We just shook it off, went out and played the next night. We lost that one, too—a tough, 2–1 game to the Orioles. But we won the night after that, and then Catfish pitched a complete-game shutout against Jim Palmer, and we were in third place. Milwaukee came to town next. They’d been pummeling us the whole season, beat us something like ten of twelve before that.
But now we kicked their butt. Tidrow pitched eight innings of shutout ball, beat Mike Caldwell, their best pitcher. Next night, we got down, 7–3, to them. Larry Hisle had another big night. But we got four good innings of relief out of Ken Clay, and this time we scored five runs in the bottom of the ninth off their two best relievers, Bob McClure and Bill Castro. Mickey Rivers hit a two-run homer, Chambliss hit a double to score another one, and I tied the game … by getting hit with a pitch with the bases loaded. We scored the winner on an error. That’s all right, those things even out. Larry McCall, another one of our kid call-ups, got the win. Night after that, Guidry pitched another three-hit shutout, struck out nine. We won, 9–0. Now we were in second place.
Next we got off on a six-game win streak. Beat the Angels in eleven, when Blair hit a walk-off single. The next night, Guidry didn’t have his best stuff against the Orioles, but he stuck it out, and we came back from down, 4–1, on a game-winning single by Cliff Johnson, who’d been having an ugly year. Then we took three of four against Detroit, and all of a sudden there we were: four games back with twenty-four to play—and the first four of them in Boston.
It was a second chance. We weren’t a team you wanted to give second chances.
23
CATCHING BOSTON
FANS AND SPORTSWRITERS like to throw around words like “choked.” “Oh, the Red Sox choked that year!” This guy choked, that team choked.
It’s never that simple. Teams have ups and downs in a long season. The Red Sox went 19–10 in August. Was that a choke? They actually finished the month with a bigger lead than they had at the start of it, seven games instead of five and a half. The difference was that we were the team in second now.
From the first day of September, they started to lose a few more games they probably should’ve won. They dropped two out of three against Oakland, at home. Lost two out of three against Earl Weaver’s guys, down in Baltimore. Was that a choke? Or those teams playing well?
By September 7, we had the lead down to four games, with a four-game series up in Fenway. All that August, guys kept saying, “If we can just gain a game a week on them, get the lead down to seven games, because we play them seven times in September.”
That’s how confident we were. Some of the guys on the Red Sox said it looked like we were looser, like we were having more fun than they were a few months earlier. I think that’s because we’d been through so much already, over the last two seasons. Playing every day, with the balance of the pennant race hanging on whether you win or lose—after the year we’d been having, with all the issues, just playing baseball became relaxing, now that it was only the game we had to concentrate on.
I remember when we went to Boston, and people were saying we’d be doing all right if we could get a split. But Piniella was telling the writers straight out, “We’re up here to win four.” Thurman was saying, “We’re going to kick their ass.”
I’d had a virus that turned into back spasms. I’d missed the last three games, had spent two days in traction at Lenox Hill Hospital. But there was no way I was missing these games. We were ready to ride.
Those four games in Fenway, they never knew what hit ’em. “The Boston Massacre.”
First inning of the first game, Willie Randolph reached on a throwing error by Butch Hobson at third. Then Thurman singled, I singled, Chambliss hit a sacrifice fly—just like that, it was 2–0.
Mike Torrez started for them. We put him in the showers before he could get four outs. Single, single, single in the second, it’s 5–0. Third inning, three more singles, a double, a walk: 7–0. Fourth inning, another double, more singles, a throwing error by Hobson—it was 12–0.
Don Zimmer couldn’t even sit down in the dugout before he had to get up and go to the bullpen for another pitcher. In the end it was 15–3. Thurman had three hits before the Sox went through their whole lineup once. Roy White had three hits, too. Willie Randolph had three hits, drove in five runs.
They couldn’t stop us. We had twenty-one hits on the night—four doubles, seventeen singles, and not a single home run. That was the thing with us. We were great situational hitters. We hit .396 in the series. Outscored them, 42–9. Had sixty-seven hits to just twenty-one for them—and fifty-six of our hits were for singles. Just a couple home runs.
