Becoming Mr. October (9780385533126) (39 page)

Next weekend, the Sox had a return visit to us. I remember the Stadium was full of huge crowds. Just wild. Some fifty-five thousand every game, everybody going crazy.

First game, Chambliss and Nettles hit back-to-back home runs, and Guidry beat Tiant. He threw another two-hit shutout. That’s how great Ronnie was that year—pitched two straight two-hit shutouts against the best hitting team in baseball. In the same week. Nice!

The next afternoon, they got up on us for a change, 2–0. But I had three hits off my old friend Mike Torrez, drove in Willie with a single. In the fifth, we were still behind a run, and I did a very foolish thing. Thurman, who was back in the lineup, hit a line drive foul. I threw up my right hand, to try to keep it from going into the stands and nailing somebody, and that ball ripped the nail loose on my thumb. Had blood running all down my batting glove.

Gene Monahan, our trainer, came out to tape it, and he asked me, “Can you hit?” I told him, “I have no choice.”

He taped the nail back on my thumb, added some more tape over the batting glove, covering the thumb. I wasn’t about to take myself out of that game, not with Thurman playing with a head full of pain. Instead, I went up there, worked the count to 2–2 off Torrez, then hit a home run over the right-field wall to tie the game.

The game went into the bottom of the ninth that way, when Yogi
Berra noticed how Yaz was playing Mickey Rivers in close and toward the line in left field. That’s the kind of brain trust we had on the Yankees, with years of experience. Yogi picked that up and told Quick, and because Mickey was Mickey, he hit an 0–2 pitch right into the gap Yaz had opened up and ran it out for a triple. Thurman was up next, it was his first game back, but he already had two hits. Now all he did was win the game with a sinking line drive that went for a sac fly to right.

After the game, I remember just leaning against a pillar in the locker room, watching the blood run down my wrist, and not minding a bit. Catfish was there; he’d pitched a complete game for the win, only gave up two runs and struck out eight. He looked over at me and just smiled, and I smiled back. “That’s the Reggie I always knew,” he said, and I pointed to my hand: “Looks good, doesn’t it?”

Then we just smiled at each other again. Not too bad for two former Oakland A’s, playing in the big city.

We’d beat Boston six straight by then. We’d gone from seven and a half down to three and a half up in less than three weeks. We had just fourteen games left, and a lot of people thought the Red Sox would just fold and go away.

But that’s when they really showed their mettle instead. They took the last game of that series at the Stadium against Jim Beattie, and then they made a run at
us
. That was when both teams really started playing some great baseball. Putting everything behind us now, just playing the great baseball we knew we were capable of. Hitting, pitching, defense, and clutch performances by everyone.

It was like walking a tightrope every day, a classic pennant race. It’s so much fun to be part of that. Every game seemed like an epic. We had to score three runs in the top of the ninth to avoid getting swept in a doubleheader in Toronto. Goose came on to pitch three shutout innings. Struck out the last batter with the bases loaded.

Couple days later, we lost a heartbreaker in Cleveland when Figgy had about the only bad game he pitched in September, gave back a 3–0 lead. We staged another big rally, came back from being down 7–4 in
the ninth to tie it on a hit by Piniella—but then we lost it on a passed ball, a wild pitch, and a single off Goose in the tenth. In a race like that, you remember every bad pitch, every key hit.

Going into the last week of the season, we went on a six-game winning streak. Getting a strong outing every start from our pitchers. They threw two shutouts and let up just one run in every other game. That’s
four runs in six games
. They were dealing.

Ronnie pitched
another
4–0 shutout. They couldn’t stop us with our top guys on the mound. From mid-July on, Guidry, Figgy, and Catfish went 34–6 between them. Last Saturday of the season, Figueroa became the first Puerto Rican pitcher to win twenty games in the major leagues. He shut out the Indians, 7–0, and afterward he gave Thurman a big hug and started to cry. He told everyone, “I win twenty games for the people of Puerto Rico and Bob Lemon.”

But the Red Sox still wouldn’t go away. They were playing epic games, too. They lost a 4–3 lead in Detroit in the eighth, game went into extra innings, and the Tigers had men on first and third in the tenth, with Jason Thompson and Steve Kemp coming up. But they got out of it, won in eleven. Next night they came back from down 6–4, won when they got a great hitter, Rusty Staub, to hit into a double play in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded.

