Gator

by Ron Guidry

  All of this—the injuries, the infighting, the unease around the clubhouse—kept building as we slipped further and further behind Boston. They kept winning, and we continued to play okay. And it felt like every couple of days, they’d gain another game on us. That’s what triggered more radical moves with the lineup and added to the discord.

  It was in this atmosphere that we hit the middle of July. We needed the All-Star break. The guys with bumps and bruises got a few days off to heal. That included me—the start against the Angels had taken a lot out of me, and I wasn’t myself for a few outings. I probably shouldn’t have pitched my last time out before the break in Milwaukee, but it’s not like we had healthy arms ready to replace me. We lost that game 6–0, and I struck out only three, my fewest since April.

  But within a few weeks everything started to change. We healed over the break. Within a couple of weeks, the fireworks finally exploded in the wake of the Reggie bunt incident. Billy was now gone. And finally, we could look at the standings and just think about baseball. We had a couple of months to pull off a comeback—and there was no doubt in our minds we could do it.

  * * *

  —

  I never established quite the same relationship with Bob Lemon that I had with Billy. We didn’t have as much time together and hadn’t been through as much. He was our pitching coach in ’76, but I was such a minor factor on that team, he didn’t focus on me. Billy and I, for better or worse, had experienced a lot together and grown close.

  As a player, Lemon had had a distinguished career pitching for the Cleveland Indians. He went to seven All-Star Games, won the 1948 World Series, and was one of the best pitchers of his generation. He led the major leagues in wins three times, struck out the most batters in baseball in 1950, and went to the Hall of Fame. He first managed in Kansas City, and then later for the White Sox. Before he left Chicago and before Billy “resigned,” there were rumors that we’d just trade managers with the White Sox—Billy for Lemon. It didn’t quite play out that way, but when Lemon got fired, George snapped him up quickly.

  Lemon was an entirely different type of manager than Billy was. And as great a manager as Billy was, at this moment Lemon was a blessing in disguise. Billy was emotional and unsettling. Often that was good. This year it had become a problem. Lemon was a calming force. Everything about his demeanor was calm. He wasn’t going to fight with the players or fight with George. He was levelheaded in everything. That attitude changed the entire clubhouse. Before, guys had to tiptoe by the board to check out the lineup card to find out if they were playing or not.

  With Lemon filling out the lineup, it was simple. You’d be in the lineup or you wouldn’t—but it wasn’t part of some long-standing feud or gamesmanship with George. If you were starting, you were starting. If you weren’t, you were ready on the bench. “I ain’t telling you how to play,” Lemon would say. “I’m just gonna make the lineup. Read it. If your name’s on it, give me your best.” That’s it.

  For us, everything came together all at once. Finally, we were focused on just playing baseball. Even though we had a lot of ground to make up—fourteen and a half games with two and a half months left in the season—we had a team that was just as good as Boston’s, if not better. We could catch them, and the situation in the clubhouse was finally stable. Even more important, we were getting healthier. The biggest difference in that regard might have been Catfish, who had hardly pitched in the first few months, and when he did, got hit hard. Starting with eight innings of no-run, three-hit ball on August 1, he was back to being the dominant pitcher who fooled hitters every which way. Over the final two months, he went 9-2 with a 2.23 ERA.

  At the same time, everything that seemed to hamper us at the beginning of the year now started to hurt Boston. Over the course of the 162-game season, an entire team will never stay healthy the entire time. It just so happens that our injuries were stacked at the beginning of the season, while theirs clustered toward the end. Those injuries played a big part in their fall from grace. Rick Burleson, their shortstop, injured his ankle in the middle of July. They went 6-12 while he was out. Third baseman Butch Hobson missed a couple of weeks around then too, and played through an elbow injury for the rest of the year, which made him a major liability in the field. He finished the season with forty-three errors. Fred Lynn had an ailing back, Carlton Fisk’s ribs got dinged up, and Jerry Remy had something wrong with his wrist. That’s more than half of their lineup right there, going down the stretch. Some of them missed time, but even when they were on the field it was like what Cat was going through at the start of the year. They were just less effective.

  Between us getting on the right track and their injuries, our results were reversed. The way they gained a game on us in the standings every few days at the start of the season, we started gaining those games back. By the end of August, we had made up more than half their lead. They finished the month at 84-48. We were 77-54. We still had to catch up six and a half games in September, but that was doable—and we had the chance to pull it off in one fell swoop because we played the Red Sox seven times.

  * * *

  —

  Most of our strong play wasn’t the result of anything extraordinary. We were just playing up to our potential, and doing so steadily. From the middle of July to the middle of August, I went nine innings in six of seven starts. Four were complete-game shutouts. Figueroa was going good, too; so was Cat. And Goose was well past the early-season hiccups and into prime form, which meant he was as good as anybody who has ever closed a baseball game. By early August, his ERA was below 2.00. We had a 3.55 ERA before the All-Star break. Afterward, it was 2.79.

