This day in baseball history: Mets even World Series in sloppy thriller
Willie Mays has eventful, embarrassing outing; Charlie Finley disgraces himself
The 1973 World Series featured the defending champion Oakland As against their improbable challengers, the New York Mets. Both had survived difficult series against outstanding teams (the Baltimore Orioles and the Cincinnati Reds, respectively).
Both had three top-notch starting pitchers — Catfish Hunter, Ken Holtzman, and Vida Blue for the As; Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Jon Matlack for the Mets. Both had an ace reliever — Rollie Fingers for the As; Tug McGraw for the Mets. But the As had a much more formidable and productive lineup. They were heavily favored.
Lefthanders Holtzman and Matlack were the starting pitchers for Game One, played in Oakland. Matlack was outstanding. The only two runs he allowed were unearned — the result of an error by second baseman Felix Millan.
Holtzman, who had pitched 11 innings just three days earlier, was less effective. He allowed four hits and three walks in his five innings of work. However, the wily veteran limited the Mets to just one run. Holtzman also doubled and scored the first of Oakland’s two runs.
The outstanding Oakland bullpen made the 2-1 lead stand up. Fingers got ten outs and Darold Knowles got the final two.
Game Two was played on this day in baseball history. The pitching matchup was another battle of southpaws — Vida Blue vs. Jerry Koosman. Neither was effective .
Koosman didn’t make it out of the third inning. He gave up six hits, including triples by Bert Campanaris and Sal Bando and a double by Joe Rudi. But the As could convert that output plus three walks into only three runs.
And the Mets kept it close, thanks to solo home runs by Cleon Jones and Wayne Garrett.
The Mets took a 6-3 lead in the top of the sixth inning. With one out, Jones walked and Milner singled. Dick Williams pulled Blue and replaced him with Horacio Pina.
This turned out to be rare bad move by the Oakland manager. Pina hit the first batter he faced — Jerry Grote — and then gave up RBI singles to Don Hahn (a dribbler) and Bud Harrelson. New York now led 4-3 with the bases loaded.
That was all for Pina. On came Knowles to face Ed Kranepool, pinch hitting for reliever Harry Parker. Yogi Berra, wanting a right-handed hitter to face southpaw Knowles, pulled Kranepool in favor of Jim Beauchamp.
Williams had gotten the better of these moves. Beauchamp hit a grounder back to Knowles. It could have been a double play, but the pitcher, perhaps over-eager, lost his footing and fell as he threw home. The throw was errant. The lead runner, Grote, scored on the error. So did Hahn. The Mets led 6-3.
In the bottom of the sixth, Berra called on Tug McGraw to protect that lead. The way McGraw had been pitching, getting twelve outs to preserve a three-run lead didn’t seem like to much to ask — not in that era of baseball. And, as we will see, absent a misplay in the outfield, it would not have been.
The As scored a run in the bottom of the seventh on a RBI double by Reggie Jackson. McGraw cruised through the eighth and took a 6-4 lead into the bottom of the ninth.
Meanwhile, Willie Mays had entered the game in the top of the inning as a pinch-runner for Staub. According to at least one account, Berra assigned him to right field where Staub had played, but Mays persuaded Don Hahn to swap positions, meaning that Mays would play center — the position he manned about as well as anyone in the history of baseball ever has.
Things immediately went south for Mays. With one out, Milner singled to right field. In his prime, no runner went from first to third the way Mays did. And even at age-42, Mays could have made it to third easily.
However, he missed second base on his way, or thought he did. Hesitating, he stumbled and returned to second. The stumble probably wasn’t costly, though, because the next batter, Grote, failed to hit the ball out of the infield and the next one, Hahn, struck out.
But Mays’ eventful day was just beginning. To lead off the bottom of the ninth, Williams sent up Deron Johnson to bat for reliever Blue Moon Odom. Johnson was Oakland’s designated hitter during the regular season, but was on the bench now because in 1973 pitchers were required to bat in the World Series (regardless of whether the game was played in an American or National League venue).
Johnson hit a fly ball to center field. It was a fairly routine play, but Mays lost the ball in the sun. It fell for a double.
In fairness to Mays, I can attest (sitting in the bleachers that day) that the sun was brutal. Earlier in the game, Jones had lost Rudi’s fly ball. The day before, Rudi, a gold glove winner in 1974-76, had lost a fly ball. Nonetheless, it was beyond shocking for the great Willie Mays to look so helpless.
McGraw nearly bailed out his teammate, whom he idolized. He retired Bert Campanaris and Rudi, leaving him one out away from a four inning save.
But McGraw walked Sal Bando. Then, Reggie Jackson and Gene Tenace delivered back-to-back singles to send the game into extra innings.
The Mets came oh-so-close to taking the lead in the tenth inning off of Fingers. Harrelson led off with a single. McGraw bunted him to second and Harrelson took third when Tenace muffed a grounder by Garrett.
