Game Six (17 page)

Tiant missed outside with a slider to even the count at 1–1.

The Reds drafted Johnny Bench in the second round of the 1965 draft—a young outfielder from Detroit named Bernie Carbo became their first pick—for a grand total of $14,000. Eight thousand of that bonus was set aside as insurance for tuition if baseball didn’t pan out and Johnny decided to go to college, which never became an issue. After his first season away from home with Cincinnati’s rookie and instructional league clubs, he earned an invite to the Reds’ spring training in 1966. He had barely turned eighteen, and knew from the moment he arrived at camp in Tampa, just from looking at the players around him, that he belonged there. The Reds thought so, too; out of dozens of prospects throughout the organization, they had already made it clear that Johnny Bench was going to be their next big-league catcher.

Now Tiant challenged him, with the best fastball he’d thrown all night; looking dead-red ready for it, Bench swung mightily but missed for strike two.

Although there had been talk of putting Bench on the Reds’ roster as their third catcher that first year, the consensus was that a little seasoning would do him more good. A season of Class-A ball for the Peninsula Grays in the Carolina League followed; Bench hit twenty-two home runs and drove in sixty-eight in ninety-eight games. Behind the plate he already showed a veteran’s grasp of baseball’s most demanding position; how to call a game, defend the plate, handle pitchers, position his fielders. His throwing arm immediately became the stuff of legend; he threw out three runners in one
inning
in the Carolina League All-Star Game. The Grays retired his number after the season, an almost unheard of honor in the minors, which the club had never conferred on anyone before.
Near the end of the season, after breaking his thumb in a game a few days after losing his virginity—not hard for a born-and-raised Baptist to connect the dots between those events—he was driving home to Oklahoma late at night when a drunk driver broadsided his car. A seat belt saved his life, but he spent two days in the hospital and they had to shave his head to close the gash in his skull. Just eighteen, he’d already had two close looks at the valley of the shadow, and those barricades he’d already put up to protect himself from the unknown drew in a little closer. Pitcher and fellow top prospect Gary Nolan never forgot their meeting a few weeks later back in Florida, when he pulled into the team’s motel and laid eyes on Johnny Bench for the first time, sitting poolside, his shaved head stitched like a baseball and still painted orange from the Mercurochrome, singing “If I Were a Carpenter” in full voice.
Wow,
thought Nolan,
that’s my new catcher. He’s nuts.
Six months older, Nolan made the big club that spring and won fourteen games for the Reds, finishing third in the National League’s Rookie of the Year voting behind the Mets’ sensational Tom Seaver. Bench made the leap from A-ball to the Reds’ Triple-A team in Buffalo, where his equally impressive performance changed nobody’s mind that he’d soon become a fixture behind home plate in Cincinnati.

Instead of coming back with the fastball, Tiant threw a dazzling slow curve that nicked the outside corner. Bench didn’t swing, and didn’t protest—a real man knows when he’s been beaten—but simply turned and walked briskly back to the dugout without a backward glance.

Luis Tiant appeared in complete command of himself, his pitches, and the game; he’d thrown four different pitches to Bench with four different deliveries, like a jazz artist riffing an inspired solo. Just as the Reds had spotted his tendency to start hitters with fastballs, Tiant hadn’t thrown one to the first two men he’d faced in the inning. So far the best hitters on the best hitting team in baseball looked almost helpless against him. Stan Williams, Luis’s former teammate with Cleveland and Minnesota, the man who helped salvage his career after the injury, had become the pitching coach
for the Red Sox before the 1975 season. Williams had lasted fourteen years in the majors, a tall, menacing power pitcher, with a reputation for throwing hard and inside. Only recently retired, he stayed sharp by throwing batting practice for the Red Sox. He watched Tiant now from the dugout steps, marveling once again at the range and control of his repertoire; Luis was cruising now, and the Fenway crowd relished every pitch.

Tony Perez followed Bench to the plate for his second at bat, with two outs in the inning and nobody on. Doggie set his bat and stared out at Tiant, determined, all business, looking for that fastball. Luis started him with his oddest pitch of the night, a slow hesitation pitch that wouldn’t have cracked a pane of glass, fluttered almost like a knuckleball, and just missed the outside corner for a ball.

Tony Perez’s approach to hitting had become so thorough and professional it was almost impossible to fool him with the same pitch twice. Tiant didn’t try to, coming back with a fastball that caught the outside corner for a called strike.

