The early 1970s A's teams had been built around a core of stars who had played together since the minors, but the ruling that baseball's reserve clause would now bound players to their teams for only one season after their contract expired was changing everything about roster construction as the 1976 season approached. The headline among the first wave of deals was Dodgers ace Andy Messersmith going to Braves (after heavy courtships by both the Reds and Yankees). The giant second wave would be coming after MLB76, when any player not signed to a multi-year contract would be eligible for free agency.
Finley called Kuhn a "village idiot" when the commissioner intervened June 18 and stopped the sales to Boston and New York. I haven't gotten far enough to learn if he actually followed through, but, as of June 21, Finley said he was planning to sue MLB for stopping the transactions.
United Press International reported that the three players at the center of the controversy--Blue, Fingers and Rudi--suited up for Oakland, but Finley ordered A's manager Chuck Tanner to not play them, to avoid potential injuries if the sales were ultimately allowed. “Meanwhile, the A’s, who have always thrived on adversity, took a pair of weekend wins to make it four victories out of six games without the three superstars."
The 1976 A's are going to finish second in the A.L. West, 2.5 games back of the Royals. It would be Oakland's first postseason miss since 1970. By the start of MLB77, Bando, Baylor, Fingers, Rudi, Tenace, Bert Campaneris, Phil Garner, Willie McCovey, Claudell Washington and Billy Williams all would be gone. The 1977 A's are going to win 24 fewer games, and 1976's 87-74 record is going to turn out to be the team's best until 1988.
Ron Coons, The Courier-Journal’s Reds writer, had a column June 20 pointing out that none of this was exactly new for the A’s. “Finley simply took a page out of the book of Connie Mack, who twice broke up championship teams."
After the A's won the World Series 1910, 1911 and 1913 and the pennant in 1914, Mack sold 13 players, and Philadelphia fell to last place. Then the A's won the World Series in 1930 and 1931 and the American League in 1932, and Mack again dismantled the team, precipitating another (though more gradual) decline.
“The A’s, past and present—whether in Philadelphia or Oakland, have had a remarkable history of boom and bust,” Coons wrote. “Finley says he’ll be back on top again some day. The odds, however, are stacked heavily against him."
Marshall is 4-3 with eight saves on the seasons, but his ERA is up to 4.45 after giving up 27 runs in his last 11 innings. The wire reports said that Marshall figured those recent struggles, along with Charlie Hough's emergence, gave the Dodgers the cover to cut him loose. Marshall was in the middle of a legal case with his alma mater, Michigan State University, that had to do with his apparently breaking in to the school's training facility after being denied permission to work out there without scheduling in advance. Plus, he was the Dodgers' player representative; he didn't sign autographs, and even he admitted he was "totally uncoachable." Los Angeles waived Marshall, and then Atlanta picked him up and sold the contracts of Lee Lacy and Elias Sosa to the Dodgers.
I have a theory that for years, in fact throughout almost all of their great years between the late 1940s and the late 1980's, the Dodgers consistently overused their best pitchers. Some examples are obvious, like how they used Koufax and Hershiser. But Mike Marshall had 106 appearances for the Dodgers in 1974, and 58 in 1975. He wouldn't really be effective again until 1978, when he made 54 appearances for the Twins. Andy Messersmith had 39 starts and 13 complete games in 1974. He had 40 starts, 19 complete games, and 7 shutouts in 1975. He only pitched four more seasons after that, and he went 18-22 in those seasons.
I think Walter Alston was particularly aggressive here. The way he used pitchers was incredible. Between 1962 and 1966, Don Drysdale had at least forty starts every year. In 1965 and 1966 -- pitching in enormous pain every single game -- Sandy Koufax threw fifty-four complete games.
The view of the Dodgers -- and of Alston in particular -- seemed to be that if we get a pitcher who can get outs, we will use him to get as many outs as we can before his arm gives out. And when his arm gives out, we'll go get someone else.
