies were able to stay close, losing each of the first three games by a run.

“We were happy and tired and it showed,” Roberts said. “It had been a struggle to get there.”

Roberts started four of the final nine games of the regular season, when the Phillies had lost Simmons to the service and starting pitchers Bubba Church and Bob Miller to injury. Roberts was too tired to start Game 1, so reliever Jim Konstanty made his first start of the season.

Konstanty allowed one run in eight innings, on a fourth-inning sacrifice fly by Coleman. But Raschi threw a complete-game two-hitter and the Yankees were up a game.

“When Konstanty did what he did, it should have perked us up, but it didn’t,” Roberts said. “I give credit to the Yankees. They were tough.”

Roberts started Game 2 and dueled through 10 innings with Reynolds. The Yankees won 2-1 on DiMaggio’s home run leading off the top of the 10th. The Phillies had a runner on second with one out in the 10th, but Reynolds retired Richie Ashburn and Dick Sisler to end it.

“I should have left after nine,” Roberts said, laughing. “It was a windblown fly ball. The wind was blowing in, that was the problem.”

The Yankees rallied to win Game 3 at Yankee Stadium, scoring the tying run to make it 2-2 on an error by Phillies shortstop Granny Hamner, then winning it with two outs in the ninth on a single by Coleman that knocked in Gene Woodling (no whipped-cream pies for that one).

They closed it out with a 5-2 win at the Stadium on Oct. 7, 1950. There was no Series MVP then, just another championship, the Yankees’ 13th as a franchise.

The Phillies, who had snapped a streak of 16 straight losing seasons in 1949, slipped back into mediocrity, not returning to the postseason until 1976.

“We were pretty good in 1950, but a lot of guys who had big years in 1950 couldn’t duplicate it,” Roberts said. “We weren’t as solid as the Dodgers. We were only able to put it together that one year.”