October 1, 1950: The Whiz Kids Win the Pennant in the Tenth Inning

Today in 1950 · Sunday, October 1, 1950

Outside Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1950

Outside Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1950 · Prelinger Archives film still, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On the final day of the 1950 season, baseball delivered one of its perfect endings. The young Philadelphia Phillies — the 'Whiz Kids' — needed one win at Ebbets Field to clinch their first pennant in 35 years, and standing in the way were the Brooklyn Dodgers, with a standing-room crowd of 35,073 inside and an estimated 30,000 more turned away at the gates.

The game became a duel between two aces: Philadelphia's Robin Roberts and Brooklyn's Don Newcombe, locked at 1-1 into extra innings. In the top of the tenth, Dick Sisler drove a three-run home run into the left-field seats off Newcombe — and the Phillies won 4-1, sending Roberts to his twentieth victory of the season and Philadelphia to its first World Series since 1915.

The story had a novelist's detail tucked inside: Dick's father, Hall of Famer George Sisler, was in the ballpark that afternoon — working as a scout for the Dodgers. His employer lost the pennant to his son's swing. It would be the Phillies' only pennant between 1915 and 1980, which made this single October afternoon carry sixty-five years of franchise history on its back.

Also on this day

  • Communist forces attacked French colonial fortresses in Vietnam as the Indochina war deepened.
  • The USS Magpie, a minesweeper, was lost off Korea — among the first American ships sunk in the war.
  • Stockholm inaugurated its first metro stations.
  • In Korea, South Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel, carrying the war into the North.
  • Born this day: actor Randy Quaid.

🎵 On the radio that week: America’s No. 1 song was “Goodnight Irene” by Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers (Billboard best sellers) — TIME magazine sniffed that the Weavers' polished version was 'dehydrated' and 'prettied up' — America bought it anyway. That sound never really left — we recreate 1950s doo-wop and slow-dance ballads every week: read the stories behind our songs or listen on the lovesong1950s channel.
🎬 At the movies: October opened with the season's front-runners — “My Blue Heaven” and “Sunset Boulevard” — still out front at the nation's box offices.

Sources: SABR Games Project: Oct 1, 1950 · MLB.com: the Whiz Kids · Wikipedia: October 1950 · Billboard best-seller charts, 1950 (issue scans) · Variety National Boxoffice Survey, 1950 (Lantern scans). Every fact above is drawn from the records linked here — no dramatization, no invented details.

More from this series: Today in 1950 — the daily archive · every post from October 2026

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