After he originally cracked their starting lineup as a first baseman in 1965, the Reds moved Perez to third two years later when another big young slugger named Lee May came along whose only position was first base. The two men grew into their prime power together, hitting more than 250 home runs between 1968 and 1971; add Johnny Bench’s 113 to that number over the same period and you had the most dangerous murderer’s row in contemporary baseball. But when the Reds fell short to Baltimore in the 1970 World Series, and failed to make the playoffs the following year, Howsam and Anderson pulled the trigger on the deal with Houston for Joe Morgan. The deal would grow more complicated, but from the start Houston demanded a power-hitting first baseman in return. Knowing they could shift Perez over to his old spot, Lee May was moved on to the Astros in the Morgan trade and Tony Perez moved back to first.

Another glance to the heavens, and a sidearm fastball missed outside for ball two. Tiant had thrown forty-five pitches in the game
to date, and not one of them had come inside on a batter; for the most part he was pitching to and hitting that two inches of black on the outside corner of the plate.

During Cincinnati’s subsequent rise to dominance, while Rose, Morgan, and Bench garnered most of the headlines, Tony Perez had quietly become the most indispensable part of the Big Red Machine. For nine seasons in a row he had driven in more than ninety runs; his steadiness and consistency weren’t flashy qualities, but they served as the bedrock of the Reds’ offense. He also remained their most even-keeled leader on and off the field, where his serene sense of self, generosity of spirit, complete lack of insecurity, and built-in bullshit detector somehow kept all the other big egos in the Cincinnati clubhouse in line.

Tiant threw a wicked, tempting curve that broke outside and nearly provoked Perez to lean forward and attack, but he checked his swing and the count went to 3–1. He looked down to third base coach Alex Grammas for the sign and got the green light. Tiant went after the outside corner with a slider, a hittable pitch, and Perez fouled it back to fill up the count, 3–2. When Tiant came back with a fastball, Perez fought it off again.

Tiant didn’t like the next ball umpire Satch Davidson threw him and tossed it back. When Davidson nearly threw the next one over Tiant’s head—he had to leap for it—the crowd let Davidson hear it.

Tiant’s next pitch hit the outside corner, but it was up in the zone, and Perez, his timing locked in as he saw his third fast pitch in a row, got the meat of the bat on it and lined a shot toward right that glanced off a diving Denny Doyle’s glove after one hop and skittered all the way out to Dwight Evans. After a patient at bat, Tony Perez finally had his first hit of the Series off Tiant, and the Reds had their second hit of the game.

Left fielder George Foster stepped into the box, decided his right shoe was untied, signaled for time, stepped out, and, while he was at it, retied both shoes. In response, Tiant played catch with Davidson again, trying out a new ball, eager to get the one that Perez had
spanked out of the game.

“A little gamesmanship,” said Garagiola, amused, watching the two men try to out-stall each other. “Nothing wrong with it.”

Luis went into his stretch and now came in with his first first-pitch fastball of the inning, up in the zone. Foster, waiting for it, took a big cut and fouled it straight back. After another delay as Foster stepped out of the box and rubbed dirt on his hands, Tiant threw a big overhand curve. Foster took only a half swing at it below his knees, but with his immense strength he hit it hard on the ground into the hole to shortstop Rick Burleson’s right. Burleson took three quick steps to his right, scooped it up, and fired it to Doyle covering second for the force-out on Perez, but the ball hooked left on him and pulled Doyle off the bag. Doyle lunged out and got a glove on it, slowing it down and probably saving a run. Perez hopped up out of his slide and ran to third, but had to hold there when Doyle tracked the ball down as it trickled onto the outfield grass. Foster held up at first.

Error, Burleson—his first, and the fourth Red Sox gaffe of the Series. Reds at first and third, two out.

Looking at the replay from the left field camera, former infielder Tony Kubek thought that Doyle might have made the throw look worse than it was by coming straight across the bag, cheating toward first instead of circling slightly to his right. Whatever the reason for the error, aflame with self-disgust, “Rooster” Burleson kicked at the dirt and returned to his position.

Shortstop Davey Concepcion crossed himself and stepped into the box, for the first Reds’ at bat in the game with a runner in scoring position. Tiant, calm and cool, pitching from the stretch, missed the outside corner with a low fastball for ball one. He came back with his tantalizing slow curve, which dove down and missed in the same spot for ball two.

Thinking a move ahead, in case they kept the inning alive and he needed someone to pinch-hit for Billingham in the pitcher’s spot two batters later, Sparky told his best pinch hitter, Terry Crowley, to get loose again and put Larry Shepard on the phone with the bull
pen, where Clay Carroll took off his jacket and began to throw.

