Hairs vs. Squares

by Gruver , Ed;

  Bench felt empathy for Sanguillen. The only way Manny could have reached that ball was to backhand it, but the pitch was far outside and it bounced straight up. No catcher could have shifted that far to make the play, Bench thought.

  The Big Red Machine was a great team, but to this day its members believe the ’72 Pirates have never received the credit they deserved, and it was because they lost that NLCS. Up in the broadcast booth, a smiling Hoyt turned to Hedrick. “Isn’t it interesting,” said Hoyt, who had predicted a Pirates victory, “how wrong the experts can be?”

  Bench had never seen a team so happy, never seen a town so happy. Now the question was whether the Reds come down off this emotional high and get their heads back into it in time for the World Series.

  The Big Red Machine’s opponent would be decided the following day in Detroit. Thursday, October 12, brought more somber weather suited to the winner-take-all showdown in Motown.

  Moore set the stage for the decisive fifth game: “The championship game of the 1972 American League season. . . . The nation is watching and listening to this one today.”

  Moore mentioned in his broadcast that hundreds of telegrams had been sent to the A’s from around the nation. One of them came from Raiders quarterback Daryle Lamonica, who sent a telegram to Bando wishing his fellow rebels from Oakland well in their postseason run.

  Blue Moon Odom and Woodie Fryman met in a rematch of Game Two, and with a crowd of 50,276 cramming Tiger Stadium on a cold and blustery day, Detroit did more in its first at-bat than it had in its nine previous innings against Odom. The scrappy McAuliffe, who had blasted two A’s infielders trying to tag him out in this series and had drawn a hard tag from Bando in return, opened with a ground single to right to an enormous roar.

  “Unbelievable enthusiasm from this city,” Moore told his radio audience. “The A’s are not only battling the nine Tigers [on the field], they’re battling over 50,000 Tiger fans. . . . Boy, these fans are already going like it’s the 10th inning instead of the first.”

  “The Corner” had become the Cardiac Corner. Detroit had drawn nearly 1.9 million fans to Tiger Stadium in 1972, and the Tigers’ total attendance led the American League and ranked second in the majors behind the Mets. The fans were fully engaged from the first pitch of Game Five, and the radio broadcast reveals a loud roar when McAuliffe moved to second after Duke Sims drew a walk. Sims, who started the first two games at catcher for Freehan, was moved to left field to give Detroit another left-handed bat in the lineup. One of the few players in major league baseball in 1972 to wear glasses, Sims stood so close to home plate that Moore remarked only half jokingly that Duke could “be hit with a strike.”

  With Freehan up, Odom uncorked a low, inside pitch that got away from Tenace and rolled to the backstop. The passed ball advanced both runners, and Freehan topped a grounder to Maxvill at short.

  Amid a backdrop of a raucous crowd Kell provided the call on the Tigers’ TV network: “Here’s a grounder to short, he’s going to go to first with it, and Mac will score!”

  An early mistake cost the A’s a run since Freehan’s ground ball was tailor-made for a double play. Tigers fans took their good luck with glee and took aim on the playing field.

  Moore: Tiger fans are already throwing debris from the center field bleachers out onto the field. . . . Everything you can think of is going out of the center field bleachers.

  The A’s responded in the second inning when Jackson drew a leadoff walk and stole second as Freehan’s peg sailed far left of the bag. Bando connected on a deep drive to right, and Kaline made the catch, then spun and fired toward third. The throw was cut off as Jackson did a dramatic head-first dive into the bag. Fryman, looking a bit wild as Odom had in the top of the first, threw high and tight on a 1–2 count to back Epstein off the plate and hit the A’s first baseman. Big Mike dropped his bat and clutched the fingers of his left hand, now throbbing from pain and the cold weather.

  League rules dictated a pitcher be limited to eight warmup deliveries between innings. But because of the cold weather home plate umpire Nestor Chylak told Odom and Fryman they could take a little extra time to try and get warm. Moore noted the many fans who had spent the night prior to Game Five in sleeping bags outside the stadium. He hoped for their sake they were lined sleeping bags, Moore said, because the overnight temperature had dipped to freezing in Detroit.

