1974 mfc/ '73 WORLD SERIES- A's vs. METS /Game 6

 Game 6 of the 1973 World Series took place a little after two in the afternoon on October 20, a Saturday. After 3 dark and cold games in New York City, it was back to the west coast and warm sunshine. We had the best pitching in the National League. We had the A's up against the ropes up three games to two. How could we possibly mess this up??


  

The great Reggie Jackson,
always a reporters delight, was not looking so great entering game six. He was batting .190.

 
When New York beat the Cincinnati Reds in the '73 N.L.C.S. the A's slugger said,"Who Are the Mets? The Met's don't have any big stars except Tom Seaver and Rusty Staub."

Jackson said he would have preferred playing the Reds.
"You beat them, you are the best."

But New York pitching is what got them past The Big Red Machine. Cincinnati had a total of 8 hits in 5 games. There was no doubt that the Mets had superior pitching. I remember thinking: keep flapping your mouth Reggie.

Jax smacked 4 hits in game 2, but New York still beat Oakland in extra innings.  For the Mets, keeping Reggie down was crucial. And they were doing a fine job of it, holding him to only 1 hit in all three games in NYC. If you removed Reggies game two numbers, he was 1 for 15 with 17 runners stranded.

 The Athletics as a team on the whole were pretty feeble at the plate so far, batting .197 with no home runs. NO HOME RUNS!
A's manager Dick Williams: "We're being dominated by their pitching."

 At this point in time we Mets fans felt we were destined to win this series. The way things had gone for the Mets ever since The Ball On The Wall play there was no doubt in my mind that New York was going to drive the World Championship home.

We needed one win and we had Tom Seaver, Jon Matlack, and a rested George Stone. Stone made crucial contributions to the '73 Mets, going 12-3 with a 2.40 ERA. The lefty had closed the season winning his last eight games and in 7.2 post season innings he had a miniscule 0.93 ERA.

It was my personal belief that if George Stone wasn't going to start one of these west coast games Yogi was holding him back, like a secret weapon. Kind of like Gil Hodges had done with Nolan Ryan in the 1969 post season.  

And I was okay with that.

In retrospect it's easy to jump on the "Yogi screwed up" bandwagon, but I'm going to be honest. I'm gonna keep it 100. I was okay at the time with Yogi's decision to pitch Seaver in game 6. My simplistic logic was that if Tom said he wanted the ball for game 6, you gave it to him. If Tom's ready to go, get it over in six. And we still had Stone and Matlack for game 7 if needed.

Yogi's reluctance to use George Stone at all as a starter in the series mystified me at the time, but I had faith in Yogi's moves, and like I said I thought he would use him to the teams advantage. An ace in the hole. There were a number of ways the Mets manager could have gone with the pitching staff he had, and it's easy in retrospect to condemn his choice of strategy. In baseball sometimes it's just the way the ball bounces.

So it would be a rematch of game 3, Tom Seaver vs. Catfish Hunter.

  Tom put in 8 innings in game 3, Hunter pitched 6. Both allowed only 2 runs on 7 hits. Both were pitching on three days rest.

The business about Seaver pitching on three days rest didn't concern me if Tom was healthy and ready. During the season Seaver had pitched with 3 days rest 6 times, one of them in the '73 N.L.C.S.

Four of those times he was coming off wins. In late September, down the stretch, Tom had started two games in a row on three days rest. Starting the run with a win he went 2-1 between September 13th to the 21st. His total record in games with three days rest during the '73 season was 3-3.

I know that's only .500 but we're talking Tom Seaver! At this age I might have been more concerned, or more analytical, but back then I had a kids faith in Yogi, our manager. He had gotten the Mets to the World Series. We were 5 games in and led 3-2. Nuff said. I was really confident that even with choices like this, there was no way we were gonna lose.

Known for our pitching, like in 1969, again our best hitters had posted pretty average numbers for the 1973 season. John Milner led the Mets with 23 home runs while driving in 72. Rusty Staub topped the team with 76 RBI. Not exactly earth shaking.

