by Ron Guidry
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Those kinds of lessons don’t sink in overnight. That’s why we didn’t become a first-place team overnight. Boston finished us off the next day with a three-game sweep, part of a five-game losing skid. And sure enough, there were other times when our troubles crept onto the field. Less than a month after that game against Boston, some people thought Reggie acted too slowly on another ball in the outfield. But the biggest credit to this team is that there were so many people who didn’t tolerate anything but the best. People didn’t just sit back and expect Billy or Thurman to settle a problem. If Sparky needed to chew out Reggie, he did. Nobody was immune to criticism, and none of our leaders were afraid to dole it out.
And what ultimately made things click is that despite these high-profile lapses, Reggie truly did expect the best out of himself. That’s why I ultimately respect him so much. You don’t get to be an all-time great hitter like he was without a work ethic, drive, and unwavering will. He had that, and it showed in his numbers. No matter what was going on and how unhappy he was, he was hitting the baseball. He entered the All-Star break hitting .281 with sixteen home runs. Facts are facts, and he was helping us win ball games. As a team, we just needed to do the little things to go from good to great.
There were other factors taking shape as the season went on. That includes me. As much as I established myself and a level of trust with Billy during that complete game, this was still my first season as a starting pitcher. Bumps in the road were inevitable. At one point in late June and early July, we lost four out of my five starts—during the last of which I only lasted four and one-third innings while giving up six runs. But once Billy trusted someone, he trusted him steadfastly, and I wasn’t about to let him down. The next time out after that start I threw my second complete game. This time he left me out there in a tight, 3–1 affair against the Brewers. He easily could have taken me out during the seventh when I gave up two walks and a hit, but I struck out the final batter of the inning, with the bases loaded, to get out of the jam. Then I retired the Milwaukee hitters 1-2-3 in each of the final two innings. Once I learned that Billy had confidence in me, I was never going to lose confidence in myself.
That also marked my first start after the All-Star break. It was a much-needed rest for me and my arm, with the results showing in that outing. It was also an important breath of fresh air after all the drama. But the beauty of everything that happened in those early months is that the air had been cleared and things were out in the open. Nobody was walking on eggshells waiting to trip the next land mine. You knew where you stood with everybody. You knew what was acceptable, what was expected, and what wasn’t. And at the end of the day we all learned there was one thing we all cared about more than anything: winning.
When that happened, there was no stopping us. We started to play as a team, picking one another up, during August. All the other stuff became noise. It didn’t matter to us that George’s name was splashed all over the papers again, talking about how disappointed he was in us. “The thing that disappoints me most is the lack of pride the players have. They don’t seem to care if they’re known as the team that choked,” he said.
Take my August 10 start against Oakland. We won 6–3 while I threw seven innings of one-run ball, but every little game, even against a low-quality team, showed our mettle and our growth. Instead of adding to the problems, Billy showed his faith in Reggie by hitting him cleanup that day against Vida Blue, a left-hander. Billy had rarely done that this season, and even sometimes sat Reggie against lefties. Reggie rewarded him with an RBI single in the first and another hit in the second.
Just like that, we started to win games every which way. During my next start, against the White Sox, I got hit hard and allowed seven runs in eight-plus innings. Then Sparky, who was our savior all season and would go on to win the Cy Young—an amazing accomplishment for a reliever—had a rare bad outing. Together, we blew a 9–4 lead and let Chicago go up 10–9. Then Chris Chambliss hit a two-run walk-off shot in the bottom of the ninth to give us the win. Reggie scuffed up his leg that day, but he toughed it out and played the next day. We were all picking one another up and turning into the behemoth we always thought we could be. We entered the All-Star break at 50-42, third place in the AL East and three games behind Boston. We went 22-7 in August and finished the month first place in the division, four games ahead of the Red Sox and the Orioles.
During these final two months I made another evolution. I went from being solidly in the rotation to becoming the guy the team could count on. On August 28 I celebrated my birthday with a two-hit shutout of the Rangers. It was the best, most dominant start of my career to that point. The next time out, I got another complete-game shutout, this time against the Twins. The following start, September 7 against Cleveland, I got hit around some early, but it just goes to show to what extent Billy believed in me. When I told him I was good, he didn’t pull me, and I went ten innings. We won in extras. All of this built up to one last start of the season, against the Red Sox, who I hadn’t faced all season. They didn’t know what hit them in a 4–2 win for us, which marked a stretch of four straight complete games for me. I ended the season with a 16-7 record and a 2.82 ERA. As a team, we went 19-9 in September. That meant we won one hundred games on the nose. The playoffs awaited.
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For the second straight year we met Kansas City to decide the American League pennant. The previous year we had beaten them dramatically on a Chris Chambliss home run. And these Royals, who I had faced in those pivotal moments earlier in the year, were still no fun to face as a pitcher. But after everything we had been through this season, we weren’t about to become complacent in the playoffs. We had fought and fought all year, and through it all developed a toughness that would prove invaluable.