  Already soaring were the emotions of both sides. The normally unruffled Rudi was furious over a strike three call in the first; Fryman was visibly upset over a called ball in the second. Fryman fanned Tenace for the second out, and with runners at the corners and light-hitting Dick Green at the plate, Williams made the most daring decision of the postseason and dialed up one of the most exciting plays in baseball: a delayed double steal. Moore made the call on one of the more memorable plays in playoff history:

  Here goes the runner from first, the pitch is taken, throw down to second, he’s safe! Here comes Jackson toward the plate, here comes the throw. . . . He is safe! Reggie Jackson steals home but he may be out of it! He crashed into Bill Freehan and he is hurt on the field! A fantastic collision between Jackson, running like a runaway train, and the great big fireplug Bill Freeehan. What a collision that was!

  One of the critical plays of the season was filled with moving parts. Replays showed a charging Taylor taking Freehan’s peg well in front of the bag—he cut off the throw after seeing Reggie breaking from third—and firing the ball over the head of a ducking Fryman. Freehan, a fullback in catcher’s gear, was standing directly in front of home plate when the heavily muscled Jackson slid in cleats first. Reggie’s left knee buckled as it collided with the bulky black-and-orange shin protector on Freehan’s left leg. The force of the collision was such that Freehan’s shin protector was knocked free from his leg. Jackson’s face contorted in pain. Rolling over onto his stomach, Reggie reached for his left hamstring. Freehan, face down in the dirt but still clutching the ball, looked up to see Chylak spreading his arms wide in a safe sign. Martin argued vehemently, but NBC’s replays showed Chylak’s call to be correct.

  His left hamstring torn, Jackson was lost for the rest of the season. He had initially felt the tear when he was still some thirty feet from home plate. When he crashed into Freehan, Jackson said he felt “everything tear loose.” Reggie, who would be called Mr. October for his clutch play in future Fall Classics, slid so hard that something popped. He ruptured his hamstring, pulling it away from the bone while stretching the ligaments in his knee.

  Williams thought Reggie’s determination to score illustrated a truism about the A’s: they knew how to play this game. Tenace agreed. He thought it a “beautiful double steal,” capped by Jackson’s “terrific slide.” Small ball had paid off big for the A’s but had also come at a big price. Fighting for their playoff lives in a hostile atmosphere, Oakland was now without Jackson, Campy Campaneris, and lefty relief ace Darold Knowles.

  More dash and daring—and a disputed call involving first base ump John Rice—led to a 2–1 A’s lead in the fourth. Hendrick, who replaced the injured Jackson, opened the inning by bouncing a low inside pitch to deep short. McAuliffe took three mincing steps to his right, gloved the chest-high hopper, and gunned it to first. The throw was low, and Cash, knowing Hendrick had good speed, leaned forward to snare it. His back foot left the bag just as Hendrick’s white cleat crossed it. When Rice called Hendrick safe, Cash spun in disbelief and kicked the dirt in frustration. Rice responded by raising his hands and holding them a foot or so apart, illustrating, in his opinion, how far Cash’s foot had been off the bag. Frank Howard protested so loudly and so long that he was ejected.

  NBC’s camerawork indicated Cash had been toeing the bag as Hendrick’s left foot landed on it. The Detroit News’ front-page photo the next days showed as much. Kell, the Tigers Hall of Fame third baseman and longtime broadcaster, said plays like that happened dozens of times during the season. “This time,” Kell said, “the umpire decided to call
it.”

  It wasn’t the only call Rice made that chill afternoon that the Tigers had trouble with. Sims said he smacked a ball down the right-field line that Rice ruled foul but that Sims believed was fair. Sims said when he told Rice the ball was fair, Rice responded with a comment that Sims said was something less than should be published.

  Benefiting from the blown call, Bando sacrificed Hendrick to second. Woods called the decisive play of the series:

  Here’s the pitch to Tenace, line drive into left field, it’s gonna be tough to score on. . . . Here’s Hendrick around third. Here’s the throw coming on into the plate. . . . He’s safe! The ball was dropped by Freehan and Oakland moves into the lead, 2–1, on Gene Tenace’s first hit of the playoffs!

  The play was similar to one that would occur two years later in the A’s World Series against the Dodgers. With Bando on third in Game Two, Jackson lofted a high fly to right field. Joe Ferguson, a catcher playing the outfield, charged the ball and fired a perfect peg home. With Bando bearing down on him, catcher Steve Yeager applied the tag and amid a hard collision held onto the ball.

