by Gruver , Ed;
The 1972 postseason, primarily the playoff games on October 11, changed that. Watching both games on television, writer Roger Angell was riveted by NBC’s coverage that day. He called it an “afternoon of baseball unlike any other in the annals of the sport.”
On a cool, cloudy day in Detroit, Catfish Hunter and Mickey Lolich locked up in another mound masterpiece. The Tigers’ Tony Taylor doubled to the gap in right-center in the second and advanced to third on Jackson’s error. He was stranded when Hunter issued an intentional walk to Aurelio Rodriguez and retired Lolich on a fly out to Reggie. Taylor would also double off Vida Blue in the ninth and combined with Duke Sims to account for the four doubles Detroit would hit in Game Four.
In the third Dick McAuliffe caught hold of a Hunter fastball and drove it deep to right-center field.
Kell: Way back on the warning track, might be. . . . Home run for McAuliffe! It caught the edge of the second deck, and the Tigers lead!
With one out in the seventh, Epstein launched a Lolich offering toward the upper deck in right. Woods provided the call on A’s radio: “Lolich delivers. . . . There’s a drive by Epstein, way back. . . . Going, going. . . . Tie ball game! Big Mike got a hold of one and this game is even at 1–1!”
Big Mike, eschewing the long-sleeved gold undershirt some of his teammates were wearing, trotted the bases triumphantly and punctuated his trip with an emphatic hop on home plate. The game raced along because the two aces made it move. While some would get two strikes on a hitter and then waste a pitch, Hunter and Lolich would come right back with a quality third pitch. Over the course of a game it was the difference between throwing 150 pitches or 100 pitches.
Game Four was tied in the tenth when Oakland struck for two runs. Gonzalo Marquez pulled a pitch from reliever Chuck Seelbach and singled past a diving Taylor at second. Alou reached out and roped an opposite-field double off the screen in left. The relay from Jim Northrup to McAuliffe to Freehan had Gonzo out by a good ten feet. But the ball one-hopped Freehan. Marquez and Freehan collided in front of the plate—the collision knocked Freehan’s hat off—and as the ball rolled through the batter’s box, Gonzo reached out with his right hand and, still prone in the dirt, slapped home plate.
Ted Kubiak’s dying quail to short right field dropped in front of an onrushing Kaline and scored Alou for a 3–1 lead. The A’s appeared ready to break the game open. Facing lefty reliever John Hiller, Jackson timed a slow curve, but the pitch jammed him. Strong enough to fight it off, Reggie cued it toward third and beat Rodriguez’s throw. With runners on the corners, Bando lined Hiller’s letter-high pitch right at Northrup for the final out.
Trailing by two and with winter beckoning, the Tigers roared back. Swinging from his open stance, McAuliffe pulled a Locker pitch to right. Kaline followed by getting around on a curve and grounding a single past Bando. Williams walked to the mound and, having already used Blue and Rollie Fingers in relief, waved in right-hander Joe Horlen.
Martin countered by sending lefty Gates Brown in to pinch-hit for Mickey Stanley. Horlen’s wild pitch advanced the runners, and Brown drew a standing ovation from the frenzied faithful when he worked a walk to load the bases.
Freehan followed with a grounder to Bando, who, rather than throw home, threw instead to second base. Tenace, a catcher playing second base for just the third time in four years because Williams had stripped his infield through a series of moves, reached for the throw, which was to the outfield side of the base. Tenace turned and was barreled into by the burly Brown. Williams said later that owner Charlie Finley’s orders to rotate second basemen had caused the skipper to run out of guys who could play that position. Williams watched the play at second unfold like someone witnessing an auto accident. The A’s second-base experiment effectively ended that afternoon.
With Cash up, Williams brought in rookie southpaw Dave Hamilton. Wearing a batting helmet because he was facing a lefty, Cash walked in the tying run and flung his bat defiantly toward the Tigers dugout. With the stadium lights flaring on the Tigers’ navy blue helmets and with thirty-nine thousand rocking old Tiger Stadium, Northrup scraped the steel-gray sky with a deep drive to right over the head of a drawn-in Alou.
Kell: There she goes! That gets the run home and the Tigers, in a tremendous come-from-behind victory here this afternoon, beat Oakland 4–3! This series is tied!
