The Cards Sure Showed 'Em
Whitey Herzog came home to Kansas City last weekend from that other place across state and proceeded to break a few local hearts in the opening games of the Championship of Missouri or, as folks outside the Show Me state prefer to call it, the World Series. Whitey's St. Louis Cardinals left town on I-70 leading the Series two games to none, with the next three to be played in St. Louis, where they win about 70% of the time and where they can lay more than 100 years of baseball tradition on you. They came by their lead with an exciting enough 3-1 victory on Saturday and a weird, God-awful 4-2 win on Sunday that even people outside Missouri will be talking about for a long time. They may be questioning the tactics of Whitey's counterpart even longer.
Before this happened, Herzog had a lot of friends in Kansas City—his house in Independence is only a couple of miles away from Royals Stadium—he played in K.C. for three years and managed there most of five. He had nurtured Royals stars George Brett, Willie Wilson, Hal McRae and Frank White when he'd been in the home dugout. Three other K.C. players, Lonnie Smith, Dane Iorg and Jamie Quirk, had played for him in St. Louis, Smith as late as this past May. His own catcher, Darrell Porter, had also played for him in Kansas City. In fact, Herzog and Royals manager Dick Howser missed each other by a year as players for the old Kansas City A's. The Show Me or I-70 Series, as Missourians resolutely call it, has been more like old home week than anything so presumptuous and stuffy as to have the word World a part of it.
This is hardly the first time a World Series has been contained within the borders of a single state. In fact, 17 Series have been; the last 11 years ago in California between Oakland and Los Angeles. And in 1944, there was an all—St. Louis Series between the Browns and the Cardinals. For the moment (and after last weekend, that's all there may be), the people in Missouri were just happy to have this great big sports event all to themselves, and let the rest of the so-called world be damned.
The Cardinals and the Royals are different sorts of teams, one reliant on speed and defense; the other on pitching and George Brett. But they took similar routes to the Series. Both lost the first two league playoff games and came back, the Cardinals, uncharacteristically, on ninth-inning home runs by Ozzie Smith in Game 5 and Jack Clark in Game 6; the Royals on big hits off the little bats of Buddy Biancalana (a climactic double in Game 6) and Jim Sundberg (a three-run triple in Game 7). And both entered the Series short one big star. The Cards lost their primary base stealer, rookie Vince Coleman, to a mechanized tarp in Busch Stadium. And the Royals lost their designated hitter, Hal McRae, who had 70 RBIs during the season, to the rule that disallows DHs in odd-numbered years.
With McRae's in the rack, the bats the Royals took up against the Cards for Game 1 belonged in a belfry. White, who had batted eighth in the last two playoff games because of an injured hand, was now elevated to cleanup, the first second baseman to bear that burdensome responsibility in a World Series since Jackie Robinson hit fourth for the Dodgers against the Yankees 33 years ago. The eighth hitter was now Biancalana, who, as television personality David Letter-man calculates, is still more than 4,100 hits shy of Pete Rose. The ninth hitter, without the DH, was the pitcher, Danny Jackson, who last batted for Trinidad (Colo.) State Junior College in 1981.
Saddled with hitless wonders (the Royals were next to last in the American League in runs scored), Howser tried to score every which way. In the second inning, after Steve Balboni had singled in a run, K.C. had men on first and third with one out and Biancalana at the plate. Howser's first ploy came a cropper, not because Buddy can't hit but because, on this dreadful occasion at least, he couldn't bunt. Biancalana squared away for a squeeze bunt. The Cardinals' John Tudor, who, like Jackson, was starting his first Series game, threw a fastball that tailed away from the little hitter. Biancalana missed it cleanly, and Darryl Motley, caught like a fox among hounds, was run to the ground.
In the fourth, Howser had yet another runner, catcher Jim Sundberg, on third with one out. The hitter, Balboni, lunged wildly at a changeup and lofted it into what is generally no-man's land in foul territory down the third-base line near the leftfield seats. Third baseman Terry Pendleton miraculously caught up with this despicable looper and fielded it, Mays-like, over his shoulder while running with his back to the plate. (It was the catch of the night, if you discount the one made by a gentleman in the upper deck who allegedly barehanded a duck in flight in the sixth inning.) Sundberg was instructed by K.C. third-base coach Mike Ferraro to hold his ground if the left-fielder reached the ball but to tag up and run if the third baseman caught it, the theory being that Pendleton, running away from the action, could never make a strong or accurate throw to the plate. Wrong. After the catch, Pendleton whirled like a figure skater and rifled the ball home. The unswift Sundberg was out by yards.
In the seventh, McRae finally got his call, as a pinch hitter for Jackson. He was hit on the shoulder by a Tudor pitch. And when Tudor's successor, Todd Worrell, walked Lonnie Smith, the bases were loaded. But Wilson, the next hitter, figured, what the hell, nothing else is working, and swung at the first pitch. He sliced it foul to left, and this time Tito Landrum, Coleman's super sub, ran it down for the third out.
