The 1964 World Serious

October 1964
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In 1964, all the World Series games were still played during the day. Many, many people were more serious about the World Series than about their day jobs. My dad always called the World Series the World Serious. I think that's why.

I don't know why I didn't have school on October 15, 1964. Maybe it was one of those days when our teachers had meetings in Coeur d'Alene. Moreover, I don't know why my dad was off that day. It wasn't like him to dump a shift at work. But, maybe, in order to watch the seventh game of the 1964 World Series between the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals with me, he skipped work.

Maybe Dad felt like he owed me one.

He and I had been in a heated battle over this World Series. Dad loved the Yankees. He loved Micky Mantle. His other favorite was Yogi Berra. In 1964, Berra managed the Yankees and Mantle was in the dusk of his career.

I had gone my own way. I became a National League fan in 1962 out of heartbreak. In the 1962 World Series, when the Giants' Willie McCovey, his team down 1-0, two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, Felipe Alou on third and Willie Mays on second, smashed a screaming line drive into the desperate, spearing glove of the Yankees' second baseman, Bobby Richardson, it ended the seventh game of the 1962 World Series and my love affair with the Giants began. So did my love for the National League. So did my life-long love affair with baseball bridesmaids, second place teams, perennial losers, and underdogs.

As the 1964 World Series opened, Dad and I laid down a World Serious wager. I took this bet very world seriously. It was as if my Christmas gifts or whether I'd get to play Little League or whether I could put my fifth grade teacher Mrs. Denlinger on the trading block hung in the balance. I sorely, desperately wanted to beat my dad, even if the bet was only for a quarter.

He knew this.

Dad was confident the Yankees would win. He baited me, teased me, introduced me to the world of Silver Valley smack talk. After Mickey Mantle homered in the bottom of the ninth off knuckleballer Barney Schultz to beat the Cardinals in Game 3, I picked a throw rug off the living room floor and slapped the television. Dad siezed the moment. He went to Don Rinaldi's market on Mullan Street and made a taunting poster out of butcher paper and wax marker mocking the pitching efforts of Schultz. One problem: his poster called Schultz "Willie the Knuck" instead of "Barney the Knuck" and after I quit bawling, I taunted my dad back for his error and our World Serious war momentarily melted into roaring laughter.

After Dad made me cry with this poster, I thought I'd show him how tough I was. I went to the Public Library and checked out a biography of Yogi Berra. When the Yankees won Game 6 and dad started giving me the business, I opened the book to show him I could take it. The moment got lost, though. I was crying so hard at being teased, I couldn't read the words through my tears.

"Son, come on. You don't need to do that," Dad said, an air of new respect in his voice. I was determined, though, and continued to try to read the Yogi book, my throat sore from crying.

For Game 7, Dad took me to his favorite soda fountain and bar, Joe and Henry's (later to become Dick and Floyd's). Joe and Henry's was Yankee central. Sports pictures covered the wall opposite the bar, including one of Henry posing with Joe DiMaggio when DiMaggio had spoken at a sports banquet in Coeur d' Alene or Spokane. Dick Costa, the bartender, like many of his customers, was Italian, and the Italians in Kellogg felt like blood brothers with the great Italian Yankess: DiMaggio, Rizutto, Berra, and others.

I was in the enemy's lair.

Dad asked Dick if I could watch the game in the bar. Dick went to the back of the establishment and found a wood Pepsi crate and placed in on his side of the bar below the television. I was out of sight of any policemen or liquor board inspectors who might stroll in that afternoon. I had to crane my neck to look up at the television, but I got to watch the game without sitting at the bar. Dad bought me a hot dog and all the root beer I could drink.

The battle between Dad and me died. We had such a great time watching Game 7 that when the Cardinals, behind the power pitching of Bob Gibson and the hitting of Ken Boyer and Lou Brock, built a six run lead by the fifth inning and held on to win, 7-5, the smack talk was over and we left the bar together the closest to peers we had ever been.

Our days in Joe and Henry's/Dick and Floyd's had just begun. But that day, watching Game 7, settling our bet, putting down the verbal swords and the emotional machetes, sharing the company of Dad's friends on his turf, made the 1964 World Series the most memorable of many memorable World Series to come.