The old champs’ courageous comeback had the Tigers streaming from their dugout and Detroit fans hopping the outfield fences and rushing the field, their arms thrust skyward in celebration. Those that remained in the stands raised a ruckus to the rusty rafters. Some of the young spectators leaping from the bleachers tore up small sections of turf. The damage wasn’t as bad as the destruction following Detroit’s clinching of the division title in the regular season’s final series. The celebration on this day was pure joy. A half-hour following the final out fans were still in the stadium; they didn’t want the moment to end.
In a classic case of “Dewey Defeats Truman,” an early edition of a Detroit evening newspaper, certain the Tigers were going to lose Game Four, proclaimed, “Oakland Wins.”
Lolich knew better than to count out these Tigers. “You can go all the way back to ’68 when we came from behind,” he said in a delirious clubhouse. “Today it was the same ‘Over-the-Hill-Gang’ that brought us back again.”
While the Tigers exulted, the A’s locker room exploded in anger. Blue, in the bullpen because of an injury to lefty reliever Darold Knowles, and Fingers were screaming at one another and had to be restrained by teammates. Williams shook his head at the ruckus. I’m managing a damn looney bin, he thought.
What was taking place in Cincinnati was scarcely less dramatic. As young guns Don Gullett and Steve Blass prepared to battle for the second time in five days, the enormity of what was about to take place on the turf of Riverfront Stadium was evident to all. No one had to tell any of the players what this game meant. Certainly no one had to tell Morgan, who was taking two shots of Novocain in his heel so that he could play.
With close to forty-two thousand fans in full cry in Riverfront Stadium, Gullett took the mound in the first following a ninety-minute rain delay that only added to the anxiety and expectations.
The world champs knew what to expect from Cincy’s super southpaw. Wall-to-wall heat, Stargell thought. What followed over the next two hours and nineteen minutes was one of the great playoff games of all time.
Like most young men, Gullett had a lot of giddy-up, and it showed in his best pitch. One look was all it took for Dodgers manager Walter Alston to compare Gullett’s swing-and-miss fastball to that of his former ace southpaw Sandy Koufax.
Gullett had broken in with the Reds as a nineteen-year-old phenom who was less than a year out of McKell High School in South Shore, Kentucky. That first year, he said, made a man out of him real quick. Used primarily as a smoke-throwing reliever, he went 5-2 with a 2.43 ERA as the Reds rolled to the pennant. He saved two of his team’s three wins without allowing a run in the playoff victory over the Pirates. In the World Series against the wallbangers of Baltimore, Gullett had a 1.35 ERA in three appearances.
In 1971 Reds pitching coach Larry Shepard suggested that Gullett be taken out of the bullpen and inserted into the starting rotation. By season’s end he was 16-6 with a 2.64 ERA and had turned out to be one of the few highlights in Cincy’s horrid season. Anderson considered Gullett’s breakout campaign a big turning point for the Reds, who could begin to build an adequate staff around their young gun.
Gullett was the bright light in an otherwise forgettable summer, but things turned dark early in the ’72 season. By May 2 he was 0-2 in four starts and had yielded 19 runs in fifteen innings. The Reds had Gullett examined by team physician Dr. George Ballou to see if anything was physically wrong. Diagnosed with hepatitis, he missed significant time over the next three months and didn’t return to the rotation for good until August 20. He won four straight before losing a pair of one-run games and finished 9-10.
Anderson figured Gullett had missed out on 8–10 wins that season. True to his nature, the quiet, soft-spoken farm boy shrugged and didn’t worry about what might have been. What’s done, you can’t change, he said. Worrying won’t help.
By the time he got the sign from Bench to start Game Five, Gullett was older than his twenty-one years. He acknowledged that as a teenaged rookie, all he had tried to do was “throw the ball past the batter.” He had learned since that pitching was a science.
Beneath slate-gray skies and threatening clouds Gullett retired Stennett on a fly to right to open the game and struck Oliver out looking. The Cincinnati hordes were howling; one could sense their urgency. Clemente, unmoved, quieted the hostile crowd with a ground single to center. Stargell popped up to Tony Perez at first to end the inning.
Despite the threatening skies Michaels assured his anxious listeners that Game Five would be played without further interruption: “It is still very overcast here in Cincinnati but those are not rain clouds above us. . . . Broken pattern for the first time today so the forecast says no more rain.”
