Baseball History — As Seen From The Shadows of Cooperstown: Part VIII

In the eighth of a 10-part series, the author takes an in-depth look at Major League Baseball history from 1971 to 1980.

This is pretty much a one-topic issue: the 1970s. It takes us up to 1980, so just two decades to go in this series.

I found that writing about the Seventies was just as much fun as the Sixties. Another decade where I was there , so my notes here are not just looking things up, but also remembering where I was and with whom I was, and how I reacted to the events. In other words, starting with 1957, this history becomes ever more personal.

I suppose that might be annoying to those who want “straight history — spare us the personal stuff.”But I think most of what passes as history is selective and somewhat subjective. For those who were also there, maybe my recollections will be a lot more interesting than the re-telling of what happened.

There was a civil war in baseball between players and owners, as far back as we can go. The Players League in 1890 and the Federal League in 1914-15 gave us glimpses into the issues — that reserve clause being, I think, the chief culprit in keeping salaries in check and denying players collective bargaining. As I walked through the 70s, I could see ahead to the 80s and 90s, when strikes and lockouts stopped the games, as the players shed the chains of what Curt Flood called “slavery” and started to get bigger pieces of the ever-growing (in wealth) pie. Anyway, at the end here is an old review of John Helyar’s Lords of the Realm , a good chronicle of the war and baseball economics, up to 1994. When we actually get to 1994 in my history, I’ll be tempted to add a lot of what I wrote in NOTES about that horrible Strike, which was so easy to see coming. Sometimes I’m asked which was worse, the owners forcing the cancellation of the end of the 1994 season and the Series, in a foolish attempt to break the union; or the “Black Sox scandal”?Well, it’s not like both events were the whole fault of either owners or players, even though the B-Sox thing has gone down as Eight Men Out . The closed-eyes Lords of baseball had some responsibility for the gambling plague, as they do for the steroid mess. I do tend to blame the owners, however, for 1994-95’s stoppage, which I like to call the Selig Strike, because Bud could have stopped it. Might have cost him his job, but it turned out that it was the right thing to do.

But that all lies ahead. Enjoy The Seventies.

Introduction

Well, we made it thru the Sixties, and if you were in the Sixties, that was not something that seemed like a certain outcome. The Seventies seemed tame, by comparison, for me. I started the decade teaching in a Cleveland High School . By the end, I was settled here in the Shadows of Cooperstown, with what Zorba called “the full catastrophe”: wife, house, and our first kid. So you might say that I was a little distracted from baseball in the Seventies.

But I’m a Pittsburgher and a Pirate fan, remember, and the 1970s was a wonderful decade to be both. The Steelers, after decades of not doing much of anything, won four Super Bowls. The Penguins won. And the Pirates produced “the Lumber Company” — the organization was oozing with talent. I attended my first minor league game in 1974 (or ’75), in Syracuse , where I saw the young AAA Bucs play. I think every player on that Columbus team made it to the majors and half of them as stars, tho not all for the Pirates. In ’77, minor league baseball returned to Utica , and my first apartment was within walking distance of Murnane Field. So I guess the 70s was also the decade that I became a big fan of the Minors.

Utica got a team because the AL expanded again, adding Toronto (the Utica Blue Jays were their NY-Penn league farm) and Seattle (the Pilots of Ball Four had lasted just a year, then moved to Milwaukee). Otherwise, the shape of MLB stayed pretty much the same — on the surface. But free agency arrived, and as Marvin Miller put it so well in his book, it was A Whole Different Ballgame . The system named “slavery” by Curt Flood earlier had ended at last. Players were now free, like most other citizens, to choose their employer. There was still a draft, which limited their options for a while. But in the 70s, the playing field started tilting, and suddenly small market/income teams were scrambling to compete with the wealthy ones. Besides Miller’s book, John Helyar’s Lords of the Realm are two I’d recommend for the gory details. I wrote about Miller’s book most recently in Notes #428 ; I’m going to include my review of Lords below.It’s a long review, and more properly placed in the mid-90s … but Labor-Management issues were a big part of baseball in the 70s and 80s, and inserting this here frees me to set them aside, and tour the seasons of the Game. Let’s get started.