That to me is very indicative of what kind of team we were. We could adjust to anyone. We could beat you any number of ways, we came to play. It’s an old cliché, but it’s true. Like the great Yankees teams in the 1990s, and this past decade, we didn’t try to do too much, just keep the line moving. Freddie Lynn called us “the pros’ pros” when it came to hitting, and he was right.
Next night, they had another capacity crowd out in Fenway. We put it to sleep early. First inning, Mickey Rivers led off with a single, stole second, went to third on a bad throw by Carlton Fisk, scored on an error by Burleson at short. Later Chambliss singled in another run. Next inning, we pretty much nailed down the win when I hit a three-run bomb. Just like that, it was 8–0. This time Mick the Quick had three hits before the Sox were able to get through their lineup once. Lou Piniella had a double, triple, and home run. Fenway went silent as a tomb.
We ended up winning that game, 13–2. The Red Sox made seven errors, which led to seven unearned runs. I don’t think I ever saw anything else like that in a major-league game. During the whole series they had twelve errors. Fisk’s ribs were killing him; he was throwing everything away when we tried to steal. Dwight Evans, one of the best outfielders in the league at the time, dropped a couple fly balls in right field because he was still dizzy after getting beaned. Hobson, while injured, still kept going out there. It was tough watching him throw so low and wild because of the pain in his elbow.
Don Zimmer, I think, stuck with guys even when they were injured out of loyalty. That says something about him. It also says that guys wouldn’t take themselves out of a game. It’s a fine line and tough to do at that time of year. It becomes “Do you or don’t you? Play hurt, or not?” Sometimes you’re better not playing hurt. But sometimes 70 percent of you is better than 100 percent of your backup. Zimmer loved the effort Butch gave him, how he never complained, so he kept sending him out there to third. Same thing with Dewey Evans, same thing with Fisk. He stood by his players, told the press how hard they were playing despite their injuries.
But putting them out there when they can’t perform isn’t really doing them any favors. You just end up embarrassing them—and they’re too tough to ask out. It isn’t fair to the other players, too, who want to win. I know Zim couldn’t have rested everybody, but … Well, who knows, I wasn’t in his shoes. Fisk started 154 games as catcher that year, which I think is still the league record.
It was like we’d switched personalities as teams, from earlier in the year. Now they were the ones trying to plug holes and scrambling around for pitchers.
Third game of the series, it was a big, bright Saturday afternoon in early fall. They sent out Dennis Eckersley, who was killing us that year, against Guidry. Fourth inning, I hit a ball off Eck that I thought was gone, even with that big green wall they have in left. But the wind knocked it back down enough that Yaz could rob me with a spectacular, twisting catch in midair. Bounced off the scoreboard, then got the ball back to the infield in time to get Thurman going back to first for a double play.
Yastrzemski could still make plays like that at thirty-nine. It was just the sort of play that could turn a team around when it’s in a bad slide. But there’s an element of luck in baseball, too. Next batter, Chris Chambliss, hit a double, and they walked Nettles intentionally. Then Lou Piniella hit a little pop
fly just back of second that should’ve been the third out. Instead, the wind blew it all around the outfield, it fell in, and before they get another out, it’s 7–0. That was the final score. Guidry completely dominated them, only let up two chippy singles in the first inning.
I think it was Joe Gergen in Newsday who wrote after that, “The Yankees are a game behind and drawing away.”
I think by then Boston had let the pressure get to them—the whole organization. After Munson got his three hits in the first game, Dick Drago hit him in the head with a pitch. Bob Lemon asked him if he could go the next day. Thurman told him, “Not for more than nine.”
It was serious, though. I think Thurman was dizzy for pretty much the rest of the season. He played every game in Boston, got five more hits. But the next week he had to ask out of a game against the Tigers. He told us it wasn’t a headache—it was just “tremendous pain” all through his head. He sat for two games, then got back in there—because he was Thurman. They weren’t going to stop him by hitting him in the head with a baseball. Tough guy!
