This day in baseball history: Oakland wins the ALCS but loses Reggie Jackson.

The 1972 NLCS was a dramatic affair. It went the full five games and the winning run scored on the final pitch of the final game. It featured two one-run games and two come-from-behind wins, including the finale.

Even so, the 1972 ALCS, which ended on this day in baseball history, was more dramatic.

On paper, it didn’t shape up to be. On paper, the series between the Oakland As and the Detroit Tigers looked like a mismatch.

Oakland finished the strike-shortened season with a record of 93-62. The Tigers eked out the East Division title by half a game, with a record of 86-70. The As outscored their opponents by 147 runs. The Tigers outscored theirs by only 44.

The As were a young, ascending team. The Tigers for the most part consisted of aging veterans who had peaked in the championship season of 1968. Of their twelve most frequently used non-pitchers, eight had played on that club and all but two of the eight were in their 30s. Ace starter Mickey Lolich (age 31) and two of the bullpen mainstays, John Hiller (29), and Tom Timmerman (32), were also on the ‘68 team.

The Tigers hadn’t shed many players since 1968, but they had been shedding wins — from 103 that year to 90 in 1969 and 79 in 1970.

But then came Billy Martin. In his first season, the Tigers won 91 games, a total they probably would have about matched in 1972, but for the shortened season.

Teams tend to take on the personality of their manager, especially if their manager is Billy Martin. Thus, under Martin, the veteran Tigers became a feisty lot.

In fact, there was already bad blood between the As and the Tigers before the ALCS commenced. In August, pitcher John “Blue Moon” Odom tried to steal third base against the Tigers with one out and a four-run lead in the seventh inning. Angel Mangual fouled the pitch off.

Martin responded to this borderline breach of baseball etiquette by telling his pitcher to knock Mangual down. The pitcher, Bill Slayback, responded with a pitch that sailed well over Mangual’s head. He then rushed to cover the plate.

Mangual thought Slayback was attacking him. A brawl followed. Apparently, no one was seriously injured. The As could count themselves lucky. Brawling with a team that included Willie Horton, Frank Howard, and Gates Brown was a losing proposition.

Game 1, played in Oakland (to considerably less than a full house), was a battle of aces — Lolich (22-14) vs. Jim “Catfish” Hunter (21-7) The game lived up to that billing. After eight innings, the score was 1-1.

Duke Sims led off the top of the ninth for the Tigers with a double. With left-handed hitting Norm Cash due up, Dick Williams pulled Hunter and brought in Vida Blue.

Blue, the best pitcher in baseball in 1971 but a holdout in 1972, had been part of Oakland’s starting rotation since late May. But with the team’s only quality left-handed reliever, Darold Knowles, injured, Williams decided to use his ace southpaw in the bullpen.

Cash, in bunting Sims to third, reached first on a fielder’s choice.

That was it for Blue. Williams brought in his best reliever, Rollie Fingers, to pitch to Horton. Martin countered by sending Gates Brown, a left-handed pinch hitter extraordinaire, to bat for Horton.

Fingers got Brown on a pop-up. Jim Northrup then grounded into a double play.

The game went into extra innings. The Tigers got to Fingers for a run in the top of the 11th on a home run by ageless wonder Al Kaline.

Sal Bando led off the bottom of the 11th with a single off of Chuck Seelbach. Two years earlier, Seelbach had been pitching for Dartmouth.

Mike Epstein followed Bando with a single of his own. After Gene Tenace failed to advance the runners with a bunt, Gonzalo Marquez pinch hit for Dal Maxvil, the third second baseman Williams had used in the game.

Marquez was a 28 year-old rookie and a late-season call-up. He had come to America from Venezuela in 1966 and labored in the minors until 1970. He missed the 1971 season because, he said, he was back home taking care of his ailing mother.

Marquez made the 1972 post-season roster thanks to a strong September as a pinch hitter. He vindicated the club’s decision by knocking a solid single to right field. It drove in Mike Hegan (pinch running for Bando).

Knowing he had no shot at Hegan, Kaline tried to throw out Tenace at third. His throw skipped past the third baseman, and Tenace rumbled home with the winning run.

Game 2 should have been relatively uneventful. The game was settled in the fifth inning when the As scored four runs to take a 5-0 lead.

That was the end of the scoring (Odom pitched a complete game shutout), but not the fireworks. Billy Martin didn’t do uneventful playoff games. Not when his team was losing.

Bert Campanaris had tormented the Tigers. When he came to bat in the seventh inning, he was 3-3 in the game with two stolen bases and two runs scored.

Tigers reliever Fred Scherman had already knocked Reggie Jackson down twice. Now Lerrin LaGrow was on the mound for Detroit.

Eschewing Campanaris’ head, LaGrow went for the speedy shortstop’s ankle — almost certainly on Martin’s orders. LaGrow connected.

Campanaris went down in agony, but didn’t stay down. Wisely, he didn’t charge the mound, either because he couldn’t run or because LaGrow outweighed him by at least 60 pounds.

Unwisely, he threw his bat at the pitcher. It narrowly missed, sailing just over LaGrow’s head.

Against the odds, no brawl followed. Martin tried to attack Campanaris but was restrained. LaGrow and Campy were ejected, and that was it.

Except that American League president Joe Cronin suspended Campanaris for the remainder of the series, as he had to. It’s not clear how soon the shortstop would otherwise have returned to lineup, given the state of his ankle. Now, no return was possible.

The Tigers were down two games to zero, but were returning to Detroit. And the As were without the man who, in the eyes of many, made their offense tick.

Joe Coleman started Game 3 for the Tigers. A sub-.500 pitcher for the Washington Senators, Coleman had won 39 games in his two seasons with Detroit, having come to the Tigers in the Denny McLain deal.

