On October 5, 1963, the Los Angeles Dodgers hosted the New York Yankees for the first-ever World Series game at Dodger Stadium. Game 3 of that year’s Fall Classic was played with 55,912 fans in attendance.
The first two games were played at Yankee Stadium in New York and saw the Dodgers win both to come back to Dodger Stadium with a 2-0 series lead.
Don Drysdale pitched a perfect first inning to open Game 3, and in the bottom half, the Dodgers manufactured a run to score the first run in a Fall Classic at their new ballpark. Jim Gilliam worked a one-out walk against Jim Bourton and he ended up advancing to second base on a wild pitch.
Tommy Davis then drove in the run with a two-out single. From there, Drysdale shut the door on the Yankees while Bourton also settled in to provide seven innings, giving up just the one run.
Drysdale only gave up three hits en route to throwing a complete-game shutout with nine strikeouts to only one walk, which earned him the win in the 1-0 ballgame.
That put Dodgers one win away from their third championship in franchise history, with their first one coming in 1955 when the club was still in Brooklyn and in 1959 following the movie to L.A. before Dodger Stadium was complete.
The Dodgers ended up winning 2-1 the following day, led by Sandy Koufax’s complete game to clinch their first World Series title in Los Angeles with a sweep of the Yankees, the team that became a thorn in their side for so many seasons while both clubs were in New York.
L.A. went on to win one more World Series in 1965, this time winning in seven games at Metropolitan Stadium in Minnesota, but then the club saw a championship drought until they won again in 1981.
Dodgers World Series history
The Dodgers have won World Series titles in 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988 and 2020.
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