by Gruver , Ed;
Williams had walked to the mound twenty-six times in the previous six games. Game Seven saw him make the trip another sixteen times. He wanted a face-to-face with his hurlers prior to every critical pitch, every crucial situation. The current rule that a manager must remove his pitcher if he makes two trips to the mound in the same inning should be called the Dick Williams Rule. The current rule was adopted, Williams believed, by league officials sick of seeing him stroll from the dugout to the mound.
Williams had been in a Game Seven before. Five years earlier his Red Sox had pushed their Series against St. Louis to its limit. Williams had 22-game winner Jim Lonborg going in the decisive game at Fenway Park, and despite the fact his ace was throwing on two days’ rest and facing Bob Gibson, Williams boldly predicted a Boston victory. “Lonborg and champagne,” Williams declared after his Sox won Game Six. The Boston Globe put his giddy guarantee at the top of their sports section.
Working on fumes, Lonborg lost, and as Williams entered the Cardinal locker room to offer congratulations, he heard St. Louis celebrating with a chant. “Lonborg and champagne! Lonborg and champagne!”
Leaden skies and light rain threatened Game Seven in Cincinnati. Pregame workouts were halted at noon as the grounds crew covered the infield with tarpaulin. A capacity crowd of 56,040 filled Riverfront Stadium; 5,000 standing-room-only tickets had been sold for this historic game. Gowdy noted that the closest World Series in history was also the most-watched World Series in history to that point
The decisive encounter promised the best of both worlds. The Reds had regained their tee-it-high-let-it-fly approach at the plate, but the A’s arsenal of arms was available. Something had to give.
Although the A’s would be starting right-hander Blue Moon Odom, Anderson elected to use Concepcion, a right-handed hitter, rather than switch hitter Darrel Chaney. Chaney had started each of the previous three games against Oakland right-handers but was struggling. He would go hitless while Concepcion batted .308. Anderson said that when Concepcion was concentrating, he could be the best shortstop in baseball. “He’s ready for this game,” he told reporters.
Williams was shaking up his lineup as well. Looking to tighten his defense and add punch to his offense, Williams benched Mike Epstein and moved Tenace to first base and Duncan behind the plate. Williams also altered his batting order, moving the hot-hitting Tenace from seventh to fourth. Angel Mangual would start in center and hit second; right fielder Matty Alou, who had had one hit in the first six games, was dropped to sixth.
As Simpson described for listeners the Reds taking their defensive positions to start the game, his broadcast partner for the games in Cincinnati, Oakland’s Monte Moore, related that A’s players were saying the morning of Game Seven that they would be returning to the West Coast drenched in champagne or tears.
Moments later Moore called the opening pitch of Game Seven: “Campy Campaneris leads it off for the Oakland A’s in a vastly changed lineup for this, the last game of 1972. . . . The first pitch, swung on, popped out into short right field where Cesar Geronimo is under it. He’s got it! One pitch means one out.”
Williams’s lineup changes paid big dividends early. Billingham, a low-ball pitcher, was up high, and Campaneris had aggressively jumped on the first pitch and flied out. Mangual, one of the A’s heroes in Game Four, stepped in. Moore made the call:
There’s a curveball lined [to] right-center field, coming on [is] Tolan, he leaps, it goes off his glove to the wall! Mangual goes to first, heads to second, he’s rounding second on his way to third! The throw comes in and he makes it standing up! . . . It’s an error on Bobby Tolan and the A’s get the first break of the game!
“The ball just took off suddenly,” explained Tolan, who saw it glance off the top webbing of his glove. “I wasn’t set to leap. If I had been, I could have caught it.”
In a nationally televised game at Riverfront that summer a ball had nearly bounced over Tolan’s head, and Gowdy had remarked that outfielders on artificial surface had to guard against the high bounce. Billingham got Joe Rudi on a pop to Rose in left field, bringing Tenace to the plate. From the dugout Anderson motioned to Menke to move back a step.
Moore: Tenace bounces it to the third baseman. . . . Hard bounce off his glove into left field! Here comes Mangual in to score and the A’s lead one-to-nothing!
