The Tigers of '68

by George Cantor

  Within twenty minutes, these highly skilled athletes had taken the plane apart and noiselessly transported it to the pool area, where it was reassembled. Then the players gathered to admire their night’s work. But something was missing, the finishing touch that would elevate this escapade above the routine. No one will take credit for what happened next. All those named as the culpable party are no longer living. But someone decided that the next logical step was to put the plane into the pool.

  “It surprised us how easily it went in,” says Lolich. “We slid it to the side, but then it got a little tricky, because we didn’t want it to make too big a splash when it hit the water. So we kind of lowered it and then just let go.”

  Unfortunately, the Tigers had forgotten their basic Archimedean physics. When the plane went into the pool, an equal weight of water had to come out. “One minute we were standing there,” says Lolich, “admiring the plane in the pool, and the next we were caught in a flood. The whole pool area went underwater. We had to turn around and run like hell.”

  One of their rooms overlooked the pool, and the Tigers scurried up there to see the total effect of what they had done. The plane, which had settled to the pool floor, presented a lovely spectacle in the moonlight. To Lolich it was one of the transcendental moments of his life with the Tigers.

  “The hotel knew who had done it right away,” he says. “They had to. We were all waiting the next day for the explosion from Campbell. But it never came. We found out later that he had just settled privately with the hotel and paid for the damage. He never said a word.”

  Maybe that was because the general manager had been in the U.S. Naval Air Corps in World War II and the incident brought back fond memories. More likely, Cambell just wanted to keep the whole thing hushed up and out of the newspapers, where it would have landed in big print if he had handed out fines.

  But now it was time for the Tigers to have the last laugh.

  CHAPTER 22 Rolling to 30

  When the Tigers ran onto the field to play California on the evening of August 28, their lead had shriveled to a mere four games. That was as small as it had been since June 11. So Detroit’s fans turned out with some trepidation to watch the latest turn that the drama would take. They would see, instead, the curtain rise on the final act. The Tigers were about to take off on a 19-4 spurt that would feature some of the most remarkable events in the history of the franchise.

  McLain began it by notching win twenty-six, an effortless six-hitter, with Freehan and Northrup pounding big home runs in a 6-1 game. Then it was Lolich’s turn. After returning from his exile to the bull pen (in which he’d won three games in five days), the left-hander finally looked like the Lolich who had finished the 1967 season. He stopped the Angels 2-0, giving up no hits after the second and mowing down the last twenty hitters in a row. It was his strongest game of the year, and several Tigers observed that he now seemed to be throwing the ball better than McLain.

  Then it was Baltimore’s turn. Before a capacity Friday night crowd, Wilson pitched a four-hitter, crashed a three-run homer, and cruised home to a 9-1 win. The Orioles came back behind Dave McNally on Saturday. This set up the ultimate confrontation on Sunday.

  It would be Baltimore’s last chance to cut into Detroit’s lead until the final week of the season. The Orioles had no qualms about facing McLain. Twenty-six wins or no, they had handled him well, dealing him two of his five losses this year. The games were not squeakers, either. His losses to Baltimore were the only games in which he failed to last until at least the fifth inning. The Orioles would also oppose him with their top winner, Jim Hardin.

  It was the day before Labor Day in the final all-or-nothing September pennant race in major league history. In 1969, four teams would get into the new playoff format. That number was expanded to eight in 1995. But in 1968 there was no margin for error, no second chance. If a team stumbled in September, there could be no October revival. Nothing could save it. Only the winners reached the World Series. So when two top contenders met in September, the sport reached its pinnacle. This game was to be the last of its kind.

  Before the crowd could get settled in, Curt Blefary cracked a two-run homer, and Baltimore was off to a 2-0 lead. But Northrup matched that homer when the Tigers came to bat. Then they drove out Hardin with two more in the second and carried a 4-2 lead into the third.