Of course, this whole approach seems nuts -- and even cruel -- now. But the Dodgers have won only seven World Series titles in their history, and Alston won four of them. Tommy Lasorda won the 1988 title by doing major damage to Hershiser's arm. (Hershiser never had an ERA below 3.4 after 1989). And, of course, the Nats won the 2019 World Series thanks to an incredible year by Stephen Strasburg -- and Strasburg will probably never again be a starting pitcher.
The bottom line is this: over time, you may benefit from taking care of your pitchers. But in a given season, a hot pitcher can take you all the way. If Walter Alston had managed Clayton Kershaw, Kershaw's career probably would have ended years ago. But he'd probably be a legend.
I wonder how much of those strategies are now defined in the player's contracts with the teams. I was listening to an episode of the great Smartless podcast the other day, and Jennifer Garner was telling a story that she heard Dolly Parton was offered a Broadway show recently, to which she agreed if she had to perform no more than four times per week (as opposed to the customary eight). The producers passed, and Jennifer Garner, Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett agreed that was an unfortunate decision.
Well, I worked yesterday to the Yankees-Tigers game June 28, 1976, in Detroit, and it was so good that I'm going to work to it again today. I know who wins, but I won't spoil it for the rest of you.
Rivers is hitting .320 on the season and .500 in his last 36 at-bats, and he's on a 20-game hitting streak. MLB76 is peak "Mick the Quick" (which is what we called him in my Cairo Road neighborhood--I'm uncertain whether anyone else called him that). It's going to be his only All-Star Game selection in a 14-year career, and he's going to finish third in American League MVP voting. Rivers is 27 years old, and he's originally from Miami.
The other eight starting Yankees introduce themselves in batting order with their names, positions and identified hometowns:
2. Roy White, left fielder of Wayne, New Jersey 3. Carlos May, designated hitter of Birmingham, Alabama 4. Chris Chambliss, first baseman of Oceanside, California 5. Graig Nettles, third baseman of San Diego, California 6. Oscar Gamble, right fielder of Montgomery, Alabama 7. Elrod Hendricks, catcher of Saint Thomas, Virgin Islands 8. Willie Randolph, second baseman of Brooklyn, New York 9. Jim Mason, shortstop of Mobile, Alabama
Then we meet pitcher Ken Holtzman of Lincolnshire, Illinois, and, finally, “Billy Martin, manager, born in Berkeley, California, died in New York."
Sorry for my delay. We got off relatively easy on severe storms most of this spring, but we just had a pretty good one come through (with another forecast for late this afternoon). Our neighborhood lost power for three or four hours, and I was forced to go out and pick up steak sandwiches and French fries for lunch. (Delicious!) Now I'm back up and running and have had an Alka-Seltzer for dessert, and so let's get back to Bob Prince and the Tiger fielders ...
“They’re young, and they’re rambunctious,” Prince tells us of the Tigers. Across the outfield, it’s Mickey Stanley in left, Ron LeFlore in center (“who is, of course, well known for beating the rap in prison and coming out to play great baseball”) and Rusty Staub in right (“who was a star with the Mets and is quite a raconteur of cooking”) ...
Around the infield, we have Aurelio Rodriguez at third (“he’s a young guy who likes to charge the ball; he’ll play up tight”), Tom Veryzer at short (“can range and range well to both his left and his right”), Pedro Garcia at second (“also has good movement to his left and his right—and especially going back on short pops”) and Jason Thompson at first (“another good young man and a good thrower with his left hand, as you can see”) ...
Behind the plate is Bruce Kimm, who just came up from the Class AAA Evansville (!) Triplets, and on the mound is “this young man by the name of Mark Fidrych … There’s a lot about him that we maybe don’t understand."
He is 7-1. Remember how newspapers used to run those long agate columns of “Major League Averages”—one list of dozens of batters with so many at-bats ordered by batting average and one list of dozens of pitchers with so many decisions ordered by ERA? Fidrych and his 2.18 ERA was listed fourth in the American League in the lists circulated in June 27, 1976, sports sections—behind Bill Travers of the Brewers (1.79, 8-5), Wayne Garland of the Orioles (1.80, 7-0) and reliever Sparky Lyle of the Yankees (1.84, 5-4).