Ahead in the count, Concepcion saw Grammas flash him the sign to swing away; they expected a fastball here. The crowd broke into their “Loo-ee, Loo-ee” chant. Tiant came with the fastball, and Concepcion fouled it straight back for a strike. Still ahead 2–1, Concepcion got the swing sign from Grammas again. Tiant fooled him with the next pitch, a live fastball that would have made his father proud, darting to the right and catching the inside corner, the first pitch he’d thrown there all night. Concepcion stepped out to collect himself, rubbed some pine tar on his bat in the on-deck circle, and looked into the dugout, where Sparky shouted some words of encouragement. The count was even now, 2–2.

Fisk called for the same pitch again; he liked the way that last one had seemed to trouble Concepcion. Tiant threw the exact same pitch, running right in on the fist. Protecting the plate, Concepcion tried to swing inside-out at the ball and drive it to the right, but he caught just a sliver of it and popped it into the air, foul, wide of first, where Cecil Cooper collected it for the third out of the inning.

Tiant, as he’d done all Series against the Reds, had pitched out of another jam. As Rick Burleson trotted in toward the dugout past Luis, he apologized for his error. Tiant smiled at him, radiating confidence, as if he didn’t have a care in the word.

“Don’t worry about it, man,” said Tiant, patting the Rooster’s shoulder. “We still got ’em.”

Luis Tiant had just completed his fortieth consecutive scoreless inning at Fenway Park. But his extraordinary streak was about to come to an end.

W
HEN FIDEL CASTRO FINISHED READING SENATOR
Brooke’s letter about Luis Tiant and his parents at the dinner party, he didn’t speak for a while. George McGovern thought he seemed intrigued and engaged, while quietly calculating all the implications of the issue against his larger agenda.

“Let me check on this,” he said. “I will give you an answer when we meet tomorrow.”

Their meeting the next day began at four-thirty in the afternoon and, with the vast number of subjects they had to cover, would last
until hours after midnight. But when they first sat down, the encounter began with Cuba’s prime minister responding to Senator Brooke’s letter.

“I’ve checked on your request about Mr. Tiant’s parents,” said Castro. “They have been advised that they can go to Boston and stay as long as they wish.”

Senator McGovern conveyed the welcome news back to Edward Brooke, who then passed it on to Judge Schreiber and Luis Tiant. The wheels of statecraft and diplomacy moved a little slower; it took almost four months to smooth out all the details of the visit, while Brooke’s office arranged for Luis to send his parents money and the plane tickets. After finally flying from Havana to Mexico City on August 15, the Tiants had to wait for nearly a week before their complex visas were finalized at the U.S. Embassy; on a road trip with the Red Sox in Chicago and Kansas City, Luis spoke to them by phone daily. Although the family had tried to keep details about their arrival private, word leaked to the press, and Luis was deluged with requests for interviews. Luis, Maria, and their three children drove to Logan International Airport on Thursday evening, the 21st of August, along with a number of close family friends. When they walked into the arrivals terminal, they found a pack of nearly one hundred reporters and photographers waiting for them. Doing his best to accommodate their interest, Luis patiently answered questions while struggling to maintain his composure. When they announced the arrival of their connecting flight from Mexico City, the press stepped back from around the family, uncharacteristically giving them space; many of them were sportswriters who had known Tiant for years and knew what this meant to him. A hush fell over the room.

When his father stepped off the plane into the terminal, Luis put a hand over his eyes and wept. Fifteen years; Luis had tried to prepare himself for the moment but to no avail. His father saw him and smiled and waved; Luis rushed to him, into his embrace.

“Don’t cry, son,” his father whispered softly in Spanish. “The cameras will see you.”

“I don’t care,” said Luis.

The Old Man closed his eyes and held him tight and smiled. Then Isabel appeared at his side, and Luis bear-hugged his mother, while Luis Senior held out his arms to Maria and his three grandchildren, twelve-year-old Luis, seven-year-old Isabel, and one-year-old Danny, and they all crowded into his arms.

Few pictures were taken. Almost everyone else in the room, reporters and photographers included, was in tears.

As the family walked slowly away, a Spanish reporter asked Luis’s mother who was the better pitcher, her husband or her son. Luis and his father, arm in arm, overheard the question and answered for her.

“She doesn’t know anything about baseball,” explained Luis Senior.

“My father was better than me,” said Luis.

“No, my son is better,” said Luis Senior, in his halting English. “I watch him pitch on television in Havana.”

“My father brought the screwball to Mexico. He was a great pitcher.”

“I’ve been in training,” said Luis Senior, smiling again at the reporter. “You tell the Red Sox, if they need me, I’m ready.”

