Down to the Last Pitch: How the 1991 Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves Gave Us the Best World Series of All Time

by Tim Wendel

  In early innings Morris had gotten by with a good fastball and slider. He remembered his changeup and split not being all that sharp early on. But the split-finger, his best pitch, “came back around in the sixth [inning], and it was a very effective pitch in the late innings,” he said.

  That proved to be pivotal because the Braves were about to come at him again. In the top of the eighth inning, with the heart of the Atlanta order due up, Lonnie Smith led off with a single to right field. In the Twins’ bullpen, relievers Steve Bedrosian and Mark Guthrie began to warm up.

  Concerned that Smith would try to steal second, Morris threw over to first base several times with Pendleton back at the plate. Although Morris admitted he never had much of a pick-off move, he had worked hard to develop a slide step in 1991, allowing him to hold runners slightly closer that season.

  With the count 1–2, Morris and the Twins believed they had struck out Pendleton on a pitch down in the dirt. But third-base umpire Terry Tata ruled that the National League MVP had fouled the pitch off. Replays later showed the call was incorrect. Pendleton had missed the pitch entirely; although the Braves’ hitter should have been ruled out, there he stood, still in the batter’s box, ready to drive in the first run of the game.

  “The biggest turning point in the game, where an umpire could have made the right call and didn’t,” Morris later told the (St. Paul) Pioneer Press. “So now Lonnie becomes the goat for all Braves fans.”

  On Morris’s next offering, his hundredth pitch of the evening, Pendleton lashed a liner toward left-center field. So much of baseball can be waiting, considering all the possibilities, making the necessary adjustments until the game bursts open again at the seams. That’s when so many things can be in play that keeping up with it all becomes next to impossible. After climbing and climbing the incline at the roller coaster, we’re suddenly plummeting downhill, and everything dissolves into a glorious train wreck. Now it began anew, here in the top of the eighth inning at the Metrodome.

  Pendleton’s drive split the Twins outfielders—Dan Gladden in left field and Kirby Puckett in center field. Running on the pitch, Smith had good speed and could have scored easily. But he hesitated, coming to a brief yet full stop around second base. Only after he saw that the ball had dropped in for a hit did he begin to run again, ending up at third base as Pendleton pulled into second with a double.

  As with any big play, everyone soon had an opinion about what had happened. On the television replay CBS analyst Tim McCarver maintained that a fake double play, pulled off in high style by second baseman Chuck Knoblauch and shortstop Greg Gagne, was the reason Smith stopped dead in his tracks. Indeed, the Minnesota duo may have pulled off the best-looking double play ever without a ball.

  At the crack of Pendleton’s bat Gagne began to run toward the outfield. After all, he knew where the ball was going and he needed to be ready as the relay man for a throw from Gladden or Puckett. That’s when Knoblauch barked at him, and the Twins’ shortstop turned back toward second base. Instead, Gagne was ready to play along, as the second baseman pantomimed fielding the ball. Gagne fielded the fake throw and came toward the bag as though he were going to throw on to Kent Hrbek at first base.

  “To this day I have no real clue about everything that happened on that play,” Gagne said. “In fact, I’ve never studied a replay of it. I don’t want to. That play exists in some sweet spot in my memory. I don’t want to overanalyze it too much.

  “What I do remember is that when the ball was hit, my first reaction was to get out to the outfield. I was the relay man on that side. But then Knoblauch yelled, ‘Gags,’ and I knew immediately what he was up to.

  “We had been talking about deking their base runners—see if we could slow them down a bit. We practiced it too. It was just something we messed around with during infield practice. That’s something I don’t believe teams do enough about today—take infield. That gets you ready for the game, and it allows you to go over stuff together like this.

  “So Knob yells, ‘Gags,’ and I peeled around toward second base, like we were going to do a double play. He made the fake throw, and I even made a kind of a fake throw on to Hrbek at first. Knoblauch sold it so well that I felt I had to do the same. Lonnie Smith froze for a few steps, but I didn’t know if our fake play had much to do with it, honestly. As soon as it was over, I was on my horse, running back into short left field for the throw. That was the first and foremost thing in my mind—the relay throw I knew I had to make, not necessarily fooling Lonnie Smith.”