And there he goes. Two Yankees batters in, Fidrych is talking to the ball. Bob Uecker says it's distracting for the batter because Fidrych is loud enough that he can be heard at the plate.
New York gets one man on, but Fidrych strikes out Chambliss looking to end the inning with no score--and then sprints off the field, almost stumbling into the Detroit dugout to throw a jacket over his right pitching arm.
Now here’s the home team to introduce themselves in batting order:
1. LeFlore of Detroit 2. Veryzer of Islip, New York 3. Staub of New Orleans 4. Alex Johnson, designated hitter (he declines to identify a hometown) 5. Thompson of Apple Valley, California 6. Rodriguez of Cananea, Sonora, Mexico 7. Stanley of Grand Rapids, Michigan 8. Garcia of Guyana, Puerto Rico 9. Kimm of Norway, Iowa
“Good evening. I’m Mark Fidrych from Northborough, Massachusetts, and I pitch for the Detroit Tigers.”
“I’m Ralph Houk, manager of the Detroit Tigers. I come from Lawrence, Kansas, and right now I live in Pompano Beach, Florida."
LeFlore, at .349, is listed second among A.L. batters with 225 or more at-bats—behind George Brett of the Royals (.363). Staub, at .319, is ninth—behind Brett, LeFlore, Tom Poquette of the Royals (.347), Hal McRae of the Royals (.346), Lyman Bostock of the Twins (.337), Rivers of the Yankees (.330), Rod Carew of the Twins (.322) and Buddy Bell of the Indians (.320).
LeFlore walks to open things in the home half of the first. He's out at second, as Veryzer reaches on a fielder's choice, and then Staub--“what Mr. Rickey would call a matrimonial coward, if Mr. Rickey was around today," says Prince, "he’s a very eligible, fine-looking bachelor”--homers. It's 2-0, Detroit, and 47,855 in Tiger Stadium are ecstatic.
Elrod Hendricks--one of the newest Yankees, who came from Baltimore with Holtzman, Doyle Alexander, Grant Jackson and Jimmy Freeman in exchange for Rick Dempsey, Scott McGregor, Tippy Martinez, Rudy May and Dave Pagan at the June 15 trade deadline--homers in the second. It's 2-1.
This is probably my favorite video so far from 1976.
ReplyDeleteThe early 1970s A's teams had been built around a core of stars who had played together since the minors, but the ruling that baseball's reserve clause would now bound players to their teams for only one season after their contract expired was changing everything about roster construction as the 1976 season approached. The headline among the first wave of deals was Dodgers ace Andy Messersmith going to Braves (after heavy courtships by both the Reds and Yankees). The giant second wave would be coming after MLB76, when any player not signed to a multi-year contract would be eligible for free agency.
ReplyDeleteOakland's owner tried to get out in front of the tide. On April 4, the A's traded Reggie Jackson, Ken Holtzman and a minor-leaguer named Bill Van Brommell to Baltimore for Don Baylor, Mike Torrez and Paul Mitchell. The roster shuffling continued through the first two months of the season, as related in the Wikipedia article on the 1976 A's, based on a book by G. Michael Green and Roger D. Launius, Charlie Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball's Super Showman ...
ReplyDeleteBefore the June 15 trading deadline, Finley contacted the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. He had proposed a trade to the Red Sox that would have involved Joe Rudi, Rollie Fingers, Vida Blue, Gene Tenace, and Sal Bando for outfielder Fred Lynn, catcher Carlton Fisk, and prospects. In trade talks with the Yankees, Finley proposed Vida Blue for catcher Thurman Munson, along with either outfielder Roy White or Elliott Maddox; he also offered Rudi for Munson.
DeleteOn June 14, Finley was unable to make any trades, and had started contacting other teams about the possibility of selling his players' contracts. Rudi, Blue, Baylor, and Tenace were worth $1 million each, while Bando could be acquired for $500,000. Boston general manager Dick O'Connell was in Oakland as the Red Sox would play the Athletics on June 15. Field manager Darrell Johnson had declared that he was interested in Rudi and Fingers; the Red Sox had agreed to purchase both contracts for one million dollars each.