  McLain’s control had been remarkable all year. But he began this inning by walking Don Buford. Blefary and Frank Robinson followed with singles, and now it was 4-3. Two runners on, and the fearsome Boog Powell (the blond giant whom Cash referred to as “Moby Dick”) was coming to the plate. The crowd understood that the season had reached, at last, its defining moment. This is where the best pitcher in baseball had to walk the walk.

  Powell swung, and the ball was a blur. For an instant, no one could follow where it went. Then suddenly McLain was whirling around on the mound, the ball in his hand, firing toward second. Matchick took the throw at the bag and relayed it to first.

  Triple play.

  In an instant, Powell’s screaming line drive right back at McLain had been transformed into the bolt that broke the Orioles.

  Bill Wambsganns, who turned the unassisted triple play in the 1920 World Series, spoke afterward of the dead calm that covered Cleveland’s League Park as he trotted off the field. The crowd couldn’t absorb what it had just witnessed. Only several seconds later did the ovation roll like thunder from the stands. That’s how it was in Detroit on this Sunday. The Tigers left the field in a web of stunned silence. As they reached the dugout, the crowd exploded, understanding that they had just seen the beginning of the end. The season had been sealed with this trifecta.

  McLain gave up two meaningless singles the rest of the way, and the Tigers eased off with a 7-3 win. The lead was now seven games, and Baltimore would never again come any closer than that.

  But Denny was not content. Now 27-5, with a month still to play, he felt compelled to give the play an even larger meaning.

  “The ball was heading right at my head,” he told reporters in the clubhouse. “If I hadn’t caught it, it would’ve killed me.”

  So it wasn’t just a triple play. It was a Death-Defying Triple Play. It was the Mother of All Triple Plays.

  Only when photos ran in the papers the following day was it apparent that McLain actually had caught the ball around his belt buckle. It was still a nice play, and it would have been a painful event had he missed. But not quite the fatal impact that Denny was proclaiming.

  No matter. The caravan rolled on.

  Number twenty-eight came against the Twins, with Horton driving in five runs in a rather easy 8-3 win.

  Number twenty-nine was in Anaheim. Lolich had pitched a two-hit shutout the night before. But it was McLain whom the fans wanted to see.

  This time it was the full-bore Hollywood treatment. Singer Glen Campbell was his guest in the clubhouse. Tommy Smothers, at the height of his popularity with the irreverent Smothers Brothers TV show, had McLain out to his house. Ed Sullivan paid a call to line up McLain for his show. An introduction on a Sunday night Ed Sullivan Show still represented the ultimate in celebrity for an American hero. Almost incidentally, McLain disposed of the Angels 7-2 for win number twenty-nine, getting three hits himself, including a triple.

  On Saturday, September 14, he started against Oakland at Tiger Stadium and went for number thirty.

  The race was just about over. Detroit now matched its largest lead of the year, 9V2 games. But this game was covered as if it meant the pennant. Reporters from most major newspapers and weekly magazines were in the press box. So was Dizzy Dean, the last man to win thirty, hired by the Detroit News to write his observations on the historic event. At least Dean was in the press box for a while. The president of the Detroit chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America decreed that Dean did not have the proper credentials to get a seat in this hallowed journalism sanctuary. Because the president was also the baseball writer for
the News, his decree was all the more embarrassing. Dean was removed to the auxiliary box and had to be content to observe history from there.

  This was also the nationally televised Game of the Week, and the network brought in Sandy Koufax as its commentator. Retired for two seasons, Koufax, the greatest pitcher of his time, had won as many as twenty-seven. But no more than that. So McLain would make his effort in the presence of greatness.

  The As were a young team, just starting to assemble the core that would win three consecutive championships in the early ’70s. Reggie Jackson was already in the lineup. So were Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, and Dick Green, while future Hall of Famers Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers were on the pitching staff. The As were still three years away from winning their first division title, only one year from the last of several last-place finishes in Kansas City. They strongly desired not to be Denny’s thirtieth. During batting practice one of the As attached a sign to his uniform that read: “Watch Chuck Dobson go for number twelve today.” It was a pointed reminder that Oakland did not intend to go quietly into the record book.