Last game of the Sox series on Sunday, Boston was so desperate they started a kid just up from Triple-A for them. Bobby Sprowl. He’d never won a game in the majors—and he never would. A lot of people were saying Zimmer should’ve forgiven Bill Lee, who he was feuding with, and started him. But it was too late. Zim was locked in. He’d just had Lee pitch seven innings of mop-up relief two days earlier.
Instead, we got to see Sprowl, who walked four guys in the first inning, gave up a single to me that scored Mickey Rivers, and left with just two outs and the score already 3–0. The final was 7–4, but it wasn’t that close.
After 142 games, we were tied for first place with identical records with the Red Sox, 86–56. We’d come from fourteen games down, something only those 1914 Boston “Miracle Braves” exceeded, when they came from fifteen games down—though earlier in their season.
We almost couldn’t believe it ourselves. It was like the dog catching the car. I remember sitting next to Lou Piniella in the locker room in Boston, after it was all over, and I looked at him and said, “Hey, Lou. Wait a minute. What do we do now?”
What we did was keep playing great ball. That week we went on to Detroit and took two out of three. Jim Beattie beat Jack Billingham in the second game, and we took over first place all by ourselves. First time all year, going right back to Opening Day.
Next weekend, the Sox had a return visit to us. I remember the Stadium was full of huge crowds. Just wild. Some fifty-five thousand every game, everybody going crazy.
First game, Chambliss and Nettles hit back-to-back home runs, and Guidry beat Tiant. He threw another two-hit shutout. That’s how great Ronnie was that year—pitched two straight two-hit shutouts against the best hitting team in baseball. In the same week. Nice!
The next afternoon, they got up on us for a change, 2–0. But I had three hits off my old friend Mike Torrez, drove in Willie with a single. In the fifth, we were still behind a run, and I did a very foolish thing. Thurman, who was back in the lineup, hit a line drive foul. I threw up my right hand, to try to keep it from going into the stands and nailing somebody, and that ball ripped the nail loose on my thumb. Had blood running all down my batting glove.
Gene Monahan, our trainer, came out to tape it, and he asked me, “Can you hit?” I told him, “I have no choice.”
He taped the nail back on my thumb, added some more tape over the batting glove, covering the thumb. I wasn’t about to take myself out of that game, not with Thurman playing with a head full of pain. Instead, I went up there, worked the count to 2–2 off Torrez, then hit a home run over the right-field wall to tie the game.
The game went into the bottom of the ninth that way, when Yogi Berra noticed how Yaz was playing Mickey Rivers in close and toward the line in left field. That’s the kind of brain trust we had on the Yankees, with years of experience. Yogi picked that up and told Quick, and because Mickey was Mickey, he hit an 0–2 pitch right into the gap Yaz had opened up and ran it out for a triple. Thurman was up next, it was his first game back, but he already had two hits. Now all he did was win the game with a sinking line drive that went for a sac fly to right.
After the game, I remember just leaning against a pillar in the locker room, watching the blood run down my wrist, and not minding a bit. Catfish was there; he’d pitched a complete game for the win, only gave up two runs and struck out eight. He looked over at me and just smiled, and I smiled back. “That’s the Reggie I always knew,” he said, and I pointed to my hand: “Looks good, doesn’t it?”
Then we just smiled at each other again. Not too bad for two former Oakland A’s, playing in the big city.
We’d beat Boston six straight by then. We’d gone from seven and a half down to three and a half up in less than three weeks. We had just fourteen games left, and a lot of people thought the Red Sox would just fold and go away.
But that’s when they really showed their mettle instead. They took the last game of that series at the Stadium against Jim Beattie, and then they made a run at us. That was when both teams really started playing some great baseball. Putting everything behind us now, just playing the great baseball we knew we were capable of. Hitting, pitching, defense, and clutch performances by everyone.
