Hairs vs. Squares

by Gruver , Ed;

  The big news emanating from the A’s flight, however, didn’t involve Charlie O.’s ever-growing entourage or his band. It involved another near brawl at a cruising altitude of thirty-five thousand feet. A New York Daily News story reported that Finley had thrown a punch at an unnamed Chicago sportswriter. According to the report, it was Finley’s way of exacting revenge for a story about him that the A’s boss felt was unflattering.

  The crowded flight and near fight were just the beginning of what would become a day to forget for the Mustache Gang. Oakland World Series hero Gene Tenace was informed that a threat had been made against his life. A woman waiting in line at Riverfront Stadium to purchase standing-room tickets for the game that day overheard a man state that if Tenace hit another home run, “he won’t walk out of this ballpark.” The woman contacted stadium authorities, who alerted the A’s.

  Finley and Dick Williams decided not to tell Tenace but did ask Major League Baseball to provide additional security. Cincinnati police afforded extra protection to Finley and his wife Shirley. Three uniformed officers stood near the Finleys as they took their seats behind the Oakland dugout. Acting on the woman’s information, police arrested a man carrying a loaded pistol.

  The Reds barely needed a plane to fly home from Oakland. Joe Morgan thought the entire team was excited because winning Game Five meant they would return to Riverfront Stadium for the final two games of the World Series. Even though the A’s led 3–2, the Big Red Machine believed it had the Mustache Gang right where it wanted it.

  Pete Rose, happy he was finally hitting, told reporters, “I know we can take these guys. Don’t forget, this is the kind of situation we like best—coming from behind.”

  Tuesday’s rainout the previous week meant there was no travel day between Game Five in Oakland on Friday and Game Six in Cincinnati on Saturday.

  Game Six had set the stage for more than one World Series memory: Babe Ruth caught stealing to end the 1926 Fall Classic, Jackie Robinson and Clem Labine keeping the Boys of Summer alive in ’56, Frank Robinson sliding home to extend the Series in ’71. Game Six of the 1972 Series didn’t match the magic provided by some of its predecessors or successors. Its distinction is that it was the lone game not decided by a single run.

  October 21 was still a magical afternoon for the Reds and their fans because it finally showed the nation the brand of ball that had been played by the Big Red Machine all summer. More than that, Game Six was glorious for Bobby Tolan, Cincinnati’s splendid outfielder whose courageous comeback from a potentially devastating injury proved inspirational. For Tolan, a native Californian who had grown up in Los Angeles, his comeback was something straight out of a Hollywood script.

  Tolan was a key to the Reds’ resurgence in Games Five and Six, collecting 4 hits, 4 RBIs, 4 steals, and 2 runs scored. Curt Gowdy thought Tolan’s speed and power reminiscent of another recent hero of the Fall Classic—Lou Brock. Tolan’s performance capped an incredible comeback for a man who had fought to recover from a ripped Achilles tendon suffered in January 1971.

  The Achilles tendon stretches from the bones of the heel to the calf muscles. The tendon allows a person to point the toes and extend the foot. The list of professional athletes who have suffered torn Achilles tendons is long and star-studded: John Unitas, Kobe Bryant, Ryan Howard, Dominique Wilkins, David Beckham, and Adrian Peterson, among others. One-third of professional athletes who injure their Achilles tendons never return to competition. Many who do compete again find their performance severely affected.

  Tolan’s game was speed—his cousin was the late U.S. Olympic sprinter Eddie Tolan, a Gold Medal champion in the 100- and 200-meter dashes in the 1932 Olympics—and prior to his injury Bobby led the majors in stolen bases in 1970 with 57. What a torn Achilles tendon would do to the slender speedster depressed a Reds squad that had raced to the pennant in ’70. Tolan’s workouts in Florida in the spring of ’71 were interrupted when he tore the tendon a second time. His absence from the top of the Reds’ order was one reason Cincinnati had suffered a sub-par season. It had also spurred GM Bob Howsam to trade for Morgan and restore speed to the Reds.

  When Tolan returned to the Reds in the spring of ’72, his progress was followed intently not only by the Reds, but by athletes and coaches in other sports as well. If Tolan could come back, there was cause to believe other athletes could as well.