But in this series the Mets bats were alive. Milner was batting .350 coming into game six. Cleon Jones, a blistering .381. Rusty Staub had to sit out game one because of his shoulder injury in the N.L.C.S.. Staub still could not throw overhand in the field, but at the plate he contributed mightily. Coming into game six he was batting .444. No one else in the series had even come close to driving in 5 runs in one game, as he did in game five.

The A's starting pitcher himself would admit as much in a pre-game interview. "We didn't underrate the Mets' pitching," Catfish Hunter said,"but we underrated their hitters. They came out swinging and they're better than their batting averages indicate."

I really thought that no matter who was on the mound for New York, the Mets were in the drivers seat.

And then they play the game and all you can do is sit and watch.

Tom Terrific warms up before game 6 of the 1973 World Series

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It started out well enough. New York got two runners on as lead off hitter Wayne Garrett walked and Rusty Staub lined a one out single to center, putting runners on 1st & 3rd. The Mets had Cleon Jones and John Milner coming up. I thought this was starting perfectly. Cleon or The Hammer were going to get one of those runs home. But they didn't. Both popped out to center and the Mets half of the first was over.

After dispensing with Bert Campanaris to start the game Seaver gave up a single to Joe Rudy. Tom struck out Sal Bando and had to face Reggie Jackson with two out and a man on first. Jackson was batting .190 at this point in the series. The Mets were keeping Jackson down and that was crucial, but Tom couldn't hold him in check in game six. Reggie ripped a long blast to left center that fell in and went to the wall for a double. Cleon Jones fumbled while retrieving the ball and Joe Rudy had no problem scoring all the way from first base. The A's were on the board, 1-0.

 After a shaky first Catfish Hunter settled down and began setting the Mets batters down in order. From the end of the first to the fifth inning Hunter retired 10 in a row.

Meanwhile, in Oakland's half of the third what Mets fans feared the most finally happened. The fact that Rusty Staub could not throw did not hurt the Mets so far. But it came up and bit 'em good at a most inopportune time. And again, it was Reggie Jackson in the middle of the action.

In the 3rd Seaver got Bert Campaneris and Joe Rudi for two quick outs to start the A's half of the inning. Batting next, A's third baseman Sal Bando followed with a ground single up the middle. This brought up Reggie Jackson, who burned Seaver in the first with an RBI double.

 Jax roped a liner in right-center field that dropped for a single. Rusty Staub got to it quickly enough but Sal Bando was flying around the bases and was well on his way to third. The A's were waiting for an opportunity like this. Oakland was very well aware of Rusty's injured arm. He still could not throw overhand due to his NLCS injury. They hadn't much chance to take advantage of it. Reggie did in game 2, stretching a routine single to right into a double. Bando had no intention of stopping at third base.

Rusty gloved the ball and knew he had to get it in quickly. He forcefully winged the ball to cut-off man Felix Millan who came out for the throw.

Now if Felix fielded the one hop serve from Rusty cleanly, we might have had a play at the plate on Bando. But he flubbed it and had to retrieve the ball from the grass, wasting crucial seconds. Sal Bando zipped home with Oaklands second run and Reggie Jackson pulled up at second with another RBI double.

 
As the game progressed Seaver would allow a runner to reach in every inning from the 4th to the 7th, but gave up no more runs. Meanwhile Catfish Hunter was cruising as the Mets bats went to sleep. After Rusty Staubs single in the first the Mets would not reach base again until the 5th inning, when Jerry Grote led off the inning with a single. He would be stranded at first. In the 7th John Milner would tap Catfish for a 1 out single, but the A's pitcher bore down and got the next two outs without incident.

Oakland manager Dick Williams could see that Hunter was losing a little off his fastball as the Mets came to bat in the 8th. He decided to stick with his ace until he hit a bump. If a Mets batter reached first base in the 8th, he was set to pull him. After Bud Harrelson flew out Tom Seaver's day came to an end. Yogi sent up Ken Boswell to pinch hit for the Mets ace and Bozz ripped a base hit to right, knocking Catfish Hunter out of the game.