1971

I recall this season with nothing but pleasure. The Pirate team that lost in the NL playoffs to the Reds in 1970, won 97 games under Buc fan hero Danny Murtaugh. Willie Stargell, who would eclipse Ralph Kiner as the all-time Bucco slugger, hit 48 HRs, and it seemed like 40 of them were in Montreal ‘s Jarry Park . Roberto Clemente, Al Oliver, Manny Sanguillen, and lots of other big bats earned the “Lumber Company” tag; the few who could not hit that well wore gold gloves. Dock Ellis led the starters with 19 wins; the bullpen was a stronger suit. The Pirates finished seven ahead of the Cardinals, whose 3B Joe Torre’s .363 led the league.

The NL West race went to San Francisco — Willie Mays had slowed down, and so had McCovey, but Bobby Bonds had 33 HR, and the staff had two HOF pitchers, Marichal and Gaylord Perry.

The Pirates had dropped three straight to the Reds in ’70, and they lost the opener in ’71, too, Perry 5-4 over Steve Blass. But then the Lumber struck — Bob Robertson three HRs in a 9-4 win in Game Two, Robertson again and then Hebner, for a 2-1 win over Marichal, and finally a 9-4 slugfest win, reliever Bruce Kison tossing four-plus innings of long relief for the win.

Over in the AL, Earl Weaver’s world champion dynastic Orioles won the AL East by 10 over Detroit . The O’s had four 20-game winners, and I think that had not been done since the White Sox in 1920. The AL West was won by the Oakland A’s (101 wins) as the Twins faded.

In the AL playoffs, the Orioles swept the A’s. McNally over Vida Blue; Cuellar over Catfish Hunter; Palmer over Diego Segui, followed by Rollie Fingers. Just listing those names makes me nostalgic for the Seventies!The scores were 5-3, 5-1, 5-3, and have I mentioned lately how I hate best-of-fives? These were two fine teams, and deserved to play each other at least once more.

Drum roll, please. I got to see my first and only World Series game in 1971. For the long version of this Series, I will refer you to NOTES #305 (see the chapter from Dear Patrick ). The O’s beat the Pirates 5-3 and 11-3 in Baltimore , but the Pirates took the next three at Three Rivers, 5-1 (Blass), 4-3 (the game I saw — Kison 6.1 innings in long relief), and 4-0 (a Nellie Briles two-hitter). But back home, the O’s won 3-2 to force Game Seven. Which Steve Blass won in a duel with Cuellar, 2-1, on a Clemente HR. This marked the fourth straight Series the Pirates had won (1909, 1925, 1960) in seven games. Never easy.

1972

This was one of the most memorable years in my life. The Pirates had put together an even better team, I thought — but did not make the Series. In August, my father died; the last game we had seen together was in the ’71 Series. And then on New Years Eve, Pittsburgh and the world lost Roberto Clemente in a tragic plane crash; he was on a mission to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua .

The Pirates and Reds were the cream of the NL, and when they met, it felt like post-season. Both teams took their divisions handily. It was good news for MLB that the teams were in different divisions — it made for great October entertainment. Yet, looking back, six more games with the Reds each summer, if they were in the same division, would have been great, too. In any case, the Reds won the post-season clash, 3 games to 2, and this is where my hatred of best-of-five became firmly rooted. I knew the Bucs could have won best-of-seven.

Pittsburgh took the first game 5-1 behind Blass, then lost 5-3. In Cincy, they won 3-2 behind Briles & Kison, and were one win away . But Ross Grimsley tossed a 2-hitter in a 7-1 win. And then in Game Five , the Reds rallied for two in the bottom of the ninth for a 4-3 win, the winning run coming home on a wild pitch. I have a long version of this game, too — see NOTES #305 .

Detroit edged Boston by a game in the AL East, as the O’s dynasty stumbled some. Billy Martin led the Tigers, who had a veteran team that included Mickey Lolich and Al Kaline. In the NL West, Dick Williams had forged a new dynasty in Oakland , with a staff that included Catfish Hunter, Ken Holtzman, Blue Moon Odom, and a really tough bullpen. The Tigers and A’s went five, too, with Oakland on top at the end, Odom over Woody Fryman 2-1 in the clincher. Joe Coleman and Odom tossed shutouts earlier, in a low-scoring series — which begged for a Game Six!

So it was Cincinnati and Oakland in the Series, and it went Seven, with the A’s claiming the crown. Anyone following baseball remembers this Series, I think, for the HR heroics of catcher Gene Tenace. He had it five HRs during the regular season, in 227 ABs. But in the ’72 WS, he homered his first two times up in Game One, 3 RBI, in the A’s 3-2 win. The two powerhouses then played Deadball: 2-1 A’s (Hunter over Grimsley); 1-0 Reds (Billingham over Odom); 3-2 A’s (two runs in the bottom of the ninth); 5-4 and then 8-1 Reds (finally, the Machine in gear). But Game Seven went to Oakland , winning 3-2 on the road, Tenace with two hits and two RBIs. He hit .348 and had nine RBI in the Series. It was the A’s first October triumph since 1930.