  “What a comeback he’s made,” Gowdy said at the time. “Anytime you tear an Achilles tendon there’s danger you won’t play sports again. I think two dramatic recoveries from an Achilles tendon [injury] are Tolan, who’s running with abandon again and his old speed, and maybe even more remarkable, 38-year old John Unitas.”

  Tolan said in ’72 that Unitas was an inspiration to him. “I’m a young man, and Unitas coming back in football with that pass rush against him, that was something.”

  Tolan’s return was also spectacular. He drove in 20 runs in his first nineteen games and hit over .400 the first three months of the summer. By season’s end Tolan had hit .283 with 82 RBIs and 42 stolen bases. Tony Kubek took note of Tolan’s unusual stance, which saw him standing very erect with his bat held high. Kubek noted the hitch Tolan had in his swing in bringing his bat from very high to down low but said in Tolan’s case the hitch was a good thing. Indeed. Bobby’s performance played a pivotal role in the Reds’ pushing the series to Game Seven.

  When some criticized Tenace for Tolan’s brazen piracy on the base paths, Tolan took the A’s catcher off the hook. “No catcher is going to throw me out if I get a big enough lead,” he said, and his statement sounded like a veiled indictment of the inability of Oakland’s pitchers to prevent Tolan from taking sizable leads off base.

  Tolan stole five bases in the first six games, and his fifth steal, coming in the seventh inning, when the Reds were romping, raised eyebrows among some of the game’s purists, who thought Tolan might have been trying to embarrass the A’s. Tolan denied it.

  A big part of his game was running, stealing bases, and scoring runs, he said. Why take away from his game because the Reds were winning? Williams put the issue to rest when he agreed with Tolan. Any runs you can get, get them, Williams said. Under the circumstances Williams said he would do the same thing.

  Where Tolan’s Game Six story was glorious, Gary Nolan’s was gritty. In the Reds’ regular rotation Nolan would have started Game Five, but because he had had trouble loosening up the day before, he was replaced by Jim McGlothlin. Sparky Anderson had, in fact, scratched Nolan from further appearances due to an ailing shoulder.

  With the Reds facing their second straight “must-win” game, Cincinnati’s skipper sought out his right-hander in the hope he could give a tired staff some needed relief. Anderson asked Nolan to give him the best he could for as long as he could. “Just four good innings,” Anderson told Nolan.

  Nolan nodded. This was a guy used to having to battle to succeed. Just twenty-four, he was already the dean of the Cincinnati mound corps. He was mature for his age, but you grow up quickly when you’re eighteen, married, and the father of a one-and-a-half-year-old son.

  Nolan arrived in the majors in 1967, an eighteen-year-old less than a year out of Oroville High in California. He had signed with Cincinnati the previous June for a reported $40,000 after being the Reds’ top pick in the 1966 amateur draft. Assigned to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in the Northern League, the 6-foot-3, 190-pound Nolan had an impressive first season in pro ball, going 7-3 with a 1.82 ERA and riding a dominant fastball and impeccable control to 163 strikeouts and 30 walks in 104 innings.

  In his first major league outing on April 15, 1967, Nolan struck out the side in the first inning en route to a 7–3 win over Houston. One of his more memorable outings came June 7 against the Giants at Crosley Field. Nolan fanned Willie Mays four consecutive times in a 15-strikeout performance. The Reds lost 4–3 on Tom Haller’s single in the ninth, and someone in the Cincinnati clubhouse said it was enough to make a grown man cry.

  “I did c
ry,” Nolan responded.

  By season’s end Nolan had set modern records for a pitcher who had begun the season eighteen years old or younger by going 14-8 with a 2.58 ERA and 206 strikeouts in 227 innings. The Reds had seemingly struck gold with their signing of the right-hander from Oroville, an old gold rush town. But Birdie Tebbets, the Reds’ manager in Nolan’s rookie season, tempered the team’s enthusiasm with words of caution. Pitching in the major leagues just isn’t that easy, Tebbets said. Sooner or later, everyone has to pay his initiation dues.

  Nolan’s dues came due sooner rather than later. The following spring he sat on a trainer’s table in the clubhouse following his first Grapefruit League start. It was a cold, windy day, and Nolan had suffered an apparent shoulder strain. He figured he had thrown too hard too early but was shocked when he heard Howsam announce that the club may send him to the minors to “get in shape.” Nolan resented the implication that he was out of shape, resented that no mention was made of his shoulder injury.

