Becoming Mr. October (9780385533126)

by Jackson, Reggie; Baker, Kevin

  That was typical Mickey. He just had a funny way of making good things happen. He was like our carburetor. A great leadoff man. He didn’t get enough walks, didn’t get on base enough. But he hit for a high average, had some power, could steal bases, and covered a lot of ground out in center field. Above all, he would find a way to beat you.

  Earlier that season, back in July, I remember he went up to pinch-hit with us losing, 2–0, to Detroit in the seventh. There were two out, Gary Thomasson on first. Rivers hit a ball out to the wall in right field. Mickey Stanley was playing there for the Tigers, and he went up for it but couldn’t get it; the ball went off the wall.

  Immediately, Stanley started arguing with the umpires that he’d been interfered with going up for that ball. Probably had been. Back in those days, they’d pull your glove right off your hand out in right field in Yankee Stadium. But you can’t argue about it while the play is still going on. Stanley knew that; he was a good ballplayer, a veteran. He’d been on that world champion Tigers team back in 1968.

  But while he stood there arguing, Thomasson scored, and then Rivers went all the way around to score. We tied the game, went on to win it by a run. Without that win, we might never have made it to the playoff. That was Mickey. He’d walk up there, carrying his bat on his shoulder like an old man carrying home a pile of wood. Looked like he could barely lift it. But he made things happen.

  While Bucky was getting his ankle numbed, Mickey got him another bat. Bucky got back up, and Torrez tried to throw one more fastball by him on the inside corner. It got out over the plate, and Bucky got all of it. By that time, around five o’clock, the wind had changed, the way it usually did at Fenway in those days, before they started adding seats, and scoreboard, and other things onto the ballpark. It wasn’t clear he’d got all of it at first. But that ball kept traveling, and you could see Yaz drifting back and back in left field, and then all of a sudden he looked up and it was going, going, gone. A huge, three-run homer. Yaz’s knees just buckled.

  Bucky did hit that ball very hard. That’s the thing people forget. I know some of the Red Sox and their fans were saying later it wouldn’t be a home run anywhere else but Fenway. Well, I seem to recall the Red Sox hitting a few Fenway home runs. Other people blamed Torrez. But it was a good pitch, and it was well hit. It went over the wall at 315 feet. On the way down, it makes it to maybe 350 or 360. That’s a home run in plenty of parks.

  I don’t think it was a cheap home run. I think it was a timely home run, hit in a great spot.

  Suddenly we were ahead, and the park was dead silent. Then Mickey struck again; he worked a walk on a full count. Zimmer pulled Torrez for Bob Stanley, who was their ace in the bullpen that year, and Mickey stole second again on his first pitch. Next pitch, Thurman hit a ball in the gap for a double, scored another run. That put us ahead 4–2.

  That really spoke to how good we were. We were a really good team. Mickey Rivers was a great talent. He could rise to the occasion. Munson was a great talent. He was productive. He could get a base hit when he wanted to—could get almost any kind of hit he wanted.

  Torrez pitched a good ball game that day, but now it was gone. Bottom of the seventh inning, Guidry finally ran out of gas, but Lemon got Goose in there quick, and he got the last two outs of the frame.

  I led off the top of the eighth. I’d been confident I could hit Torrez, but I was just as confident I could hit Bob Stanley. At that time of year, I was going to hit you.

  Stanley started me off cautiously. He missed with a couple fastballs, got down in the count two balls and no strikes.

  At that point he probably should’ve just walked me. I was looking to be very aggressive then. It was a free shot for me. I was leading off the inning; there was nobody on. I could just get up and swing, try to get us another run. He came back with another fastball, but I missed it, fouled it into the left-field seats.

  Stanley was mostly a low-ball, sinker-ball pitcher. It was strength against strength. He threw a low fastball to a low fastball hitter. He didn’t get it low enough. I got it.

  He came right into my wheelhouse with it. And before it sank, I had airmailed it.

  I hit it to the deepest part of center field. Went five, six rows into the stands. I stood and looked at it for a couple seconds, which I didn’t usually do. I just knew I’d got all of that one.

