Summer of '68

by Tim Wendel

  Flood dies in 1997 of throat cancer at the age of 59.

  OTHERS

  Catfish Hunter

  In 1974, Oakland Athletics owner Charlie Finley fails to pay an annuity clause in Catfish Hunter’s contract. Eventually that makes the right-hander a free agent—and among the first to take advantage of the sea change Curt Flood’s case has ushered in. Hunter signs a five-year contract worth $3.75 million—a princely sum at the time—with the New York Yankees. With Hunter as their staff ace, the Yankees reach the World Series three consecutive years, winning twice. Upon his retirement, Hunter can look back on having started nine games in the Fall Classic, tying him with Bob Gibson.

  In 1999, Hunter dies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Lou Gehrig’s disease, only a year after being diagnosed. Elected to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, his plaque reads, “The bigger the game, the better he pitched.”

  Luis Tiant

  The right-hander’s fears about what will happen to his pitching arm without an offseason of winterball prove to be astute. In 1969, Luis Tiant loses a league-worst twenty games, issues a league-worst 129 walks, and is traded from Cleveland to Minnesota before the next season. He gets off to good start with the Twins, winning six games, but then breaks his right scapula. Tiant is released in 1971 and many believe his baseball career is over. But the Cuban right-hander signs a minor-league contract with the Boston Red Sox and goes 15–6 in 1972. He averages more than seventeen victories a season between 1973 and 1978, and stars in the 1975 World Series, when Boston loses in seven games to Cincinnati.

  “You can talk about anybody else on that team (1975 Boston Red Sox) you want to, but when the chips are on the line, Luis Tiant is the greatest competitor I’ve ever seen,” says Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer.

  Tiant finishes his nineteen-year career with the Yankees, Pirates, and Angels.

  Frank Howard

  “The Capital Punisher” follows up his forty-four home runs in 1968 with forty-eight the following season and forty-four again in 1970. But when the Washington Senators move to Texas, becoming the Rangers, Howard’s best days at the plate prove to be behind him. Near the end of the 1972 season, he is traded to Detroit, where he finishes his major-league career, retiring in 1973.

  Larry Dierker

  After winning a dozen games in 1968, Larry Dierker reaches the twenty-victory plateau for the first and only time in his fourteen-year career the following year. He plays all but one of those seasons with the Houston Astros, firing a no-hitter in 1976 against the Montreal Expos. After retiring in 1977, he works for eighteen years as a radio and television analyst. He then manages the Astros for five seasons, winning four Central Division titles.

  Nolan Ryan

  After finishing the ’68 season, his first full year in the majors, with a record of 6–9, Nolan Ryan nearly quits the game. That’s how frustrated he is with his inability to throw strikes and win consistently. In the end, Ryan decides to tough it out with the New York Mets, winning a key game in relief during the team’s amazing 1969 World Series run. Before the 1972 season, Ryan is traded along with pitcher Don Rose, outfielder Leroy Stanton, and catching prospect Francisco Estrada to the California Angels for infielder Jim Fregosi. “That deal was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Ryan says. “In Anaheim, I got a chance to pitch on a regular basis and to develop my game.”

  On the West Coast, “The Express” smoothes out his delivery and goes on to win 324 games in the majors, including seven no-hitters. He is elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with 98.79 percent of the vote, second-highest all-time to Tom Seaver (98.84 percent in 1992).

  Milt Pappas

  The right-hander goes 10–8 for Atlanta after his trade from Cincinnati, which many believe was initiated due to his protest regarding the Reds’ decision to play while other teams mourned Robert Kennedy’s assassination. Pappas retires after the 1973 season, with a career record of 209–164, including a no-hitter, in seventeen seasons.

  But many in the game remember Pappas more for the curious disappearance of his wife, Carole, than any achievement on the mound. On a summer day in September 1982, she takes the car to do some errands and disappears without a trace. Pappas makes a national appeal for any information about her whereabouts and the family even consults a psychic, but to no avail. Five years later, Carole Pappas and her 1980 Buick are found in the deepest part of a small pond blocks away from the family home in the Chicago suburbs.