  When he read in the sports pages that the Reds had acquired pitcher George Culver from Cleveland, Nolan told his wife Carol, “I guess this means I’ll be pitching at Indianapolis this year.”

  “I guess that means more pork and beans and cornbread for us,” Carol replied.

  It was the beginning of arm troubles that plagued Nolan the next two years. He bounced between the majors and minors in 1968 and again in ’69, worrying that every pitch could be his last. Reds pitching coach Larry Shepard sympathized. It was a frightening experience, he said, when a young pitcher like Nolan encountered his first arm trouble.

  To complement his fastball and take strain off his throwing arm Nolan developed a change-up during his time at Indianapolis in 1969. In 1970 he went 18-7. He highlighted his season with a 3–2 win over the Astros on September 19 that clinched a tie for the division title and opened the NLCS with nine innings of scoreless ball against the Pirates.

  Nolan’s roller-coaster career continued with a disappointing 12-15 campaign in ’71. In ’72 he had 13 wins before the All-Star break but painful neck and shoulder pain caused him to be put on the disabled list. When he returned, Nolan went 15-5, led the league with a .750 winning percentage, and owned a 1.99 ERA that was just slightly behind the 1.97 posted by the Phillies’ Steve Carlton.

  “I’m a pitcher now, not a thrower,” Nolan announced at the time. Going into Game Six, he was being asked to pitch one of the biggest games of his young life.

  Amid steel gray skies and game-time temperatures in the 50s, the ailing Nolan and arm-weary Vida Blue matched scoreless innings in matching gritty performances. It was Blue’s fourth appearance in the Series and his eighth overall in the ’72 postseason, and it was also his long-awaited first start.

  Cincinnati struck in the fourth. Bench, aching to see a fastball after being fed so many off-speed pitches by the A’s, got a Blue darter from Vida and lifted it into the left-field seats to a standing ovation from the standing-room only crowd of 52,737.

  Sal Bando, whose struggles at the plate caused Williams to drop him from fourth to fifth in the batting order, singled to left-center to start the fifth. Two outs later Dick Green doubled to deep right-center, scoring Bando from first and tying the game. Oakland might have had more, but both Rose and Tolan made sterling catches at the wall, Pete bouncing into the left-field wall to pull down Angel Mangual’s drive.

  Anderson had asked Nolan for four good innings and received four and two-thirds. Ross Grimsley was called in, and after walking Blue, he retired Bert Campaneris on a pop to Morgan to end the threat.

  The Reds reclaimed the lead in their half of the inning. Hal McRae led off with a double high off the wall in left, took third on Denis Menke’s ground out, and scored when Dave Concepcion, whom Gowdy noted had good power to right-center field, delivered the tie-breaking run on a sacrifice fly to deep center. The Big Red Machine motored to a two-run lead in the sixth. Tolan ended Blue’s afternoon by chopping a two-out single to center. With the scoreboard flashing “GO . . . GO” Tolan swiped second against reliever Bob Locker. Bench was given an intentional walk, and Tony Perez stepped in.

  Jim Simpson called the play on NBC Radio: “One ball, one strike. . . . Perez ready. . . . There go the runners and the ball is hit up the middle! . . . Tolan will score . . . 3–1!”

  Anderson, pushing buttons like a Manhattan switchboard operator, played his Captain Hook role to the hilt. He replaced Nolan with Grimsley in the fifth and one inning later brought in Pedro Borbon for Grimsley. In the seventh Anderson called on Tom Hall to relieve Borbon and face pinch hitter Dave Duncan.

  “Tommy, you know Duncan,” Anderson said on the mound. “Low fastball hitter.” Hall, heeding Anderson’s words, fanned Duncan with a high fastball.

  The Reds broke the game open in the seventh against relievers Dave Hamilton and Joe Horlen. Hitting, running, and stealing almost at will, the Reds scored five runs to take an 8–1 lead. Concepcion got the rally started with a single and stolen base. Rose walked, and Morgan, who had snapped his Series hitless streak with a double off Blue in the first inning, slashed the ball to the opposite field in left.

  With the crowd nearly drowning out his delivery, Simpson made the call: “Hamilton throws. . . . Down the left field line. . . . It is in there! Concepcion will score! Rudi is over to pick it up. . . . Here’s the throw to third base and going in safe is Pete Rose. . . . Down to second goes Joe Morgan!”