  Our charge set up what would turn out to be perhaps the most famous series in New York Yankees regular-season history. It became known as the Boston Massacre. Four games in four days at Fenway Park. Without our comeback in the division, though, those games wouldn’t have meant much. Instead, they meant everything. At the start of the series, on September 7, we trailed by exactly four games. A four-game sweep—an idea that was ludicrous to even fantasize about, at Fenway Park—would leave us tied.

  In games one and two of the series we didn’t just beat them—we demolished them. We kicked the absolute crap out of them. Both games were over after just a few innings. The first game: 15–3; we had scored twelve runs before they collected their third hit. Torrez didn’t even get an out in the second inning of that game before getting pulled. Second game, same story. We had eight runs before most of their lineup took an at-bat. They were thorough beatings in every facet of the game. We killed their pitching. They made mistakes in the field. Their bats were quiet, even though they were facing Clay and Beattie, who they hit around earlier in the season.

  That left us with incredible momentum, a giant mental edge, and our two most consistent pitchers, me and Figueroa, going in the third and fourth games of the series. I was completely at ease on the mound, knowing how well our guys were hitting. Figueroa and I both won, with the offense scoring another seven runs in each game. The eighteen-strikeout game in June may have been my most famous game of the season. But that day in Boston I allowed only two hits—the fewest I had allowed all year. That is, until my next start, September 15, at home against the Red Sox, when I allowed only two hits again. By the middle of September, we had a three-and-a-half-game lead. Then they stormed back, winning their final eight. When we lost on the last day, we were both at 99-63.

  Which set up the one-game playoff I told you about earlier. New York at Boston. Yankees versus Red Sox. Fenway Park. The most intense rivalry in baseball, and a playoff spot, all coming down to a winner-take-all finale on October 2. I was on the mound, on short rest. Yet given the fervor around the game, the wild fans, we weren’t nervous. We had been through everything a team could go through that season. We’d just smacked the stuffing out of them at Fenway less than a month earlier. We had nothing to be afraid of. And the rest I told y
ou. Lou’s catch. Bucky’s homer. Reggie’s homer. We were going to the playoffs once again.

  * * *

  —

  It’s difficult to totally comprehend what you just went through in the moment. With time, you can sit back in your chair and reflect on how we came back and how crazy the season was. In the same way, I knew I’d had an excellent season, but it didn’t hit me until afterward. I had a 1.74 ERA, a 25-3 record—there have been only a few pitching years like that in baseball history. Especially in the American League, after they instituted the designated hitter. It takes everything breaking perfectly. Same goes for understanding the historical context of that one-game playoff. We knew it was big, but only afterward did its place in time really resonate. We were happy, tired, and relieved all at once. But it’s not like we had time to really process it. As soon as it was done, we were off to play Kansas City in the ACLS.

  It was no coincidence that this was our third straight year playing the Royals in the playoffs. They had a strong team. But the confidence we had going into the Boston series we carried with us into the ALCS. We had proven that when we were healthy, we were the best team in the league. We resembled, in many ways, the Yankees team that had won it all the year before. It wasn’t about any single person. On any given day, somebody would win us a game. We had a very deep, talented team. And Lemon was the calming element we needed to put it all together. With Billy, we might not have pulled off the comeback. Instead of explosive and contentious comments, we had a quiet swagger built on something simple: our abilities as baseball players to compete in every facet of the game. We could hit. We could pitch. We could play defense. We had mastered the fundamentals.

  Beyond that, we felt like we had just beaten the only team as good as us in the American League. If Kansas City played in the AL East, they wouldn’t have even finished in third. Milwaukee won ninety-three games to Kansas City’s ninety-two. The fact that the Red Sox and the Yankees both had such good records in such a tough division—especially when you factor in the Orioles, another ninety-game winner—is a testament to how good we were in ’78. If Boston had beat us in that tiebreaker, they very well could have been the team to win it all.

  Because I had just pitched in the tiebreaker, I wasn’t able to pitch early in the Kansas City series. Beattie, the rookie, got the call in game one. He combined with Clay to throw nine innings of one-run ball for a 7–1 win. They were prime examples of unsung heroes who played a critical role for us. Nobody was counting on them going into the year—they got pressed into duty because of injuries and ineffectiveness. But they both got better as the season wore on and had lower ERAs in the second half versus the first. We lost game two 10–4 with Figueroa on the mound, but we were well positioned with the series tied 1–1, heading back to Yankee Stadium.

  Game three was a battle between two of baseball’s greats: George Brett and Reggie Jackson. Brett led off the game with a homer in the top of the first. Reggie tied it 1–1 with a homer to lead off the second. Brett homered again in the top of the third. Reggie tied it again with a single in the fourth. Then, you guessed it, Brett homered again in the fifth. Three at-bats, three home runs. We had so many big games against these Royals, and more to come in the future. But that performance was amazing.

  The thing with our team, though, is we never let those things overwhelm us. Reggie, true to form, gave us the lead back with a sac fly in the sixth. We went down again in the eighth when Goose gave up a couple of runs, but again the Royals’ lead didn’t last long. Thurman stepped up with a two-run shot that ultimately gave us the 6–5 win and a 2–1 series lead. Battling through pain, Thurman had hit only six homers during the entire regular season. In big spots, though, he did what winners do, and what no cranky knees could stop him from doing.