Time now, obviously, for Brett. He'd started swinging for the downs as early as the sixth inning, realizing that was probably the only way his team was going to score another run. In the sixth he got a fastball in the wheelhouse and gave it his best home run cut. But he got under the ball and it shot straight into the stratosphere above the infield. "I went to the bathroom just as that ball was hit," Herzog recalled. "When I came back, it was just coming down." Brett had another chance in the eighth, the Royals' last, when he drove a Worrell fastball through the mist into deepest rightfield. "God, I let him hit it out," Worrell moaned to himself. But Andy Van Slyke, chasing his first fly ball in Royals Stadium, caught it, albeit with some unnecessary theatrics. Van Slyke was as convinced as Worrell that only a miracle catch would save the day, so he braced himself for a history-making leap at the fence. He jumped...and caught the ball at his waist. The Cards, meanwhile, just pecked away for three runs. Cesar Cedeno got the game winner in the fourth inning with a broken-bat RBI double. "My bat," said Cesar, "died a hero."
There were flesh and blood heroes and victims in Game 2, which had one of the most electrifying and surprising finishes in World Series history. For eight innings, Royals lefthander Charlie Leibrandt breezed through the Cardinal batting order, allowing only two hits, neither mightily stroked, and no runs at all. He struck out six, two each in the second, third and fifth innings, and walked just one. He was ahead 2-0.
Ah, but then came the ninth. McGee led it off with a hard shot to leftfield past Brett's glove for a double. No problem. Leibrandt, unruffled, retired Ozzie Smith on a groundout and Tommy Herr on a fly ball. Then came the menacing Clark, the very same man who had done in the Dodgers. Howser was grimly aware of the abuse heaped on L.A. manager Tommy Lasorda for pitching to the Cardinal slugger with first base open. At the same time, it is not Howser's policy to put a batter who represents the tying run on base, no matter who he happens to be. Leibrandt pitched to Clark. Sort of. He threw him three changeups outside, all balls. But, Clark boasted later, "they don't pay me to walk."
So, with the count 3 and 0, he reached out for the next changeup and hit it to the left of Brett, who was guarding the line, for a soft, run-scoring single. There was a problem now, for sure. But there were still two outs, and there was Dan Quisenberry, ace reliever, heating up his submarine ball in the bullpen. Landrum, a righty hitter, was up next.
Time for Quiz? No. Howser stayed with the man who got him this far. Landrum worked the count to 2 and 2, then, "just trying to make contact out there," slapped a changeup for a blooper into right. Another double. Clark held up at third.
Time now for Quiz? No. Howser elected to walk Cedeno, another righthanded hitter, and fill the bases for Terry Pendleton, a switch hitter. Cedeno had been hell on lefties, and if Howser brought in Quiz to face him, Howser reasoned, Whitey would counter with a lefthanded hitter, and Quiz had been having trouble with lefties lately. So Leibrandt stayed on.
Pendleton was "pumped up" for the challenge. "An intentional walk means they'd rather pitch to you than someone else," he said, reasoning faultlessly. "To some players that's an insult." Namely, to him. With the count 2 and 1, Pendleton barely made contact with still another changeup. The ball described a tiny arc to leftfield, and like its unreachable and equally undistinguished predecessors, it fell for a double. This one cleared the bases, and the Cardinals had a historic 4-2 win. The Cards became the first Series team since the New York Yankees in 1939 to enter the ninth two runs behind and go on to win.
Oh, Quiz did finally come in to get the last out. Too late.
Did Howser goof? Not according to Howser. "Charlie was in complete command," he said. "I was not close to taking him out. Charlie's stuff was good. He wasn't losing it at all. It's no reflection on Quiz. It was the way Charlie was pitching." But Quisenberry had been ineffective in Game 1 (three hits and a run in 1‚Öî innings) and he had seemed tired after a busy season.
Was the Quiz miffed by the oversight? Leibrandt, he said, was the best of all Royal starters at pitching out of a jam. Besides, he said, "I'm not a good manager. I'm just a tool of the manager. I really work at never trying to manage."
So the Cards and Royals headed from the "easternmost western city" in the U.S. to the "westernmost eastern city." How bleak were the prospects for the Royals? Well, no team has ever lost a World Series after winning the first two games on the road.
PHOTO
HEINZ KLUETMEIER
Wilson said safe, but umpire Billy Williams said Porter tagged Biancalana out in Game 2.
PHOTO
RONALD C. MODRA
A Royal opportunity knocked in Game 1, but Biancalana blew the squeeze (1), leaving Motley hung up (2). Tudor ran him back to third (3), and Smith applied the tag (4).
1
PHOTO
RONALD C. MODRA
[See caption above.]
2
PHOTO
MANNY MILLAN
[See caption above.]
3
PHOTO
RICHARD MACKSON
[See caption above.]
4
PHOTO
RICHARD MACKSON
Sundberg was a dead duck after he tagged up on Pendleton's over-the-shoulder catch.
PHOTO
RONALD C. MODRA
With a crack of the bat, Cedeno doubled to drive in the Cards' Game 1-winning run.
TWO PHOTOS
RICHARD MACKSON
Van Slyke leaped for Brett's drive and came up with the ball—and an Oscar nomination.
PHOTO
HEINZ KLUETMEIER
As the scoreboard provided the story line for Game 2, Leibrandt pitched ball three to Clark...
PHOTO
RONALD C. MODRA
...who singled. Then Landrum (above left) blooped a double, and after Cedeno walked, Pendleton (above right) doubled to leftfield...
PHOTO
RICHARD MACKSON
[See caption above.]
PHOTO
HEINZ KLUETMEIER
...sending home all three runners, with the last, Cedeno, easily beating the throw.