Authors: Joe Posnanski
Then the game began. Morgan danced off the bag, shifting his weight from his left leg to his right, then his right leg back to his left, and he inched a little bit closer to second base, and he had that smile, the Joe Morgan smile, the one that said:
Oh, yeah, I’m about to steal second base, and there’s nothing you can do about it
. That smile was yet another reason people didn’t like Joe.
But he was right. There was nothing that anyone could do to keep him from stealing. On the bases, Joe Morgan was an artist at work. Reuschel threw over to first base to chase Morgan back to first base. Morgan looked back at Reuschel, and his smile grew larger, now it said,
You poor man, you think throwing over to first base will stop me? You cannot stop me. I have spent hours studying you, hours looking over your
every physical quirk, how your left leg twitches, how your shoulder slumps, how your back leans. I have studied you, and I know when you will pitch. You cannot fool me. I’m already at second base. It’s futile for you to throw over here
. Reuschel threw over to the bag again, and Morgan dived back in.
“This guy knows he can’t pick me off, right?” Joe said to Cubs first baseman Andre Thornton, and he dusted himself off. But Reuschel did not seem to know that at all. In fact, Morgan noticed that something in Reuschel’s face had changed. He was no longer so sure. He wore this look of weary apprehension, as if he was waiting for something to happen, a balloon to pop, a gunshot to go off. He started to throw over to first base again, only this time the umpire raised his arm.
“Balk!” the umpire said as he pointed at Reuschel.
Morgan jogged easily to second base. He had done what he wanted to do. He had broken something in Reuschel. Pitchers, Joe believed, were fragile creatures. When they felt good, powerful, invincible—when they got in the flow, as the saying went—they pitched easy and you couldn’t do much against them. But when you got underneath that somehow, when you made pitchers nervous even for a second, you had them. Reuschel looked back at Joe, and then he threw a fat fastball to Johnny Bench. And Johnny turned on it, crushed it, hit it just to the right of the left-field foul pole. That was a home run. The Reds won again. They won the second game of the doubleheader too. And when the day ended, the Reds were all alone in first place.
Gary Nolan won that first game. He pitched all nine innings, allowed only one run, and found that he had adjusted to his new life and his new arm. No, he could not throw his fastball by hitters anymore. But he could outsmart them. He was 6–3 with a 2.55 ERA. He was pitching as well as he ever had before.
In a strange way, it was even more rewarding now because, for the
first time really, he was using his mind to outsmart hitters. He found that they would get themselves out if he gave them half a chance. Throw them a low pitch and they would beat it into the ground. Throw them a high one around the eyes and they would swing right underneath it. Throw them sliders when they wanted fastballs and fastballs when they wanted sliders, pitch inside when they looked outside and pitch outside when they looked hungry and eager and angry. It wasn’t easy, no, but it was fundamental. The only way they could beat him, Gary figured, was if he made a mistake.
Years later, after his playing days were done, Gary became a pit-boss at Vegas casinos and later worked at a casino in his hometown of Oroville. He found that it wasn’t much different from pitching. He would stand in those casinos, and he could not even hear the clanging of the slot machines. They faded into deep background, the way crowd noise did when he pitched. He would look at his clients for only a few seconds and size them up. He found that he could instantly tell something about them. Something in the eyes. He could tell if they were desperate, tell if they were hiding something, and it was second nature to him. Though he rarely thought about it, he knew that it came from pitching, from sizing up hitters, from guessing what they wanted and then throwing something else at them.
“You know what’s funny?” Gary would say as he thought about what came of his life. “I never have gambled. I’ve been around it all this time, and I’ve never even been tempted to gamble myself. I guess it’s because I don’t see the point of it. I know how it always turns out.”
His walkie-talkie buzzed. There was some issue on the floor. He was needed.
“I guess,” he said, “I never saw much use for losing. I guess I learned that from Pete Rose and Johnny Bench and the Cincinnati Reds.”