  Jackson was especially cranked up for this game. He was in his first full season in the majors, already marked for stardom. The situation stirred the competitive fires that in another decade would win him the title of “Mr. October.” In the fourth he took McLain upstairs in right field, and Oakland was away to a 2-0 lead. But Cash trumped it in the home half with a three-run shot, and McLain had his lead.

  But he couldn’t hold it. Campaneris tied the score with a single in the fifth, and soon after Jackson came up and crushed another one, this time with the bases empty. The As were back in front, 4-3. Meanwhile, Diego Segui entered the game in the fifth and stymied the Tigers, shutting them down on three singles as the game entered the ninth.

  The official attendance at this game was only 33,686, but the park was filled much closer to its capacity. The Tigers traditionally gave away 10,000 tickets as a gesture of goodwill to Detroit schools for Saturday games in September. This one, despite its significance, was no exception. The tickets had been handed out months before. The entire left-field lower deck was occupied by screaming safety patrol boys, on a free pass to one of the most historic ball games in Detroit history. In most moments of high drama, the sound level in a big-league ballpark is like a low roar. But the noise on this day was more like a continuous screech, the shrill battle cry one might have heard at the Children’s Crusade.

  Kaline led off the ninth inning as a pinch hitter for McLain. It was becoming increasingly difficult for Mayo to find spots for his veteran star. The manager was reluctant to break up the young outfield combination that was winning a pennant for him. Cash had started to hit steadily at first base. Kaline had been relegated to the role of occasional player and pinch hitter. On this assignment, he worked Segui for a walk.

  With the national media assembled to watch McLain reach his milestone, it would have been a bum scenario for him to stumble and then have to try all over again in four more days. Neither Denny nor the Tigers were into anticlimax this season. With McLain out of the game, they had to win it in this inning.

  McAuliffe popped up, but Stanley sent a single to center, advancing Kaline, the consummate baserunner, to third. Kaline’s ability to take the extra base forced Oakland to draw in its infield to cut down the tying run at the plate. That set up what happened next.

  Northrup sent a harmless hopper toward first baseman Danny Cater. Kaline broke for the plate on contact, and it appeared that he would be out easily. But this play was like so many others during this season. In critical moments, something odd would occur. Cater led all first basemen in the league in fielding, committing merely five errors all year. This was number five. He rushed his throw to the plate, and catcher Dave Duncan had to reach back for it just as Kaline came plowing into him. The ball sailed past them both. Kaline touched the plate on his hands and knees, while Stanley went all the way to third.

  It was happening again. The winning run was now at third, as the youth corps in the left-field seats implored its hero, Horton, to bring it home. The As had to bring in the outfield for the play at the plate. Horton sent a long fly to left. Even with the fielder in normal position it would have scored the run as a sacrifice fly. Now it fell safely over the leftfielder’s head for a single, and Stanley raced home with win number thirty.

  Kaline was standing next to McLain in the dugout when Horton’s ball went over the outfielder’s head. As he grabbed McLain in an uncharacteristically emotional embrace (which made the cover of Sports Illustrated) the two went rushing onto the field in tandem. The Tigers descended on Stanley at home and then ran out to get Horton, trotting back toward the baseline. Despite what they might have felt about McLain personally, they knew that they were touching history at this moment, that they had become a part of the game’s legend.

  Then something even more unusual happened. The crowd refused to leave. The entire throng, safety boys and all, stood at its seats and started to chant. “We want Denny. We want Denny.” McLain, by this time, was already surrounded by media in the clubhouse. Even in there, deep under the stands, you could hear the feet pounding and the distant cheers. Public relations director Hal Middlesworth burst into the clubhouse. Usually the calmest of men, Middlesworth rushed up to McLain, interrupting the interviews. “You’re going to have to go out there,” he told him. “They’re not going to leave.”

