STORMY DAYS FOR THE SERIES
As last weekend approached, gloomy New England skies darkened what had been a luminous World Series. It rained and rained on the parade, dousing spirits, dampening enthusiasm. October in Boston had become a persuasive argument for a shorter baseball season. "We may go head to head with the Super Bowl before this is all over," said one baseball functionary as foul weather, no stranger in the Northeast this time of year, lengthened and flattened out a Series that had been all peaks and valleys of excitement.
Nevertheless, it had already become a Series of memorable contrasts. The cities involved represented opposing cultures: Boston, self-proclaimed "Hub" of Eastern sophistication; Cincinnati, hometown of Middle America. The ball parks embodied this striking dissimilarity. Fenway Park is pure Boston: old, compact, eccentric, slightly battered, a relic from a departed and more refined civilization. Riverfront Stadium is new, huge, symmetrical, antiseptic, a monument to modern American get-up-and-go. Fenway has natural grass, naturally; Riverfront has AstroTurf.
Although both managers are Midwestern-born, they, too, were peas from separate pods. The Reds' Sparky Anderson is plain folks. He is likable, self-effacing, sentimental, a spouter of homilies, an espouser of fairness—"Let's don't cheapen this World Series by crucifying anybody." Anderson speckles his speech with humble disclaimers—"To be honest with you, I don't see so good anymore." On his clubhouse wall a poem is posted: "A smile is something nice to see,/ It doesn't cost a cent/ A smile is something all your own,/ It never can be bent."
The Red Sox' Darrell Johnson appeared to the national press as the personification of unsmiling Yankee severity, although he was somewhat more cordial in private conversation. No matter how inoffensive or simpleminded the question put to him at press conferences, he responded as if he were being asked to disclose a particularly embarrassing family secret. He was a hostile witness. This was reflected in his numbing habit of prefacing virtually every response with an aggressive "In the first place" or "Number one...." Once he was guilty of a double singular: "Number one, in the first place, I'm not here to tell you what I put down on my piece of paper." In his discourse there was rarely a second place. On one occasion he said his team had committed three faux pas in a game. He named only two.
It is not known if Johnson preceded his remarks to Plate Umpire Larry Barnett in Tuesday's third game with an "In the first place, you're a scoundrel," but it is certain that any hostility previously unexpressed was given vent to on that balmy, eventful evening in Riverfront.
Before the first game in Cincinnati there had been laborious speculation on how the Red Sox fielders would perform on the artificial surface, just as there had been before the Series opener in Boston on how the Reds' fielders would react to Fenway's famous "green monster" wall in left field. Both the wall and the rug proved to be overrated furnishings, since no fly balls hit the wall in the first two games and the Red Sox swept up most everything on the rug. A human being, Umpire Barnett, not the carpeting, would be the Sox' undoing in the third game, and, as Anderson said afterward, "The guys in the bars will be talking about that play until spring training."
The barroom conversation piece occurred in the 10th inning of a tense and thrilling game in which the Red Sox rallied from a 5-1 deficit to tie the score in the ninth on Dwight Evans' two-run homer. The Reds' Cesar Geronimo began the 10th with a single to center off Sox Reliever Jim Willoughby. Anderson then dispatched the previously obscure Ed Armbrister to hit for his pitcher, Rawly Eastwick. Obviously up to sacrifice, Armbrister would soon become baseball's most famous bunter. He dropped one plop in front of the plate, the ball bouncing high. Red Sox Catcher Carlton Fisk leaped for the ball as Armbrister first started to run, then, for reasons not even clear to him, stopped in his tracks. Catcher and batter collided as Fisk reached for the ball. With some difficulty Fisk fielded it, then, with his mitt hand, shoved Armbrister away and threw to second base in an effort to catch Geronimo and start a double play. His throw to Rick Burleson was high and into center field. Geronimo sped to third, and Armbrister, the late starter, reached second.
Fisk and Johnson argued vehemently but vainly that Armbrister had interfered with Fisk while he was fielding the ball. So now, instead of two outs and no one on base, the Red Sox found themselves with Reds on second and third and no one out. Pete Rose was intentionally walked to load the bases and Joe Morgan singled in the winning run over a drawn-in outfield. The game had ended, 6-5, but not the controversy.
Asked about his decision, Barnett replied, "I ruled that it was simply a collision. It is interference only when the batter intentionally gets in the way of the fielder. I signaled that the ball was fair and in play." The applicable baseball rule would seem to be No. 6.06, which declares that a batter is out if he "interferes with the catcher's fielding or throwing by stepping out of the batter's box or making any other movement that hinders the catcher's play at home base." The catch is that the rule makes no mention of the batter's "intent." Johnson said that in his argument with Barnett the umpire said nothing about intent, explaining only that in his judgment there was no interference. A judgment call cannot be protested, but an interpretation of the rules can be, if the protest is made before the next pitch is thrown. This was not done, since Johnson was unaware that "intent" was an issue.
Intent or no, it is difficult to determine from reviewing films of the play if Armbrister did, in fact, interfere with Fisk. The two did collide before Fisk reached the ball, but in the opinion of Barnett's colleague Dick Stello, who was umpiring at first base, "The batter has as much right to go to first base as the fielder has to go for the ball." A good throw by Fisk would have eliminated any controversy, however, for, even though jostled, he had time to gun down Geronimo. Armbrister, loitering near home plate, would have been an easy second out since Fisk also had time to tag him and throw to second to catch Geronimo. In fact, Fisk suspected that he had tagged Armbrister, although films disclose he touched the runner with an empty mitt. Fisk was still in high dudgeon after the game, flinging magazines about the clubhouse and elaborating on the perfidy of umpires.