I started game two at Yankee Stadium. I should have felt a lot of pressure. We had lost game one at home, 7–2, and we couldn’t afford to go down 2–0 with the series headed to Kansas City. But the funny thing was, I didn’t feel pressure. That’s not because I had ice in my veins or some cliché about remaining calm on the biggest stages. I have certainly felt pressure in my career. But everything I had been through this season had felt like a test, and I just kept passing. I proved myself in the bullpen. Then in the rotation. All I had to do now was show what I had been able to do for the entire season. It helped that we were at home, with the fans behind us in a stadium where I had grown comfortable.
Once I got through the first inning, I had that confidence. I walked Hal McRae, the second batter of the game, and he stole second with an error. That left George Brett and Al Cowens up with a runner in scoring position. Brett was a great hitter, but in particular on that day I didn’t want to let Cowens beat me. He had finished second in the MVP voting, hit twenty-three home runs with 112 RBI, and I felt if I could retire him, I could retire the whole Kansas City order. Especially after he had three hits off us in game one. That loomed large in my mind. Brett flew out to center for out number two. Then I got Cowens swinging to end the inning. We won 6–2. I went the distance, allowing just three hits all evening.
After we split the next two, it all came down to game five of the five-game series. That’s when Billy made a decision I couldn’t really understand at the time. He sent me out there with just two days’ rest. I could see why he wanted to use me. I was our hottest pitcher. But it’s usually a tall task to go out there on three days’ rest. Two is almost never done, and for good reason. I was stiff, still recovering from a complete game, and all of a sudden I was being thrust into action two days earlier than I was used to. I wasn’t about to say no, though, even if I (and plenty of others) had doubts about the decision.
I knew it would be especially tough because there’s a big difference between facing the Royals in New York and facing them in Kansas City. The turf at Royals Stadium made it a difficult venue for power pitchers. Th
e ball moves faster than it does on grass, so they can just hit the ball on the ground and use that speed to their advantage. More ground balls become hits, and more singles become doubles. And that’s pretty much what happened. I left in the third inning having given up three runs.
But it was also a day where we showed just how much of a team we were. I didn’t get the job done, although I was given a difficult task. The guy who did, though, was Mike Torrez. Even though he had started game three, he had gone to Billy and said he’d be ready to pitch out of the bullpen if needed. He responded with five and a third shutout innings, an absolutely incredible performance.
What we did in the series with Kansas City often goes understated because of the offensive heroics that would follow in the World Series. But we didn’t win this game, or the ALCS, without a string of key hits when it was all on the line in the ninth inning. With three outs left to save our season, we trailed 3–2. Paul Blair started it off with a single to center. Roy White, sent in to pinch-hit for Bucky Dent, drew a walk. Mickey Rivers followed that up with a single to tie it up 3–3. The next batter, Willie Randolph, then did exactly what we needed by hitting a sac fly to put us up 4–3. We weren’t striking out, and every batter was either getting on or advancing runners. That sac fly won’t go down as an all-time great hit, but boy, should it. We added another run before the inning was over. Not that Sparky needed it—he shut them down in the bottom of the inning, and we were headed back to the World Series.
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My lone start during the ’77 World Series came in game four. In a seven-game series, the fourth game always feels like it changes the course more than the others. It’s exactly in the middle, with three games before and the potential for three after. We led the series 2–1, so a loss meant we’d be tied 2–2 with game five in Los Angeles, an opportunity for them to take a commanding lead. A win meant we’d have three straight chances to finish them off.
After that disappointing performance in Kansas City, I had five days of rest and was on a mission to avenge my last start. But it wasn’t so much anger that motivated me, it was a matter of proving something: that I could be better than I was the last time out. Little steps. Each start growing off the last. I had proven that all year. I just had to be myself, and with my arm fully rested, that shouldn’t be a problem. Not only that, but game five in Kansas City had been an abbreviated one; I had thrown only forty-five pitches. I was as fresh as I had been all season.
The result was exactly what I’d hoped for. I went nine innings, gave up two runs again, same as in game two of the ALCS, and I allowed only four hits. There were two key plays that stood out to me. Both, looking back, gave a glimpse into the future. Lou Piniella made a once-in-a-lifetime catch in left, robbing Ron Cey of a long ball and saving my ass. In the bright sun of Dodger Stadium, Lou casually got to the wall during the fourth inning, leapt, and came down with it like it was an easy schoolyard catch. It wouldn’t be the last season-saving defensive play he made in a Yankees uniform. Two innings later, Reggie Jackson hit his first World Series homer as a Yankee to give us an insurance run and push our lead to 4–2, the eventual final score. And it wouldn’t be the last homer Reggie would hit that October.
It’s difficult to place the exact moment when we knew something special was going on. There was our being on the verge of winning our first World Series since 1962. Baseball, more than any sport, is a team game; we don’t win it all without Lou’s catch, Willie’s sac fly, Sparky’s Cy Young season, Torrez’s relief performance, and a lot of little things that we could recount for days. But that day at Yankee Stadium, watching Reggie Jackson, you knew you were watching baseball history in the making.