 A's reliever Darold Knowles, who had pitched in every game so far, came on to finish the 8th.  But he was ineffective as Wayne Garrett followed with a single sending Boswell to third. 

The A's 2 run lead was in jeopardy as Felix Millan stepped up to the plate. He kept the rally going with a dribbling grounder that managed to make it's way through the hole at second base and New York was finally on the board and threatening. Our big gun was up in Rusty Staub and things were getting exciting. But Knowels, who didn't look to have anything against Garrett and Millan, suddenly got his shit together and struck out Staub for probably the biggest out of the game.

Rusty's shoulder still hurt him.

I got a sinking feeling in my stomach after Rusty struck out. Dick Williams went to the A's bullpen again, this time bringing in relief ace Rollie Fingers to face Cleon Jones. I had the utmost confidence in Cleon, he was so clutch down the stretch. But Cleon could not come through either, popping out to center, and the inning ended with the score A's 2, Mets 1.

That sinking feeling was further magnified in the A's bottom of the 8th. Our ace reliever Tug McGraw would take over for Tom Seaver and be greeted by a line single to center by game 6 star Reggie Jackson. It wasn't the single that bothered me, it was the fact that Don Hahn misplayed the ball and it went right thru him, all the way to the centerfield wall.
 Reggie scooted around the bases and pulled up at third. With no out and a man on third, Oakland had little trouble getting Jackson home as pinch hitter Jesus Alou lifted an easy sacrifice fly to left. Reggie crossed the plate with the A's 3rd run. Tug was able to get out of the inning with no more damage, but now the Mets were down to three outs in the 9th.




Rollie Fingers made quick work of it, getting the Mets in order in the 9th, home-town favorite Ed Kranepool popping out to shortstop for the final out. New York had lost game six.






This wasn't due to Tom Seavers performance, which was not his best, but still better than most pitchers at their best. Tom only allowed 2 runs on 6 hits, walking 2. It was the lack of offense that did in the Mets in game 6. Their hot bats had cooled off, and Catfish Hunter was a tad better, giving up 1 run and scattering 4 hits while only walking one.

 Post Game Quotes:

"I was in a slump when the series began", said Jackson,"I didn't know what was going on at the plate. I felt like I had been asleep for two weeks. I took batting practice today and I woke up."

 "The Tom Seaver you saw today was not the real Tom Seaver. He ate me up in New York," Reggie was also quoted as saying. "He just didn't have his breaking ball and overpowering fastball today."

"I didn't pitch badly," said Seaver after the game," Just badly enough to lose. It was immediately apparent to me that I didn't have good, strong stuff."

Yogi's pitching did not let him down. The Mets batters and fielders did. And so the best-of-seven series became a best-of-one.

                                         Game 6 of the 1973 World Series

                                           Courtesy of John Quinn via youtube.

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Credits

Steve's Photography

MLB Films

Pittsburgh Post Gazette  

ClassicMLB11@youtube -WS 1973 OAK V NYM

  Colorizations

Reggie double #2

1974 mfc/ '73 WORLD SERIES- A's vs. METS /Game 4

...................................................................wait for it.

Rusty's shoulder was just getting better when Mr. Met hit Staub with some card text. It was a setback, but La Grande Orange came to play and insisted on being in the line-up.

Of course, that's in Fantazyland. In real life Mr. Met didn't get a pogo stick until the very late 1970's.

Reality was a tense affair.

Sal Bando, A's team captain, discussing the Andrews fiasco with the press before game four.

Night in the city. 51 degrees and windy. 54,817 fans pack Shea Stadium. The Mets down two games to one. All the NY Press want to talk about is will Mike Andrews play?
Jon Matlack vs Ken Holtzman, both excellent southpaws, get the start.

With the wind chill it's bone cold.

 "I grew up pitching in this weather. We didn't see a lot of it this season, but it didn't bother me."

Mets starting pitcher Jon Matlack, a native of Westchester, Pa.

A's owner Charlie Finley was directly involved in every facet of team management from contracts and trades, uniform design, PR work (in his case,publicity stunts), the color of the urinal cakes in the stadium,...everything.