  Sims, like Ferguson a catcher playing the outfield, fielded Tenace’s liner on one hop and rifled a frozen rope that reached Freehan just as Hendrick was arriving. Freehan made the tag and in the collision with the sliding Hendrick dropped the ball. The drop wasn’t costly since Chylak had already signaled Hendrick safe.

  For the Tiger faithful, the two crucial plays at the plate could have been replays of Cardinals roadrunner Lou Brock’s dash home in Game Five of the 1968 World Series. Freehan had blocked the plate, and Brock, rather than slide, tried to step around the Detroit catcher and was tagged out. The pivotal play helped lead to a Tigers’ victory in their eventual seven-game upset of St. Louis. In the 1972 postseason, however, Jackson and Hendrick scored where Brock hadn’t four years before.

  Northrup, never a fan of Martin’s managing, thought Billy cost the Tigers Game Five. He believed Martin’s decision to keep Freehan behind the plate despite his injury and to keep Sims in left field weakened the team at two positions and cost the Tigers two critical runs. If they had had Sims behind the plate and Horton in left field, Northrup said, Detroit would have won Game Five.

  Northrup called Martin the worst manager he had ever played for. When someone said Martin’s penchant for self-destruction made Billy his own worst enemy, Northrup snapped, “Not as long as I’m alive.”

  Odom held the Tigers hitless from the third through fifth innings. Tenace, back behind the plate, thought Moon was in total control. The way Odom was pitching, Tenace figured the A’s wouldn’t need many runs. But at the end of the fifth inning Blue Moon headed for the tunnel rather than the bench. He bent over and began hyperventilating. “Skip, I can’t go anymore,” he told Williams. The rowdy A’s collapsed in laughter. “Those weren’t the dry heaves,” one player yelled. “They were the dry chokes!”

  Blue Moon broke down, Tenace recalled. The pressure got to him. Williams got Blue to warm up in the bullpen along the right-field line. Making his third relief appearance in as many days, Vida battled the Tigers the rest of the way. It was an intriguing matchup—baseball’s best pitcher in ’71 against the veterans of baseball’s best team in ’68.

  Vida retired the side in order in the sixth and struck out the side in the seventh. He gave up a leadoff pinch-hit single to Horton in the eighth, then fielded McAuliffe’s grounder and got the force out at second. Kaline and Sims popped out, and from the sixth through the ninth Detroit would hit just three balls out of the infield. It was a clear indication that the Tigers, professional hitters all, weren’t able to get their bats around quickly enough.

  In the ninth Blue got Freehan to pop out to lead the inning. Cash singled to right, and Motown fans hoped for another miracle. In ’68 they had watched their Tigers rally to win in their final at-bat twenty-eight times. Martin sent one of the heroes of ’68, Mickey Stanley, in to pinch-hit for Northrup. The move stung Northrup. He had two of the Tigers’ five hits, including a single off Blue in the seventh. Still Martin pinch-hit for him. “Who knows,” Northrup later asked, “why Martin did what he did?” Blue induced a ground out that erased pinch runner Joe Niekro.

  The huge crowd was restless. Shivering in the shadows of the late-afternoon gloaming, Detroit fans were stung by the cold, stung by the idea of the season ending, stung by the knowledge that a Michigan winter was setting in, and stung by the sight of the A’s in their California gold jerseys. The image of California was pretty low in Michigan. California was home to the anti–Vietnam War movement. Bill Walton, head of the “Walton Gang” that had led UCLA to another national championship in April ’72, was among those arrested on Wilshire Boulevard for protesting the mining of harbors in northern Vietnam. Oakland, a rebel city housing rebellious teams in the A’s and the NFL’s Raiders, was also associated with the Black Panthers and the hippie culture.

  From the standpoint of some Tigers fans there was a lot to hate about the A’s. Holtzman had a smoke bomb thrown at him while warming up in the eighth; Hendrick was hit in the head by a bottle, hit in the back by a sock-covered rock, hit in the jaw by an ice cube, and hit in the glove by a can spurting beer. Fans in the outfield sectors bombarded the field with rolls of toilet paper and firecrackers. Play was halted several times to clean up the debris. Police issued 114 tickets to people in and around Tiger Stadium.