Reggie was hot coming into the game, with home runs in game four and game five, even though we lost game five. It says so much about Reggie that he was able to put what he went through behind him to play the best baseball we had ever seen. Because even though a lot of the struggles were of his own doing, there’s no discounting the fact that it was hard for him personally. But he put it all behind him to carry us to the finish. It started with a two-run shot in the bottom of the fourth, to take us from down 3–2 to up 4–3. Then he hit another in the next inning to make it 7–3. By the time he came up in the eighth, it’s like we all expected it: us, the fans, folks watching on TV, anybody who was following the game. Crack. His third home run of the game. His fifth of the series. The nickname he earned following the game, Mr. October, may have started as a wisecrack but became the most deserved nickname in the game. Minutes later, we were celebrating on the field as World Series champions with a crazy story to tell about how we got there. Reggie and Billy hugged. Reggie and Thurman hugged. We all did.
6
LOUISIANA LIGHTNING
“Sparky,” I said. “What’s the earliest you’ve ever had to enter a game?”
It was June 17, 1978. We were in the Yankee Stadium bullpen, and I had just finished my warm-up pitches before a start against the Angels. The session hadn’t been pretty. I had no idea where the ball was going. What separated me from other power pitchers wasn’t just that I threw hard but that I did so with great control. For somebody who primarily relied on only two pitches—a fastball and a slider—perfectly spotting my pitches was crucial. And today I just felt like I didn’t have it. Which for me didn’t mean I was throwing the ball more slowly but that I had no idea where the ball was going. I’d aim low, but the fastballs would shoot up high and out of the zone. The sliders would bounce in front of the plate. No matter where I aimed, the ball wouldn’t go there. So I wanted to let Sparky Lyle know he might have to come into the game early to bail me out.
In what had become routine before every game, as I’d leave the bullpen, Sparky would ask me how I was feeling. Sparky continued to look after me in ’78 despite how tough the season had become for him. A mustachioed wiz out of the bullpen, Sparky was the best pitcher in baseball in ’77. He appeared in seventy-two games, the most in the American League that season, had a 2.17 ERA in 137 innings, and won the Cy Young.
But before the ’78 season, we signed another ace reliever, Goose Gossage. It’s one of those things Mr. Steinbrenner didn’t see right. It had nothing to do with Goose’s personality or abilities. Goose is a great person and was an outstanding pitcher, as good as anybody in the game, including Sparky. Just twenty-six years old when he came to New York, he had already been in three All-Star Games for the White Sox and the Pirates. In ’77 he had a 1.62 ERA. So when George signed him, he envisioned some sort of unstoppable two-headed monster at the back of the bullpen. Goose, the righty. Sparky, the lefty. Together, he thought, they’d be capable of shutting the door every night.
But the best closers, like Sparky and Goose, they don’t match up lefty-righty. At the end of games, they expect to take the ball—they demand the ball. Being a great closer doesn’t just take having filthy stuff. It takes having a certain bulldog mentality. And bringing Goose into the fold had the effect of neutering Sparky. Goose became the lead closer for Billy, and Sparky was cast aside. In his eyes he was underpaid and underused. He talked about quitting the game.
As a friend, I found it difficult to watch. Here was someone who had just been the Cy Young winner and a key reason we won the ’77 World Series, and he was being treated like a broken-down has-been. That’s what made his book about the 1978 season, The Bronx Zoo, such a breakout bestseller. It wasn’t just about baseball or the Yankees. It gave a searing, honest picture of the mental and emotional turmoil he dealt with on and off the field that year. That cuts to the core of Sparky, because beyond being a once-in-a-generation pitcher, he was also a one-of-a-kind personality. He was famous for being a jokester—the times he sat bare-ass on someone’s birthday cake or lit our shoes on fire. Yet beyond the slider throwing, tobacco chewing, and prank pulling, he was a world-class human being. And I was a grateful beneficiary of his wisdom and generosity.
Perhaps the bigg
est testament to Sparky’s character is that no matter what, he always kept a close eye on me, asking me how I felt before each game. And on this day, the answer was not so good. “I’ve got nothing,” I conceded. I had no idea why I felt that way. Maybe because it was so damn hot and humid that June day. The Bronx felt like a regular bayou. Or perhaps it had to do with the fact that even though my results had been good to start the season, I wasn’t really in peak form yet physically and mechanically. Who knows? But regardless, one thing was clear: I had not the slightest clue that a historic night awaited.
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On a New York Yankees team rife with craziness, I cherished stability in my own life. In some ways, that made me an outlier. During the ’77 season I had become one of the better players. The core of the staff. But I kept as far away as possible from the drama that made our team so famous. Our other stars—Reggie Mr. October Jackson, Thurman Munson, Catfish Hunter, Sparky Lyle, Goose Gossage—had big-time, national reputations. But I just cared about pitching to the best of my ability and winning ball games. I craved something that you don’t associate with those years on this team: security.
And for the first time, that’s exactly what I had to start the 1978 spring training. I had signed a contract that, starting the next year, would pay me $200,000 per year. That didn’t make me the highest-paid player around, by any means, but it was a huge sum of guaranteed money, back in 1978. When you toil away in the minor leagues, making pennies, inevitably you have doubts whether you’ll ever make it. I had that. More than me, it was something Bonnie and the kids deserved after putting up with all my travels, minor-league demotions, and so forth—never knowing if it would pan out.