1973

In the NL East in 1973, it looked for a long time like no team was good enough to win the half-pennant. In a way, it made for a close race, for five of the six teams. The Mets finished with a flourish to post an 82-79 record; the Cards finished in second, 81-81. Pittsburgh had 80 wins, Montreal 79, Chicago 77. What tipped things to the Mets was the pitching of Tom Seaver, 19-10, 2.08. In the West, no surprise, Sparky Anderson’s Reds won 99 and finished four up on the Dodgers. Perez, Morgan, Bench, Rose, the Four Cylinders of the Big Red Machine.

The Reds had been held in check by Oakland ‘s pitching the past October, and now the Mets turned the trick in the (still) best-of-five. Billingham bested the Met ace Seaver in Game One, but Jon Matlack answered with a 5-0 two-hitter. Then Koosman held the Reds in a 9-2 win. The Reds took Game Four, 2-1, but in the clincher, it was Seaver with a little help from Tug McGraw, and the improbables won it 7-2.

Baltimore was back on top again in the AL East — break up the Birds! — finishing 8 ahead of Boston . Oakland was back, too, finishing 6 up on Kansas City , of all teams. Series hero Tenace, now playing 1B, hit 24 HR, Reggie Jax hit 32, Sal Bando 29. So the two dynasties faced off, and Oakland triumphed, 3 games to 2. Palmer tossed a shutout in the opener, but the hero this time was Catfish Hunter, winner of Games Two and Five, the latter a 3-0 five-hitter in the clincher. The most dramatic game was Game Three, an 11-inning duel between Cuellar and Ken Holtzman, won by the A’s, 2-1, when SS Bert Campaneris ended it with a homer.

The Mets’ magic ran out in the Series, but they took Oakland to a Game Seven. After the teams split the first four games, Jerry Koosman tossed a three-hit shutout to put the Mets in the catbird seat, as Red Barber would say. But the A’s came back, winning 3-1 (Catfish over Tom Terrific) and 5-2 (Holtzman and company over Matlack). The Mets had solved Rollie Fingers in Game Two, a 12-inning, 10-7 battle that took 4 hours and 13 minutes. But Rollie came back to save Games Three and Six, and tossed 3.1 innings of relief in the final game. The bullpen ace actually pitched more innings in this WS than any of the A’s starters.

1974

The Pirates were back on top in the East in ’74, edging the Cards by two. The Reds won 98, but finished 4 back of the Dodgers. It seemed strange, not having to go thru Cincinnati to get to the Series. Again, I hated best-of-five, when the Dodgers won three of four. Don Sutton beat Jerry Reuss twice, and that was that. I was now living in upstate NY and in a new job, and this post-season was (mercifully) a blur.

Baltimore squeaked by the Yankees, Oakland finished 6 ahead of Billy Martin’s Texas . Let me add here that I always liked Billy Martin as a manager, except maybe one season when he seemed to overwork his starters. His teams played scrappy, aggressive baseball, and often won with, it seemed, less talent than some other teams. Anyway, it was Baltimore and Oakland again in the playoffs, and Oakland won the short series in four games. The O’s took the opener in what, looking back, was a slugfest, 6-3. The next three games went to the A’s, by 5-0, 1-0, and 2-1. Holtzman, Vida Blue (a two-hitter), and Catfish did the trick, and Fingers was on the mound for the last two innings in the finale.

The A’s had trumped the Big Red Machine in ’72, the Mets in ’73, and now they rolled over the Dodgers in five games. But not really, four of the five games ended with 3-2 scores — anybody’s game — and one by 5-2. Again, Rollie Fingers (and Blue Moon Odom, out of the pen) spelled the difference, Rollie with a win and three saves. His handlebar mustache and stellar performance in the A’s three-peat lingered in memory and landed Rollie in the Hall of Fame, rare for a relief artist.

1975

For Pittsburgh and Cincinnati fans, ’75 was a return to normalcy, the Pirates winning by 4 over the rising Phils, and the Reds by twenty (108 wins to 88) over the Dodgers. This set up another wonderful October clash between these two titans.