After the 1971 season he traded outfielder Rick Monday to the Cubs for Holtzman, an excellent move. Joining a staff that featured Vida Blue and Catfish Hunter, he won 19 games in 1972 (7th in the AL). In 1973 he was an All-Star, going 21–13 (4th-best in the AL) in 40 starts with 157 strikeouts. 40 starts and 297.1 innings!, an amazin' total. Over the next 33 years only two other left-handers had as many starts in a season.

Anyone know who those 2 lefties were?

New York got things started right away in their half of the first. Lead off batter Wayne Garrett started the game with his first hit in the series that wasn't a home run. He singled to right. Felix Millan followed with what was just a perfect bunt. He dropped at the last second and rolled one to Sal Bando at third, who seemed to have misplayed everything hit his way in this series.

With Mets on first and second Rusty Staub was coming up. I've mentioned times we wished Rusty was up but due to injury he wasn't, and what a loss that was. Staub showed us why such thinking was justified. With a bad shoulder that seriously impeded his batting, he was able to adjust and launch a high liner to left that cleared the bases in a single, one armed swing, giving the Mets a 3-0 lead after three men had come to the plate.

"I hit a fastball. I hit the ball perfectly so it could carry that way [to opposite field]. I knew the wind was gusting out there. I thought, though, that it would fall between the fielders.

 I was kind of surprised when it went over the fence. 

I was running as hard as I could because I wasn't sure it was out. 

It was the first ball I've hit out since the shoulder injury, and obviously, the wind helped." Rusty Staub after game four.

I love these kinds of diagrams. This one is trying really hard to show the trajectory that the ball went on it's way over the left field fence. Unfortunately, it looks more like a low liner to the warning track that Dick Green should have snagged.

The Mets, 11th in the National League in regular season homers, now had four World Series homers. The powerhitting A's had none.

"Even though we're not a team that plays for the big inning, the fact that we have no homers is important." 

                                                                      Manager Dick Williams

Rusty's blast was the beginning of the end for Ken Holtzman. The A's lefty was victorious in the first game of the series, but tonight he wouldn't get out of the first inning. After Staubs long ball Holtzman walked big John Milner, gave up a single to Jerry Grote, and was off to the warmer climes of the clubhouse showers.

In the fourth the Athletics tapped the Mets on the shoulder with a run, and in the bottom of the inning New York answered right back with a 3 run slap in the face. Staub drove in two more with a single. It could have been worse but an aggressive Jerry Grote was cut down at the plate to end the inning.

 Joe Rudi continued to do his thing, which fortunately (for the Mets) only involved playing a fine left field in game four. In the fifth inning Don Hahn got a hold of one and it looked to make it into the visiting bullpen for a homer, or at worst, off the wall for extra bases.

 But Rudi had this habit of getting between balls and walls, and as he did in the 1972 World Series, he went up against it and put some leather in the way.

It's deja vu all over again!

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Ya know, I could write a whole post about the Oakland Athletics owner, Charlie O. Finley. What a character of the game. Sometimes a brilliant innovator, sometimes a complete jackass, the old coot influenced baseball in more ways than you know.

In 1967 Charlie's Kansas City A's (they moved to Oakland at the end of 1967) internal workings were rumbling. It started with an incident on a A's team flight, some maligned discipline, and ended with Finley firing his manager Alvin Dark (RIP). 

One of the teams best hitters, Ken "Hawk" Harrelson, was quoted saying "Finley is a menace to baseball". Hawk was unconditionally released. Harrelson was immediately snatched up by the first place Boston Red Sox, signing for $75,000.

The ramifications of Harrelson's free agency so disturbed major league owners that they amended the rules so that, in the future, a released player had to pass through waivers before becoming a free agent.

Flash forward to 1973. Although it wasn't official, it was no secret that Dick Williams would be quitting as manager of the Oakland Athletics due to the owners harsh treatment of his veteran 2nd baseman after game 2 of the World Series.