  The fake double play soon became part of baseball folklore. A perfect combination of chutzpa and guile that left poor Lonnie Smith stopped in his tracks. Admittedly, Smith had his share of misadventures on the basepaths. “Nobody ever realized I was naturally clumsy,” said the player nicknamed “Skates.” “You can ask my mother. . . . I was always knocking over things—falling. Earlier in my career I was known more for falling and tumbling than anything else.”

  Base runners are told to ignore the infielders—trust only where the ball is hit. Find it and then proceed accordingly. Years later Smith maintained that was exactly what he was trying to do. He insisted that he wasn’t fooled by any fake double play from Knoblauch and Gagne. “No way I was faked out,” he said dismissively.

  Smith maintained that if he thought it had been the makings of a double play, he would have slid into second base, and many on the field that evening ultimately agree with him.

  “If I’d taken the time to take one look, that could have been the difference,” Smith added. “If I saw the ball off the bat, there’s a good chance I could have scored. But I didn’t see it. I didn’t take that look in. That’s my mistake.”

  Except for a glance in Knoblauch’s direction, Smith’s attention remained on the outfield. He had lost sight of the ball off Pendleton’s bat, another victim of the sightlines and the Teflon-colored roof at the Metrodome. In that moment he briefly became concerned that Gladden or Puckett could perhaps snare Pendleton’s line drive.

  “I just didn’t pick up the ball and didn’t pick up Jimy,” he later told the Sporting News, referring to Braves third base coach Jimy Williams. “People want to blame me, that’s okay. The media’s version that Knoblauch fooled me is not true. I just didn’t see the ball. The only part the media got right was that I didn’t score on the play.”

  Tom Kelly agreed that Smith didn’t go for any fake, no matter how well planned or elaborate. “He just didn’t know where the ball was,” the Twins’ manager said.

  From his vantage point behind home plate, Minnesota catcher Brian Harper saw it all play out in front of him. Years later he believed Smith has gotten a bum rap. “Sure, it’s easy to say he should have scored,” Harper said. “But people forget that Gladden faked like he was going to catch it too. You actually had two fakes on that play.

  “The ball hit off the wall. In the Metrodome, especially when you’re the visiting player, it was really hard to pick up the ball. . . . Lonnie looked for the ball and he couldn’t see it. And then he saw Gladden raise his glove for an instant, like he was going to catch it. And so he stopped, which is probably what he should have done. With no outs, you can’t just keep running if you don’t know where the ball is. The ball hit the wall, and Gladden played it perfectly and got it in quickly.

  “I don’t believe the criticism was justified. It was a tough play, it’s tough to pick up the ball, and you had three guys in Gladden, Gagne, and Knoblauch trying to fool him.”

  Gagne added, “We caused enough confusion for him not to score on the play. That’s all I know.”

  Pendleton, who had hit the double that should have scored the game’s first run and perhaps the only one needed this evening, remembered pulling into second base and looking over at third base coach Williams. “I was ready to give him a pump of the fist or something. I mean we finally were on the board, and that’s when I realized that Lonnie was standing there right next to him,” Pendleton said. “I couldn’t believe it,
but it wasn’t any panic or anything like that. We had second and third with nobody out. It was no big deal. We’ve been here before. Frankly, I still expected us to score a couple of runs that inning. Break it open against Jack Morris.”

  Even without Smith crossing the plate on the play, the Twins were in a heap of trouble.

  “Some want to say that the shortstop and second baseman faked Lonnie,” Pendleton continued. “Well, I beg to differ. On the play he’s looking all over the place, and that’s because he couldn’t find the ball off the bat. So Jimy Williams finally waves him over to third. I mean this isn’t the end of the world for us.

  “We have second and third with nobody out. To this day everybody wants to blame Lonnie Smith for not scoring, but it isn’t like that at all. We had second and third with nobody out. You listening to what I’m saying? Second and third with nobody out.”

  Years later Harper agreed with Pendleton. “If [Smith] was in the eighth hole and it’s the pitcher coming up next, maybe you’re a little more aggressive on the basepaths. Maybe you try to score even if you’re not sure where the ball is. But it was three-four-five—Ron Gant, David Justice, and Sid Bream—coming up for Atlanta after that. Maybe the blame should be more on those guys.”