  As I said at the time: We needed an insurance run, so I hit it to the Prudential Building. Just a joke.

  When I came in, I shook hands with everybody. I even shook George Steinbrenner’s hand, where he was sitting in a front-row box. George was a friend, no matter what differences we’d had. He’d brought me to New York; he’d given me this opportunity.

  I was lucky to have that moment, to just have played in that game. I wanted to be part of the victory.

  We were up 5–2 now, but it wasn’t over yet. Far from it. They came back at us, just like they did during the season. We were two great teams, going at each other. There was no quit in either one of us.

  Goose was so stoked up he was overthrowing. He started falling behind in counts, couldn’t finish guys off. Couldn’t get his pitches where he wanted them. He was getting his ball up, and they started hitting him. They were such great hitters, that whole lineup. They strung together three straight hits and cut the lead to 5–4 in the bottom of the eighth. Yaz drove in another run; Lynn drove in a run.

  Lem went to the mound and told Goose, “You’re trying to make me an old man. But I’m already an old man.” It was the perfect comment. Gossage settled down, got Hobson and George Scott to end the inning, but we had another one to go.

  It was in the bottom of the ninth inning when Lou made another great play out in right. By then, it was the only part of the park not covered in shadows, and when he was back on the bench, he told Lemon that he didn’t know what he would do if someone hit a line drive out there. That’s how bright it was, how hard it was to pick up the ball coming out of the darkness and into the sun.

  The Sox got Burleson on first with one out, and then Remy hits his ball there. Lou completely lost it in the sun. But he deked Burleson as if he were going to catch it all the way, made him hold up. The ball fell just to his left, so when it came down, he was just able to reach out with his glove hand and snare it. Made a great throw back to the infield that kept Burleson from going to third.

  That made all the difference in the game. Rice hit a fly ball next, and if Burleson is on third, he scores the tying run.

  But Lou made the play, he made all the plays out there. And afterward, he was very modest about it. He just told the media, “Look, when you play on world championship teams, somebody’s got to make those plays. Whether it’s me or somebody else—somebody’s got to make them. That’s how you become a world champion.” He made them all.

  Would I have made them? Would I have made that play on Remy? I don’t know. Here’s how it goes: You see the ball as it comes off the bat, then you lose the ball in the sun. You stay with the ball as long as you can, and then sometimes the ball will come out of the sun, and sometimes it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, it either hits you in the glove if you’re lucky or gets by you.

  Luckily for Lou and the team, he stayed with the ball through the sun, and it came out of the sun, and he happened to be in the right spot. But you know what I say about luck. Good defensive fielding, good instincts, were what enabled him to make that play.

  Now, I know that the ball fell and jumped right up into Lou’s glove hand. Lou’s a righty; I’m a lefty. If I’d been in the exact same spot Lou was, the ball would’ve been on the side of my throwing hand, and it might’ve been hard for me to grab bare-handed.

  Now, if I had lost it in the sun, would Burleson have gone for a deke from me the way he did from Lou—especially considering how much the media and Billy had been playing up my every fielding mistake? Again, there’s no way of knowing. Like Lou, I had a good arm out there. Maybe Burleson would’ve run—and I would’ve nailed him at third.

&
nbsp; We’ll never know, will we? Let’s just say, I stand on my postseason record. I was always “lucky” that time of year.

  All I’m saying is, it’s a case of “Oh, my gosh, what a great play Lou Piniella made.” Which is all there is to say about it.

  As it happened, Burleson had to hold up at second. It’s just one of those things baseball turns on. Not that we were out of the woods yet. We still had to get past Rice, who was swinging the bat as well as anybody in the game at the time. He hit a ball that got out to right very quickly, but the wind out there was holding the ball up, and he hit it too high.

  The crowd went nuts, they thought it was out, but Lou could see this one, and he made another nice catch. The crowd was still screaming, continuously now. Yastrzemski was up next, which wasn’t much better than having Rice up there, but Goose finally made himself relax. He threw a fastball to Yaz that moved like only his ball could move: fast. One hundred miles an hour plus, I’m sure. At the last possible moment, it exploded on him, the way a great fastball will. Moved in on his hands and left him helpless.