 You've read in game two and game three what Mike Andrews went through. 

He would return to pinch hit in game four of the '73 series to a standing ovation at Shea. Mets fans loved underdogs. This story almost trumped the New York games themselves, and did in some circles.

  Andrews grounded out and the ovation continued as he came off the field. It would be his last major league at bat.

 Unbelievably the very next year yet another player relations nightmare dominated the 1974 post-season. This time it involved not a backup infielder but the contract of a 25-game winner, Jim "Catfish" Hunter.

Card from WhenToppsHad(Base)Balls

In January 1974, Hunter had signed a two-year contract for a salary of $100,000 per year. The arrangement included a wrinkle: half his salary was to be paid into a life insurance fund as a form of deferred payment.

Hunter had a great season in 1974, receiving both The Sporting News's "Pitcher of the Year" award and the American League Cy Young Award after going 25–12 with a league leading 2.49 earned run average. The A's also won their third consecutive World Series.

 On the day before the '74 World Series began in Los Angeles, the story broke that Finley had not paid the mandated $50,000 to the insurance company, even after receiving written notice in mid-September. Hunter reportedly planned to ask for his release from his contract as soon as the 1974 World Series was over. Like Dick Williams the year before, he had had enough.

Finley, obviously more worried than he admitted, went into the clubhouse with American League President Lee McPhail to present Hunter with a check for the amount due. Hunter refused to accept the check and told Finley that they would discuss it after the Series was over.

Hunter's statistics while he was with the Athletics were impressive: four consecutive years with at least 20 wins, and in World Series play he was undefeated at 4-0.

Catfish @ Shea!

After a month of rumors in the press, a hearing was held on November 26 in New York City in front of arbitrator Peter Seitz. On December 13, 1974 Seitz found for Hunter and declared him a free agent.

Catfish's first, personal reaction was fear. After years of being one of Charlie O's head of cattle, he said to his wife,"We don't belong to anybody now."

 The baseball world went berserk--never before had a player of Hunter's caliber been available to the highest bidder at the height of his career. A three-week bidding war ensued among nearly every team in baseball.

The Yankees landed Hunter with a five-year deal totaling $3.75 million, more than three times the annual rate for the top stars in the game. The players could not help but notice what they could make on the free market. Baseball would never be the same.

How ironic that it was Charlie O's stinginess and stubbornness that would play a part in the upward explosion of player salaries.

And that's just one story. 

Read this great article at Athletics Nation.

Also a great read about ol' Charlie O. here at  Roger Launius's Blog.

I'll have some more to say about Mr. Finley. He was just such a brilliantly insane person.

  

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"I learned a little about the A's in game one and I used it to my advantage tonight."  Matlack considered this game more important than the opener, which he lost in a close contest, 2-1.  

"We were down two games to one going into this game and would have been just about out of it with a loss."

Jon was right and the Mets would win to even up the series at two games a piece. 

Rusty Staub had such a great game four. It was really a pleasure to see, although I didn't see very much of the game at the time. I was up a tree outside Shea. I could see a part of the field but that was about it. I don't even think I stayed til the end. It really was freezing up there in the wind. I'm pretty sure I headed home after the 3 run 4th.

"Under the circumstances, my performance was unbelievably satisfying. When you've been playing in the big leagues for about  11 years and always wanted to play in a World Series, well, this is a great, great feeling."

 So this game turned out to be a much needed semi-blowout. Factor in Jon Matlack firing on all cylinders and you can remove the semi.

Rusty Staub, playing more on adrenalin than anything and batting at about 60% of his potential, goes 4 for 4 and drives in 5! Imagine what Rusty could have done,...would have done, if he was a  100% healthy...

In Fantazyland we get to find out.

Okay, this might be pushing it...

I should probably save the crazy insane alternate universe fantazy cards for when we need a win.

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Credits:

 Segments of the section about Charlie Finley were written by Mark Armour. of the SABR

Jim Catfish Hunter "Nicknames of the 70's" card-  from  Giovanni Balistreri's excellent card blog  When Topps Had (Base) Balls.

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