The Reds prevailed in Games One and Two, at Riverfront, by 8-3 and 6-1 scores. I remember well feeling OK at that point, because I could see the Pirates sweeping three at Three Rivers. But they couldn’t get that first win. Rookie John Candelaria fanned 14 in 7.2 innings, but the Reds led 3-2 going into the bottom of the ninth. The Bucs tied it, but in the 10th, they pushed across two and took the series. I still hated best-of-five, but when you are swept three, it is less painful than losing in five.

The Boston Red Sox displaced the Orioles, thanks in part to super rookie seasons from Jim Rice and Fred Lynn. In the West, it was Oakland again, by 7 over those rising KC Royals. Boston then swept the A’s (!) even without Rice, who suffered a broken hand at the end of the season on a hit batsman. Luis Tiant, Reggie Cleveland and Rick Wise bested Holtzman (twice!) and Blue. Yaz batted .455 and sparkled on defense.

This set up one of the most storied of all World Series, a seven-gamer with the Big Red Machine pitted against the Sox. I had friends from Cincy and friends who were rabid Boston fans, which added an interesting layer to this matchup. The game that is best remembered is Game Six, when Boston, with their backs to the wall, went twelve innings, winning on a Carlton Fisk HR that became famous mostly for the catcher’s body English, which we all know now was responsible for making the ball stay fair. I watched the final innings of this game in a little Italian restaurant in Rome, NY, where the TV was over the bar, far enough away that I could not hear the sound, but I could follow the game anyway. To do so, I had to glance past my future wife, who was a good sport about it — thank goodness that everyone else was doing the same. The joint erupted when Fisk’s ball hit the foul pole, sending the Series to Game Seven.

The Sox had jumped ahead in the Series behind a Luis Tiant shutout in the opener, 6-0. Then the Reds took two close ones, 3-2 and 6-5 in ten innings. This game was probably just as dramatic as Game Six, but Game Threes do not get the respect. El Tiante evened the Series with a Game Four win, but the Reds took Game Five; Tony Perez, 0-for-15 going into the game, drove in four, three with a HR, for the 6-2 victory. Game Six — the Fisk game— was a wonderful see-saw affair, the Sox up 3-0, the Reds going ahead 6-3, the Sox coming back on Bernie Carbo’s pinch 3-run HR in the eighth. The Reds used eight pitchers, the Sox four, with no one remembering three shutout innings of relief by Dick Drago.

Game Seven was an anticlimactic gem. Again the Sox went up 3-0, only to see that lead vanish, as the Reds scored two in the sixth, one in the seventh to tie, and then one in the top of the ninth, for the 4-3 win. The first two runs came in on a HR off Spaceman Bill Lee. The image that lingers is Joe Morgan’s game-winning single, and Boston coming oh, so close.

1976

My recollections of ’76 are all Bicentennial red, white and blue. I started a new job that year with the other Big Red Machine (the Red Cross Blood Donor program), and by the end of the year I was engaged. I would stay with the Red Cross then years; I’m still married to Barb, 31 years later, and we are still in the house we bought in ’78. Our daughter was born in ’79, my recollection of the LaMaze class tied forever to my recollections of that Fall’s World Series.

But I digress. In ’76, my Pirates were sill good — but the Phillies, who had not done much since ’64, won 101 and finished 9 up on Pittsburgh. The Phils finally combined hitting with the power of Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski and Dick Allen, and the pitching of Steve Carlton, Jim Lonborg, Jim Kaat, and a strong bullpen. The Reds were still the best in the west, winning 102 and finishing ten ahead of the Dodgers. I was not surprised when Cincy swept the Phils, 6-3, 6-2, 7-6, winning the third game with three runs in the bottom of the ninth.

In the AL, the Yankees were back, Billy Martin on top again with 97 wins, 9 more than Earl Weaver’s O’s. The Yanks picked up a couple gems from the Indians, Graig Nettles and Chris Chambliss, who joined Mickey Rivers and Thurman Munson and Willie Randolph (a Pirate find). The Yanks had also added Catfish Hunter, the year before, in a free-agent auction, for around $3.5 million. Not much today, but unheard-of back then. In the AL West, the Kansas City Royals of George Brett snuck past the A’s and Twins. Having been considered a Yankee farm team when the A’s were based there, the Kansas City fans must have had nothing but revenge on their minds. A chance to upset the damn Yankees . And they almost did.