It was like walking a tightrope every day, a classic pennant race. It’s so much fun to be part of that. Every game seemed like an epic. We had to score three runs in the top of the ninth to avoid getting swept in a doubleheader in Toronto. Goose came on to pitch three shutout innings. Struck out the last batter with the bases loaded.
Couple days later, we lost a heartbreaker in Cleveland when Figgy had about the only bad game he pitched in September, gave back a 3–0 lead. We staged another big rally, came back from being down 7–4 in the ninth to tie it on a hit by Piniella—but then we lost it on a passed ball, a wild pitch, and a single off Goose in the tenth. In a race like that, you remember every bad pitch, every key hit.
Going into the last week of the season, we went on a six-game winning streak. Getting a strong outing every start from our pitchers. They threw two shutouts and let up just one run in every other game. That’s four runs in six games. They were dealing.
Ronnie pitched another 4–0 shutout. They couldn’t stop us with our top guys on the mound. From mid-July on, Guidry, Figgy, and Catfish went 34–6 between them. Last Saturday of the season, Figueroa became the first Puerto Rican pitcher to win twenty games in the major leagues. He shut out the Indians, 7–0, and afterward he gave Thurman a big hug and started to cry. He told everyone, “I win twenty games for the people of Puerto Rico and Bob Lemon.”
But the Red Sox still wouldn’t go away. They were playing epic games, too. They lost a 4–3 lead in Detroit in the eighth, game went into extra innings, and the Tigers had men on first and third in the tenth, with Jason Thompson and Steve Kemp coming up. But they got out of it, won in eleven. Next night they came back from down 6–4, won when they got a great hitter, Rusty Staub, to hit into a double play in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded.
After that they went to Toronto, where they got beat 5–4 on a two-run single in the bottom of the ninth. Next day, Tiant pitched a complete-game win, 3–1, stranding twelve runners. Day after that, they scored two in the ninth on an error to tie the game, lost a chance to win it when they blew a suicide squeeze, kept the Blue Jays from scoring twice in extra innings with the bases loaded, and finally won it in the fourteenth inning. Next they swept the Tigers when Torrez shut them out, 1–0, in Fenway.
After the last game between us in the Stadium, we went 10–5—but they went 11–2. Going into the last day of the regular season, they’d won six straight, too, keeping pace with us every step of the way. It was like each of us was waiting for the other one to break, applying maximum pressure.
I say “pressure,” but don’t get me wrong. It’s pressure because it’s tense. Most important, it’s big fun. Every pitch is important; every out is big. I was in a
number of great pennant races in my career, but this was the closest one I ever took part in.
You love having something to play for down the stretch, and the games are exciting. You play better. It makes going to the ballpark fun, because you love the challenge. It’s harder to play when there’s nothing on the line. I was fortunate: There were very few seasons in my twenty-one-year career when I didn’t have that. It gives you something to chase every day, keeps the blood running hot.
We wanted that sort of pressure—and it was there. The Red Sox kept chasing, and the last Sunday of the season they finally caught us. Catfish didn’t have anything much that day, and the Indians finally snapped our winning streak, beat us 9–2. The Red Sox won their seventh in a row. We were going to have a one-game playoff for the decision.
The fact that we were there was part of an interesting decision by our manager, Bob Lemon. Catfish didn’t have much, probably because he was only going with three days’ rest. Until then, he’d been almost unbeatable. Went 9–1, 1.71 ERA since the beginning of August—as well as I’d ever seen him pitch, and I was a teammate for almost his whole career.
But Lemon had to make the decision about what to do if we ended up tied with the Red Sox and had to have a one-game playoff. So he had taken advantage of what was maybe Guidry’s worst start of the season, when he lasted less than two innings in Toronto on September 20. Lem used that rare short start to pitch Ronnie on three days’ rest for the remainder of the season. Guidry came through, beating Cleveland, 4–0, on September 24, and then Toronto, 3–1, on September 28, the last Thursday of the regular season. Even on short rest, the man was indomitable!
Becoming Mr. October (9780385533126) Page 29