  For some the mayhem was a reminder of the rowdy lawlessness of the Detroit riots of 1967, which had affected the entire city, including the southern area around Tiger Stadium. The frustrated Tiger faithful had known from the start of this series that their team was up against it. The A’s future was in front of them; Detroit fans saw its squad as over the hill. Yet this series was going down to its final pitch, and the doggedness of this Detroit team is why memories of the ’72 Tigers are cherished by many in Michigan.

  With the Tigers down to their last out and Taylor at the plate, Moore made the final call of the ALCS: “The count is two balls and two strikes. . . . Vida gets set, he kicks high, he throws. . . . There’s a drive into center field, back goes George Hendrick. . . . He is under it. . . . The Swingin’ A’s have won the American League championship!”

  As Hendrick made the series-clinching catch, a beer can careened into his back; another one whistled past his ear just as Taylor’s drive landed in his glove. Williams recalled so many beer cans being thrown in Hendrick’s direction that his young center fielder was forced to make a mad dash for the dugout. Tenace said the angry mob and barrage of beer can missiles had the A’s so scared that they barely celebrated on the field. “We just ran right into the clubhouse,” he remembered.

  “This was our greatest victory and it followed our worst loss,” Williams announced in the lathery locker room. “It shows what kind of club we are.”

  Vida’s performance—four shutout innings, nine infield outs—in Game Five is on par with Pedro Martinez’s six innings of relief against Cleveland in the fifth and final game of the 1999 division series. Williams’s waving Blue in from the bullpen—he pitched in four of the five LCS games and would throw in four of the seven World Series games—foreshadowed a future Bay Area skipper, Bruce Bochy, bringing his former ace, Tim Lincecum, on in relief in key situations in the 2012 postseason.

  The ’72 playoffs were the first to go the full five games and the only time in history both were decided by a single run. They foreshadowed five-game encounters between the Mets and Reds and A’s and Orioles the following October, the Yankees and Royals in ’76–77, the Phillies and Astros in ’80, the Dodgers and Expos in ’81, the Brewers and Angels in ’82, and the Padres and Cubs in ’84.

  The ’72 postseason prompted Jerome Holtzman to write in The Sporting News: “So many of those people who have been insisting that baseball is dead, or dying, etc. suddenly have changed their tune. The best of five playoffs, in both leagues, woke them up and now they have returned to jump with joy, and are saying baseball still is and always will be the nati
on’s No. 1 sport.”

  Rose fired the first salvo for the Fall Classic: “We’re going to the World Series this year healthy,” he said, “and we’re gonna win it.”

  Pete didn’t pull any punches, and neither did the A’s. True to their manager’s words, the Mustache Gang couldn’t even celebrate a series-clinching win without some controversy. In Oakland’s clubhouse following Game Five, Blue walked past Odom’s locker. “How come you starters can’t finish what you begin?” Vida shouted. “I know why.”

  Blue lifted his right hand to his throat to simulate choking. “Gaaaaag,” he yelled mockingly. Blue Moon blew up. He rushed at Vida but was restrained by teammates. It was almost assuredly the first fight in a champion’s clubhouse in history. We’ve got to get to the World Series, Williams thought, before we kill ourselves.

  Three years after Peyton Place had run its course on ABC, “Hatin’ Place,” starring the Swingin’ A’s, was airing live on NBC. Fighting opponents, fighting their owner, and fighting themselves, the Mustache Gang was ready to go to war with the Big Red Machine in the Fall Classic.

  13

  Fans, players, and media found October baseball in the fall of ’72 intoxicating. The dramatic late-afternoon shadows; the red, white, and blue bunting in banner-bedecked stadiums; the howling, hopeful zealots; and the incredibly intense brand of ball all combined to make for must-see TV. The soothing soundtrack of summer had been replaced by the furious rush of fall—kids running home from school in the afternoon and adults rushing home from the office to catch postseason games on NBC.

  For more than a decade, the Peacock Network’s broadcasting team of Hall of Fame announcer Curt Gowdy and former Yankees shortstop Tony Kubek served as the sound of the season when it came to the baseball playoffs and World Series on television. A veteran and versatile play-by-play announcer, Gowdy was NBC’s lead announcer for a wide range of sports. A native of Wyoming, he was called “Cowboy” but was also nicknamed the “Broadcaster of Everything” for his numerous network assignments—the World Series, the Rose Bowl, NCAA men’s basketball, Super Bowls, and American Football Conference games.