October 26 & 27, 1985: The Don Denkinger Game & the Cardinal Meltdown

October 26, 1985, 40 years ago: Time travel is first demonstrated at the Twin Pines Mall (or is that the Lone Pine Mall?) in the Los Angeles suburb of Hill Valley, California -- or, rather, is dramatized in the film Back to the Future, which had been released the preceding July 3.

The demonstration by Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) was actually filmed at the Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry, California, about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Most of the trilogy's scenes were filmed in Los Angeles County, although the Courthouse Square area was a movie set that, for whatever reason, has frequently been struck, not by lightning, but by fire.

Just before the terrorist attack that forces Marty to get in the DeLorean and accidentally get sent back to 1955, Doc Brown tells Marty that he's going 25 years into the future: "I'll get to see who wins the next 25 World Series! Wouldn't that be a nice gift to have for my old age!"

For the record, due to the Strike of '94, he would have gotten to see only 24, won by the following teams: The Kansas City Royals, the New York Mets, the Minnesota Twins, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Oakland Athletics, the Cincinnati Reds, the Twins again, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Jays again, the Atlanta Braves, the New York Yankees, the Florida Marlins, the Yankees again, the Yankees again, the Yankees again, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Anaheim Angels, the Marlins again, the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Red Sox again, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Yankees again.

*

Perhaps Marty or Doc should have warned the St. Louis Cardinals about what was going to happen in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series, starting at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City, about 19 hours after his trip back into time.

The Cards lead the cross-State Kansas City Royals 1-0, and need just 3 more outs to win the World Series. Jorge Orta hits a ground ball to 1st baseman Jack Clark. Clark flips to reliever Todd Worrell, who is covering the base. Orta is unquestionably out. The instant replay cameras and the photograph above confirm this.

Except 1st base umpire Don Denkinger blows the call, and calls Orta safe.

The next batter, Steve Balboni, pops up, and Clark can't handle it, and Balboni singles on his next swing. A passed ball by Darrell Porter, a Royal postseason hero from 1980 but now the Cardinal catcher (having been their postseason hero in 1982), makes it men on 2nd and 3rd, and Hal McRae is intentionally walked. Dane Iorg, another former Cardinal, steps up, and singles home Orta and Balboni, and the Royals have a 2-1 walkoff win to force a Game 7 at home.

The Cardinals are furious. So are their fans. Understandably so. They all think Denkinger stole the World Series from them. They still think so, 37 years later.

There's just one problem with this theory: There was still 1 game to go. If the Cardinals had won Game 7, Denkinger's blown call would have been just a footnote.

So Cardinal manager Whitey Herzog should have taken his team into the clubhouse and said, "Men, we got screwed tonight, but there's nothing we can do about it now. So let's win this thing tomorrow, and what happened tonight won't matter." Instead, the White Rat whined about the call to the media, and let it get into his head, and into his team's heads.

October 27, 1985: The Royals rout the Cardinals, 11-0, to win their 1st World Championship, and the 1st All-Missouri World Series since the Cardinals-Browns matchup of 1944.

They become only the 6th team to rally from a 3-1 deficit and win the Series. (Only the 2016 Chicago Cubs have done it since.) Series MVP Bret Saberhagen pitches the shutout, while Cardinals ace John Tudor allows 5 runs in just 2 1/3 innings.

The Royals had won the American League Pennant, but lost the World Series, in 1980; and had won the AL Western Division, but lost the AL Championship Series, in 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1984. This time, the Royals were crowned.

The Cards were still upset over the blown call by 1st base umpire Don Denkinger, which they believed cost them Game 6. And, 37 years later, despite 5 Pennants and 3 World Series wins, they and their fans are still upset about it.

According to Baseball-Reference.com,if the right call had been made, giving the Cardinals an out, they would have had an 87 percent chance of winning the game. Even with the call blown, they had an 66 percent chance -- just under a 2/3rds chance. They still should have won it. And they still could have won Game 7.

Whitey Herzog wasn't the first postseason manager to, as they say in English soccer, lose the plot, and let it carry over to his players. He certainly hasn't been the last. He could have told his players, "We got screwed, but if win tomorrow night, we're the World Champions. So let's forget tonight's result, and get it done tomorrow night.

Instead, Whitey was still fuming, and his team followed his lead, and allowed it to affect their performances and their minds for Game 7.

To make matters worse, for Game 7, Denkinger was the home plate umpire. Tudor believed that Denkinger was "squeezing" him, shrinking the strike zone. After being lifted from the game‚ Tudor punched an electric fan in the clubhouse, and severely cut his hand.

Herzog replaced him with fellow 20-game winner Joaquín Andújar. The Dominican, for whom English was a second language, was once quoted as saying, "You can sum up the game of baseball in one word: Youneverknow." He also thought Denkinger was squeezing him during Kansas City's 6-run 5th inning, and ended up waving his arms and screaming at Denkinger, who ejected him. Herzog also argued, and was also tossed.

The Cardinals finished the World Series with a .185 team batting average‚ lowest ever for a 7-game Series. There's the reason they lost: They didn't hit.

The Cardinals had won the World Series in 1982, then traded Keith Hernandez to the New York Mets the next year. The Cards lost the World Series in 1985, and again in 1987, blew a 3-games-to-1 lead in the 1996 National League Championship Series, got swept by the formerly "cursed" Boston Red Sox in the 2004 World Series, and also lost in the Playoffs in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2005. St. Louis fans began to speak of a "Curse of Keith Hernandez." But they won the World Series in 2006, just 24 years after their last Series win, so that put an end to "curse" talk.

It took the Royals 29 years to even reach the Playoffs again, and I began to wonder if they were cursed. But they won the Pennant in 2014, and went all the way in 2015, so if they were cursed, the curse was broken.

The shock isn't that the Cards lost Game 7 by a whopping 11-0. The shock is that the Royals won it by only 11 runs. It is the biggest blowout in Game 7 history, previously reached only by, oddly enough, the Cardinals, when they beat the Detroit Tigers in 1934 (the Joe Medwick Game).

So, "Cardinal Nation": Instead of blaming Denkinger for costing you the World Series, how about blaming your manager for not getting your team to shake it off? Or how about blaming your lineup for not hitting a lick? The umpire didn’t cost your team a World Championship: Your team did.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, when Orta came to bat, the Cardinals had an 80 percent chance of winning the game. If the right call had been made, giving the Cardinals an out, they would have had an 87 percent chance. Even with the call blown, they had an 66 percent chance -- just under a 2/3rds chance. They still should have won it.

In other baseball news on this day, Billy Martin was fired by the New York Yankees for an unprecedented 4th time (not counting all those firings in 1977 that didn't take), and was replaced by former Yankee outfielder Lou Piniella‚ who had been the team's hitting instructor since retiring as a player in 1984. Billy would be hired a 5th time in 1988, and fired before June was out.

Don Denkinger was still respected enough by the baseball establishment to be put behind the plate for the 1987 All-Star Game, and named crew chief for the 1988 American League Championship Series, the 1991 World Series, and the 1992 ALCS, before retiring in 1998 after 30 season in the majors, 22 as a crew chief. He died in 2023.

The Cardinals have since won 2 World Series, in 2006 and 2011. For those among their fans who have not yet done so, it's time to move on.