O'Connell had contacted Detroit Tigers general manager Jim Campbell to purchase Vida Blue for one million dollars so that the New York Yankees could not get him. Gabe Paul of the Yankees advised that he would pay $1.5 million for the opportunity to acquire Blue. Finley offered Blue a three-year extension worth $485,000 per season to make the sale more attractive to the Yankees. With the extension, the Yankees agreed to purchase Blue.
Finley had then proceeded to contact Bill Veeck of the Chicago White Sox about purchasing Sal Bando. He then contacted the Texas Rangers, as they were interested in acquiring Don Baylor for the one million dollar asking price.
Finley called Kuhn a "village idiot" when the commissioner intervened June 18 and stopped the sales to Boston and New York. I haven't gotten far enough to learn if he actually followed through, but, as of June 21, Finley said he was planning to sue MLB for stopping the transactions.
ReplyDeleteUnited Press International reported that the three players at the center of the controversy--Blue, Fingers and Rudi--suited up for Oakland, but Finley ordered A's manager Chuck Tanner to not play them, to avoid potential injuries if the sales were ultimately allowed. “Meanwhile, the A’s, who have always thrived on adversity, took a pair of weekend wins to make it four victories out of six games without the three superstars."
ReplyDeleteThe 1976 A's are going to finish second in the A.L. West, 2.5 games back of the Royals. It would be Oakland's first postseason miss since 1970. By the start of MLB77, Bando, Baylor, Fingers, Rudi, Tenace, Bert Campaneris, Phil Garner, Willie McCovey, Claudell Washington and Billy Williams all would be gone. The 1977 A's are going to win 24 fewer games, and 1976's 87-74 record is going to turn out to be the team's best until 1988.
ReplyDeleteRon Coons, The Courier-Journal’s Reds writer, had a column June 20 pointing out that none of this was exactly new for the A’s. “Finley simply took a page out of the book of Connie Mack, who twice broke up championship teams."
ReplyDeleteAfter the A's won the World Series 1910, 1911 and 1913 and the pennant in 1914, Mack sold 13 players, and Philadelphia fell to last place. Then the A's won the World Series in 1930 and 1931 and the American League in 1932, and Mack again dismantled the team, precipitating another (though more gradual) decline.
ReplyDelete“The A’s, past and present—whether in Philadelphia or Oakland, have had a remarkable history of boom and bust,” Coons wrote. “Finley says he’ll be back on top again some day. The odds, however, are stacked heavily against him."
ReplyDeleteTo that point, however, it's fun noting that we're about two weeks away in 1976 from Oakland using a fourth-round draft choice on Rickey Henderson.
ReplyDeleteHere's a terrific segment on the A's from a MLB Properties movie (narrated by Mel Allen) on baseball in the 1970s. It goes all the way from "Amazin'" to the dawn of "Billy Ball."
DeleteA.L. standings as of morning of June 22, 1976:
ReplyDeleteWest
Royals 39-23
Rangers 34-26, 4 games back
A’s 31-34, 9.5
White Sox 28-32, 10
Twins 29-33, 10
Angels 28-40, 14
East
Yankees 38-22
Orioles 31-31, 8
Indians 30-30, 8
Red Sox 29-31, 9
Tigers 28-33, 10.5
Brewers 24-34, 13
National League:
ReplyDeleteWest
Reds 41-25
Dodgers 37-30, 4.5
Padres 35-29, 5
Astros 30-36, 11
Braves 28-36, 12
Giants 25-43, 17
East
Phillies 44-18
Pirates 35-26, 8.5
Mets 33-36, 14.5
Cardinals 29-36, 16.5
Cubs 28-36, 17
Expos 22-36, 20
And now (in 1976) Mike Marshall has left the Dodgers for the Braves!
ReplyDeleteSo Messersmith, who finished second in N.L. Cy Young voting in 1974, and now Marshall, who won the award, are teammates again--now in Atlanta.
