The Cardinals were a powerhouse, having won three straight NL pennants from 1942–1944 and finished second in 1941 and 1945, but 1946 was an extremely challenging season for Dyer and his team. He had to blend returning war veterans and young players with Southworth's wartime club, and lost three key players — undefeated left-handed pitcher Max Lanier, second baseman Lou Klein and relief pitcher Fred Martin — to the marauding Mexican League. Dyer also had to deal with the Cards' implacable foes, the Dodgers of Leo Durocher, back at full strength after the war. Led by pitchers Howie Pollet and Harry Brecheen, and the hitting and leadership of future Hall of Famers Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter, the Cardinals made up a five-game All-Star Break deficit, won 14 of their 22 regular-season games with the Dodgers, and were tied with Brooklyn for the pennant on the season's final day. The Cards then swept the Dodgers in a best-of-three playoff behind the pitching of Pollet and Murry Dickson. In the 1946 World Series, the Redbirds faced what would be the only World Series in which Ted Williams would play. The Red Sox had breezed to the American League pennant by 12 games and featured 20-game winners Dave Ferriss and Tex Hughson. Idle during the NL playoffs, Boston played an exhibition game against an AL "all-star" team in an effort to tune up for the Fall Classic. Williams was struck on the elbow by a pitch, and when the Series began, he was ineffective. Brecheen won three games, the Cardinals played inspired baseball, and in the deciding seventh game, Slaughter scored from first on a double (often mistakenly remembered as a single) by Harry Walker, a shocking feat. His was the winning run in the game and the Series. The 1946 world championship was Dyer's high-water mark as Cardinal manager. The following season, Brooklyn upset the balance of power in the National League by boldly breaking the color line. In May 1947, the Cardinals became embroiled in a hotly denied rumor that they planned to strike, rather than permit Jackie Robinson on a Major League diamond — although Dyer was not implicated in the rumor. More damaging, for the next decade, the Cardinals would lag behind most of the other NL clubs in signing African-American players. Overall, the Cardinals reverted to bridesmaid status, finishing second from 1947–1949, although they trailed the Dodgers by only one game in .