Dodgerland

by Michael Fallon

  Wolfe’s situation in 1978 was, of course, a classic writer’s catch-22. “In order to write a long complicated nonfiction novel like The Right Stuff,” said Wolfe, “I had to turn out three books of magazine pieces, some of them enlarged, just to maintain a cash flow.”7 He also took to wearing casual clothes that would force him to stay inside, as he would not dare be caught in them out on the street. “I can’t go out into the street in khaki pants or jeans,” Wolfe said. “So I put on a pair of khaki pants and a turtleneck sweater, a heavy sweater. . . . It’s another way of boxing myself in.” Thus steeled, Wolfe finally began to make significant progress. Following his standard practice, he set a daily quota of about ten pages (triple spaced) on his manual typewriter—or about two thousand words. His methods were particular to him and ultimately effective. “Any time I’m finished with that,” he said, “I can quit. I will quit even in the middle of the sentence at the end of the tenth page.” Still, Wolfe, admitted, maintaining the through line—that is, moving the narrative forward from one day to the next—was the trick. “The hardest thing is overcoming the inertia of beginning the next day,” he said.8

  Despite the long struggles of the past few years, through the winter and spring of 1978 The Right Stuff began to take shape. As the text developed Wolfe realized he was making a clear statement about something very purely American. “The exploration of space is merely the setting,” he would say of his work some years later. “The real subject is status competition within the small, enclosed world of military flying. That is what drove the first seven astronauts and most of the first seventy-two astronauts.” That is, Wolfe was getting at some deeper truth about Americans, about humanity, and about the urge to strive and achieve. And the story, while full of fabrication and speculation, was as true as he could make it. “To me, it’s extremely important to be accurate,” Wolfe said, “If people start to ask, ‘I wonder if he makes up the parts in between that he doesn’t know about,’ that’s when you’re undercutting the whole enterprise if you indulge in it. . . . [Plus] there’s a great satisfaction in taking the actual facts insofar as you can get them and turning this material into something that is as engrossing as fiction, and in some cases more so, when you succeed.”9

  While Wolfe moved his presumptive masterpiece to fruition in the summer of 1978, Mayor Bradley’s dying Olympic dream, which he had all but pulled from life support on July 18, suddenly, against all odds, showed distinct signs of revival. A day after Tom Bradley had begrudgingly recommended that the city council withdraw the city’s bid, Lord Killanin sent a note to Bradley, expressing the desire to renew the contract talks between the IOC and Los Angeles. Further, Killanin offered an olive branch by extending the previous contractual deadline of July 31 to August 21. He also suggested that Mayor Bradley and his negotiators come to Europe and meet with committee members to strike a deal.

  Bradley’s stance had worked. The idea that the city of Los Angeles was simply willing to walk away from the 1984 Games, even at this late a date, had resulted in two distinct outcomes among the members of the IOC. On the one hand, it shocked the committee into realizing what the real stakes were. And on the other hand, Bradley’s announcement had the odd side effect of exposing the IOC’s poor playing hand. That is, once it was clear that Los Angeles was recalling its bid for the 1984 Games, cities that the IOC had claimed were backup hosts now publicly backtracked. “If California, one of the richest states in the United States, cannot undertake the Olympics,” said the Canadian sports minister at the time, “I feel it would be irresponsible for Canada to do so.”10 Similar sentiments came from Munich, in West Germany, and New York City. In effect, without Los Angeles, the IOC had to face the fact that there might be no Summer Olympic Games in 1984.

  Although local opponents to the Games remained steadfastly opposed to reopening negotiations with the IOC, on July 21 Tom Bradley announced he was doing exactly that. From there an intense game of cat and mouse ensued. “Over the weeks of the deadline extension,” write historians J. Gregory Payne and Scott Ratzan, “from July 31 to August 21, 1978, Bradley lobbied hard to change the financially important Rule 4. Throughout July, Bradley conducted intense telephone negotiations [centering on] . . . the liability to be assumed by the organizing committee and the U.S.O.C.”11 Finally, after some hard late-summer negotiating, it appeared that negotiators on both sides had agreed, at least in principle, on the framework of an agreement. And in late August the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee submitted the city’s final proposal to the executive board of the International Olympics Committee. Though all eyes expected that the board would endorse the proposal, Bradley had been on enough of a roller coaster over the past year to know not to count his chickens. At least not yet.