  That left game four to me, and I was feeling good after getting a full turn of rest. The one-game playoff against Boston was on short rest, as were some of my other September starts. With four days off, I owed my hitters a strong performance after they scored so much early in the series. And I preferred facing the Royals at Yankee Stadium. As I explained earlier, their team thrived in the fast conditions in Kansas City. I had more control of the game at home. They scored in the first after Brett tripled, followed by a single from Hal McRae, but that’s all I yielded. I went the next eight innings allowing only four more hits. Graig Nettles and Roy White both hit solo homers—different day, a new hero. Meanwhile, Goose pitched a scoreless ninth to seal the win.

  For the third straight year, we were going to the World Series. We wanted to make it two straight years with a trophy. A year before, we had been a circus, but we persevered. The circus was, if anything, wilder in 1978. It cost us our manager this time around. So we wanted to send another message: All of the craziness didn’t matter. Once again, we were facing the Los Angeles Dodgers. We knew we were the best team in baseball. But proving it wouldn’t be easy.

  8

  UNDERSTANDING YANKEES CULTURE

  “Dirty sons of bitches,” Thurman huffed.

  Contrary to what you might see in the movies, being a world-class leader doesn’t necessarily involve standing up on a chair and giving a motivational, rah-rah speech. Thurman Munson wasn’t just our captain in title. He was the best leader you could draw up for our baseball team. He didn’t lead by giving us corny pep talks or lectures every day. He led by example. He led by playing damn near every game even when he was aching. He led by demanding excellence not just from himself but from the twenty-four other guys in the clubhouse. If I threw ninety-nine pitches for strikes, he wanted to know why the one hundredth was a ball. If we won six games in a row, he’d be irate that we didn’t win seven.

  Thurman didn’t talk just to hear his voice, or because he thought it was the captain’s job to do so. So when Thurman did speak, you stopped what you were doing and you listened hard.

  And after game two of the Series, Thurman felt the need to speak up. He didn’t stand up in front of his locker and demand everybody’s attention. He just aired his feelings—his anger at our play—to some of us in the clubhouse lounge. There were seven or so guys there: Thurman, me, Graig Nettles, Lou Piniella, Catfish, a couple of others. After everything we had been through in our 1978 season—the daily altercations between George and Billy, Billy and Reggie, and ultimately Billy’s firing, Lemon becoming manager, our comeback, the one-game playoff against Boston—we trailed 2–0 to the Dodgers in the World Series. He walked into the lounge, poured himself a cup of coffee, and started talking.

  “I wouldn’t mind losing to those sons of bitches if we were playing good,” Thurman said. “Or if it was our first World Series. But goddammit, we’ve been here the last two years. We won last year. We’re the world champions. We’re better than the way we’re playing.

  “You see that little son of a bitch right there?” he said, pointing at me. “If he wins the game tonight, we can go on to win four games in a row. Then we got ’em.”

  We needed to be shook up. We were the defending world champions. We hadn’t played for shit for the first two games. But that was in Los Angeles. Now we had three games in our park. We should be able to win three games at Yankee Stadium. Then it’s 3–2 and we can go beat the shit out of ’em over there. But if we lost tonight, it would be a totally different story. Our cages needed to be rattled. Thurman rattled them.

  His message was simple. Forget the off-the-field stuff. Not many teams come back from a fourteen-game hole in the middle of the summer to make the playoffs. Especially trailing a team as good as Boston. Yet, this is how we came out of the gates in the World Series, playing a team we knew we were better than? If we were playing an incredibly good team like the Cincinnati Reds team that beat us in ’76, that would have been one thing. Thurman was saying he wouldn’t mind losing the World Series to a team like that. But not to the Dodgers. We just weren’t playing as well as we should have been.

  Thurman talked a
bout the team. He wasn’t mad about how one person hit or one person pitched in the first couple of games. He wasn’t telling Reggie that for us to win, he had to hit three more home runs a game. He wasn’t telling me I had to throw a perfect game. He was saying we all had to chip in.

  It reminded us about how it had been this season when we were at our best. You could look at our entire roster over the last two seasons and find games where every single person stepped up. That’s what made us such a tremendous team. We helped one another, complemented one another, compensated for one another. It was an important reminder for us all that day.

  Throughout the season, Nettles would come up to me on occasion when I was pitching and say he wasn’t 100 percent. He never made a ruckus or begged out of the lineup. He played 159 games that year, after playing 158 the year before. He was our most consistent hitter, an All-Star who could hit for average and probably deserved an MVP at some point. Day in and day out, he produced for us.

  But he would communicate to me when he was sore and might not have his usual range. Third base is a demanding position, because it requires a good arm and lightning-fast reaction times. By letting me know, I could adjust my pitching to try to cover for him. There are certain balls that are more likely to go down the third-base line, and I could do my best to avoid throwing those. He got so many important hits behind me, I’d do anything I could to help him out.