Tenace torched the turf, and cameras caught the ball hitting a seam of the Astroturf on its second hop and careening over the head of a startled Menke. A motorbike fanatic who knew all about sudden bounces, Menke said he sensed a bad hop coming but couldn’t do a thing about it.
Riverfront’s synthetic turf was supposed to give Cincinnati a huge home field advantage over Oakland. But in the first inning of Game Seven it had betrayed the Big Red Machine not once but twice.
Billingham struck out Sal Bando to end the A’s half of the first, and the Reds responded in their first at-bat. Rose beat out a leadoff single to enormous cheers from the crowd. Williams ran out to protest to first base umpire Jim Honochick. “I know I’m no first baseman,” Tenace told Williams. “But, Skip, we had him.” After the A’s lost another close call at first in the third inning, Williams would go out to coach first base—just to see at close range, he explained later, what was going on.
Blue Moon quieted the masses in the Reds’ first by getting Morgan to ground to Campy for a double play and ended the inning with another ground ball, this one fielded by Tenace, who flipped to Odom for the final out.
Over the first four innings Odom faced just thirteen batters—one over the minimum. In the fourth Rose lined to deep center for the first out, and Morgan followed with a walk. Odom, gifted with a good move to first, had announced the night before that no Reds runner would steal on him. With the big crowd chanting, “Go! Go!” Morgan took his lead.
That summer Morgan had explained to Kubek and a national television audience his approach to base stealing: “I think about getting as big a lead as possible because you can get thrown out at second base by half a step just like you can running from home to first. So I think about getting as big a lead as possible and figuring out the pitcher’s moves. His first movement toward home plate is when I make my dash toward second.”
Odom, eyeing the Reds’ roadrunner warily, threw over three times before firing home. From his vantage point at first base Honochick figured Odom’s strategy of chasing Morgan back to first with repeated throws was to tire the Cincinnati speedster so that he couldn’t steal. But Honochick took issue with what he saw as another A’s ploy: Tenace deliberately sitting on Morgan to tire him even more. Honochick called Tenace on it and told him he knew what the A’s first baseman was doing.
Tenace professed innocence. “He tripped me.”
Honochick would have none of it. “Who the hell are you kidding? I’m standing here looking at you and he hasn’t come close to tripping you.”
The A’s antics might have had an effect. Morgan broke with the next pitch, but Duncan’s peg to Campaneris was on time and on target, and Go-Go Joe was caught stealing for the first time in the Series.
Just as the bright sun broke through the clouds, the Big Red Machine broke through in the fifth. Perez lined a leadoff double just inside the left field line for his tenth hit of the Series. Odom steadied and struck out Menke, but a walk to Geronimo and a 2-1 count on Concepcion brought Catfish Hunter from the bullpen.
Before the game Hunter had soaked up the surroundings: Game Seven, more than fifty-six thousand fans packing the big stadium. This is baseball as it ought to be, he thought.
Facing Concepcion, the Cat fired two off-target pitches to finish the walk and load the bases. Billingham was due up, and had the score been tied, Anderson said he would have allowed Cactus Jack to bat. But Sparky knew the Reds needed a run, so he sent McRae up to pinch-hit.
Hunter knew McRae well, knew that he sprayed the ball to all fields. Since McRae liked to go to the opposite field, the Cat would try to jam him so that he couldn’t get his ar
ms extended enough to punch the ball with power. It was sound strategy, but McRae got around on Hunter’s first offering and drove it deep to center field. Anderson thought the ball was gone, and all Hunter could think was that he hoped he hadn’t just served up a grand slam in the World Series.
Simpson: It is hit high and deep to center field. . . . Mangual is back near the wall and has it in front of the wall! Tagging from third with the tying run is Perez. . . . It’s one-to-one!
The Cat stepped off the slab to regroup as Rose dug in. Pete pounded a deep drive; another NASA shot, Hunter thought. The ball headed to right-center field, but Mangual, on his horse again, hauled it in to end the inning.
Campaneris and the A’s countered immediately against Borbon, who was making his sixth appearance in the Series. Campy opened the sixth with a single and took his lead as Mangual dipped his bat for a sacrifice bunt.