  All Gant needed was a fly ball, deep enough to score a run. Three innings before, Morris froze Gant with a fastball, and home plate umpire Don Denkinger had called the Braves’ slugger out. This time Gant wanted to be ready for anything near the plate. In doing so, Gant perhaps swung at a ball he should have let pass, grounding it up the first-base line. Hrbek easily caught it, held the runners, and tagged Gant for the unassisted out. That made Gant 0-for-4 in the ballgame.

  Moments after Hrbek got the first out of the inning Kelly came out of the dugout for a conference with Morris. The manager’s strategy was to walk David Justice and pitch to Sid Bream, with the bases loaded. Years later Morris said he agreed with Kelly’s decision. Harper, the Twins’ catcher who was there, remembered things differently.

  “Kelly comes out to the mound, and we’re meeting there, and he tells Jack to walk Justice,” Harper said. “And Jack keeps saying, ‘No, I can get him out. I can get him out. I don’t want to walk him.’

  “Finally Kelly says, ‘Jack, we’re going to walk him.’

  “Jack replied, ‘All right. I don’t like it, but I’ll walk him.’ So we walked Justice to load the bases.”

  Walking back behind the plate, Harper suddenly thought about the worst-scenario for him as the catcher. Why this of all things flashed through his mind at this particular moment he will never know, even years later when he thinks about Game Seven. But it came at him in a rush—a personal nightmare that momentarily rocked his world.

  “That’s when I envisioned a come-backer to Jack, he throws it to me at home plate, and I then airmail one past Hrbek and down into right field. We lose the World Series, and I’m the goat of all time. I would be the next Bill Buckner. I literally thought this right after we walked David Justice.

  “So then I’m thinking, Okay, get that thought out of your head. Lord, please help me to relax here and let me do my job. I had to really push that negative thought out of my mind. I had to do it right then and there. Pro athletes have negative thoughts all the time, and sometimes it’s all you can do to rid your mind of such things.”

  In a stunning turn of events Bream swung at the fourth offering, a Morris split that didn’t have much bite, and Harper’s nightmare began to play out for real. The only difference was that the grounder went to Hrbek at first base rather than back to Morris on the mound. Hrbek fielded it and threw home to Harper at the plate. The ball arrived well ahead of Smith, who came down the line from third base, and all the Twins’ catcher had to do was throw the ball back to Hrbek, who moved over to first base. That’s all he had to do and Minnesota would somehow get out of the inning without Atlanta scoring.

  “You’re never really looking for a 3–2–3 double play because that is so rare,” Harper remembered. “But here it comes, rolling out for real. Herbie threw it to me, and all I have to do is throw it back to him, nice and easy. Bream was the slowest guy on the Braves, so I have plenty of time. Maybe too much time. So now I get to thinking about it, remembering what flashed through my head seconds before.

  “But somehow I did it. Just nice and easy back to Herbie, and we’ve survived this jam. In that game there was so much pressure—a passed ball, a wild pitch—one thing like that could lose you the game, and everybody knew it.”

  ———

  F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, believed that we are never more alive than when we are doing something we love. At such times we do appear to be put on this earth for a purpose. For a moment or two we can move to the dance of mindfulness that the Buddha talked about, and time can stop for a beat or two as the rest of world gathers around. It’s as though the gods themselves cannot believe what they are bearing witness to.

  Fitzgerald hinted that such moments can fortify us for a short time against the tides of fate and even buffer us against death itself. Unfortunately, that notion didn’t play out as well as he would have liked, as the novelist died from a heart attack while writing The Last Tycoon, a story that could have been even better than The Great Gatsby. The unfinished novel ends with a hodgepodge of scenes and notes—where Fitzgerald happened to be in the writing when he died. So perhaps it’s somehow appropriate that the last line in The Last Tycoon reads simply, in all caps, ACTION IS CHARACTER.

  For that can be the final determination of so much. People can talk about what they plan to do or even what they have done, but it’s how they act to the day-to-day beat of another morning that ultimately determines how they will be remembered.