  “How she got there,” Pappas writes in his memoir, Out at Home, “nobody knows for sure because nobody saw her go in. It was a mystery in 1982, a mystery in 1987, and it’s still a mystery.”

  Bill Russell

  The 1968–69 season marks Russell’s third year as player-coach for the Boston Celtics. After limping into the playoffs, the Celtics once again catch fire, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers and newly acquired Wilt Chamberlain in seven games. Afterward Russell retires, having guided Boston to eleven championships in thirteen years. Decades later, Russell is considered one of the best centers ever to have played the game.

  Roone Arledge

  After putting the Olympics on the TV map, Arledge transforms professional football into primetime viewing with ABC’s Monday Night Football. In 1994, Sports Illustrated magazine ranks Arledge third, behind Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan, in its list of forty individuals who have had the greatest impact on the world of sports in the last four decades.

  Jim Ryun

  Before the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City, Jim Ryun and Dr. Jack Daniels believed a time of 3:39 or so would be good enough to win 1,500 meters. But Ryun’s 3:37.8 at altitude proves to be well behind Kip Keino’s 3:34.9. In 1981, Ryun tells The Runner magazine, “We had thought that 3:39 would win and I ran under that. I considered it like winning a gold medal; I had done my very best and I still believe I would have won at sea level.” Ryun will compete again four years later in the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. But he is tripped and falls during a 1,500-meter qualifying heat. Despite protests by the U.S. team, the International Olympic Committee refuses to reinstate him for the event final. His best Olympic showing will remain the silver medal in 1968.

  Joe Namath

  The AFL Player of the Year caps off the 1968 season with MVP honors in Super Bowl III. Namath backs up his pregame “guarantee” of victory with a 206-yard passing production in New York’s 16–7 victory over Baltimore, assuring the competitive viability of the AFL-NFL Super Bowl series. Despite knee injuries, Namath plays thirteen years at the professional level.

  Tom Hayden

  The political activist remembers having little time for baseball or his hometown team in 1968. “Sure, I was aware of the irony that it was the Tigers’ year, and that my high school friend (Bill) Freehan was having his greatest year,” he says, “ but it was like being on two different planets.”

  Hayden goes on to become “the single greatest figure of the 1960s student movement,” according a New York Times book review. He serves eighteen years in the California legislature, writes nineteen books, and teaches at Harvard. In addition, he marries actress-activist Jane Fonda. He’s often considered to be the basis for the Kris Kristofferson song line “partly truth and partly fiction, a walking contradiction.” Through it all, Hayden never forgets his love of baseball.

  In the 1980s, he begins playing again and attends the Dodgers’ fantasy camp in Vero Beach, Florida. Despite being out of shape, he sticks with it and is MVP and batting champion the next spring. He still plays and coaches in the Los Angeles area.

  “All at once the desire grabbed me,” Hayden says. “I wasn’t finished with baseball.... Right now, I am seventy-one and play first base in a dirt league, hitting .300 and slipping. With good weather, I play all year.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It is one thing to have a notion creep into your mind while watching television one evening. It is quite another to turn it into a book. For that to happen, you need a lot of people in your corner.

  Jonatha
n Crowe, my editor at Da Capo, heard me out from the beginning and offered guidance and enthusiasm throughout this project. He’s a delight to work with.

  Special thanks to Chris Park, my agent, and the folks at Foundry Media. Chris was with me every step of the way and she always has my back.

  Kärstin Painter and Anais Scott at Perseus Books helped in the final stages, making sure that Summer of ’68 became a reality, while Lissa Warren championed it in the marketplace.

  When I’m working on a new book, I become a big believer in omens—constantly keeping an eye out for signs that this will really play out. On an early trip to Detroit, my good friend Tom Stanton took me on a tour of the Motor City and I saw that it was true: that sports, politics, race, culture, and music can connect in ways that we seldom acknowledge.

  Months and months later, with deadlines fast approaching, I took a trip to Memphis at the urging of a new friend, David Waters. It was a roll of the dice really. So little was set up when it came to appointment times and the like. But twenty minutes after my plane landed, my cell rang and it was Erica Cunningham with the Monumental Baptist Church. If I could be there within the hour, Rev. Billy Kyles would see me. Rev. Kyles was a member of Dr. Martin Luther King’s inner circle, and after talking with him I saw that that’s where things truly went over the edge in 1968. For King’s assassination was followed by Robert Kennedy’s shooting, the riots in Chicago, and so on. Just as importantly, what happened in Memphis couldn’t be ignored. Whether we liked it or not, everybody in America, even athletes, were buffeted by what was going down.