Catfish won the opener, 4-1; KC evened it up, 7-3. The Yanks went up behind Dock Ellis, 5-3; KC evened it up, 7-4, setting the stage for Game Five. It was a humdinger. The Yanks were up 6-3, but the Royals came back with three runs in the eighth, all coming home on a Brett HR. But Chambliss socked a HR in the bottom of the ninth, sending the Yanks to the Series for the first time since 1964. And to my surprise, I didn’t mind — I liked this team, the Bronx Zoo in-the-making.

The revenge , as it turned out, went to Cincinnati. Beaten in five games by the Yanks in 1961, the Reds swept the Yankees. Looking back, I wish I had paid better attention, but as I said, I was in a new job and my last month of bachelorhood. Oh well.

The sweep was not a clobbering. The scores went 5-1 (Gullett), 4-3 (over the Catfish, with a run in the ninth), 6-2 (Zachary) and 7-2 (Nolan). Perez, Morgan, Bench (.533), George Foster (.429) — well, the team batted .313. It actually seemed fitting that a summer drenched in American nostalgia and looks at traditions, the Bicentennial summer, should end with the Reds on top. In the larger world, America had survived Richard Nixon, the war in Vietnam, and at age 200, was holding together after all.

1977

It seemed odd to me that the two teams who battled each other to stay out of last place, when I started following MLB, were now the two best teams, at least in the NL East. The Phils finished 5 ahead of the Bucs in ’77, with 101 wins. What I recall from this season is Pirate ace John Candelaria going for his 20th win on the final day. The box score never appeared in my paper — as the season wound down, so did the space for baseball diminish — and it seemed like months before I learned he did it. The Bucs had some good arms in the late 60s and early 70s, but The Candy Man was the first 20-game winner since Vern Law in 1960. I’m not sure, but he may have been the last Pirate to win twenty, too!

The Phils would face the Dodgers, who won 98 and finished 10 ahead of the Reds. George Foster hit 52 HRs — 50+ was a rarity in those days — but the Big Blue Machine had the pitching. In the playoff, the Dodgers took 3 of 4. I found myself rooting for the Phils (not because I was a Pennsylvanian, but because I could relate to their drought — no Series since 1950, and that had ended a 35-year streak). But after winning Game One, 7-5, the Dodgers won 7-1 behind Sutton, 6-5 (this was the back-breaker: the Phils were up 5-3 going into the 9th), and 4-1 behind the bionic Tommy John, famous today for the surgery that revived his pitching career.

Over in the AL, the Damn Yankees were indeed back. Billy Martin led them to 100 wins, three more than the Orioles, and again, I found the team likeable. They squared off with Kansas City again, Whitey Herzog’s crew winning 102, 8 more than Texas. So again, a chance for revenge — but no, the Yanks won again, taking three of five, after the Royals had gone up 2-1. It came down to the last game, of course, and the Royals took a 3-1 lead into the eighth, at home. But New York plated one in the 8th and then three in their ninth and held on (Sparky Lyle) for the 5-3 win. Mickey Rivers got the big hit; I saw this Mickey play (on TV) a lot more than I saw Mantle, and I was a Rivers fan.

I think I rooted for the Yankees in the Series — I just never much cared for the LA Dodgers, not sure why. The Yanks took the Series in six. Reggie Jackson homered in Games Four, Five and Six, and the image most oft-repeated is his trio of homers (all on first pitches) in the final game. This was Reggie’s first year in pinstripes, and while this World Series gave him the “Mr October” nickname, I like to point out that Reggie had 16 ABs and produced two singles (.125) in the series with KC, October 5-9.

1978

The Phils edged the Pirates by just two this time around, and I rooted for them again against the Dodgers, who finished three ahead of the Reds. If there was a post-season series for second place teams in those days, I’d have been glued to the Pirates-Reds matches. But give the Dodgers due credit, they had a tough team, with that Garvey-Lopes-Russell-Cey infield, and they always came up with quality starters.

Again my rooting for the Phils to end their drought was not enough. The Dodgers took three of four, again, winning the final game in 10 innings on a muffed fly.

It was summer re-run in the AL, too, the Yankees getting to the Series only after a playoff with Boston, and the Royals winning the West by five over California. Because of the long rivalry between Boston and New York, the single playoff game, won on a HR by Bucky Dent, emerged as the most famous of the year’s post-season games. For Yankee fans, the Dent HR washed away the bad taste of the Steinbrenner-Martin nonsense (Billy had been fired when the Yanks were 52-42; Bob Lemon rode them home with a +28 record as manager).