After that they went to Toronto, where they got beat 5–4 on a two-run single in the bottom of the ninth. Next day, Tiant pitched a complete-game win, 3–1, stranding twelve runners. Day after that, they scored two in the ninth on an error to tie the game, lost a chance to win it when they blew a suicide squeeze, kept the Blue Jays from scoring twice in extra innings with the bases loaded, and finally won it in the fourteenth inning. Next they swept the Tigers when Torrez shut them out, 1–0, in Fenway.

After the last game between us in the Stadium, we went 10–5—but they went 11–2. Going into the last day of the regular season, they’d won six straight, too, keeping pace with us every step of the way. It was like each of us was waiting for the other one to break, applying maximum pressure.

I say “pressure,” but don’t get me wrong. It’s pressure because it’s tense. Most important, it’s big fun. Every pitch is important; every out is big. I was in a number of great pennant races in my career, but this was the closest one I ever took part in.

You love having something to play for down the stretch, and the games are exciting. You play better. It makes going to the ballpark fun, because you love the challenge. It’s harder to play when there’s nothing on the line. I was fortunate: There were very few seasons in my twenty-one-year career when I didn’t have that. It gives you something to chase every day, keeps the blood running hot.

We
wanted
that sort of pressure—and it was there. The Red Sox kept chasing, and the last Sunday of the season they finally caught us. Catfish didn’t have anything much that day, and the Indians finally snapped our winning streak, beat us 9–2. The Red Sox won their seventh in a row. We were going to have a one-game playoff for the decision.

The fact that we were there was part of an interesting decision by our manager, Bob Lemon. Catfish didn’t have much, probably because he was only going with three days’ rest. Until then, he’d been almost unbeatable. Went 9–1, 1.71 ERA since the beginning of August—as well as I’d ever seen him pitch, and I was a teammate for almost his whole career.

But Lemon had to make the decision about what to do if we ended up tied with the Red Sox and had to have a one-game playoff. So he had taken advantage of what was maybe Guidry’s worst start of the season, when he lasted less than two innings in Toronto on September 20. Lem used that rare short start to pitch Ronnie on three days’ rest for the remainder of the season. Guidry came through, beating Cleveland, 4–0, on September 24, and then Toronto, 3–1, on September 28, the last Thursday of the regular season. Even on short rest, the man was indomitable!

That meant we had to adjust the rest of the pitching staff and throw Catfish on short rest, too.

Was that the best decision to make? It’s hard to say. When we ended up tied, we were very, very glad to have Ronnie available to pitch the one-game playoff. But would we have had to have a playoff in the first place … if we had pitched everybody with full rest?

Impossible to say. Not changing anything—keeping everybody on full rest—would’ve meant having Tidrow start that last game. Then, if we had lost, we would’ve had a rested Catfish Hunter in the playoff game—instead of a tired Guidry, starting his second straight game on short rest.

How that might’ve worked out is anybody’s guess. The Sox had been hitting Catfish hard in Fenway, and even a tired Ron Guidry was like having the ace of spades. And in 1978, it was like having Sandy Koufax out there on short rest: How bad can it be?

It was one of those decisions that blows managers’ heads up—if they let it. Fortunately, we had Bob Lemon, who could just have a cocktail after the game and forget about it. It was an impossible season, but it still wasn’t over.

I
REMEMBER VAGUELY
the night before the playoff game going out to Daisy Buchanan’s, which was a bar on Newbury Street, near the hotel, that a lot of the ballplayers went to. There were a bunch of us there—Lou, Thurman, Catfish, Goose, Sparky, Bucky Dent. We were there talking about the game, what it was going to be like. It was an early night. I don’t really drink. Maybe I had a beer.

Just something to take the edge off a little. We were talking about how amazing it all was, once in a lifetime. There were no wild cards, no second chances, back then. This was only the second playoff in American League history, the first in thirty years. And the loser would go home.

There were some Red Sox fans there, taunting us a little, saying they were going to beat us the next day. It was the sort of thing you couldn’t do nowadays; it would get out of hand. But it was all in good fun.