  Rose, having raced from first to third, emerged from his dusty slide, wiped dirt from the front of his uniform, and pumped his fist toward Morgan. Morgan had headed to second when Rudi threw to Bando at third to try and erase Rose.

  Game Six was an inspiring performance by Morgan, who was nursing not only a tender right heel, but also a pulled muscle behind his left knee, the latter occurring when he had slipped on the slick grass of the Oakland Coliseum on his game-saving throw to end Game Five.

  Tolan stepped in and stepped up yet again.

  Simpson: There’s a line drive, this should score two! Tolan was able to lace it into right field. . . . For the third game in a row Tolan has driven in two runs!

  Cincinnati’s surge made Game Six less a sporting event than an upheaval of nature. To A’s announcer Monte Moore, the Red were on a hitting and running rampage. Glowering from the A’s owner’s box was a glum Finley; Good Time Charlie had the blues.

  Bench drew another intentional walk, and following a wild pitch by Horlen, Geronimo brought in Tolan and Bench by slapping a single to the opposite field in left. Finally, Bench thought, the Reds were doing what they had done all season. Facing Ted Kubiak in the ninth, Hall finished with a flourish.

  Simpson: Hall throws and there’s a ground ball to third base. . . . Menke will step on third. . . . Ball game is over, the Reds have evened the Series! Tomorrow afternoon at 12:45 Eastern time we’ll begin the game that will decide the 1972 World Series.

  Almost overlooked in the Big Red Machine’s breakout was the brilliant defensive play of Menke. Williams was moved to say after the game that he didn’t know Sparky had imported Brooks Robinson for the Series. Anderson, meanwhile, felt less pressure in Game Six than in Game Five. “It wasn’t like yesterday when I needed a dozen pills for my ulcer,” he told reporters. “I needed only one.”

  In the wake of Cincinnati’s first World Series victory at home since 1940 the Reds’ clubhouse was happy and confident. Held down by A’s pitchers the first four games, the top of the Big Red Machine’s batting order—Rose, Morgan, and Tolan—was on a roll. In Games Five and Six they had combined for 9 hits, 7 runs, 5 steals, and 4 walks.

  Tolan, Rose, and Morgan caught fire when the Reds needed it most. Now it all came down to one game, the entire season encapsulated in a single game. The A’s, despite having lost two straight, were ready. Asked if he could work an inning or two in Game Seven, Blue replied, “If it means money, I’ll even pitch right-handed.”

  The Mustache Gang broke the tension with a bit of gallows humor. “If you got to
go, Gino,” Jackson said, referring to the threat on Tenace’s life, “at least it will be on national television.”

  Tenace admitted the death threat had shaken him. It scared him, he said, but he was still going to play. He wasn’t going to let it affect him even though it wasn’t something he could shove aside. What could he do? he asked. Tell the manager not to play him?

  Tenace laughed when a writer asked if he thought he would win the car Sport magazine awards to the Series MVP. “What the hell. Even if I do the Reds will steal it from me.”

  Williams, talkative and affable in the postmortem, praised the Big Red Machine. “They got to our second-line pitching and we just got the devil kicked out of us,” he said. “But we’ll be ready to go Sunday. We’ve got to be.”

  “Game Seven.” These are the two most magical words in sport. A certain amount of stardust is sprinkled on a Game Seven of the World Series; it is the ultimate contest, the “stuff of dreams,” Williams called it.

  The 1972 World Series marked the twenty-sixth Game Seven in history but the twenty-fourth that was decisive. Prior to the adoption of the best-of-seven format with the famous Pittsburgh vs. Detroit, Honus Wagner vs. Ty Cobb Classic in 1909, the Series had been a best-of-nine affair. October ’72 was the second of three straight World Series to go to Game Seven and one of five in the fiercely competitive seventies. Only the psychedelic sixties had more (1960, ’62, ’64, ’65, ’67, ’68).

  As the A’s arrived at sold-out Riverfront Stadium on Sunday, all Williams could think was that this would be a time to work his tail off. For him and Anderson, it would be a day to pay attention to detail like never before, every tiny detail. Nothing could be left to chance, no allowing for excuses that could haunt a manager the rest of his days.