The Yanks then dispatched the Royals in four, winning the last game behind Ron Guidry, who had turned in a 25-3 season, and was a pleasure to watch that year, like a Spahn or Koufax.

Then newest Yankee dynastics then knocked off the Dodgers again, in six games. This time Reggie merely batted .391 with only two HRs (he was .462 vs KC). LA had won the first two games, then the Yanks streaked to the championship. Game Four was the turning point. Dodgers up 2-1 in games, they led 3-2 into the Yankee home 8th. But NY tied it, and won in the 10th on a Lou Piniella hit. The 12-2 and 7-2 wins that followed were not nearly as exciting.

COMMENT:

In this Series, Reggie Jackson was the Designated Hitter. The DH was a 1973 innovation that I have failed to mention until now. It took me a long time to like the DH (being a NL fan). Detractors saw it as a terrible idea, but in fact the idea had been around for many decades — I think John McGraw was for it. I was always an option , and its popularity has been proven. I’d like to see the NL adopt it someday.

1979

When your team goes to the World Series — as my Pirates did in ’79 — you always think start of a dynasty, a run of grand Octobers? As it has turned out, ’79 was the last appearance of the Pirates in the Series. It was not their last good team, that was 1992, when they missed the Series by a hair. It is hard to realize that nearly three decades have gone by since ’79. The memories of 1960 and 1971 are more vivid, the other Pirate World Series I can recall; but they all seem like only yesterday.

To get there, the Pirates had to win the NL East, which they did, as the Phils phaltered to phourth; the Bucs finished two ahead of Dick Williams’ Montreal. Cincinnati won the NL West, edging Bill Virdon’s Houston by 1.5, so it was just like old times , the Pirates and Reds going at it again.

Surprisingly, the Pirates swept three, 5-2, 3-2, and 7-1. Game One took 11 innings, Game Two took 10, so you can bet the Reds were hating best-of-five . The Reds batted only .215. Willie Stargell, now portrayed as “Pops,” the aged patriarch, batted .455 with two HRs and six RBIs in the three games.

In the AL, Earl Weaver drove the Orioles to 102 wins and they coasted home by 8 over Milwaukee. California, with 88 wins, slid past Kansas City, to earn their first taste of post-season play. But they managed just one win against the Birds, who went on to the Series. The back-breaker was Game Two: the O’s jumped out to a 9-1 lead after three innings, the Angels came back, and it was 9-8 at the end.

The 1979 Series was billed as a rematch of 1971, which it was, but both teams had an almost totally new roster. Willie Stargell, who batted just .208 with five hits (four singles and a double) in 1971, picked up where he left off in the playoffs. He hit .400, three HRs, 7 RBI, and his two-run shot in Game Seven with the Pirates down 1-0 in the 6th inning, helped the Bucs to a 4-1 win and the championship.

But it was not easy, the Orioles of Eddie Murray and Ken Singleton were a tough bunch, and won three of the first four games, including the first two in Pittsburgh. But the Pirates snatched the last one at Three Rivers, 7-1, and then took the last two in Baltimore, a Candelaria/Tekulve 4-0 shutout, then the finale, the bullpen headed by Grant Jackson, Don Robinson and Teke being the difference. Stargell got the headlines, but the team batted .323, five different players Garnering (pun intended) ten or more hits.

’79 seemed like a perfect bookend for Pirate fans, matching the win in ’71, and in between, all those wonderful seasons with the Lumber Company and the double-knit uniforms of black and gold and white. I recall no one predicting that this would be the Last Hurrah for Buc fans.

1980

It was phinally the Phils’ turn, and if the Pirates could not do it again (they faded to third), I was happy to see Philadelphia succeed them. The Phils, led by Dallas Green, won 91, just one more than Dick Williams’ Expos. Mike Schmidt, on his way to Cooperstown, had his peak power season, 48 HRs; Steve Carlton, also on a HOF track, went 24-9.

Houston , of all teams, made their first post-season appearance, edging past the Dodgers by one. A colorful team, with a Spanish accent (Cedeno and Cruz cruised the OF), and knuckler Joe Niekro winning 20, it was hard to root against them. The Phils took the playoffs in five games. The Astros were up 2-1 in games, but the Phils evened the series with a 5-3 win in Houston, setting the stage for a dramatic showdown in the finale. The score was 2-2 after six, Nolan Ryan on the hill for Houston, then the Astros plated three in the home seventh. Looking good, Houston . But the Phils came back with a five-spot in their 8th, to go up 7-5. The Astros came back themselves with two in the 8th, and the deciding game went into extra innings.

