August 1, 1973, Fenway Park, Boston. In 1972, the Yanks and Sox were both still in the Pennant race as late as August for the first time since 1953 -- largely thanks to another genius Sox move, trading reliever Sparky Lyle to the Yanks for Danny Cater and Mario Guerrero -- but it would not be the first time since 1951 that both were still in it as late as September. That would have to wait until 1974.
On this day, with the game tied 2-2 in the top of the 9th, Yankee catcher Thurman Munson led off with a double and was sacrificed to third. With Gene Michael at the plate, manager Ralph Houk ordered a suicide squeeze. (You see, Houk was a smart man, and he knew "Stick" Michael couldn't hit a beach ball with a telephone pole.) Michael missed the pitch and Munson, a dead duck at home, tried to dislodge Sox catcher Carlton Fisk from the ball, only to have Fisk flip Munson aside. The two catchers already didn't like each other, and they went at it, clearing the benches. A rivalry was reborn, and the Sox won this battle. Red Sox 3, Yankees 2.
Neither team won the Division (the Orioles did). In 1974, the Yanks and Sox would chase each other into September as the top 2 teams. Then the Orioles got into the act again, and smacked the Sox, who collapsed to 3rd place. The O's then swept a doubleheader at Shea Stadium (the Yanks had to play '74 and '75 at the Flushing Toilet while The Stadium was being renovated) in late September to take the Division. The Sox did win the Pennant in '75, and then...
May 20, 1976, Yankee Stadium. Bottom of the 6th. Lou Piniella comes around to score, but Fisk gets the ball... Sweet Lou barrels into Pudge, but it's no use, he's out. Fisk shoves Piniella, and here we go again. This one was even nastier than the brawls of '67 at The Stadium and '73 at Fenway.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0804/mlb.yankees.redsox/content.2.html
The combatants are separated, but Sox reliever Bill Lee -- who may have hated the Yankees more than any Red Sock ever, at least until the Roid Sox of 2003-present -- starts yelling at Yank third baseman Graig Nettles, claiming that Nettles had hurt his shoulder. Spewing obscenities like a typical drunken lout Sox fan, "the Spaceman" (may Sam Tyler, wherever he is, forgive me) calls Nettles out. Lee was a pretty good pitcher up until this point, but he was a moron. If you call Graig Nettles out, he's going to clobber you. He did. Yeah, it was a sucker punch, but then, Lee was a sucker. Red Sox 8, Yankees 2.
The Sox won the game, but lost the fight, only split that 4-game series, and were well back of the Yankees, who went on to win the Pennant. Sox fans like to say that Nettles ruined Lee, a great pitcher until then, but who never recovered. Actually, Lee was only a pretty good pitcher until then, and Lee did recover -- after yet another brilliant Sox trade, sending Lee to the Montreal Expos for Stan Papi.
June 18, 1977, Fenway Park. Jim Rice was a great power hitter, but slow as molasses. Yet Reggie Jackson misplays his looper, and Rice ends up on second base. Billy Martin pulls Reggie out of the game in mid-inning, and they end up shouting at each other in the dugout. Billy says something that ticks Reggie off, and Reggie says all the alcohol Billy has been ingesting has been getting into his brain. How many Yankee catching legends turned coaches does it take to restrain Billy Martin? Two, apparently: Yogi Berra and Elston Howard. And the whole country sees this on the NBC Game of the Week. Red Sox 10, Yankees 4. The Sox sweep the series, and Billy barely keeps his job.
June 24, 1977, Yankee Stadium. The Yanks need a win over these bastards. Bad. They trail in the bottom of the 9th. But Roy White, the senior Yankee at this point, knocks one out to send it to extra innings. In the bottom of the 11th, Reggie gets his first real chance to prove his clutch bona fides in New York, and singles home Nettles with the winning run. Yankees 6, Red Sox 5. This begins a Yank sweep, and the race is back on.
September 14, 1977, Yankee Stadium. The Yanks already won last night, and the Sox need this one badly if they want to win the Division (the only way to make the Playoffs from 1969 to 1993 -- no Wild Cards). Going into the bottom of the 9th, Ed Figueroa and Reggie Cleveland are both pitching shutouts. (Yes, kids, they both went the whole way.)
Munson opens the inning with a single up the middle, and Reggie cranks one. Yankees 2, Red Sox 0. The Sox win the next night, but as soon as the ball left Reggie's bat on this night, the American League Eastern Division race was effectively over. After a very nasty year, Reggie had won over his teammates and the New York fans. I understand he did some hitting in the postseason, too.
July 4, 1978, Fenway Park. The Sox are flying. The Yanks are reeling and hurting. The Sox won last night. The Yanks are desperate. And the game is rained out. This turns out to be tremendously important, as the game is rescheduled for September 7, the beginning of what will now be a 4-game series, instead of a 3-gamer.
This was also the day after NewsChannel 4's Dr. Frank Field predicted beautiful weather for the 4th of July, claiming it would be perfect for the beach, the boardwalk, and fireworks, and the rain that soaked New England also soaked the New York Tri-State Area. The only fireworks that day were on the NBC switchboard, from furious viewers, and Field shows up for the 6:00 news with a noose around his neck. It was meant as a joke. I think.
