Casey Stengel's Great Call for Mickey Mantle in the 1953 World Series

In 1953, the New York Yankees met the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. It was the second consecutive season in which the teams would face each other, but of greater significance was the fact that the Yankees would be attempting to the World Series for the fifth consecutive season.

After the Yankees won the Series opener at Yankee Stadium, Manager Casey Stengel won the second game when he made a move that was considered unorthodox at the time.

The score was 2-2 in the bottom of the eighth inning. Left-hander Preacher Roe faced Mickey Mantle with Hank Bauer on first and two outs. Roe's first two deliveries missed.

Stengel flashed Mantle the hit sign, which was rarely done in those days. In the sixth inning, with Mantle ahead in the count, three balls and one strike, Stengel made Mantle take the pitch, which was a called strike. Roe retired Mantle on a fly ball.

Roe checked Bauer on first, went into his delivery and Mantle hit the 2-0 pitch into the left field stands to give the Yankees a 4-2 lead.

After the game, Stengel told "his reporters" that Mantle got his pitch. "One bad pitch can decide any game in this Series, and maybe the Series."

Roe didn't think it was a bad pitch. "I thought it was a heck of a pitch. I don't see how he hit it. It was way below his knees."

Mantle thought Roe had thrown either a low outside change up or screwball. Roe confirmed that it had been both.

"It was a change up screwball," a slightly dejected but defiant Roe told reporters. "I had never pitched him one like it before"

In 2012, it is unusual when a hitter doesn't have the green light on a 2-0 or 3-1 pitch, but in 1953, it was the opposite. Stengel made many unorthodox moves that, to the surprise of many, usually paid dividends.

An inning before Mantle's go-ahead blast, his friend Billy Martin had hit a game-tying home run off Roe. The Brooklyn veteran left-hander had a much different take on Martin's home run.

"It was the greatest mistake since they invented buttermilk," he commented. "It was a high curve. Nobody ought to pitch anybody a high curve."

The Yankees won the game, 4-2 when started Eddie Lopat retired Duke Snider for the final out on a ground ball to second baseman Martin with two runners on base.

What are the chances today that a starting pitcher that puts the tying runs on base in the ninth inning would have the chance to close out the game?