  I’m grateful for interviews and conversations over the years with Hank Aaron, Bud Anzalone, Budd Bailey, David Black, Erik Brady, Nellie Briles, Lou Brock, Gates Brown, Gary Brozek, Orlando Cepeda, Thurston Clarke, Dr. Jack Daniels, Paul Dickson, Larry Dierker, Greg Downs, Dave Duncan, Tim Gay, David Granger, Phil Grisdela, Ken Harrelson, Tom Hayden, Hugh Hefner, Willie Horton, Frank Howard, Tommy John, Tony La Russa, Mickey Lolich, Howard Mansfield, Juan Marichal, Bill Mead, Dick McAuliffe, Tim McCarver, Jack McKeon, Tim McQuay, William Mead, Jim Palmer, Gaylord Perry, Annie Phillips, Scott Pitoniak, John Pietrunti, Phil Pote, Scott Price, Dick Rhoads, David Rowell, Nolan Ryan, Tom Stanton, Robert Thompson, Luis Tiant, Joe Torre, Jon Warden, David Waters, Lonnie Wheeler, and Paul White.

  Dave Raglin and his fellow members of the Mayo Smith Society are a treasure trove of information about the old Tigers. Sam Moore of the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association always takes the time to talk with me. Thomas Mann and David Kelly at the Library of Congress in Washington put things in perspective for me. Special thanks to Chris Willis, who opened the vaults at NFL Films so I could view the end of the “Heidi Game.”

  In looking back at things, I realize that much of this book took root when I was involved with an amazing group of advisors—Milton Jamail, Rob Ruck, Adrian Burgos, and Alan Klein–as we were involved with “Viva Baseball,” an exhibit about Latinos in baseball for the National Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. There we worked with Erik Strohl, John Odell, Ted Spencer, Tom Schieber, Brad Horn, Lenny DiFranza, Mary Quinn, Tim Wiles, and Jeff Idelson. Hang with those people for a while and you start to see things in a different light.

  In addition, a special nod to the Hall of Fame’s Bill Francis, who is one of the best researchers in the business. Also, with the final deadline looming, Jim Gates located several vintage interviews from the Cooperstown archives and Freddy Berowski sent them along. Pat Kelly of the Hall of Fame helped me locate many of the iconic images in these pages that bring the year 1968 to life—several at the eleventh hour.

  Special thanks to Charles Eisendrath and the Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. That 1995–96 school year in Ann Arbor started me in a new direction.

  The Writing Department at Johns Hopkins University has been my base camp for a decade now and it’s no coincidence that I’ve produced some of my best work while with them. Thanks to David Everett, my students, and the faculty.

  And, finally here’s to Jacqueline Salmon, Sarah Wendel, and Chris Wendel—my wife and children. They are the ones who insist I keep swinging for the fences.

  NOTES

  PREFACE

  xi Vince Lombardi’s second Super Bowl victory: www.nfl.com.

  xi short view: Bill Russell and Taylor Branch, Second Win: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man, 96–97.

  PART I

  1 Asking for autograph: Willie Horton, author’s interview, September 9, 2010.

  2 “basis of intimidation”: Bob Gibson, with Lonnie Wheeler, Stranger to the Game, 153–157.

  2 color of the afternoon: “St. Louis Turn Off, Tunes In on Series Opener,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 3, 1968; “Conventional View Is Taken of Game,” New York Times, October 3, 1968.

  3 643 batters at major-league level in 1968: Baseball Hall of Fame research department. Figure supplied by the HOF Library in Cooperstown, N.Y.

  3 Seasonal statistics: The Baseball Encyclopedia: The Complete and Definitive Record of Major League Baseball, Macmillan, 1993.

  3 “No hitter had an easy time”: Orlando Cepeda, author interview, August 31, 2010.