Coleman shut out the As in Game 3, striking out 14 of them. The Tigers got the runs they needed in the fourth inning on a RBI double by Bill Freehan and a RBI single by Ike Brown.

Vida Blue pitched in relief again, meaning he would not start Game 4. Blue was miffed. He said Williams had promised him that start, provided that the As were ahead in the series. They were ahead, yet Williams was turning instead to Hunter. Blue blamed his nemesis, team owner Charlie Finley.

Hunter pitched great in his Game 4 rematch with Lolich. So did Lolich.

As in their first matchup, this game went into extra innings with the score 1-1. As in their first matchup, Lolich was still around for the extra frames and Hunter was not. Fingers relieved him in the eighth, and Blue pitched a scoreless ninth, striking out two.

The Tigers pinch hit for Lolich in that inning. Seelbach came in on the tenth.

The As scored two off the Dartmouth man. Marquez got things going with a lead-off pinch-hit single. Matty Alou doubled him home and took third on the throw. Ted Kubiak, Williams’ third shortstop of the day, singled home Alou. John Hiller relieved Seelbach and prevented further scoring.

The As were three outs away from the World Series. Williams turned to Bob Locker to close out the game.

Locker had been one of the game’s best relievers since 1966. He had excelled for the As in 1972, though his last three outings were rocky.

Locker’s Game 4 outing was worse than rocky. The two batters he faced, Dick McAuliffe and Kaline, both singled. Williams pulled him for Joe Horlen.

The veteran right-hander fared little better than Locker, his one-time teammate with the Chicago White Sox. He threw a wild pitch and then walked Gates Brown.

The bases were loaded with nobody out. The As still held the two-run lead.

Bill Freehan hit a ground ball to Sal Bando. Captain Sal, happy to trade a run for a double play, fired the ball to second base.

Unfortunately, Williams’ policy of relentlessly pinch hitting for his second basemen (and with Campanaris out, his shortstop, as well) found Gene Tenace, a catcher, playing second for only the third time in his career.

With Gates Brown bearing down on him, Tenace was unable to collect Bando’s throw. McAuliffe scored and the bases were still loaded with nobody out.

With lefty Norm Cash up, Williams turned to Dave Hamilton, a rookie left-hander. He walked Cash to tie the game.

Jim Northrup, another lefty, was next up. A sacrifice fly would win the game, so Williams had to bring his outfielders in close enough to throw out the runner on third in the event of a fly ball. Northrup hit Hamilton’s pitch over the drawn in outfield to complete an amazing come-from-behind victory.

Odom, who had shut out the Tigers in Game 2, was back on the mound for Game 5. An immensely talented pitcher, but a nervous one, Odom gave up a run in the bottom of the first, albeit an unearned one — the result of a passed ball by Tenace.

Reggie Jackson led off the top of the second with a walk off of Tigers starter, Woodie Fryman. Jackson was about to have a pair of Mr. October moments.

Reggie was not a gifted base stealer. He he stole 9 in 17 attempts during the regular season, a poor success rate. No matter. He stole second.

Fryman hit Epstein with a pitch. Then, Jackson took third on a fly out by Bando.

That brought up Dick Green, the second baseman. Williams let Green bat, which maybe should have alerted Martin that something was afoot. On the other hand, it was only the second inning, and Epstein did not seem like a threat to run. During the season, he was thrown out in his only attempt at stealing a base.

No matter. Williams called for a double steal. Epstein broke for second and, as soon as Freehan threw down, Reggie broke for home. Tony Taylor cut off Freehan’s throw and gunned the ball to home plate.

Jackson had a great jump and was flying. But about half way home, he tore his hamstring. Somehow, he kept running fast enough to beat Taylor’s throw narrowly. The score was tied, but Jackson was done for whatever was left of Oakland’s post-season.

Oakland broke the tie in the top of the fourth. George Hendrick, Jackson’s replacement reached on an error by McAuliffe. Bando bunted Hendrick to second, but Epstein struck out.

That brought Tenace to the plate. He was 0-16 up to that point in the ALCS and had committed that fatal error in Game 4. His passed ball in this game had gifted the Tigers their run.

But this time, Tenace came through with a single to put Oakland ahead.

The Tigers still had six innings in which to catch up, but Odom had seemingly settled down and was rolling.

Then, suddenly, he wasn’t. After the bottom of the fifth, he felt ill. He was hot and his stomach was heaving. He said he couldn’t catch his breath.

What had happened? Was this a simple case of the pressure getting to the notoriously nervous pitcher? Had he taken “greenies,” a commonly used substance of the era. Had he been drinking between innings to calm his nerves, as he sometimes did.

Whatever the cause, the effect was such that Williams concluded Odom could not continue. He turned to Vida Blue.

This would be Blue’s third successive relief appearance in three days and his fourth in the five game series. Moreover, Blue was not at all used to pitching relief.

No matter. He gave the As four innings of scoreless, three-hit relief. The As prevailed 2-1 and were on their way to the World Series — Oakland’s first and the franchise’s first since 1931 when it was still in Philadelphia.

The drama wasn’t over, though. During the post-game celebrations, with reporters gathered around, Blue pointedly asked Odom why he didn’t go nine. Answering his own question, gave Odom the universal “choke” sign.

Odom, who had pitched 14 innings in the series without giving up an earned run, was mortified. After stewing for a few moments, he charged at Blue, whom he had helped mentor as a teenager trying to break into the big leagues.

Teammates restrained Odom and Blue eventually apologized. But this was the “Swinging As” in a nutshell. Great performances and clutch wins, but never far from a fight between teammates.