ReplyDeleteMarshall is 4-3 with eight saves on the seasons, but his ERA is up to 4.45 after giving up 27 runs in his last 11 innings. The wire reports said that Marshall figured those recent struggles, along with Charlie Hough's emergence, gave the Dodgers the cover to cut him loose. Marshall was in the middle of a legal case with his alma mater, Michigan State University, that had to do with his apparently breaking in to the school's training facility after being denied permission to work out there without scheduling in advance. Plus, he was the Dodgers' player representative; he didn't sign autographs, and even he admitted he was "totally uncoachable." Los Angeles waived Marshall, and then Atlanta picked him up and sold the contracts of Lee Lacy and Elias Sosa to the Dodgers.
ReplyDeleteI have a theory that for years, in fact throughout almost all of their great years between the late 1940s and the late 1980's, the Dodgers consistently overused their best pitchers. Some examples are obvious, like how they used Koufax and Hershiser. But Mike Marshall had 106 appearances for the Dodgers in 1974, and 58 in 1975. He wouldn't really be effective again until 1978, when he made 54 appearances for the Twins. Andy Messersmith had 39 starts and 13 complete games in 1974. He had 40 starts, 19 complete games, and 7 shutouts in 1975. He only pitched four more seasons after that, and he went 18-22 in those seasons.
DeleteI think Walter Alston was particularly aggressive here. The way he used pitchers was incredible. Between 1962 and 1966, Don Drysdale had at least forty starts every year. In 1965 and 1966 -- pitching in enormous pain every single game -- Sandy Koufax threw fifty-four complete games.
DeleteThe view of the Dodgers -- and of Alston in particular -- seemed to be that if we get a pitcher who can get outs, we will use him to get as many outs as we can before his arm gives out. And when his arm gives out, we'll go get someone else.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this whole approach seems nuts -- and even cruel -- now. But the Dodgers have won only seven World Series titles in their history, and Alston won four of them. Tommy Lasorda won the 1988 title by doing major damage to Hershiser's arm. (Hershiser never had an ERA below 3.4 after 1989). And, of course, the Nats won the 2019 World Series thanks to an incredible year by Stephen Strasburg -- and Strasburg will probably never again be a starting pitcher.
ReplyDeleteThe bottom line is this: over time, you may benefit from taking care of your pitchers. But in a given season, a hot pitcher can take you all the way. If Walter Alston had managed Clayton Kershaw, Kershaw's career probably would have ended years ago. But he'd probably be a legend.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much of those strategies are now defined in the player's contracts with the teams. I was listening to an episode of the great Smartless podcast the other day, and Jennifer Garner was telling a story that she heard Dolly Parton was offered a Broadway show recently, to which she agreed if she had to perform no more than four times per week (as opposed to the customary eight). The producers passed, and Jennifer Garner, Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett agreed that was an unfortunate decision.
ReplyDeleteWell, I worked yesterday to the Yankees-Tigers game June 28, 1976, in Detroit, and it was so good that I'm going to work to it again today. I know who wins, but I won't spoil it for the rest of you.
ReplyDeleteWarner Wolf of Washington, D.C., begins the introduction of the visiting team's batting order with narration over, first, a bobbling Yankees bobblehead doll and, second, highlights of New York center-fielder Mickey Rivers, "one of the hottest batters in baseball today."
ReplyDeleteRivers is hitting .320 on the season and .500 in his last 36 at-bats, and he's on a 20-game hitting streak. MLB76 is peak "Mick the Quick" (which is what we called him in my Cairo Road neighborhood--I'm uncertain whether anyone else called him that). It's going to be his only All-Star Game selection in a 14-year career, and he's going to finish third in American League MVP voting. Rivers is 27 years old, and he's originally from Miami.
Rivers is hitting .330, not .320. Sorry.
DeleteHe was worth 5 wins above replacement in 1976, the highest figure of his career.