  Tough pitch to hit—even tougher to hit well. All Yaz could do was hit it weakly and hope it goes in the stands. Instead, he popped it up to Nettles. The sound went out of the place, with the exception of our dugout. We were all dancing around, you could hear us yelling on the field, it was so quiet. Even George came down on the field and was almost dancing a jig with us.

  Those were great times.

  25

  “FINDING A PRIZE IN THE WEEDS”

  I KNOW THAT playoff game was one of the greatest baseball games ever. It had to be in the top five. There was the 1951 Bobby Thomson game, the 1975 Carlton Fisk, Reds–Red Sox game. Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Koufax’s fifteen strikeouts in the 1963 Series, Bob Gibson’s seventeen-strikeout game in 1968. The famous World Series homers by Bill Mazeroski, Joe Carter, and Kirk Gibson. Babe Ruth’s called shot.

  Considering what was at stake in 1978, the history between the two teams, how much came down to that one game. How well it was played, how exciting it was all the way through … maybe, just maybe the best.

  Afterward, we felt we could beat anybody. We had to play the Royals again in the American League Championship Series. They always played us tough, and it was the third year in a row we’d been in the ALCS against each other. Our winning wasn’t at all assured. You play good teams enough, they’ll find a way to beat you. We were physically beat-up, we were tired, and our pitching was in disarray. It didn’t matter to the Royals that we’d just played one of the greatest games ever.

  We had to go out to Kansas City the very next day and start Jim Beattie, our rookie, number five starter against their best pitcher, Dennis Leonard, who had won twenty-one games for them, sixteen of them at home.

  But by then, we were flying. We all said it: After that pennant race, after that playoff game in Boston, the regular playoff games and the World Series were easier to play. The pressure was off now. We were in the postseason. We went into K.C., and had sixteen hits, beat them, 7–1. I reached base all five times I was up, three hits and two walks. Hit a three-run homer to put the game away off Al Hrabosky—and my friend Billy Martin wanted me to bunt against him! They couldn’t do much with Beattie; he gave up only two hits. When he ran down in the sixth, Lem brought in Ken Clay, and they could do even less with him.

  Second game, Figgy didn’t have his good stuff, and they tied it up. But then we went back to New York to face Splittorff. It was like a greatest-hits parade of all the pitchers Billy Martin thought I couldn’t hit.

  This time, I was in the starting lineup. And I got him. I homered off Splittorff my first time up, took him deep on a 3–1 count. Couple innings later, I singled in Thurman, then scored another run on Lou’s hit. Third time up off him, I hit a ball more than four hundred feet to deep center. It was caught at the wall, but it scored Roy White for another run.

  Hmm, I couldn’t hit Paul Splittorff.

  George Brett had a great series and a great game for them. He was batting leadoff that game for some reason, and he hit three solo home runs off Catfish his first three times up. They scored a couple more runs off Goose, and going into the bottom of the eighth, we were still down, 5–4. If the Royals had held on and won, they might’ve turned the whole series around, right there.

  But Roy White got a base hit, and they brought in Doug Bird to face Thurman. He hit a ball off Bird that must’ve gone 430 feet, back among the monuments where they were behind the left-field wall then. It was the shot that decided the ball game. Munson was never known as a power hitter, but he had the ability to adjust his game to what was called for, many times.

  That game, Ron Luciano had made a bad call on Lou a few innings earlier at home plate. Called him out trying to score on a fly ball when he obviously beat the throw. Piniella made sure everybody knew it, too; he ranted and raved and danced around the way only Lou could.

  When Munson hit that home run, Luciano later said, he crossed home plate and just kind of growled at him out of the side of his mouth. Something like, “Pulled your ass out of the fire.” That was Thurman.

  The next night Leonard pitched much better for them. He only allowed four hits, struck out nine. Struck me out all three times. First inning, Guidry still looked a little tired for us, and Brett hit a triple off him and scored. But he hung in, pitched a great game. Nettles and Roy White hit solo shots for us, and Gossage pitched an inning for a save. One way or another, we were going to beat you.