  With all that was happening in Los Angeles in the summer of 1978, the Dodgers’ push to the pennant came to seem, especially after the fireworks of August had simmered down, somewhat anticlimactic. Factoring in the Dodgers’ pennant drive, however, were two of baseball’s most intriguing characters. First, there was Steve Garvey, who in August reemerged, as Dodger fans by now had fairly come to expect, as a catalyst to the team’s success. Fresh off the high of being named MVP of the 1978 All-Star Game and the low of his face-off with longtime clubhouse rival Don Sutton, Garvey came alive. During the week prior to his fight with Sutton, he hit .379, scored eleven runs, knocked in nine runs, and was named National League Player of the Week. Afterward, Garvey, embattled and somewhat ridiculed for his role in the fight, was undaunted. In September’s stretch run he hit a torrid .392 and spearheaded the Dodger offense. In the first week of September, in key games against the Mets and Giants, Garvey collected ten hits (in twenty-nine at bats), with two doubles, a homer, and six RBIs. As a result the Dodgers won four of six games and pushed their lead to four games above the Giants. In the last week of September, Garvey went on an even greater tear, collecting thirteen hits in twenty-four at bats, knocking in eight runs, and lifting his seasonal average to .316, his highest average since 1975, the year after his MVP year.12

  Garvey’s biggest September game, however, would coincide with perhaps the biggest career game of the second of the late season’s intriguing characters. Much to the consternation of a great many baseball people, including Dodger archrival Sparky Anderson (as well as many of the Dodgers themselves), Jim Bouton made a key start against the Dodgers in Atlanta on September 10, even as L.A. clung to a small lead in the West, just three games over the Giants and six and a half games over the Reds. It was Bouton’s first Major League game in more than eight years, and he was ecstatic. “When I walked into Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium,” he said, “I was floating as if in a dream. . . . When I got into my uniform with my old No. 56 on it and went out to the field, I could feel my heart pounding under my shirt. And what a feeling it was standing on the mound listening to the national anthem, waiting to pitch my first game. I felt like I was standing on top of Mount Everest. I thought to myself how lucky I was to experience this twice in the same lifetime.” The first pitch Bouton threw was to the Dodgers’ Dave Lopes, a called strike that brought cheers from the crowd. “Four pitches later,” Bouton said, “Lopes struck out swinging on a dancing knuckler and the crowd roared. I felt like Rocky.”13

  After the first inning Bouton ran to the dugout with his arms raised in a victory salute. He would retire the sides in order in both the second and the third innings before the Dodgers finally caught up with his knuckler in the fourth with five runs off four hits, including a three-run homer by Monday. And while Bouton took the loss in the game, afterward he said he was entirely pleased with the outing. “I think I showed everyone that I was not awed pitching against the Dodgers and in the major leagues again,” he said at the postgame press conference. “I showed I’m certainly competitive. If the fourth inning had happened in the first, it would have been semi disastrous, but I showed enough good stuff for batters to swing and miss.” The day after the game Bouton was still gleeful about his good fortune, but other
s were not so pleased. Calling the game something of a “carnival atmosphere,” many players on the Dodgers derided the aging pitcher. “We didn’t feel he (Bouton) should have been out there,” said Dodger captain Dave Lopes. “We thought it was a disgrace to the game having him pitch. He has no business out there on the mound. . . . It was a mental letdown to go to the plate against him.”14 Lopes pointed out that the team had been particularly annoyed when Bouton had thrown his hands up in the air. This was the reason both Monday and Lopes had taken extralong trips around the bases when they homered in the fourth and fifth innings, respectively. Reggie Smith added that “it was like batting against Bozo the Clown.” Even the manager of the rival Reds, Sparky Anderson, suggested that he was going to call for an investigation by the commissioner. “We’re in a pennant race,” Anderson said. “Bouton should have to pitch against the Giants and Reds, too.”15