June 13, 1975
CHICAGO
REDS VS. CUBS
Team record: 37–24
First place by three and a half games
Frank Sinatra always said that he was for whatever would get you through the night. Sparky Anderson was for whatever won a ball game. He believed in voodoo, curses, horoscopes, and dreams. He believed in hot streaks, cold streaks, gut feelings, and four-leaf clovers. People out there did not know, could not know, how helpless a manager could feel in the dugout. There were only a few things he could do. And Sparky would do all of them. He would yank pitchers like they were weeds in his backyard. He would devise all kinds of strategies. He would shout out encouraging words, and a few discouraging words when they were needed. But, really, there was only so much he could do, and so he came to count on signs, witchcraft, lady luck, and that was why, in the eighth inning, with the Reds losing to the Cubs 8–6, Sparky moved to a new spot in the dugout. And just when he moved there, Tony Perez hit a line drive single to start the inning.
“Oh, oh, Larry,” Sparky said to pitching coach Larry Starr, “I found the spot. I found the lucky spot.” He lifted up his right leg. Cesar Geronimo hit a ground ball single up the middle.
“Oh, yeah, Larry,” Sparky said, “this is definitely it. I have found the spot.”
Funny thing how baseball works. A manager can spend countless hours working out his game plan, teaching his players, breaking down matchups, but in the end he will find himself sitting in one spot in the dugout with his right leg in the air.
“Atta boy, Davey,” Sparky shouted when Concepcion hit a sacrifice fly. Now his Machine trailed by only one run. And just as Sparky
was thinking that it sure would be nice to steal this game—
Georgie!
—George Foster hit a long home run. The Reds led. And then Pete Rose hit a home run. And then Ken Griffey hit a single, and what followed was crazy—the Cubs’ second baseman, Manny Trillo, threw the ball to his pitcher, Oscar Zamora, but Oscar was not paying attention. He never even saw the ball go by. It rolled behind home plate, and Ken Griffey ran to third while the Cubs chased around like kids on a Little League diamond. Griffey scored when Joe Morgan hit a single. “Hey, Larry,” Sparky yelled out. “Is this a lucky spot or is this a lucky spot?” The Reds had eleven runs.
Then, in the ninth inning, Sparky sat in his spot again, one leg up, and Cesar Geronimo hit a double past a diving center fielder with the unfortunate name of Rick Monday. George Foster walked. That crazy pitcher Pedro Borbon stepped up to the plate. “If he gets a hit, I quit,” Sparky said. Borbon had gotten one hit all year. Borbon hit a line drive single to right field.
“Hey, Greek,” Johnny Bench shouted to third-base coach Alex Grammas. “Get back in here. You’re the new manager.” And then to Sparky: “And don’t you be calling us for tickets when we’re in California.”
Everyone howled. Everyone slapped backs. Everyone bent over in laughter. And Sparky stayed in his hot spot, and Pete singled, Griffey singled, Doug Flynn singled, Bill Plummer doubled, Doggie singled—when it was all over, the Reds had eighteen runs, they had their seventeenth victory in twenty games, they were pulling away from the Los Angeles Dodgers, everything was beautiful and alive and oh so lucky.
“You can bet,” Sparky said to reporters after the game, “that I’m starting in my hot spot tomorrow.”
Yes, a manager so rarely gets a moment like that, so rarely gets to stand on the mountaintop and look down and think:
Hey, it looks
pretty good from up here
. But Sparky had that moment in Chicago. And here it was, three days later, back in Cincinnati, and Sparky was having another moment just like it. His Reds led Atlanta 9–1. His best pitcher, Don Gullett, had given up just four hits. The Los Angeles Dodgers were fading from sight. How could he describe the moment? Nothing could go wrong. Nothing. There would be problems tomorrow, no doubt. There would be headaches to come. But today, for once, Sparky could rest easy.
What a joy it had been watching this game. In the very first inning, he got to see one of his favorite things in baseball. He had gotten to see a runner try to steal a base on Johnny Bench. They almost never tried anymore, that’s how frightened they were of the Johnny Bench arm. But this time Atlanta’s Ralph Garr led off the game with a walk, and Garr could really motor—they called Garr “Road Runner”—and so Sparky leaned forward on the bench and hoped to see something good.
He saw Garr take his lead, and he watched Garr lean toward second. Then Garr twisted his cleats in the dirt and began his sprint. He got an okay jump—he must have gotten a step or two going before Gullett released his pitch—but an okay jump was not good enough to beat Johnny Bench. There had been catchers with great arms before him. And there had been catchers who could jump out of their stance and throw the ball quickly. And there had been catchers who had a knack for throwing the ball accurately, making it land right on the corner of the bag. But there had never been a catcher, never, who could do all those things like Johnny.