Simpson: For the first time since the first game the leadoff man, Campy Campaneris, who makes the offense go, is on at first. . . . A breaking pitch, bunted up the line, Perez will have to go to first base. . . . Morgan covering, the sacrifice bunt is complete.
Rudi’s ground out to Morgan moved Campaneris to third and brought Tenace to the plate. Borbon, his Reds hat tilted back on his head, stared in for the sign.
Simpson: Strike one to Tenace, who never moves from that batter’s box, he keeps those feet planted and just stays in there until Borbon gets the new ball. . . . There’s an off-speed pitch, lined into left field away from Rose, it’s 2–1! Around first base, on his way to second is Tenace. . . . He’s in with a double and his ninth RBI!
Tenace, who had set a slugging mark for a seven-game Series, was taken out for pinch runner Allan Lewis. On his way to the dugout an unhappy Tenace yelled at Williams, who yelled back. Williams’s unconventional managing again paid immediate dividends. Bando, who had led the A’s in game-winning hits during the season, did it again.
Simpson: There’s a ball hit to straightaway center field, Tolan goes back, near the warning track, reaches up and it’ll be off the wall! It is now 3–1! The ball gets away from Tolan, into second base goes Bando with a double!
NBC cameras showed Tolan streaking toward the warning track and then suddenly reaching back and clutching his left leg. His hamstring had cramped, causing Tolan to crumple to the ground. Tolan had jumped for the ball and suddenly felt pain. He finished the inning but was unable to continue playing and was replaced by George Foster.
Morgan thought the Reds, now down two runs and unable to reach Hunter, were deep in the hole. Catfish surrendered hard outs but held Cincinnati scoreless in the sixth and seventh. With six outs left in the season, Morgan tried to rally the Reds in the eighth.
“This is the inning, now is the time to do it!” he shouted to teammates on the bench. Rose led off with a single to center, prompting Williams to make another trip to the mound.
“I know you’re getting guys out, Cat, but you’re damn near scaring me to death,” Williams told Hunter. “I gotta make a change.”
With Morgan up, Williams brought in Holtzman. Because Morgan had not hit well in the Series, the A’s were no longer playing him to pull. They were instead shading their defense to the left side of the field. Morgan also noticed Oakland was not holding Rose at first. Morgan figured the A’s had to be thinking that Pete wasn’t a threat to steal and that since Cincinnati was down 3–1, his run wouldn’t beat them.
Despite the fact that he could be hitting for the final time this season, Morgan felt calm in the batter’s box. He thought Holtzman’s first two pitches seemed to slow down as they approached the plate. Morgan knew he was seeing the ball perfectly, and when the next pitch arrived—a 1-1 fastball—he was ready. His left arm flapping furiously—“The more critical the situation the faster it goes,” Kubek noted—Morgan pulled Holtzman’s pitch inside the first base line and into the right-field corner.
The ball was hit so sharply that Rose had to hold up to avoid being hit. He then had to leap over A’s first baseman Mike Hegan, who was sprawled in the dirt after a diving attempt at a catch. The small fraction of time Pete lost proved pivotal and was one more bit of bad luck that descended on Cincinnati. Rose raced into third, but as he rounded the bag, third base coach Alex Grammas threw up his arms to halt him there. Rose jammed on the brakes so suddenly that his red batting helmet flew off and he belly flopped back into the bag. When he regained his feet, Rose kicked the bag in frustration.
Morgan had hit the brakes as well between second and third and was as startled and frustrated as Rose. From the moment he hit the ball, Morgan was thinking triple. He had seen Alou shifted toward center, saw the acre of open space between Alou and the ball, and saw the ball kicking around down the line. Morgan was certain he would end up at third and Rose would score. Morgan knew the Reds didn’t want to run themselves out of a big inning, but what bothered him was believing Rose could have scored since the A’s were not concerned with Pete’s run; they were worried about Morgan’s game-tying run.
Williams headed back to the hill. He motioned for Fingers. Rollie was worried. Perhaps worn down at last by the long season, his bullpen session had been less than scintillating. His breaking pitches weren’t breaking, and his fastball wasn’t taking off.