DeleteThe other eight starting Yankees introduce themselves in batting order with their names, positions and identified hometowns:
ReplyDelete2. Roy White, left fielder of Wayne, New Jersey
3. Carlos May, designated hitter of Birmingham, Alabama
4. Chris Chambliss, first baseman of Oceanside, California
5. Graig Nettles, third baseman of San Diego, California
6. Oscar Gamble, right fielder of Montgomery, Alabama
7. Elrod Hendricks, catcher of Saint Thomas, Virgin Islands
8. Willie Randolph, second baseman of Brooklyn, New York
9. Jim Mason, shortstop of Mobile, Alabama
Then we meet pitcher Ken Holtzman of Lincolnshire, Illinois, and, finally, “Billy Martin, manager, born in Berkeley, California, died in New York."
That's pretty good.
Now Bob Prince of Los Angeles comes on to introduce the starting Tigers ...
ReplyDeleteSorry for my delay. We got off relatively easy on severe storms most of this spring, but we just had a pretty good one come through (with another forecast for late this afternoon). Our neighborhood lost power for three or four hours, and I was forced to go out and pick up steak sandwiches and French fries for lunch. (Delicious!) Now I'm back up and running and have had an Alka-Seltzer for dessert, and so let's get back to Bob Prince and the Tiger fielders ...
ReplyDelete“They’re young, and they’re rambunctious,” Prince tells us of the Tigers. Across the outfield, it’s Mickey Stanley in left, Ron LeFlore in center (“who is, of course, well known for beating the rap in prison and coming out to play great baseball”) and Rusty Staub in right (“who was a star with the Mets and is quite a raconteur of cooking”) ...
ReplyDeleteAround the infield, we have Aurelio Rodriguez at third (“he’s a young guy who likes to charge the ball; he’ll play up tight”), Tom Veryzer at short (“can range and range well to both his left and his right”), Pedro Garcia at second (“also has good movement to his left and his right—and especially going back on short pops”) and Jason Thompson at first (“another good young man and a good thrower with his left hand, as you can see”) ...
ReplyDeleteBehind the plate is Bruce Kimm, who just came up from the Class AAA Evansville (!) Triplets, and on the mound is “this young man by the name of Mark Fidrych … There’s a lot about him that we maybe don’t understand."
ReplyDeleteWikipedia:
ReplyDeleteThe son of an assistant school principal, Fidrych played baseball at Algonquin Regional High School in Northborough, Massachusetts, and at Worcester Academy, a day and boarding school in central Massachusetts. In the 1974 amateur draft he was selected in the 10th round by the Detroit Tigers. He later joked that when he received a call saying he had been drafted, he thought he was drafted into the military, not thinking there were any teams looking at him. In the minor leagues one of his coaches with the Lakeland Tigers dubbed the lanky 6-foot-3 right-handed pitcher "The Bird" because of his resemblance to the "Big Bird" character on the popular Sesame Street television program.
Fidrych made the Tigers as a non-roster invitee out of the 1976 spring training, not making his MLB debut until April 20, and pitched only one inning through mid-May.
In his third appearance, on May 15, Fidrych made his first major league start, caught by Bruce Kimm, his batterymate in 1975 at Triple A Evansville. He held the Cleveland Indians hitless through six innings and ended up with a two-hit, 2–1 complete game victory, with one walk and five strikeouts. In addition to his pitching, Fidrych attracted attention in his debut for talking to the ball while on the pitcher's mound, strutting in a circle around the mound after every out, patting down the mound, and refusing to allow groundskeepers to fix the mound in the sixth inning. After the game, sports writer Jim Hawkins wrote in the Detroit Free Press: "He really is something to behold." Rico Carty of the Indians said he thought Fidrych "was trying to hypnotize them." ...
On May 25 at Fenway Park in Boston, Fidrych started his second game in front of two busloads of fans who traveled from Fidrych's hometown of Northborough. Fidrych pitched well, allowing two earned runs (a two-run home run by Carl Yastrzemski) in eight innings, but Luis Tiant shut out the Tigers, and Fidrych received his first major league loss.
ReplyDeleteOn May 31, Fidrych pitched an 11-inning, complete-game victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. On June 5, he pitched another 11-inning, complete-game victory over the Texas Rangers in Arlington. Fidrych continued to pitch well heading into the All-Star break:
-- June 11: Fidrych pitched a complete game 4–3 victory over the California Angels before a crowd of 36,377 on a Friday night at Tiger Stadium.