Bench saw Garr take off, and by the time the pitch hit his glove, Garr was already in full motion. Johnny caught it, switched the ball into his right hand, and threw with such force that his catcher’s mask twisted and then fell off. Sparky thought the ball was never more than five feet off the ground. It hit Joe Morgan’s glove in just the right spot—Morgan did not even need to move his hand. Garr slid into the tag. He was out. And it was beautiful.
Sparky got to see Joe Morgan do a little bit of everything. What a beautiful thing it was to manage the little man. In the first inning, he rifled a single off of a Phil Niekro knuckleball to score Ken Griffey. Then he stole second base. In the third inning, he drilled a double down the right-field line, again scoring Griffey. Johnny then doubled him home. In the seventh, Joe drew a walk—that was his fifty-seventh walk in fifty-nine games. Incredible. Then, in the eighth, Joe hit a home run, scoring Griffey for the third time. What a man.
And of course, Gullett pitched another gem. He made one mistake, he gave up a home run to Cito Gaston, but other than that, he breezed through the Braves lineup. It was so easy that Sparky was able to rest Bench and Pete and Joe in the ninth inning. He wanted to sit close to them. It was all so perfect, so wonderful, and for once Sparky Anderson wanted to enjoy the feeling. God had blessed him with this job, and God had blessed him with these great players. And there on the mound, his favorite pitcher—Gullett—gave up a single to Atlanta’s Earl Williams, then another single to Marty Perez, then another to Vic Correll.
“You better go get him, Skip,” Johnny Bench said with that smirk on his face, and he chewed hard on his blend of tobacco and bubble gum. And for a moment Sparky did think about taking Gullett out of the game, but he decided not to do that. Gullett still looked strong. He still threw hard. What the hell? Let the kid finish the game.
“You’re going soft, Sparky,” Joe said, and Sparky felt like a million bucks. He loved when they teased him. He rocked a little on the bench and watched Sugar Bear Blanks step up to the plate. Sugar Bear had been a pain in the ass all year. He had beaten the Reds twice already with big hits in the final inning. Well, what the hell—he could hit a home run to Toledo and it wouldn’t matter now. Gullett wound up and pitched, and Sugar Bear Blanks did not hit a home run to Toledo. Instead, he lashed a line drive at Gullett’s knees. Gullett reached down with his glove and his pitching hand. And like that,
there was this sound, this sickening thud. And Gullett was on the ground and he was…was he screaming? Yes. He was screaming, “My thumb! My thumb!”
Sparky ran out to the field, but he was in a daze. It had happened too fast. His mind could not quite get around it. But sure enough, there was Gullett writhing in pain on the ground. There was no doubt about it. He had broken his thumb.
“There’s nothing we can do to cover up,” Sparky told reporters in his office. The locker room was silent—none of the usual ripping. “That right there is the best pitcher in the National League. I’ve told you all this before: if he don’t get hurt, he’s going to be in the Hall of Fame.”
The reporters asked him what he planned to do, but Sparky was not ready to talk about that. Also, he did not know. He could only sit there and look out, glassy-eyed, and blame himself for not pulling Gullett when he had the chance, for not seeing this coming, for feeling too good. That was the real mistake. You never felt too good. That’s how you hurt the ball club.
Next morning, Sparky sat at breakfast at the Holiday Inn with his friend Jeff Ruby. He looked strangely happy. Ruby could not quite figure it out. Ruby could feel his own face flushed, and he suspected that he had this panicked look on his face, because he felt panicked. “So you’re telling me that Gullett is out?” he asked.
“Yep,” Sparky said. “I’d say he’ll miss two months for sure. He might miss the rest of the season.”
“This is horrible,” Ruby said. “We’re in real trouble now.”
Only Sparky kept on smiling, and kept on eating his breakfast, and he did not seem in trouble. Ruby couldn’t quite figure it out. In private moments like this, Sparky always panicked. He
always
worried. Now he looked like a man who had just inherited money. Maybe
he was just trying to put a happy face on the situation. Maybe he was trying to pretend that his best pitcher had not just broken his thumb. Maybe he was delirious from another night without sleep.
“Sparky, what are you going to do now?” Ruby said.