  In subsequent years, the curtain call from the dugout, the reappearance on the field of the player who has performed memorably, has become a part of baseball. It occurred at its most moving when Cal Ripken Jr. broke the consecutive game record in 1995 and took his walk of triumph around Camden Yards. But in the late ’60s, such displays were unknown. Ballplayers finished their heroics on the field and then left the premises. Coming back out to wave and blow kisses would have been dismissed as showboating.

  So when McLain walked back down the tunnel and climbed out of the dugout to wave at the frenzied throng it was a moment unprecedented in Detroit and rare in the entire game. Koufax, tagging right behind him with a TV camera crew, kept looking around and repeating: “Isn’t this incredible. Isn’t this just incredible.” The veteran of four World Series had never seen anything like it.

  McLain walked slowly around the perimeter of the infield, waving his cap. For once even he didn’t seem to know what to do, how to handle this display of love and emotion. If he had called out: “Enough with the noise; throw out your wallets,” they would have done that, too. Just four months ago he had called them the worst fans in the world. All forgotten now.

  Then he was back in the clubhouse, posing for pictures with the exuberant Dean. “I’m just proud to play with that man,” said Horton at his locker. “We were in the minor leagues together, and now we’re here. I’m proud to know him.”

  But there were even prouder moments to come.

  CHAPTER 23 End of the Weight

  There had been pennant waits longer than twenty-three years. Much longer. Even in the history of the Detroit franchise, the gap between the pennants of 1909 and 1934 exceeded this gap by two years. Of the original sixteen major league teams, only three—the Yankees, Dodgers, and Reds—would never wait longer between pennants. A few teams would wait more than forty seasons, the Cubs over fifty.

  What had made this wait so acute for Detroit’s fans was that they had never watched their team win on TV. The revolution in communications since 1945 had skipped right over the Tigers. Watching the team you root for play on network TV, seen by the entire nation, seemed to validate your experience as a fan. Television brought an immediacy to sports unlike anything that had gone before. It had become the stamp of reality. Just as when McLain took his bow on the Ed Sullivan Show, being on national television was the mark of genuine celebrity. But for Detroit’s postwar generation, who grew up with a TV set as part of the family, it was always somebody else’s team being shown. The wait of twenty-three years seemed longer than it actually was because in that span
every one of the other original teams, except the Cubs and As, had taken their turn on the tube.

  Then there was the unresolved matter of ’67. It still hung like a thundercloud over the heads of the Tigers and Detroit. The pennant blown and the chance squandered. The fires of July. The memory of the terrible events of the past year still shrouded the city like an evil mist. Although that mist would never entirely dissipate, there is nothing else in sports quite like a pennant race. The day-by-day immersion in its drama, the addition of a new chapter at every sunset, each new twist to the tale. Baseball draws its acolytes in like a soap opera with spikes. While the story continues, other concerns recede. That is how it was in Detroit in the summer of 1968. Some called it a healing, but it was more like a disease had gone into deep remission.

  Three days after McLain’s thirtieth, the last number came up for the Tigers. The number was one, the final Detroit win or Baltimore loss needed to reach the Magic Moment. The Free Press had received hundreds of thousands of entries for its promotion. As the hour approached, those who had chosen September 17 as the date gathered around their radios to hear the clock strike.

  It was Wilson’s turn in the rotation. But as he warmed up in the left-field bull pen to face the Yankees, something didn’t feel right in his shoulder. He mentioned it to Sain, and Mayo immediately decided to make a switch. Joe Sparma, who hadn’t won a game in almost two months, was told to start throwing.

  Since his tiff with the manager in early August, Sparma had been forgotten. He was only 8-10 for the season and deeply wounded in his soul. While his contemporaries, the other Boys from Syracuse, were winning the pennant, Sparma remained outside the baselines, given nothing to do and no promise for the future. Confused and depressed, he watched the season pass as if it were happening to someone else.