I think the atmosphere, the temperature between the Yankee players and the Boston fans, has usually been good. It’s usually been one of respect, kind of “love to hate you.” Especially then. For me, I admire the Red Sox franchise, always have. I’m a Yankee fan, but I have great admiration for John Henry and his group, who run the Boston franchise now. I think he’s continued to keep the brand growing, on top or near the top. Ahead of us, chasing us, tied with us—it seems it’s always been that way. It’s been fun.

The Red Sox were getting better in the 1970s. I think they were held back by the fact that they were the last team to have a black player on their roster. Boston is a great city, and the Red Sox are one of the great
franchises in sports. Certainly, the lack of color slowed their growth, but by 1978 things were starting to change.

Before we even got to Boston, Ron Guidry had already settled any possible issue of who was going to start for us. I remember talking to him on the last Sunday afternoon of the regular season, after we lost to Cleveland. I was asking him who he thought was going to pitch.

He said to me and a few other guys, “I am. I’m going into Lemon’s office and telling him I’m going to pitch Monday in Boston with three days’ rest.” Lemon said, “Okay. Lightning, I can’t say no to you.” That’s how Lemon had set it up for him to go, and we all thought he would, but Ronnie relieved any doubt and made it clear to us that he was eager to get out there.

Boston was going with Mike Torrez. I know a lot of guys on our team weren’t too worried about that, because we usually hit him good. We’d beat him three out of four so far that season, hit over .300 against him as a team. Some guys held it against him when he asked out of a key September game against Boston the year before, with the score still 1–1 in the fourth. He said his shoulder couldn’t get loose. Who knows? He said it hurt, I believed him.

We had a chance to sweep the Red Sox by beating them that night, which would’ve finished them. I do know that Martin and some of the others called Mike a choke in the papers—all without using their names, of course. That doesn’t work!

Torrez went and signed with the Red Sox when they offered him two more years and another million dollars over what the Yanks offered. I couldn’t blame him for that. Once he signed with Boston, he started running us down, telling the press they had a better ball club than we did. Telling them we all hated each other: “Graig Nettles hates Jackson. Thurman Munson hates Jackson. Jackson is not well-liked by many members of his team.”

He started telling writers personal details about me, about how he helped get me through the season. Why he felt he had to do that, I don’t know. All I know is that while he was on the Yankees, he was
a good friend, and he was very supportive. Decay and garbage, why stop by and pick it up. Leave it lay, don’t even kick it to the curb.

Torrez had been a very good big-game pitcher for us. Aside from that Boston game, he’d pitched very well down the stretch in 1977. Had that great playoff game for us against the Royals, coming out of the pen. Had two huge World Series wins for us, including the clincher. So far, in 1978, he’d had a bad second half with them, but he was coming around. He’d just shut out Detroit the week before. He was a big, strong pitcher, had a good fastball, a hard slider, a good curveball, and he’d be going on full rest against us. I knew he’d be very tough, and he was.

I didn’t care who was pitching, I was excited. It’s always a good feeling playing in a game like that. Be good or be gone, one game decides everything. I had some experience in that. I’d already played in the seventh game in the 1973 World Series. The fifth games in the 1972 ALCS, the 1973 ALCS. The fifth game in the 1977 ALCS—for one at-bat anyway. Later, I would get to play a deciding game in the 1981 division playoff against the Brewers, the 1986 ALCS against the Red Sox, when I was on the Angels.

I’ve been pretty fortunate, haven’t I? Lucky? Remember, luck is when hard work meets opportunity.

It was a beautiful autumn day up in Boston. Cool, the sun was out. October weather. My time of year, Yankees’ time of year. When the leaves turn brown, I’ll be around.

I wish I had been able to play right field, but Lou was out there. I had that thumbnail that had been torn off my hand late in the season, so that was the excuse that was used to get me out of there. But at least Bob Lemon had the class to tell me to my face. Yes, he did. And of course, Lou played superbly that day.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. We all knew, and we all enjoyed it. Even bigger than the World Series, and the league playoff series, which are played every year. They have a one-game playoff now for the wild cards, but it was nothing like this. We were both 99–63. We
weren’t wild cards. We weren’t second-place teams. We’d
both
finished first; we were two great teams. That’s why we were there.