I was 8 years old, and so upset. Little did I know how much this would end up benefiting the Yankees...
September 7, 8, 9, 10, 1978, Fenway Park. The Yanks got healthy and got hot, and had turned a 14-game deficit on July 18 into a 4-game deficit. (Little-known fact: The Sox actually led the AL East by 9 1/2 games at the time, ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers. The Orioles were 11 games back, and the Yanks were in 4th. So, while the Yankees gained 14 games, technically, the Sox "only" blew a 9 1/2-game lead.) Now the Sox were hurting and slumping, and their bench was to be tested. As the kids are saying these days, "Epic fail."
The first game was played on the night that Who drummer Keith Moon died from a drug overdose. Some Sox fans began to wish they could join him. Mickey Rivers got 3 hits before Butch Hobson, the Sox' badly injured third baseman and Number 9 hitter, even came to bat. Yankees 15, Red Sox 3. The second game was a near-repeat performance, as Willie Randolph got 3 hits before Hobson, elbow chips and all, could reach the plate. Yankees 13, Red Sox 2.
The 3rd game was another NBC Game of the Week, and it was each team's ace, Ron Guidry (having the greatest season any Yankee pitcher had ever had) against Dennis Eckersley (having the greatest season any Sox pitcher had between Jim Lonborg in '67 and Roger Clemens in '86). Sox fans were confident that all they had to do was take these last two games, and the Yanks would have wasted all those runs and hits for nothing. But the Yanks smacked the Eck around. Yankees 7, Red Sox 0. Someone wrote, "This is the first time a first-place team has been eliminated from the race." The next day, the Sox came close, getting the tying run to the plate late, but... Yankees 7, Red Sox 4.
Tied for first. An urban legend said that someone got on top of a bar somewhere in New England, and said, "The sons of bitches killed our grandfathers, they killed our fathers, and now they've come for us." Except it wasn't over. This time, 162 games would not be enough to decide it...
October 2, 1978, Fenway Park. I like to call it the Boston Tie Party. Red Sox fans like to call it something else. This game had so many twists and turns, and it has probably had more books written about it than any single game in the history of baseball. What can I say about this game that hasn't already been said? Nothing, so I'll simply say, "Bucky Blessed Dent." Destiny 5, Red Sox 4 -- that's what the headline in the Boston Herald-American said. Well, of course: "DESTINY" ends with "NY." The Yanks went on to win the World Series again.
July 4, 1983, Yankee Stadium. Both teams have changed tremendously in 5 years. The rivalry has fallen a bit. Despite the opponent and the 4th of July holiday, only 40,000 fans come out to The Stadium. Why? Well, it is the 4th of July, and it's really hot, so it's a beach day, not a baseball day. And neither team is really in the race. This game would be totally forgotten by anyone who wasn't there, if it wasn't for Dave Righetti pitching a no-hitter. Yankees 4, Red Sox 0.
May 27, 1991, Yankee Stadium. The Sox are defending AL East Champions (and would barely be nipped by the Toronto Blue Jays at the end this time), while the Yankees had finished last the year before. Only 32,369 came out for this Memorial Day matinee between the two old rivals, and the Yanks trail 5-3 in the bottom of the 9th. But Mel Hall -- who would later leave the Yankees in ignominious fashion -- takes Jeff "the Terminator" Reardon deep. Yankees 6, Red Sox 5. (Maybe Sox fans can blame the first base umpire, Larry Barnett, the same ump who they, in their delusions, think screwed them in Game 3 of the '75 World Series.)
A lot of Yankee Fans point to this game as the beginning of the rise from the abyss. It wasn't: 1991 and '92 were both bad years, though not as bad as '89 and '90. But the building blocks were in place: George Steinbrenner had been suspended for 2 years, Gene Michael was running the show, and the Yankees were making good trades and draft choices, including, the following June, a shortstop from Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan, a former New Jerseyan named Derek Jeter.
This Mel Hall homer is also cited by some as the beginning of Yankee broadcaster John Sterling's closing call of, "Ballgame over! Yankees win! Theeeeeeee Yankees win!" I'm not so sure. Granted, I was watching this one on WPIX-Channel 11 with Phi Rizzuto, Bobby Murcer and Tom Seaver, rather than listening to Sterling and Joe Angel on 77 WABC, but even as late as Jim Leyritz's 1995 Playoff walkoff against Seattle, his "Theeeeeeee... " was still just a "The... " without much elongation.
September 14, 1991, Yankee Stadium. My first live Yanks-Sox game. This was a 4-game series, and the Sox won 3 of them. Not this one: Yankees 3, Red Sox 1. And, yes, Sox fans were every bit as obnoxious as you might expect, especially since they were still in the race (they'd be caught at the death by those pesky Blue Jays) and the Yanks were awful, having just begun their climb back from the abyss of last place the season before.
Part III to come.
1 comment:
Great Series, Looking forward to reliving part 3.
Post a Comment