{image1} It was a different city, a different park and a far different team the last time the New York Yankees played three games against a National League ballclub from Milwaukee. In fact, it was October 1958, and the Braves were one victory away from winning back-to-back titles against the game's greatest dynasty.

Milwaukee fans had no idea what was in store for them on the evening of October 5, the night following Warren Spahn's 2-hit, Game 4 shutout which gave the Braves a 3-games-to-1 stranglehold on their second straight championship. Not only would they not get that title, but Milwaukee wouldn't see another World Series until its American League team blew a 3-2 Series lead in 1982, the city's sole postseason appearance over the last 47 years.

Instead, things looked pretty damn good when dawn broke on October 6. Not only were the Braves up 3-1, but they had Lew Burdette working in Game 5. Burdette threw a complete-game victory in Game 2 as the Braves rolled, 13-5, to take a 2-0 lead in the Series. That upped his record against New York in the postseason to 4-0, including 1957's spectacular string of three victories against the Bronx Bombers.

Burdette won 20 games and threw an astounding (by today's standards) 19 complete games in 1958, but he failed to survive the sixth inning in Game 5. Playing at Yankee Stadium, New York broke open a 1-0 game with six runs in the 6th, cruising to a 7-0 win behind Bob Turley, himself a 21-game winner in '58.

Following a day off, the Series shifted back to the burg formerly known as Bushville, a moniker eradicated after Milwaukee's 1957 Series win. Whitey Ford and Warren Spahn both returned on two days' rest after pitching in Game 4, a game in which both were working on just three days' rest after Game 1. Spahn, who was 22-11 with 23 complete games during the season, had beaten Ford in each previous matchup.

The Braves took a 2-1 lead on RBI singles by Hank Aaron and Spahn before Yogi Berra's sacrifice fly tied it in the 6th. With Ford long gone, Spahn labored on into the 10th inning. But second baseman Gil McDougal smashed a home run to give New York the lead, and three two-out singles by Elston Howard, Berra and Moose Skowron made it 4-2, New York. The Braves clawed across a run and had men on the corners with two outs in the bottom of the 10th for Frank Torre, brother of current Yankees skipper Joe. But Turley was summoned from the bullpen, and he got Torre to lineout to second. The Series was suddenly tied.

County Stadium was filled to capacity for the fourth time in the Series on October 9, with 46,367 Braves fans eager to see Milwaukee beat the Yankees in another Game 7. It was Burdette against Yankee hero Don Larsen, who pitched 7 strong innings in New York's 4-0 Game 3 victory.

After spotting the Braves a run in the first, the Yankees retaliated with two unearned runs (courtesy of a pair of Torre errors) in the 2nd and held that 2-1 through five innings. But Del Crandall belted the biggest homer of his life to tie things in the 6th against Turley, who spelled Larsen after a brief 2.1 inning stint.

Burdette hung tough until the 8th, but the Yankees started a rally with two out. Howard singled in Berra to make it 3-2, and with the damage still contained, Skowron hit a backbreaking 3-run homer to give the Yankees a 6-2 cushion.

The Braves had no rallies left, and Red Schoendienst lined to Mickey Mantle to end it. Turley ended up working the last 6.2 innings to claim his second win over the last three games; the one game he didn't win, he saved. In short, he was Yankees' answer to Lew Burdette of 1957. It was the first time a team had rallied from a 3-1 World Series deficit in 33 years.

Symbolically, the loss in 1958 signaled the end of the Milwaukee Braves. There were still seven seasons of baseball left in Milwaukee's original run, but there were no more pennants. In 1959, the Braves used a September push to tie Los Angeles atop the N.L. standings. But the Dodgers erased the chances of a Milwaukee-Chicago White Sox Series by beating the Braves in two 1-run playoff games. In the '60s, the team underachieved despite several good seasons by Spahn, Aaron, Eddie Matthews and newcomer Rico Carty, winning 88, 83, 86, 84, 88 and 86 games but never finishing closer than 5 games out of first.

Attendance dwindled with the passing years, and club ownership sold off part of the team to a group of Chicago investors in 1962. By 1964, rumors were rampant that the team was headed to Atlanta, a fate that was sealed after the 1965 season.

The Brewers have now inherited Milwaukee's distant legacy of baseball success. Perhaps one day, they'll build on it.