October 23, 1993: Jays vs. Phils and the Joe Carter Game

October 23, 1993, 30 years ago: Joe Carter steps up to bat against Mitch Williams... But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Toronto Blue Jays began play in 1977, and were terrible until 1983. Then they became good, but not good enough: They won the American League Eastern Division title in 1985, 1989 and 1991, but lost the AL Championship Series each time; and blew Division titles that they should have won in 1987 (losing their last 7 games), 1988 and 1990. It earned them the nickname "The Blow Jays."

But general manager Pat Gillick tinkered away, and in 1992, they won the East, they beat the Oakland Athletics for the 1st major league Pennant won by a team from outside the United States of America, and then they beat the favored Atlanta Braves to win the World Series in 6 games. Canada had a World Championship in baseball. They were managed by Clarence "Cito" Gaston, who became the 1st black man to manage a team into, and the 1st to manage a team to win, a World Series. 

Gillick did not rest on his laurels: He lost his 3 best starting pitchers, David Cone, Jimmy Key and David Wells; but signed Dave Stewart as a free agent, adding to a rotation that retained Jack Morris, Al Leiter, Pat Hentgen and Juan Guzmán. The bullpen included Tom Henke, Mike Timlin and Duane Ward. To a lineup that already had Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter, John Olerud, Devon White and Derek Bell, he added future Hall-of-Famers Rickey Henderson and Paul Molitor, and brought back former Jays shortstop Tony Fernández.

The Philadelphia Phillies had made the Playoffs 6 times in 8 years between 1976 to 1983, including winning the 1980 World Series. But after winning the National League Pennant in 1983, they got old. By the end of the 1980s, they got boring.

That would not be the case in 1993: With a team known as "Macho Row," they were exciting and fun. They were scrappy, they were sloppy, they were crude. But with guys like Lenny Dykstra, John Kruk, Darren Daulton, ace starter Curt Schilling and reliever Mitch Williams, they won. They won the NL Eastern Division title, and then stunned the Braves in the NL Championship Series.

October 16, 1993: Game 1 of the World Series, at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto. White and Olerud hit home runs, and the Jays beat the Phillies, 8-5.

October 17, 1993: Game 2. Carter hit a home run, but Dykstra and Jim Eisenreich hit them for the Phillies, and they tied up the Series, 6-4. They had taken a game in Toronto, against the more talented and more experienced team. This team that their lead broadcaster Harry Kalas called "this wild, wacky, wonderful bunch of throwbacks" would be coming home to Philadelphia with a great deal of confidence.

October 19, 1993: Game 3. Playing at Veterans Stadium didsn't help the Phillies, as the Jays pounded them, 10-3. Molitor hit a home run.

October 20, 1993: Game 4 at a rainy Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Charlie Williams became the 1st black man to serve as a home plate umpire in a World Series game. This was not a game for the starters: Neither Toronto's Todd Stottlemyre nor Philadelphia's Tommy Greene got out of the 3rd inning. In fact, there were 11 different pitchers used in this game, and none of them lasted 3 innings.

The Phillies led 14-9 after 7 innings. Here's what happened in the top of the 8th: Larry Andersen got Alomar to ground out, but he allowed a single to Carter, he walked Olerud, and Molitor reached on an error by 3rd baseman Dave Hollins, scoring Carter.

Phils manager Jim Fregosi brought Mitch Williams in to relieve. He allowed a single to Fernández, scoring Olerud. He walked Pat Borders. He struck Ed Sprague out, but he gave up a single to Henderson, scoring Molitor and Fernández, making it 14-13. Then White hit a drive between Dykstra in center field and Eisenreich in right, and it went for a triple. Blue Jays 15, Phillies 14. It was the highest-scoring game in Series history, breaking the record of Game 2 of the 1936 Series, the Yankees beating the Giants 18-4.

If you're a Phillies fan, you should accept that this is when the Series was lost, not when Mitch Williams came in to relieve in Game 6. But then, if you're a Phillies fan, the 2007-11 quasi-dynasty may have helped you get over it.

October 21, 1993: Game 5. Schilling's stellar pitching and Kevin Stocker's 2nd-inning RBI double kept the Phillies alive, beating the Jays, 5-0. This was the kind of pitching that later led Phillies general manager Ed Wade to say of Schilling, "One day out of every five, he's a horse; the other four, he's a horse's ass." But Schilling will not reach his greatest fame with the Phillies. Neither will most of the baseball world realize what a horse's ass he is during his tenure with the Fightin' Phils.

This turns out to be the last postseason baseball game ever played in Veterans Stadium, and the last postseason game the Phillies will win for 15 years.

October 23, 1993: Game 6, back in Toronto. The Phils led, 6-5 in the bottom of the 9th. Mitch Williams came in to close it out for the Phils, and to send the Series to a Game 7. But he walked Henderson. He got White to fly out to left, but allowed a single to Molitor. Joe Carter came to bat.

Carter would go on to hit 396 home runs in regular season play, including 33 that season. He also tied his career high with 121 RBIs, 1 of 10 seasons in which he had at least 100. So he was no Al Weis, Bucky Dent, Bernie Carbo, Geoff Blum, or Travis Ishikawa. He hit more home runs than such big-moment home-run hitters as Tommy Henrich, Bobby Thomson, Johnny Bench, Chris Chambliss, Carlton Fisk, Jack Clark, Kirk Gibson and (so far) Max Muncy.

Unlike Bill Mazeroski, Bucky Dent and Ozzie Smith, he was not a defensive specialist who happened to hit a memorable home run. And, unlike David Ortiz, Magglio Ordóñez and José Altuve, he has never been credibly accused of cheating.

So there was no shame in giving up a home run to Joe Carter. But you don't want to lose the World Series on any pitch to any player.

Carter sent a screaming liner down the left-field line, just clearing the fence, and just fair. Home run. Toronto 8, Philadelphia 6. The Blue Jays had won back-to-back World Championships.

Only Bill Mazeroski, who ended a World Series Game 7 with a home run in 1960, has ever hit a bigger home run than this.

That night, on Saturday Night Live, Chris Farley played Kruk during "Weekend Update," and was asked by anchorman Kevin Nealon why he wasn't in Toronto with his team. He said he'd forgotten, and asked what happened. When Nealon told him Toronto won 8-6, Farley-as-Kruk got up, looked deflated, and said, "I shoulda been there." In reality, Kruk went 0-for-3, although he did draw 2 walks.

Williams, a.k.a. the Wild Thing, has often been blamed for losing the Series. But it was Game 6, so if the Phils had won, they still would have had to play Game 7, on the road, against the defending World Champions. The rest of the Philly bullpen hadn't been much better in this Series. Where the Phils really lost the Series was in Game 4, when they blew a 14-9 lead at Veterans Stadium and lost 15-14. The Jays were very experienced, already accomplished, at home, and the better team. Besides, the Phils wouldn't have gotten into the World Series without Williams.

When the Vet closed in 2003, Williams was one of the in-uniform attendees, and was cheered, rather than subjected to the well-known venom of "the Philadelphia Boo-Birds." All was forgiven.

And in the 21 years from 1994 to 2014, the Phillies played 46 postseason games. The Jays, none. It took the Jays until 2015 to get back into the Playoffs; until they did, they'd gone longer without making the Playoffs than any other team. They still haven't won a Pennant since 1993 -- 30 years.

The Phillies won 5 straight NL East titles, 2007 to 2011, including winning the World Series in 2008 and the Pennant in 2009. They got old in a hurry after 2011, rebuilt, and won the Pennant last year. They can win another tonight; failing that, tomorrow night.