With the off-day as the World Series moves from Cincinnati to New York for Game Three I thought I would take a look at the World Series career leaders in homeruns. After seeing Frank Robinson hit a pair in Game Two I discovered that Gus Zernial has 3 multi-homerun World Series games but surprisingly Zernial is not the all-time World Series Home Run leader. Here are the top five:
Code:
CAREER WORLD SERIES HOME RUNS
Mickey Mantle* 13
Gus Zernial 12
Ted Williams 6
Earl Averill 5
Frank Robinson* 5
Jackie Robinson 5
Hack Wilson 5
Mantle and Frank Robinson are the only active players on this list and both are participating in the current World Series. Mantle, who has played in 44 World Series games including the two so far this year, is also the all-time postseason RBI leader with 39.
Zernial only played in 30 post-season games over 5 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies between 1948-52, and started just 25 games. He was a 2-time World Series MVP: in 1949 when he hit .320 with 3 homers and in 1952 when he batted .333 with 4 homers and 11 rbi's.
The greatest game of his career was unquestionably Game Six of the 1952 World Series when his Phillies beat the Yankees to win their 4th consecutive World Championship. Up three games to two but coming off a 6-4 loss at home in Game Five, the Phillies had lost the momentum a pair of 1 run victories in games three and four had given them. There was a sold out crowd of over 57,000 at Yankee Stadium as veteran lefthander Howie Pollet (15-6) looked to pull the Yankees even.
Zernial would be a one man wrecking crew on this day as he gave the Phillies an early lead with a 2-run homer in the top of the first inning. In the fifth with the Yankees up 4-3, Zernial would launch another two-run bomb that ended Pollet's day. He would then hit a record third homer in a single World Series game by smashing a 3-run shot in the 7th inning that propelled the Phillies to an 8-5 series clinching victory. Zernial was 3-for-4 on the day with 3 homers, 3 runs scored, 7 rbi's and a walk.
I should note that Phillies club of the late 40s-early 50s needs it's own writeup as they were loaded with Warren Spahn, Robin Roberts, Curt Simmons, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Jackie Robinson, Richie Ashburn and Del Ennis.
As for Zernial, he was a two-time all-star and led the National League in homers and rbi's twice but Zernial's major league career was really quite ordinary - playoff heroics aside. Despite a four year span when he hit 145 regular season homeruns, Zernial finished with just 212 round-trippers in a career that lasted just 1157 games. He was only an everyday player for 4 years with Philadelphia and one with the Cardinals.
Zernial made his major league debut in 1945 at the age of 21. He had just 6 at bats that season but his only hit was a dramatic 3-run pinch-hit homerun in the top of the 10th inning of a 9-6 win over the Boston Braves. He would spend most of the next 3 years in the minors before finally making the Phillies as a bench player in 1948. The following year he was a starter in the Philadelphia outfield and led the National League in homeruns (38) and rbi's (125). That would be the first of four outstanding years and four straight World Series titles.
In 1953 he got off to slow start and the Phillies replaced him in the outfield with Jackie Robinson, who shifted from second base. Zernial started just 49 games that year and in the off-season was dealt to St Louis for 30 year old second baseman Red Schoendienst. Zernial would hit 50 homers over 4 seasons in St Louis but be a starter for just 1 year. The Cardinals released him just prior to the start of the 1958 season and, except for a brief comeback with the Phoenix Giants in 1959, his career was over.
Aside from his playoff success in the sim, Zernial's sim regular season totals compare very well with what he accomplished in real life.