  Bouton, who had experienced his share of abuse from the baseball world, took the hubbub in stride. In his next game on September 14, Bouton won. “Bozo the Clown,” he said years later, “beat the San Francisco Giants, 4–1.” And while the Giant players were just as dismissive of Bouton, suggesting among other things that their children could have hit his pitching, Bouton could only laugh, saying he almost forgot who won the game. “Johnny Sain (the Braves’ pitching coach) told me later I had revolutionized the sport,” said Bouton. “Results in a game didn’t count anymore. You just ask the opposition what they think.”16

  Later in the month Bouton gave Anderson his wish, squaring off against the Reds in a day game in Atlanta. “They did beat me,” Bouton said. “But only 2–1. I allowed just five hits.” After the game, to be fair, Anderson gave Bouton credit, which the pitcher always thought was remarkably gentlemanly. “He can pitch,” Anderson said. “Nobody hit the ball hard off him. We got runs we shouldn’t have got. Outstanding. He did a super job. He’s a good pitcher.”17

  At the end of the season Bouton’s record was mixed—two good outings, three not as good, a 1-3 record, and a 4.97 ERA. Still, considering that knuckleballers like Hoyt Wilhelm and Atlanta favorite Phil Niekro were known for their longevity, playing well into their forties in each case, some wondered if he might not give it another shot in 1979. Instead, Bouton decided to call it quits, leaving people in the media and around the league guessing at what could have been his motive for coming back in the first place.18 “Some people said it was a publicity stunt,” Bouton said afterward. “Publicity for what, they didn’t say. . . . Other people said I was doing it to gather material for another book. Not a bad guess, although it would have to be a hellava book to justify the sacrifice in income. A few people said I just loved baseball and that certainly was true but that was only part of it. The ones who said I was crazy were probably the closest. Johnny Sain hit it right on the nose when he said I wanted to do something nobody had ever done before.”19

  After their game against Bouton the Dodgers continued winning and finally clinched the pennant on September 24 with a 4–0 win at home against the Padres. Key to the pennant-clinching win? Again, none other than the surging Steve Garvey, whose three hits and three RBIs were too much for San Diego to overcome. Rookie pitcher Bob Welch recorded the win, his seventh of the season (against four losses), in the team’s last home game of the season in front of a near-sellout crowd of more than 50,000 fans. The final game’s attendance gave the team an official season total in 1978 of 3,347,845 tickets sold, for an average of nearly 42,000 fans per game. The number not only crushed the Major League record that the Dodgers had set the previous season, but far surpassed the league’s second-highest attendance, 2,583,389 by the Eastern Division champion Philadelphia Phillies.

  27

  The Inevitable Yankee Miracle

  The majority of American males put themselves to sleep by striking out the batting order of the New York Yankees.

  —James Thurber

  After the Dodgers clinched a playoff appearance, the team retired to their home clubhouse to celebrate in the time-honored way—with beer and champagne showers. The antics, however, were much more subdued this year than in 1977. “We want to keep our emotions under control,” Reggie Smith said afterward. “Last year we had a big celebration and everything was sort of anticlimactic after that. This year we want to let everything build. That’s why I think we’re going to be in the World Series and I think we have a great chance to win it.” Center fielder Bill North echoed Smith’s confidence. “We knew we were going to win the division,” he said from the clubhouse. “That’s why there was no sudden burst of accomplishment. We know we have to win seven more games (playoffs and Series) to make it right.”1

  Despite these explanations, there was another reason that the celebrations were toned down in 1978. Somewhat lost in the media and fan frenzy of the pennant race as it heated up in September was a team tragedy. On September 15, on the day that the Dodgers became the first team to pass the 3 million mark in attendance at home, and on the same day that Don Sutton blanked the Braves and tied Don Drysdale for another club record (forty-nine shutouts as a Dodger), first base coach Jim Gilliam collapsed at home and was rushed to the Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood. At first it was thought Gilliam, who was still fairly young (age forty-nine) and in relatively good shape, had had a small stroke, but then, a little later, doctors discovered that he had actually suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. His condition became critical.