  3 Bob Gibson/Denny McLain statistics: Baseball Encyclopedia.

  4 approaching a crossroads: Sports Illustrated, “One Hundred and One,” April 14, 1969.

  4 “People forget how honest”: Horton interview.

  5 Gibson was in rare form: St. Louis Globe-Democrat; author interview with Tim McCarver, October 3, 1968.

  5 top arms in 1968: Allan Roth, Who’s Who in Baseball, published by Who’s Who in Baseball Magazine Co., Inc., 1969.

  5 “Against studs like Gibson”: Don Drysdale and Bob Verdi, Once a Bum, Always a Dodger, 168.

  6 “ You could see”: Gates Brown, author interview, September 9, 2010.

  6 Start of season: Baseball Hall of Fame research department.

  7 “Strikeouts weren’t the problem”: Nolan Ryan, author interview, June 16, 2009.

  7 “The evidence”: William Mead, author interview, October 15, 2010.

  7 Catfish Hunter’s perfect game: “Catfish Makes Perfecto Look Easy,” Sporting News, May 25, 1968; “Catfish as Excited About His Hitting as Perfect Game,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1968; “No runs, No Hits, No Errors,” New York Times, May 14, 1968.

  8 Hunter background and signing: “Finley Gifts Hunter with $5,000 Bonus for Perfect Game,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1968; “In the Wake of the News . . . ,” Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1968; “The Catfish Enigma,” New York Times Magazine, September 7, 1975.

  9 “It was the times”: Jon Warden, author interview, May 11, 2010, and May 17, 2010.

  10 Vietnam War/Tet Offensive: Mark Kurlansky, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World,” 50–53.

  10 Walter Cronkite trip/televised remarks: Daniel Hallin, “Vietnam on Television,” online at Museum of Broadcast Communications, http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=vietnamonte

  11 “I experienced”: Ryan interview.

  12 “Let’s just say”: Mickey Lolich, author interview, August 16, 2010.

  12 Detroit scene: Mead interview.

  12 Red light: Lolich interview.

  12 Detroit burned in 1967: “The Great Rebellion,” http://www.detroits-great-rebellion.com/.

  13 “There was no getting around it”: Frank Howard, author interview, September 15, 2010.

  13 Howard background and home-run streak: “Howard Becomes Monster,” Washington Post, May 19, 1968; “Howard Breaks 2 Home Run Records,” Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1968; “Howard Set Record,” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1968; “Howard, Platooned and Dropped by Dodgers, Thrives as Regular,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1968; Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson, Sixty Feet, Six Inches: A Hall of Fame Pitcher & A Hall of Fame Hitter Talk About How the Game Is Played.

  PART II

  17 “best baseball town”: Tony La Russa, author interview, August 1999.

  17 St. Louis Cardinals Sports Illustrated cover: http://sportsillustrat
ed.cnn.com/vault/cover/featured/8096/index.htm

  18 “complete shock”: Cepeda interview.

  19 The “El Birdos” routine was mentioned by several players and arguably the best description can be read in Gibson’s Stranger to the Game, 131–132. It is also detailed in Doug Feldmann’s El Birdos: The 1967 and 1968 St. Louis Cardinals.

  20 “no problem fitting in”: Nellie Briles, author interview, June 2003.

  20 “my reputation”: Gibson, 133–135.

  21 Reds brawl: Cepeda interview.

  21 “rainbow coalition”: Gibson, 148.

  22 “I’ll never forget”: Sporting News, January 15, 1968.

  22 “in the other man’s shoes”: Gibson, 165.

  23 Busch Stadium: Gary Gillette and Eric Enders, Big League Ballpark: The Complete Illustrated History, 290–298.

  24 Jim Ryun’s struggles: Richard Hoffer, Something in the Air, 41–43; Dr. Jack Daniels, author interview, July 14, 2010.

  24 three times the amount: Roone Arledge, Museum of Broadcast Communications, http://www.museum.tv/.

  26 “changing events”: Daniels interview.

  26 “plain of Lethe” : James Hillman, The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, 46–47.

  27 “to be a ballplayer:” Gibson, 15.

  27 Monarchs: Ibid., 19.

  28 Globetrotters: Ibid., 46–48.