When he took the mound, Fingers found his pitches “falling into place.” He got pinch hitter Joe Hague to pop to Campaneris and was told by Williams to walk Bench intentionally. Fingers didn’t agree, but unlike some of his teammates he wasn’t about to argue with his manager, even though Bench represented the potential winning run. Williams could hear groans from A’s fans behind the Oakland dugout mixing with cheers from Reds’ supporters.
Williams knew he was putting the go-ahead run on base, knew he was breaking unwritten rules by walking Bench and pitching to the hot-hitting Perez. But he remembered A’s super scout Al Hollingsworth’s warning him before the Series not to let Bench beat them with his bat. Even if it meant going against the percentages, Williams was going to stick with what A’s scouts told him.
Perez stepped in, and Bench believed if anybody could come through in the clutch, Doggie Perez could.
Simpson: Fingers. . . . Another curveball. . . . Laced out to right field, Alou says he has it. Tagging at third base is Rose. . . . Alou has it. Rose comes home to score the second run, Morgan goes to third. . . . The tying run is at third base with two out in a 3–2 ball game.
Perez got good wood on the ball, but it wasn’t enough. His fly to right scored Rose and would have scored Morgan had he been at third as he believed he should have been. Instead Morgan was stranded when Menke lifted a soft fly to Rudi in left.
Hall retired the A’s without issue in the ninth. The 1972 World Series would come down to Fingers versus the Big Red Machine one final time.
Rollie retired Geronimo on a pop to Campaneris and got Concepcion to ground to Green. Down to their final out, the Reds received new life when Chaney was hit on the ankle by a slider. Williams, intent on bringing in Blue to face Rose, walked briskly to the mound. Williams considered the switch-hitting Rose a dangerous hitter swinging either way but would rather have him swinging right-handed.
Duncan had other ideas. “Don’t take him out,” the A’s catcher barked at Williams. “He’s got great stuff. He’s throwing the hell out of the ball.”
Fingers pleaded his case as well. “Dick, I can get him.”
Williams retreated to the dugout. The A’s were clinging to a 3–2 lead, but the Reds had the tying run on first and winning run at bat.
The 1972 season had come down to this: two teams, two dreams. Above the din of a standing-room-only crowd, Simpson called the climactic play of the World Series: “Even with two outs in the last of the ninth the wheels continue to turn. . . . This Series isn’t over yet. Rose steps in. He is two-for-four today and has made great contact all four times. The other two were driven deep to the center-field wall.”
Fingers stared in for the sign. The Reds captain glared out at the A’s r
elief ace from behind an upraised right shoulder. Rollie kicked his white cleat toward the graying skies and delivered. Rose, uncoiling from his crouch, connected.
Simpson: Fly ball, deep left field, Rudi goes back, near the warning track.
Epilogue
In the moment one might have heard, as Simon and Garfunkel sang, the sound of silence.
Simpson: Fly ball, deep left field, Rudi goes back, near the warning track, is there. . . . The World Series is over! Rose is out and the underdog Oakland Athletics win their first championship!
As Jim Simpson made his excited call on NBC Radio, a standing-room-only crowd in Riverfront Stadium fell into eerie silence. The only sounds one could hear were the clapping and hollering from the small contingent of A’s players and their fans. Out in left field Joe Rudi pumped both arms toward the steel-colored skies, and the Mustache Gang cavorted briefly in time-honored tradition on the Riverfront rug before crowding into the visitors’ clubhouse.
Photographers snapped their shutters as Epstein, Duncan, Rudi, and Bando—all proudly displaying their long locks, mustaches, and in some cases shaggy beards—gathered in a group with arms around each other’s shoulders and whooped and hollered as they drenched themselves in champagne. Their celebration would later appear on a TV commercial hawking hair spray.
The Bikers had beaten the Boy Scouts, and while the rest of the baseball world may have been stunned, the least surprised group was the A’s themselves.
“They said this Series was between the long hairs and the short hairs, the liberals against the conservatives,” a bearded Duncan told reporters in Oakland’s lathery locker room. “I think we proved it’s not how a person looks like [on the] outside that counts but what he’s got inside. We had it inside, heart and guts.”