  Gilliam, who had been in the Dodger organization continuously since his own playing days twenty-six seasons earlier, was a favorite among players and team management, highly respected for his dignified demeanor and his dedication to the team. “I wish number 19 was here,” Bill North continued. “That kind of puts a governor on our elation. When someone . . . was in it with you, you want them to be able to enjoy in it with you, you want them to be able to enjoy the fruits of victory with you.” Rick Monday agreed with North. “The last nine days [since Gilliam’s sudden illness] have changed the feeling on the ballclub a great deal. There is a lot of mixed emotions. We’re high after closing out our division and playing good baseball and being able to wrap it up at home in front of fans that have supported us like no other fans in baseball history. We’re also low because in the clubhouse we did not have a guy who is loved by all taking part in the celebration.” Even Tom Lasorda seemed down. “All of us have dedicated this pennant to a great human being,” said Lasorda of the coach who had, just two years earlier, been mentioned as a top candidate for his job, “Jim Gilliam.”2

  Whatever his feelings, however, on September 25, with his team now officially crowned Western Division champions of the National League, Lasorda turned his focus to the tough battles that lay ahead. There were, of course, a couple of business items to attend to—one in-house and one outside the house. In-house, Lasorda needed to make sure his team’s veteran lineup was healthy and well rested, and his pitching staff properly positioned, for the playoff run. On September 26, in a meaningless loss to the Cincinnati Reds, Lasorda sat his double-play combo, Bill Russell and Dave Lopes, for Teddy Martinez and Lee Lacy, respectively. He also pulled several other veterans—Cey, Smith, even Iron Man Steve Garvey—in later innings, and he inserted Tommy John, who had been nursing a calf injury, as a long reliever after the sixth inning just to get him some work. It was much the same story for the final five games of the season. In each game Lasorda alternated which regular would sit or leave the game early, though of course he was certain that his regular first baseman was always included on the lineup card. This was for two reasons: First, Garvey was dead set, as per usual, on reaching his season goal of two hundred hits—a feat that the first baseman did reach on September 28 in an 8–7 loss against the Reds. And second, Garvey was completing his third straight season of playing in every single game—a consecutive-game streak that extended now, at the end of 1978, to 508 games.

  In addition to focusing on the well-being of his own team, Lasorda also turned his attention to what was happening around the rest of the league a
nd who was likely to be the team’s playoff opponent. The races around the league were shaping up intriguingly. In the National League playoffs, the Dodgers would have to face either the Phillies, who were currently in first place, or the Pirates, who were four games behind Philadelphia. Though the Dodgers had the same winning record—seven wins against five losses—against both teams, they had fared much better overall against the Pirates in 1978.3 In addition, the Phillies seemed to harbor a lingering grudge against the Dodgers over their loss in the playoffs the year before. Adding to the sense of focus for the Phillies was the fact that Philadelphia’s roster, save for a few small bit players, remained almost completely the same in 1978 as it was in 1977. To get to the Dodgers, however, they had to first get past a tough opponent in the Pirates.

  On September 25 the Phillies, who clung to a four-game lead in the NL Eastern Division, won a tight twelve-inning game at home against the Expos. With the Pirates already having won at home against the Cubs, and the season on the line, Philadelphia had battled back in the bottom of the ninth against Montreal to score two runs and force extra innings. The Phillies then won in the bottom of the twelfth on an RBI single by shortstop Larry Bowa. As the Phillies were four games ahead of Pittsburgh with just seven games to play, the team’s “magic number” was just four. But clinching would not come easy. After the Phillies split a doubleheader on September 26 against the Expos and the Pirates beat Chicago again, the magic number was three. And after both teams won on September 27, the Phillies’ magic number had fallen to just two with only four games to play. Unfortunately for Phillies fans, however, those final four games would take place in the last place the Phillies could have hoped for—in Pittsburgh.