"It's a damn shame to lose a ball game like that," he said in a moment of relative calm. "One call from an umpire can change the complexion of the whole Series. If I don't think I've got a legitimate complaint, I'm not the kind who will beef and moan and make a show."
Fisk and Red Sox Captain Carl Yastrzemski also called into question the practice of rotating umpires each year by seniority so that eventually all will have a shot at the $9,000 paycheck, the theory being that any umpire with six or more years' experience is competent to judge a Series. "Baseball owes it to the fans to have only the best umpires in the Series," said Yaz, a solemn, intense man. "Maybe we ought to rotate the teams, too. I think this is a disgrace."
The eccentric Bill Lee, who is much less solemn if equally intense, claimed he would have "chewed Barnett's ear off," if he had been within biting distance. "I would have Van Goghed him," he said, creating on the spot a verb of ear-catching artistry.
It is a measure of the Red Sox' professionalism that on the next night they could put Barnett, Armbrister and the whole umpirical mess behind them and whip the Reds 5-4. Luis Tiant was the winner for the second time in the Series. The Cuban dervish was a somewhat different pitcher than in the Series opener, relying much more on his wicked fastball than on his assortment of off-speed pitches. His control was less certain as he walked four, fell behind on many hitters and threw the considerable total of 163 pitches, and his windup repertoire was, if anything, more extensive. "He jiggles his glove," says Fisk. "He throws back his head, shakes his leg, twists around and all of a sudden, here comes the ball." Even his more modest motions cause him to resemble an erring husband dodging thrown kitchen objects.
Tiant proved an artful dodger in a game that had him teetering on the brink. His resiliency amazed even Fisk. "He's a winner," said the catcher. "When he walked Rose in the fifth inning, his first two pitches were fastballs and I motioned to Johnson that he had nothing on them. His breaking pitches were high and his fastball wasn't real good. But in the ninth he was throwing harder than earlier, which was really something, because for a few innings it looked like he was fading away. When Johnson came out to see how he felt in the ninth, I told him, 'Let him go after 'em.' "
For all of his antics on the mound, Tiant is a man of dignity. He has the mustachioed, brooding countenance of a Latin dictator and the body of a vaudevillian—paunchy, ungainly, top-heavy. He speaks softly and in interviews generally addresses himself to the floor, a mannerism which literally brings his questioners to their knees. He is so fiercely proud that when a Cuban countryman, Diego Segui, was lacerated in the Boston press earlier in the season he refused to speak to the offending newsmen.
The fourth game featured yet another Armbrister bunt (he has a World Series record for short hits), this one rolling uneventfully down the first-base line and advancing Geronimo, who had led off the ninth inning with a single. Fisk, now the ironist, lamented that the onerous situation of the previous evening had not been duplicated. "I wish the same thing would've happened," said he, a crooked smile cleaving his handsome features, "because maybe this time somebody would've gotten it right."
Tiant was assisted in his second Series victory by a typically sensational catch by Fred Lynn on the center-field warning track of Ken Griffey's searing ninth-inning liner, and by a double mistake on one pitch by Geronimo and Morgan. With two out in the ninth, Geronimo on second and Morgan at bat, Cesar inexplicably broke for third on an apparent steal attempt. Morgan—explicably, as it turns out—swung at the pitch and popped it up to end the rally and the game. "I have a poor habit of swinging at the ball when I see someone going," said Little Joe. Geronimo, said Anderson, should not have been going.
The Reds tipped the balance their way on Thursday with a 6-2 win behind Don Gullett's superb pitching and some ninth-inning relief help from Eastwick, the winning pitcher in the first two Cincinnati victories. Tony Perez, who had gone zero for 15, hit two homers and drove in four runs. Perez, who had fairly sizzled through the last half of the season and the playoffs, was mystified by his Series ineffectuality. He, too, is a Cuban, and, like Tiant, something of a philosopher. "I have played this game too long to get down on myself," he said after the ordeal of the zeroes had ended. Anderson had joshingly reminded him that he was in striking distance of the World Series record for futility, 0 for 22, which was set in 1968 by the Cardinals' Dal Maxvill. Perez took this depressing intelligence under consideration and advised his manager that, thank you, he did not want such a record. "I do not want my grandchildren to remember me this way."
He erased himself from future record books in the fourth inning with an arcing shot over the left-field fence that tied the score at 1-1, and he put the game out of Boston's reach with a mighty three-run blast that caromed off the second-deck facade in the sixth. The homer aside, the sixth was truly a weird inning. Morgan led it off by walking. He then attracted no fewer than 16 pickoff throws from an obviously obsessed Reggie Cleveland, the portly Boston pitcher. Morgan advanced when Johnny Bench hit a routine double-play grounder in the direction of Denny Doyle at second base. Doyle was not in the vicinity, however. He had lost sight of the ball in Bench's white uniform and was wandering blindly near the base when the ball drifted slowly by him into right field. Perez capitalized on this oversight with his second homer. The game, effectively, was over.
Asked if he felt disadvantaged by the loss, Johnson said, "Number one, we have to give these fellows the edge, but we'll be out there Saturday." In the first place, he was wrong. Saturday's game was rained out, not to mention Sunday's.
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As the disputed play begins in Game 3, Armbrister bunts, Fisk lunges to field the ball.
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Fisk takes aim to cut down runner Geronimo.
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The throw soars up over Burleson's glove.
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When Plate Umpire Barnett rules no interference, everybody safe, Fisk gives him an earful.
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Fisk nips Rose at the plate on Juan Beniquez' bull's-eye throw but Reds went on to win 6-2.
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The dauntless Tiant pitches his second win.
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The resurgent Perez is greeted by the men he drove in with homer No. 2, Bench and Morgan.