  Nobody told the Dodgers that, though. The World Series started tougher. I had another three-hit game in the opener and took Tommy John downtown. But Figgy got hammered, and we lost, 11–5.

  Nothing like Dodger Stadium, far as I was concerned. The next night I hit a two-run double off Burt Hooton to give us the lead. That was enough for Hooton. He hit me with a pitch the next time I came up.

  Ron Cey had a great game for the Dodgers in that second game of the Series, hit a three-run homer off Catfish to put them up, 4–2. I had another RBI for us, but by the ninth we were still down, 4–3. When we got two men on with one out, they brought in Bob Welch, who had come up to the majors in mid-season. He’d been throwing some serious heat for them ever since. Pitched three shutouts in thirteen starts, had another three saves coming out of the pen. He looked unhittable.

  He got Thurman on a fly ball to right, then it was my turn. I saw eight to ten pitches, hit several foul balls. I had trouble catching up to that ninety-five-mile-plus fastball of his. He kept the ball up and in on me. The count went to 3–2; he came in with another fastball up and in. I was so focused on what he was throwing that I forgot the runners would be running. When they broke, so did my concentration, and I got beat. I took that bat and broke the knob off it right there, smashed it into the ground. I was amped up.

  You know, then it was over. I gave it everything I had and left it there. I had no regrets. I was mad at myself in the moment. But by the time I got to the clubhouse, I was calm again.

  “The kid beat me,” was what I told the media. That’s all there was to it. On this Yankees team you weren’t getting second-guessed; you weren’t getting shots taken at you.

  The writers who were at the World Series—Roger Angell, Jim Murray, Steve Jacobson, Phil Pepe, Dick Young, Dave Anderson, all great writers—were talking about the classic duel in the sun I’d just had with Welch. Most of them had been around longer than I had. It was easy to respect them. I enjoyed listening to what they had to say. They treated it as a great moment. They were calling it one of the all-time great at-bats in a World Series. Everybody in the park standing for it, cheering on every pitch.

  It was pretty cool, even though I struck out. I felt grateful to be part of that, just as I did for all the opportunities I had in my career.

  I just wanted to square up that ball and hit it, and if I’d done that, it would’ve gone a long way. I wasn’t trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark. I wasn’t at home playing, saying, “Home run o
r nothing, here on Home Run Derby.” I was not doing that. I was just trying to catch up to a ninety-eight-mile-an-hour fastball.

  At the end of it all, when I looked back and saw the video, I said, “Boy, if I would have just cut my swing down a little bit, I could have squared that ball.” Because I did have a couple balls to hit. It’s one thing to lose because the other team is better or the other guy is better. It’s another to lose because you didn’t do what you should have done.

  But hindsight’s twenty-twenty. I was on my game, and there would be another day. I have to tip my cap to Bob Welch.

  I think the Dodgers were pretty sure they had us then, up 2–0 on the Series. We were battered again, too. Chambliss aggravated a hammy, he was hurting, he’d miss a couple games for us. Mickey Rivers was hurting; Thomasson and Blair had to fill in for him some. But it didn’t matter. We were headed back to Yankee Stadium and all our crazy fans, and we had Ron Guidry going in Game 3.

  Guidry said later he left his fastball in the pen that night. Left his slider there, too. He wasn’t sharp, couldn’t hit his spots. He walked seven guys, and the Dodgers hit him harder than almost anybody had all year, got eight hits off him.

  But that was the night Graig Nettles became a human vacuum cleaner. He put on a tremendous fielding clinic at third base. Maybe the best single fielding game anyone’s ever had in the World Series. He was unbelievable. Ended four separate innings throwing guys out, all on spectacular plays. They figured he probably saved something like seven runs for us. I’ve never seen anything quite that good, not even Brooks Robinson with the amazing Series he had back in 1970 against the Reds.

  The Dodgers kept pulling the ball on Guidry all night long. The right-handed power lineup they had was turning on him like nobody had all year.