Gullett knew a Game Five assignment was as much a challenge as an honor, particularly when facing a club full of hard-swinging howitzers. The man most noted for his free-swinging ways, Sanguillen, opened the second with a single and Hebner stepped up. Michaels made the call on Reds radio:
Sanguillen at first base, Gullett at the belt. Hebner hits a line drive and this time it’s fair into the right-field corner for a base hit! Geronimo cuts it off, Hebner is digging for two and the throw is not in time. . . . Gets by Chaney and gets by Menke and a run will score! Hebner breaks for third and he’s in there. . . .
Cash hits a ground ball up the middle, Hebner scores and it’s two-to-nothing Pittsburgh. . . . Johnny Bench going to the mound to talk with Gullett.
Gullett settled down, but when Sanguillen and Hebner opened the fourth with consecutive singles, Gullett’s day was done. With Pedro Borbon, Carroll, and Tom Hall ready to go in relief, Sparky wasn’t going to stay with his struggling starter.
“Well, Don, you just don’t have it today,” Anderson told him as he waved in Borbon from the bullpen. “Maybe you’ll have it Sunday [for Game Two of the World Series].”
“That gave me a big lift right there,” Gullett said, “[Anderson’s] telling me that we were going to win the ball game.”
Borbon gave up an RBI single to Cash—his second of the game—then slammed the door. The Reds’ rally against Blass had begun the inning before, when Rose’s routine grounder hit a cutout in the Astroturf and turned into a double that scored Darrel Chaney. Joe Nuxhall called the startling play:
Blass delivers to Rose. . . . Pete swings and bounces it fair, over the head of Stargell and that’ll score a run! Rose on his way to second! . . . What looked like a routine ground ball hits the cutout in the sliding pit and bounces over the head of Willie Stargell, Willie getting a glove on it but couldn’t control it. . . . A break for the Cincinnati Reds.
The Reds continued to play catch up. In the fifth Cesar Geronimo cut Cincinnati’s deficit to a mere run.
Michaels: Geronimo swings and drills it to deep right. . . . Back goes Clemente. . . . Gone!
Blass silenced Cincinnati into the eighth and eventually departed having held the Big Red Machine to four hits. Borbon, Hall, and Carroll combined to keep the Bucs off the board. The game was, as the Gunner would say, “close as fuzz on a tick’s ear.”
The Reds were down to their final three outs when Bench stepped in to lead off the ninth against palm baller Dave Giusti. Lefty reliever Ramon Hernandez had recorded the final two outs in the Reds’ eighth, but with three right-handers due to bat in the bottom of the ninth and Giusti ready, Virdon’s decision was automatic.
The Bucs knew they were on the verge of knocking off the Reds and advancing to their second straight World Series. Out in center field, Oliver said he was “starting to count my World Series checks,” he recalled with a laugh. “We had confidence in our pitchers.”
Teammates thought Giusti the best closer in the game. In ’71 he had not been scored on in seven postseason appearances. In ’72 his 1.93 ERA was the lowest of his career. The Machine needed a spark, but it wasn’t coming from Anderson, who went down the dugout steps to get a drink of water and saw batting coach Ted Kluszewski.
“Klu, we’ve got about five minutes,” Anderson said. “If five minutes from now we don’t get a run, we’ll be on our way home. The way I feel, I suggest we get going.”
Bench had a different feeling. From the third inning on he believed he was going to hit one out. In the on-deck circle Bench toyed with the rosin and pine tar. Unlike some hitters, Bench did not wear batting gloves. He wore them in spring training until his hands toughened up, then discarded them. He was not a dirt man; he didn’t favor the old-time practice of scooping dirt from the batter’s box as Clemente did. Bench favored pine tar and rosin, mixing the two to get his hands sticky. By late in the game, Bench’s hands would almost be black from the pine tar, but he would have a good feel for the bat.
Bench watched Giusti throw his warmup pitches. No one had to tell the Reds’ slugger what the stocky Pirates’ right-hander would throw. Every hitter dreaded Giusti’s palm ball, which was a sinker pitch away from the plate.
Bench noticed the big crowd had grown quiet. Giusti, he thought, had a way of depressing opposing optimists. As he walked to the batter’s box, he heard people calling his name. He paid no attention; then he heard someone say, “It’s your mother!” He turned around, and there was Katy Bench, standing in an aisle and leaning over the railing. She gave her son a smile, then offered some motherly advice: “Hit me a home run!”