  ———

  After catching Harper’s careful throw for the third out, Hrbek pumped his fist and then celebrated by spiking the baseball into the Astroturf. Morris waited for Hrbek outside the dugout to slap gloves with him. Somewhat shaken, Harper walked slowly to the home dugout. Thanks to a base-running miscue for all time and some real bad luck, the game remained scoreless heading into the bottom of the eighth.

  “Jack Morris was never afraid about pitching in big games,” Pendleton said, “and that’s not good if you’re on the team that’s facing him in one of them. When we didn’t score in that situation, you knew it was going to be tough. Because this was Jack Morris. Somehow we hadn’t dented him.”

  In the bottom of the frame Twins pinch-hitter Randy Bush singled to center. Al Newman replaced him as a pinch-runner. Then Dan Gladden popped out to center after he failed to bunt the runner over. When Knoblauch singled to right, on a beautiful inside-out swing, Smoltz’s night came to an end. Game Six hero Kirby Puckett was due up next, and Smoltz wouldn’t best his boyhood hero on this night. After going seven and a third innings, allowing only six hits and striking out four, the Braves’ starter was lifted for reliever Mike Stanton.

  When Cox came out to the mound Smoltz was adamant that he could get Puckett. What he didn’t realize was that the Braves’ manager was a step or two ahead of him strategy-wise. “Bobby was going to intentionally walk Puckett and have Stanton pitch to Hrbek,” Smoltz said.

  Years later, in 2002, when the Braves returned to Minnesota for an interleague series, Smoltz and Morris would meet again. The first words out of Smoltz’s mouth? “I’m still mad about that game,” he told Morris.

  Back in 1991 Smoltz could only watch as Stanton did walk Puckett intentionally to load the bases with one out. Ironically, the Braves now found themselves in the same jam that the Twins had somehow escaped in the top of the same inning. And, perhaps, the baseball gods do have a sense of humor. For next up was Hrbek, who had started the stunning double play only minutes before.

  The Twins’ first baseman had struck out three times in the series against Stanton. Bearing down, Hrbek put good wood on the ball this time, only to line it sharply toward second baseman Mark Lemke. Now it was Knoblauch’s turn to make a base-running mistake
. Taking off with the pitch, he was easily doubled off when Lemke, his counterpart on the Braves, snared Hrbek’s liner and scampered to second base for the unassisted double play. If the Braves had gone ahead, would Knoblauch’s gaffe be remembered as much as Smith’s today? Who knows, but the Braves had somehow one-upped the Twins when it came to getting out of bases-loaded jams.

  ———

  Through nine innings Morris had thrown 118 pitches. Thankfully for the Twins and their fans, his manager didn’t put much credence in pitch counts. Instead, Tom Kelly kept tabs on how much time his starting pitcher actually spent on the mound. In a game without a clock, Kelly grew increasingly concerned when his starting pitcher went past the two-hour mark. For him, that’s when performance could go downhill in a hurry, and Morris was pushing up against that time barrier now in Game Seven.

  After Morris set Atlanta down in order in the top of the ninth inning closer Rick Aguilera began to warm up, ready to come in for the tenth inning. In the Twins’ dugout Kelly told Morris, “That’s all. Can’t ask you to do any more than that.”

  Some of what followed has suffered from revisionist history too. Predictably, Morris didn’t want to come out of the game. He claimed he had plenty left, and years later Kelly said that he was simply testing his staff ace. A quick one-two-three inning had convinced the skipper that Morris had more in the tank.

  Looking back on things, Morris said that Kelly was giving him a chance to come out of the game. An invitation that the player and manager, both of whom could be among the most hard-headed guys in the game, knew wouldn’t be accepted.

  “Jack was such a competitor that when he pitched, you never really talked to him. For lack of a better term, he was grouchy,” Harper recalled. “He’s a great guy, but he was so focused when he pitched. Now obviously he was locked in that night. In the ninth inning we had Aguilera warming up. Kelly goes to Jack and says, ‘Awesome job. Now we’ll bring Aggie in.’

  “Jack looked at him and said, ‘I’m not coming out of this game.’”