Millan then hit a fly ball to left. Rudi caught it for the second out. Harrelson tagged up and headed for him.
In his way stood Ray Fosse who was blocking the plate. Pete Rose must have smiled. A few days earlier, he had fought with Harrelson in the NLCS after the shortstop took exception to Rose’s hard slide into second base. And, of course, it was Fosse whom Rose barreled over when the catcher tried to block the plate in the 1970 all-star game.
Harrelson, at least 30 pounds lighter than Rose and 55 pounds lighter than Fosse, elected to run around the catcher. It was a good move. Fosse’s swipe tag missed the runner.
But home plate umpire Augie Donatelli didn’t think so. He called Harrelson out.
The score was still tied after eleven innings. In the top of the twelfth, Harrelson led off by doubling against Fingers. It was the shortstop’s third hit of the game, to go with a walk. McGraw, still in the game, wanted to bunt Harrelson to third. He did, and reached first base himself as the As failed to convert the bunt into an out.
But Fingers struck out Garrett and retired Millan on a pop up. Up stepped Mays, looking to redeem himself.
One story goes that Mays induced Fingers to throw a fastball by telling Fosse he was having trouble picking the ball up in the shadows. (Not that Fingers needed encouragement to throw a .211 regular season batter a fastball). Another story has it that Mays, recalling the in-and-out pattern the Montreal Expos had used against him when Williams coached there, expected an outside fastball after getting the first one inside (not that this was an unusual pitching pattern).
In any case, Mays got an outside fastball and hit it up the middle for a single. Harrelson scored to give the Mets a 7-6 lead.
With McGraw due to pitch his seventh inning of relief and with Jackson due up first in the bottom of the twelfth, a one-run lead was hardly insurmountable. But Mike Andrews — who was playing second because Williams had pinch hit for Dick Green and backup Ted Kubiak and because commissioner Bowie Kuhn had not allowed Manny Trillo to replace injured Bill North on the World Series roster — enabled the Mets to take a much larger lead.
Jones followed Mays’ single with one of his own. The next batter, John Milner, hit a soft three-hopper to Andrews. The ball rolled through Andrews’ legs. Two more runs scored.
The next batter, Grote, also hit a grounder to Andrews. The second baseman fielded this one cleanly but his throw to first was a little wide. Umpire Jerry Neudecker ruled that it pulled Tenace off the bag. Replays showed that it didn’t, but another run scored. Oakland’s deficit was now four runs heading into the bottom of the twelfth.
This was the last of Oakland’s five errors in the game. The Mets contributed Millan’s costly one.
Jackson led off the bottom of the twelfth with a triple — another ball Mays struggled to find in the sun. Jackson would score, and the As would load the bases, putting the winning run on first.
However, George Stone, on for McGraw, ended this bizarre, four hour and 13 minute affair (longer by 45 minutes than any previous World Series game) by retiring Campanaris on a grounder to short.
But this was not the end of the drama. Before the team took the plane to New York for Game Three, an irate Charlie Finley forced Andrews to undergo a physical examination of his throwing arm. The arm had been injured the previous year, but was fine now.
The exam was a pretext for kicking Andrews off the roster and replacing him with Trillo.
Dick Williams couldn’t believe what was happening, even coming from Finley. Andrews had been his second baseman in Boston on the “impossible dream” team of 1967. And Williams was firmly of the belief, which dated back at least as far as John McGraw at the beginning of the century, that physical errors (as opposed to mental ones) were forgivable.
A shouting match between owner and manager followed.
Unmoved by his manager’s anger, Finley demanded that Andrews sign a statement
acknowledging his “injury.” Andrews refused. He knew the statement was false and, anyway, he didn’t want to put forth an alibi for his errors.
When Finley persisted, Andrews said he wanted to talk privately with Williams. Meanwhile, the As players, sitting on the bus for the airport, started chanting “we want Mike.”
Williams counseled Andrews to “do what is best for yourself,” by which he probably meant for the player’s future in baseball. Finally, Andrews signed the paper.
He was off the team, but not for long. Commissioner Kuhn ordered his reinstatement. After talking to his teammates, and receiving assurances from Finley that he could tell his side of the story without fear of retaliation, Andrews agreed to return.
His teammates treated him like a hero, and when he came to bat in Game Four, the New York fans gave him a raucous standing ovation.
But for Dick Williams, this was not a case of all’s-well-that-ends-well. The Andrews incident was the last straw in his always rocky relationship with Charlie Finley. It caused him to decide, then and there, not to return to the As in 1974. The move meant giving up $70,000 a year for two years and the opportunity to manage the best team in baseball.
Perhaps feeling the need to save face with his players, Williams told his team of this decision before Game Three. His announcement stunned and disappointed the players. They had considered boycotting the Series in protest of Finley, but some felt betrayed by their manager.
However, their real anger was directed where it should have been — at Charlie Finley. And the Oakland As were at their best when they were furious with Finley.