When they got back to the family home in Milton, the welcoming party went on for hours, and for the first time since 1961 the entire Tiant family slept under the same roof. Luis and his father stayed up later than the rest, over drinks and Cuban cigars; life, baseball, all the missing years. The next morning, a photograph of the Tiant family reunion at the airport made the front page of every newspaper in Boston.

Luis had thrown the last game of the road trip in Kansas City; his next scheduled start at Fenway came the following Tuesday against the visiting California Angels, when his parents would see their son pitch a major-league game for the first time. Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey met them beforehand and asked if Luis Senior would like to throw out the first pitch that night. When Luis translated the offer for his father, he seemed initially reluctant—he didn’t want to
embarrass his son, or himself—but when the moment came and his name was announced to the crowd, Luis Senior popped up out of the dugout with a Red Sox cap on and energetically jogged to the mound, where his son was waiting for him. The ovation grew louder as the Old Man slid off his coat, traded it with his son for the baseball, straddled the rubber, made a full windup, and fired a screwball to reserve catcher Tim Blackwell behind the plate; he threw it back to Luis as the crowd cheered.

That was supposed to be the end of the ceremony, but Luis Senior asked for the ball back.

“What’s wrong, Papa?” asked Luis.

“It wasn’t a strike,” he said. “Give me the ball.”

Luis handed it to him. He signaled for Blackwell to get back into his crouch, and this time the slender and elegant “Señor Skinny” whistled a fastball right down the heart of the plate. The crowd, predictably, went nuts. This perfect evening didn’t end perfectly, only because his parents didn’t see Luis pitch the Red Sox to a win; they lost to the Angels 8–2 on the night of August 26. Still troubled by a sore lower back at the time, Tiant didn’t have his usual velocity, and may have been pressing with his parents watching him play for the first time. But from that point on in the season, they hadn’t seen him lose at home; five complete-game victories in a row, including the opening games of the team’s playoff series against Oakland and Cincinnati.

The night after Luis’s 6–0 gem in Game One of the 1975 World Series, the Tiants hosted an impromptu gathering for family and friends at their home in Milton. At around two that morning, as the joyful celebration was winding down, Luis came through a door and saw his father looking up at him from a nearby easy chair, the sweetest, proud, sad smile on his face. He held out his arms, and Luis sat down beside him and they held on to each other, without saying a word, both of them crying silently. The dream, passed down from father to son, had come all the way home.

JACK BILLINGHAM
strode out to the mound in the bottom of the fourth to face his second batter of the game, right fielder Dwight Evans. He missed with his first pitch, low and away, then came back inside with a live fastball that rode in on Evans’s hands, which he fouled off to even the count at 1–1.

Bringing in Norman and Billingham as early as he had, both of them starters by trade, Sparky hadn’t actually called on the rank and file of his relief corps yet; they were still six deep out there, and if he had to, Anderson wouldn’t hesitate to use every last one of them.

Billingham’s third pitch, a slow curve, missed outside, 2–1.

The first member of that cadre, Clay Carroll, continued to throw in the Cincinnati bullpen; with Billingham due up second in the top of the fifth, Sparky prepared to use a pinch hitter in that spot and throw another arm at the Red Sox.

Bench set up outside and Evans swung and missed at a prototype Billingham sinker that dropped out of the zone, just below his bat, to even the count at 2–2. He barely fought off the next one, another sinker, swinging late, fouling it straight back; Billingham appeared to have the advantage.

Dwight Evans had played 115 games in right field for the Red Sox in 1975, hitting .274, with thirteen homers and fifty-six runs batted in. His performance at the plate had markedly improved throughout the year, as had manager Darrell Johnson’s confidence in him. Only twenty-three, he was the oldest of Boston’s three young star outfielders—Evans, Lynn, and Rice—and the way Evans had blossomed in this Series, the Red Sox appeared to have the makings of one of the greatest outfields of all time.

When Billingham came back with his third straight sinker, Evans was waiting on it, and caught it solidly on the meat of the wood, going with the pitch and driving it hard to right field. Ken Griffey took off at the crack of the bat, but the ball angled away from him, bounced once on the warning track about twenty feet inside the foul line, and bounced almost straight sideways over the short wall into the seats just past the Pesky Pole for a ground rule double.

The crowd sprang to life again as Rick Burleson walked to the plate. Billingham missed low and away for a ball.

At the corners of the infield Pete Rose and Tony Perez crept forward onto the edge of the infield grass, anticipating a sacrifice bunt. Burleson’s task was to move Evans over to third any way he could, where with one out a fly ball to the outfield would bring him in; a bunt, deep fly ball, or ground ball out to the right side would all do the job. But with pitcher Luis Tiant due up next, the quickest path to manufacture a run here was through the considerable gap that had opened up between Perez and Joe Morgan, where a single could score Evans from second.