This was a wonderful series — four of the five games were decided in extra innings. The finale went to the Phils, on a Gary Maddox hit in the 10th. Ten different pitchers in this game, after nine the day before. It is when two teams seem exceptionally evenly matched, and battle each other so well and so hard, that best-of-five is at its most irritating.

The Yankees, now under Dick Howser, finished with 103 wins and three ahead of the Orioles. Reggie hit 41, Tommy John won 22. They would face off with Kansas City again, the Royals ending ’80 with 97 wins, well ahead of Billy Martin’s Oaklanders. George Brett flirted with .400 and finished at .390, and he seemed to personify the grittiness of this team. When Kansas City swept New York , their longtime nemesis, it must have seemed like a dream come true out west. They did it by 7-2, 3-2, and 4-2, with the three-run bomb by Brett in Game Three, off Goose Gossage, sealing the deal. Submariner Dan Quisenberry was on the mound at the end of Games Two and Three, and yielded nothing to the Yanks.

I recall the Phils’ win over the Royals as being closer than 4 games to 2. Willie Mays Aikens’ pair of 2-run HRs in Game One was not enough, 7-6, Tug McGraw on for the save, as he was in Game Six. Aikens hit two more HRs in Game Four to even the Series. But the turning point was Game Five — as it often is. KC turned a 3-2 lead over to Quiz, who had failed to hold the lead in Game Two, but had come back strong in Games Three and Four. Not so in Five, the Phils pushed across two in their ninth to win 4-3, then took the Series the next day, 7-1 behind Carlton. The Phils, who had been around forever , had finally won a Series.

This seemed a fitting way for the ’70s to melt into the ’80s. Baseball fans had been treated to some marvelous baseball in the 70s, and I’m certain that I’ve failed to mention many, many individual or team highlights in this survey. Rockier days were ahead, so fasten your seat belts ( it’s now the law ) for the journey thru the next two decades.

From the NOTES Archive: #78, August 10, 1994 (the Eve of the Destruction of the 1994 Season, and Post-Season; thanx, Bud!)

A TIME TO READ: LORDS OF THE REALM

I mentioned last time that I was hooked on John Helyar’s Lords of the Realm , my faithful companion on my recent bus tour of the Majors … I only regretted that I had the 554-page hardcover, and not a light paperback version. Well, exactly a week before the August 12 Strike deadline, I finished it.

It reminded me of the old Quincy TV series, the one in which Jack Klugman played a Medical Examiner … its opening credits included a famous scene where Quincy was in a rush to get somewhere else, but had a commitment to first teach a group of young doctors how to do an anatomy. Instead of the usual preparatory remarks and gentle touch, he rips the sheet off the cadaver — as half the group faints away — and proceeds to wipe out the other half by — well, you get the idea. “Welcome to the world of forensic medicine!” was Quincy’s memorable line.

Fans my age have no problem remembering Curt Flood and the Messersmith case, Marvin Miller and the work stoppages (and threats of others), of Commissioners Kuhn and Ueberroth, of Giamatti vs Rose, and finally of Vincent vs Almost Everybody.We can recall players like Mays and Aaron climbing slowly, season by season, toward that mystical $100,000 salary … then the avalanche of free-agent signings that made millionaires of mediocre players and eventually produced $7 million men. Revenue sharing … salary caps … arbitration … none of these words are new, and of course, they are now in the daily news.

But the impact of reading Helyar’s book is to watch Baseball spin out of control, stupidly but surely, and while Helyar’s method is the opposite of Quincy’s — he dissects the key events day by day, almost hour by hour, slowing things down and forcing us to see the details, the nuances, the implications and the consequences — the effect is the same.We gasp for breath, cover our mouths and hang on. Welcome to the World of Baseball — Economics.

There are a hundred reasons to pick up Lords of the Realm , however, for those who have the stomach. For the history of Baseball’s dealings with television, from Game of the Week right up to The Baseball Nyetwork (actually, even before Game — many owners resisted televising games, fearing that would cut into gate receipts.)For the story of cable TV and superstations, no small factors in the gap between large/small-market teams. For the Game’s slowness to grasp the value of promotions (Bill Veeck went down as a maverick, because he was a genius at pleasing fans). George Weiss on having a Cap Day at Yankee Stadium: “Do you think I want every kid in this city walking around with a Yankee cap?”There are so many wonderful, incredible, exasperating quotes in Lords — that’s another reason to read it.

