An appreciation of Lew Burdette, who willed the Milwaukee Braves to a World Series title 65 years ago

In the annals of great Wisconsin sports performances, does Lew Burdette get the credit he deserves?

Burdette was on the mound at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 10, 1957 — 65 years ago — to cap off a remarkable World Series run as the Milwaukee Braves beat the Yankees, 5-0, securing the lone World Series title in the city's history.

Burdette finished off a complete-game shutout just three days after he also worked a complete-game shutout in Game 5, a 1-0 victory in the final game of the year at Milwaukee County Stadium.

Coupled with his 4-2 win in Game 2, Burdette shares the record for most World Series pitching victories in a single season, with three. He allowed just two earned runs in 27 innings of that series.

In the clincher, Burdette out-dueled Yankees hurler Don Larsen — whose perfect game in the previous year's World Series endures as one of the great accomplishments in baseball history — and allowed one walk and seven hits (six singles) with just three strikeouts over his nine scoreless innings.

The Yankees loaded the bases in the ninth before Burdette induced a groundout to third baseman Eddie Mathews off the bat of Bill Skowron. Mathews stepped on third and the celebration was on.

Mathews also delivered a two-run double in the third to chase Larsen from the game, and Henry Aaron followed with an RBI single in the four-run frame. Del Crandall homered in the eighth. Burdette had previously pitched on two days rest in 1955, two years earlier, but he was pressed into duty when Hall of Famer Warren Spahn, came down with the flu.

"I'll have all winter to rest up," Burdette said.

It was the first time a pitcher had thrown three complete-game victories in a World Series since 1920 and the first pitcher to have two complete-game shutouts since 1905. Making it all the sweeter was that it came against the team with whom Burdette had thrown his first big-league innings back in 1950.

"(Manager Casey Stengel) would yell over, 'Hey you, get in there and warm up,'" Burdette said in 1957 about his brief stint with New York. "It was always 'Hey, you' — he never knew my name. I threw just two pitches at Yankee Stadium in my whole life before I stopped them last week in the series. Most of the time I threw batting practice and was in the bullpen."

Burdette garnered a Corvette for earning MVP of the series.

"Nuts to that," Burdette said before Game 7. "I've got a car. My wife drives one and I've got a jeep besides. So who cares about the car? I'll take that win anytime."

"We never figured on that man," Yankees star catcher Yogi Berra said afterward. "The man we were worried about was Spahn."

Known as a prankster with a penchant for great quotes, Burdette would have been a fan favorite in any era. He famously posed as a left-hander on his 1959 Topps baseball card (he was right-handed) and talked to himself on the mound. He was frequently accused of throwing a spitball.

He only twice made the all-star team but finished third in the Cy Young voting in 1958 and received MVP votes each season from 1956-59. In the 1958 World Series, he recorded a win in Game 2 and hit a three-run home run in the first inning, but this time he was saddled with losses in Game 5 and Game 7 as the Yankees turned the tables to win in seven games.

Archive: For 13 years, the Braves were a Milwaukee institution. Now, the franchise will face the Brewers in the playoffs

On May 26, 1959, Burdette recorded perhaps his best-known performance, when he matched up with Pittsburgh's Harvey Haddix and somehow emerged victorious at County Stadium, 1-0, even though Haddix still had a perfect game heading into the 13th inning.

Mathews and Aaron were the other heroes of the 1957 series. Mathews' two-run shot in the 10th inning broke a 5-5 tie and gave the Braves a walk-off victory in Game 4, and he finished the series with four extra base hits. Aaron hit three homers in the series and batted 11 for 28 overall, with seven RBIs and five runs scored. Joe Adcock's single in the bottom of the sixth accounted for the only offense in the 1-0 win.

Archive: Helping 'mankind' more meaningful to Hank Aaron than hits and homers

The Yankees won Games 1 and 3, with the Braves knotting the series each time, before that 1-0 win gave Milwaukee a 3-2 series lead. New York forced Game 7 with a 3-2 win two nights later, though Aaron briefly tied the game in the seventh with a home run.

Burdette died in 2007. He was added to the "Walk of Fame" outside of American Family Field in 2010.

JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Lew Burdette pitched Milwaukee Braves to 1957 World Series title