Billingham missed again, a fastball, low and just outside, 2–0.

Darrell Johnson never flashed the bunt sign out to Don Zimmer; he trusted that Burleson, with his sound bat control, could put the ball into play on the right side, as he’d been able to do consistently throughout the season.

But not unless Billingham gave him a pitch to hit; his next, a sinker, came in low for ball three, 3–0. Sparky had flashed a sign of his own to Bench:
Don’t give him anything near the plate.
More signs from Johnson to Zimmer to Burleson; taking all the way. Another sign from Sparky:
Put him on.
The pitch missed low, nowhere near the zone, for all intents and purposes an intentional walk.

Burleson trotted down to first. Red Sox runners at first and second, nobody out.

Luis Tiant shed his jacket and walked to the plate. Third base coach Don Zimmer walked all the way down the line to Tiant, and they talked for half a minute, Zimmer making sure that Tiant understood exactly what they needed: a bunt, down the third base line, to prevent the force play at third and advance both runners.

But Sparky put his own play on: He was willing to gamble to prevent another run, and so Tony Perez charged in hard from first with the pitch, while Rose hung back near the bag at third; Billingham would field any ball hit to the left and either he or Perez would try to nail Evans at third for the force-out.

Tiant squared to bunt with the pitch, and as Billingham’s high fastball broke in on him, he poked his bat out at it and popped it weakly into the air down the first base line. Luis hesitated, thinking the ball would easily be caught for an out—and possible double play—but with Perez charging in, the ball gently arced just over his head and dropped fair. When he saw it land, Tiant, surprised, tossed his bat and ran. Perez turned and chased the ball down as it rolled near the foul line, picked it up, and flipped it underhand to Joe Morgan covering first for the out.

Luis Tiant’s luck was still holding; his little oops blooper had worked to perfection in the face of the Reds’ aggressive defense, advancing Burleson and Evans to second and third with one out.

First baseman Cecil Cooper came to the plate. Playing the percentages, Sparky pulled the Reds’ entire infield onto the grass, hoping for a ground ball from a Billingham sinker that would allow them to either hold Evans at third for an out at first or make a play at the plate if Evans ran on contact. The risk: As good as they all were, drawing his infielders closer to home reduced their effective range by nearly 40 percent; a sharply hit ball that found a gap would score two runs and break the game open. Sparky accepted the risk; although his powerful offense had come from behind to win forty-four times during the ’75 season and four times in the playoffs—half of those in their final at bat—on this night he didn’t feel that his Reds could afford to fall any deeper in the hole.

Billingham’s first pitch missed outside for ball one.

Cooper was now 1–15 in the Series; if he was ever going to find a moment to break out of his slump, this was the time.

Billingham’s sinker missed low for ball two. Clay Carroll continued to throw in the Reds bullpen. The crowd revved up, on their feet again.

When Billingham came back with a sinker, Cooper swung and missed, looking awkward and uneasy. Joe Morgan trotted in and shouted some encouragement to Billingham:
That was the pitch, that was the one we need.

Bench called for the sinker again, Cooper swung late, and topped
it into the dirt in front of home plate, where it squirted weakly down to the drawn-in Tony Perez. Perez looked Evans back to third, then ran over to touch first and retire Cooper, unassisted, for the second out. Cooper’s slump continued.

The scoring threat diminished, Sparky returned his infield to their normal depth for Red Sox second baseman Denny Doyle; only Rose stayed close to the bag at third in case Doyle tried to drop in a sneak bunt.

The first pitch missed just low, Bench and Billingham staying with the sinker. Billingham came back with it again and caught the inside corner for a strike to even the count. His third sinker in a row to Doyle then produced the desired result: Doyle chopped it down into the dirt directly out toward where Joe Morgan had him played. Morgan charged in to confidently field it, and took his time tossing to first to get Doyle by two steps for the final out of the fourth.

Billingham’s sinker ball had done the job again at Fenway. Due up second in the top of the fifth, Jack already knew as he walked off the mound that he was done for the night. He also couldn’t help but think that if only he’d been out there from the start, Fred Lynn wouldn’t have hit one out of the park to give the Red Sox the early lead.

If only.

For his career, Jack Billingham had now pitched twenty-two and two-thirds innings in two World Series and given up exactly one earned run. He would never be given another World Series start, and appeared in only one more Series game before he finished his long and successful pitching career; but to this day Jack Billingham, cousin to Christy Mathewson, still holds the record for the lowest career ERA in the World Series in all of baseball history.