Bench bombed the first pitch deep but foul. He heard someone shout, “He’s up! He’s up!” meaning Giusti was high in the strike zone with his pitches. In the Reds broadcast booth Tom Hedrick and Waite Hoyt were drinking in the drama. Bench in ’72 had been amazing, Hedrick recalled. He had torn up the league. “Bench is a tough guy,” Hedrick said, “and he’s a smart guy.”
Bench was also a guy who could block out the crowd, even the frenzied fans in Riverfront. What he did when hitting well was barely put his hands on the bat handle. If Bench relaxed his hands, Hedrick said, he could hit to right field. If he squeezed too hard, he would pop up.
“Bench is gonna pop it up,” Hoyt told Hedrick. The former right-handed ace of the famed “Murderers’ Row” Yankees of 1927–28, Hoyt was the Yankees’ winning pitcher in the 1920s. He told Hedrick in Game Five, “The Pirates are just a little bit better than the Reds, my friend.”
Giusti worked the count to 1-2, then wound and threw his specialty: the palm ball.
Michaels: The pitch to Bench. . . . Hit in the air to deep right field, back goes Clemente, at the fence. . . . She’s gone! . . . The game is tied!
“Bench comes up and hits the ball to right field,” Oliver remembered. “I’m going to back up Roberto, and I’m halfway there when I see the ball going out.”
Bench knew he had hit it well. He watched the ball rise toward Clemente and keep carrying. Then he heard the roar of the delirious crowd. As he circled the bases, Bench couldn’t be certain he was even touching the ground. People who had left the ballpark heard the noise and came rushing back in. Players on both sides thought the emotion inside the stadium unbelievable. Fans were on their feet the entire inning. The Reds felt like little kids. Bench always believed that while growing old was mandatory, growing up was optional. The Reds were kids and played the game like kids.
“When Bench hit that home run, it’s the greatest feeling I ever got in my life and it’s the most excited I ever got,” Rose told Nuxhall after the game.
Driving the ball to the opposite field was the act of a disciplined hitter, and it showed how far the Reds’ catcher/slugger had come since his sub-par ’71 season. Gowdy told Bench in July of ’72 that ’71 might have been the best thing that ever happened to him. “He found out,” Gowdy said, “that the game w
asn’t that easy.”
Kubek thought that along with Bench’s adjustment in attitude there was an adjustment in his approach to hitting. Kubek noted that Johnny crouched more at the plate, hitting to right field more while keeping his head down and his eyes on the ball. Bench was hitting more to the opposite field, and the home runs were coming. “He’s getting the pitch away and he’s going that way,” Kubek said.
Perez singled to center and was pinch-run for by George Foster. When Denis Menke singled to left, Virdon brought in Bob Moose. It was unusual to see Giusti removed in the ninth with the game on the line, but Virdon, believing his relief ace was rattled, made the move. In came Moose, who had made thirty starts during the season and just one relief appearance, though it had resulted in a save.
Riverfront fans were in a frenzy. Most of the players had never heard sounds like those before. People downtown could hear the noise from the stadium. Working as carefully as a man diffusing a ticking time bomb, Moose got Geronimo to fly to Clemente in deep right, a drive that allowed Foster to race to third. Chaney popped to Gene Alley at short, and the pennant had come down to pinch reliever Moose and pinch hitter Hal McRae. Moose issued two pitches and then gripped the seams for a slider.
Michaels: The 1-1 pitch to McRae. . . . In the dirt, it’s a wild pitch! Here comes Foster, the Reds win the pennant! Bob Moose throws a wild pitch and the Reds have won the National League pennant! Four-to-three Cincinnati!
The Reds stormed the field in celebration. Sparky grabbed Foster in a hug. Across the field the Bucs were disappointed, but the indomitable Clemente, whom Gowdy called the “unsinkable Pirate,” would have none of it. “Get your f— heads up!” Roberto shouted upon entering the clubhouse. “We had a great year!”
Oliver said the Pirates still believed they were the best team in baseball. It was tough to lose on a wild pitch, but he didn’t think Pittsburgh had played to its potential. “We knew we had done the best we could,” Oliver recalled. “We didn’t have excuses. It just wasn’t meant to be.”