Lords suggests a different picture of Charlie O. Finley than the one in my memory, and it’s convincingly documented — the whole book is. Finley was very prophetic. (One irony: Charlie argued long and loudly for night World Series games — so kids could see them! “Today’s children are tomorrow’s fans, and the kids can’t see the games in the afternoons.” Yeah, but not at midnight, either. The decision to go to all night games was, of course, made for the TV bucks, not for kids. Proving that T.S. Eliot maxim, “the greatest treason / is to do the right thing / for the wrong reason.”)

So long as the owners and operators refuse to look beyond the day and the hour; so long as clubs and individuals persist in gaining personal headlines through public criticism of their associates; so long as baseball people are unwilling to abide by the rules that they themselves make; so long as expediency is permitted to replace sound judgment, there can be no satisfactory solution….

— Ford Frick, farewell address

Read Lords for a history of the baseball card industry … the rise of Major League Properties (which now provides every player with $100,000 a year), the stadium crazes, the evolution of agents. Or read it for the portraits of the owners, and their evolution from penny-pinchers to “stupid asses” (the words are Gussie Busch’s and I take them out of context here, but there are tons of similar phrases the owners use for each other. You come away from Lords feeling Marge Schott was just caught in some random trap, that plenty of others could have been banished for similar slurring.)

As far as I was concerned, there was plenty of money out there; it was all in how you were going to share it. I never anticipated both sides would be so thick-headed it would threaten the game.

— Robin Roberts, early player activist, before baseball’s first strike

You also come away feeling that there is perhaps just one job more thankless than Commish (even before the thing was bobbitted ) — and it currently belongs to Richard Ravitch. He has to report to the Owners and work with them, bridging gaps that span the long green distance between Baltimore and San Diego — green as in money. Well, how would you like to deal with Reinsdorf, Steinbrenner, Schott, & company, all the time?The one time the owners seemed to be acting sanely, under the direction of Ueberroth, they were guilty of collusion. Then the fiscal looniness resumed.

Call it a symptom of the plague of distrust and divisiveness that inflicts our land, call it the triumph of greed over the spirit of the garden. Call it what you will, the strike is utter foolishness. O Sovereign Owners and princely Players, masters of amortization, tax shelters, bonuses and deferred compensations, go back to work. You have been entrusted with the serious work of play, and your season of responsibility has come. Be at it. There is no general sympathy for either of your sides. The people of America care about baseball, not your squalid little squabbles. Reassume your dignity and remember that you are the temporary custodians of an enduring public trust. — Bart Giamatti during the 1981 strike

Casual fans and non-fans seem hung up these days on the question of Whose Fault Is It, that baseball is strangling itself with this Strike?And I think everyone sees, this is no typical labor-management dispute, this is all about money and power and control, and at stake is the future structure of the game: not just how the loot is finally divvied up, but how the leagues will look, in which cities Major League ball will be played, where it will be seen on TV (and for How Much $), and no matter what, how much people will care anymore.

In the past, the need for Mo’ Money has driven expansion and the 3-D (three division) format we now “enjoy.” (One more quote: Bob Costas: “If baseball were financially solid, had no financial worries, no one would stand up at an owners’ meeting and say, ‘You know, boys, here’s something we should do just because it makes baseball better: wildcard teams in the playoffs.'”)

What’s the worst that can happen next? Lords makes no predictions, it leaves you hanging, as we all are hanging now. Will the season be saved by some last-minute bolt of common sense, and the differences resolved at some future date?Without a Commish, it seems unlikely. (My last shred of hope is with Jimmy Carter!)Will the owners admit two new franchises, one per league, for the needed cash — necessitating inter-league play, and pushing the game even farther from its roots, some would say its soul ?I hope not, but we’ll see.

Right after I put down Lords , I picked up The Cooperstown Review , and there read Paul Adomites’ review. I recommend that , too. I agree with Paul on this: “Maybe [ Lords of the Realm ] is much too close for me to enjoy just now. Maybe 25 years from now, this year will be laughed upon as the culmination of the underside of the American ideal: the absurd combination of greed and arrogance.”

A week to go. The dark cloud, gathering over the years, really, has started dropping its first fine shower. If it washes out the rest of this summer, truly “the Tarp” will be “the saddest of sights.”

The above is an excerpt from Issue #444 of Gene’s Notes From the Shadows of Cooperstown. To read the rest of the issue (or past issues), click here .