-- June 19: Fidrych pitched a complete game 4–3 victory over the Kansas City Royals before a crowd of 21,659 on a Wednesday night at Tiger Stadium.
-- June 24: Fidrych returned to Fenway Park with his family and friends in the stands. He gave up back-to-back home runs to Fred Lynn and Yastrzemski but won his sixth consecutive start.
He is 7-1. Remember how newspapers used to run those long agate columns of “Major League Averages”—one list of dozens of batters with so many at-bats ordered by batting average and one list of dozens of pitchers with so many decisions ordered by ERA? Fidrych and his 2.18 ERA was listed fourth in the American League in the lists circulated in June 27, 1976, sports sections—behind Bill Travers of the Brewers (1.79, 8-5), Wayne Garland of the Orioles (1.80, 7-0) and reliever Sparky Lyle of the Yankees (1.84, 5-4).
ReplyDeleteAnd now we are all going to get to see him on Monday Night Baseball. Hooray for television!
ReplyDeleteHe really does kind of look like Big Bird.
ReplyDeleteAnd there he goes. Two Yankees batters in, Fidrych is talking to the ball. Bob Uecker says it's distracting for the batter because Fidrych is loud enough that he can be heard at the plate.
ReplyDelete"Hmph!" Prince comments.
New York gets one man on, but Fidrych strikes out Chambliss looking to end the inning with no score--and then sprints off the field, almost stumbling into the Detroit dugout to throw a jacket over his right pitching arm.
ReplyDeleteNow here’s the home team to introduce themselves in batting order:
ReplyDelete1. LeFlore of Detroit
2. Veryzer of Islip, New York
3. Staub of New Orleans
4. Alex Johnson, designated hitter (he declines to identify a hometown)
5. Thompson of Apple Valley, California
6. Rodriguez of Cananea, Sonora, Mexico
7. Stanley of Grand Rapids, Michigan
8. Garcia of Guyana, Puerto Rico
9. Kimm of Norway, Iowa
“Good evening. I’m Mark Fidrych from Northborough, Massachusetts, and I pitch for the Detroit Tigers.”
“I’m Ralph Houk, manager of the Detroit Tigers. I come from Lawrence, Kansas, and right now I live in Pompano Beach, Florida."
LeFlore, at .349, is listed second among A.L. batters with 225 or more at-bats—behind George Brett of the Royals (.363). Staub, at .319, is ninth—behind Brett, LeFlore, Tom Poquette of the Royals (.347), Hal McRae of the Royals (.346), Lyman Bostock of the Twins (.337), Rivers of the Yankees (.330), Rod Carew of the Twins (.322) and Buddy Bell of the Indians (.320).
ReplyDeleteLeFlore walks to open things in the home half of the first. He's out at second, as Veryzer reaches on a fielder's choice, and then Staub--“what Mr. Rickey would call a matrimonial coward, if Mr. Rickey was around today," says Prince, "he’s a very eligible, fine-looking bachelor”--homers. It's 2-0, Detroit, and 47,855 in Tiger Stadium are ecstatic.
ReplyDeleteElrod Hendricks--one of the newest Yankees, who came from Baltimore with Holtzman, Doyle Alexander, Grant Jackson and Jimmy Freeman in exchange for Rick Dempsey, Scott McGregor, Tippy Martinez, Rudy May and Dave Pagan at the June 15 trade deadline--homers in the second. It's 2-1.
ReplyDeleteWide World of Sports this Saturday will feature U.S. Olympic trials in gymnastics and diving. Montreal 1976 starts July 17!
ReplyDeleteUecker and Wolf seem just delighted with Fidrych; Prince, who is pronouncing the name "feed-RICK" ... less so.
ReplyDeleteN.L. manager Sparky Anderson urges us to get our All-Star ballots in early. Voting ends July 4, and the game is scheduled for July 13 in Philadelphia.
ReplyDelete