The magical summer of ‘67
Historian Tom Whalen reflects on the epic 1967 battle between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals, 50 years later
Fifty years ago, the “Summer of Love” was underway and the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals were on a collision course to meet in one of the most memorably-contested World Series ever.
Behind the no-nonsense yet inspired leadership of rookie manager Dick Williams, the once laughingstock Red Sox, a perennial second division finisher, became American League champions for the first time since 1946. Nicknamed the “Cardiac Kids” for their propensity to pull out victory from the jaws of defeat in the late innings, the Sox overcame internal clubhouse unrest, a hostile press corps, troubled ownership, and a near fatal beaning of slugging outfielder Tony Conigliaro, to win the pennant on the last day of the regular season.
Making this “Impossible Dream” possible was a 28-year-old son of a Long Island potato farmer who was having the season of his life. Indeed, Carl Yastrzemski seemingly did everything that year apart from donning a red cape and vaulting tall buildings in a single bound. The 5–11, 175-pound left fielder hit .326 to go with 44 home runs and 121 RBIs to win the coveted Triple Crown, an accomplishment that only Miguel Cabrera of the 2012 Detroit Tigers has achieved since.
“I remember people asking me about pressure all the time, and if I felt it and how I stood it,” Yaz later reflected. “I was riding too high to feel pressure, on that same kick we all were on, living in a dream world full of heroics and victories, going about in a sort of baseball trance, looking forward to every game, sure we would make it when nobody else took a commanding lead, for we were a team of destiny and I was a man of destiny. I was so sure of this that I wasn’t even aware of pressure.”
Less talked about that season—but equally vital to team success—was how the Sox possessed one of the most integrated rosters in the majors, complete with three African-American starters: first baseman George Scott, center fielder Reggie Smith, and third baseman Joe Foy. That they accomplished this feat flew in the face of all previous club history. Behind the unenlightened ownership of multimillionaire Tom Yawkey, the team had compiled an abysmal record when it came to hiring players of color within organized baseball. In point of fact, the Sox waited until 1959 to have a single black player on its team roster, thus earning the dubious distinction of being the last ball club in the majors to do so.
Race also figured prominently in the championship story arc of the Cardinals. A consistent contender in the 1930s and 1940s, the Birds had slipped badly in the standings by the early 1950s as team owner Fred Saigh exhibited the same lack of enthusiasm for signing African American players as Yawkey. Saigh feared that such action risked alienating his white fan base, which steadfastly adhered to the Jim Crow system of racial injustice that had dominated the South since the end of Reconstruction. Only when the more progressive-minded August “Gussie” Busch, of the Annheuser-Busch brewing company, purchased the team in 1953 did movement occur on the integrationist front. Several talented black ballplayers, like outfielders Curt Flood and Lou Brock, were brought into the fold.
But no player, regardless of the color of their skin, made a bigger impact on Cardinal fortunes than Bob Gibson. One of the most dominant pitchers of the modern era, Gibson was a tall, powerfully built right-hander with a sizzling fastball who was all business on the mound.
“I love the competition,” Gibson explained. “Me with the ball. The hitter with the bat. And the rest is horsesh*t. Except, I like the money.”
His fierce competitiveness was in full form during the 1967 regular season. In a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates prior to major league baseball’s traditional All-Star break in June, Gibson found himself pitching on a broken leg courtesy of a Roberto Clemente line drive up the middle in the fourth inning. Instead of taking himself out of the contest, he grimly stayed on to face the next three batters before he finally collapsed.
“That was the most extraordinary thing I ever saw in baseball — Gibby pitching to those batters with a broken leg,” said Dal Maxwill, the Cardinals’ starting shortstop. “Everyone who was there that day remembered it afterward, for always, and every young pitcher who came to our club while Gibson was still with us was told about it. We didn’t have too many pitchers turning up with upset stomachs or hangnails on our team after that.”
Despite the loss of their ace pitcher over the next two months, the Cardinals still managed to coast to the National League pennant with 101 victories.
Using the colorful and tumultuous 1960s as a backdrop, the Red Sox and Cardinals waged an epic battle in the summer of ’67 for baseball supremacy that captured the imagination of weary Americans looking for escape from the urban riots, racial turmoil, and antiwar protests that were then roiling society. Decades later, the story of that summer still resonates.
“How many people ever do anything that makes so many people happy?” Sox pitcher Gary Bell asked years after. “There are only certain teams that capture everyone’s imagination and we were one. And the older you get the more it means. I mean, how many times in your life are you really important? How many times in your life do you get the chance to pitch in a World Series?”
Tom Whalen is the author of a new book, Spirit of ’67: The Cardiac Kids, El Birdos, and the World Series That Captivated America, coming August 2017.
For additional commentary by Boston University experts, follow us on Twitter at @BUexperts and on Instagram at @buexperts.
