The Machine

by Joe Posnanski

  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 r
eporters 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.

  And with that, Sparky put down his fork, like he had been waiting for the question all along. And he said: “Bubula, I’ll tell you exactly what’s going to happen. Now they’re all going to find out what a real genius I am.”

  GENIUS

  June 17 to July 28

  You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

  —POLICE CHIEF MARTIN BRODY (ROY SCHEIDER), Jaws

  June 18, 1975

  CINCINNATI

  REDS VS. BRAVES

  Team record: 39–26

  First place by two and a half games

  “Businessman Special” in Cincinnati. Bob Howsam came up with the nutty idea to bring back afternoon games for those fans who wanted a little old-fashioned weekday baseball. He had this image in his mind of a stadium filled with men in business suits, all of them wearing hats, like it was 1938 all over again.

  “A baseball game is like a Broadway show,” he would say in interview after interview. Yes, it was all a show, and that was why he insisted on the players wearing uniforms precisely the same way, why he would never allow his catchers to stand in the on-deck circle while wearing their shin guards (“It just looks terrible,” he told Sparky), why the Cincinnati Reds batters were never to be seen wearing their baseball caps underneath their batting helmets. It was all a show, and it had to be precise.

  “He treats us like we’re a fucking chorus line” is how Johnny Bench described it. And there was something to that: Howsam had this image in his mind, this brilliant image of what baseball in Cincinnati should look like. And the more other teams spiraled away from that image, the more certain he felt that the Reds stood for something bigger than baseball.

  For years, the “Businessman Special” crowds in Cincinnati were sparse and grumpy—it was a fine idea in theory, but in reality few people really had the freedom in the 1970s to knock off work and head out to the ballpark. Plus, it was damned hot and humid in Cincinnati in the summer; there was a good reason Cincinnati was the first major league team to play under lights back in 1935. There was nothing in baseball quite like the midwestern fire of St. Louis and Cincinnati and Kansas City in the afternoons.

  But Howsam stuck with the idea. And here it was, a Wednesday afternoon against a terrible Atlanta Braves team, and more than thirty thousand people poured into Riverfront Stadium. They were not all wearing suits like Howsam had envisioned, but it was still beautiful. The town was falling for this team again.

  Nobody could believe the heat. You could actually see it lifting off the field in waves, like desert heat in the movies. Johnny Bench had been playing in Cincinnati for almost eight years, and he had never felt this sort of oven burst as he walked out of the clubhouse and onto the field. He knew before the game even began that he would lose five pounds before it was over, maybe ten pounds. He was edgy. They were all edgy—they were playing the Braves, who were no match, who did not even belong on the same field. “Let’s play quick,” Johnny muttered to his pitcher, Jack Billingham.

  With the score tied in the third inning, Bench came to the plate, and he swung angrily and ripped a hard ground ball down the third-base line. The ball smashed right into the knee of third-base umpire Lee Weyer. And while he hopped around in pain, the ball bounced out to center field. It was ruled a ground-rule double, two runs scored, and Bench stood at second base with a big smile he could not quite hide. Well, at least someone else would feel a little bit of pain on this preposterously hot day.

  “You ever hit an umpire before?” Joe asked in the clubhouse after the game.

  “Wanted to,” Bench said. “But never did.”

  The Reds won again, and Weyer sent the baseball into the clubhouse and asked Bench if he would sign it. Bench, the kid who had practiced signing autographs at McKinney’s Texaco station back in Oklahoma, had grown out of the habit; he did not like signing autographs. But he happily signed this one.

  “What did you write on it?” reporters asked him.

  “Sorry,” Bench said.

  Everybody was talking about Jaws, the movie. Lines were stretching around movie theaters. Movie critics were calling it the scariest movie ever made. “MAY BE TOO INTENSE FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN,” the poster warned. SUPER SHARK was the headline on the cover of Time magazine. A movie had never quite taken over America like this one…but then, a movie had never before opened up in 409 movie theaters around the country simultaneously. It was the first summer blockbuster in Hollywood history.

  The timing was perfect: as summer began in 1975, it seemed like everyone wanted something to take them away, something bloody and jolting and utterly unreal and yet, at the same time, too real. Movie reviewers at newspapers wrote two reviews of the movie—one reviewing the movie itself, another reviewing people’s reactions. In a couple of weeks, Jaws would be shown in 675 theaters—more theaters than any movie ever—and there would be a new Jaws movie poster telling people to “See what you missed the first time after closing your eyes.”

  Pete Rose had his own summer release—he had written a diary of the 1974 season with the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Bob Hertzel. The book was called Charlie Hustle. Pete hated the book. Well, he didn’t hate what was written in the book—as he told friends, he didn’t even read it. No, it was just that he had become convinced that the book was bad luck, that it was part of the reason he did not hit .300 in 1974. The book had distracted him. Pete had always just lived. Now, though, he found himself watching things and thinking, Yeah, that will be a funny thing to put in the book.

  There was this one time in 1974 when he was in a slump—he’d gone two games without a hit—and he went into the clubhouse after the game.

  “We’d better guard the pool tonight,” Joe Morgan said. “Pete might just jump out of his window into it. We’ll find him floating, facedown, in the morning.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” hitting coach Big Klu said. “He won’t hit that either.”

  That was funny stuff, and Pete wrote it down. But maybe it was bad luck to tell everybody about it. Maybe he should have kept his focus on the game. Or maybe Pete just felt like he gave away too much of himself. The critics were not especially kind. The book apparently had made him seem shallow and driven by his numbers and, well, obsessed. There was his description of the charms of San Francisco: “Sophisticated? Lovely? Filled with charm and excitement? Bull. Candlestick Park is a sad excuse for a ballpark.”

  Oh, yeah, the critics had a ball with that. Well, wh
at was everybody laughing about? Candlestick Park was a pit. Sure, he was stat-driven and obsessed, Rose knew that, but maybe that was his secret, maybe that was why he hit .300 every year, maybe that was why he made himself into a ballplayer when everybody kept telling him he was too slow and couldn’t throw and didn’t have any power. Maybe he should not have written the damned book. Anyway, he just wanted to get away from 1974. His slump was over. He had gotten hot. He just wanted to get up there and hit.

  Saturday night in Houston, in the stale, air-conditioned air of the Astrodome, he stepped into the batter’s box. He stared at J. R. Richard, a twenty-five-year-old man-child who stood six-foot-eight and could throw a baseball one hundred miles per hour but had only the vaguest notion of where it was going. This was Pete’s kind of pitcher, his kind of challenge. “I hear you can throw hard, kid,” he shouted at Richard. “Let me see a little bit of that heat.” Richard reached back and fired his best fastball. Pete whacked a line drive for a base hit. Best feeling in the world, ripping a hard fastball.

  “I thought you were supposed to throw the ball hard,” Pete said next time he stepped up to face Richard. “That didn’t seem too hard to me.” Richard threw his fastball as hard as he could, maybe even a little harder, and Pete ripped it into the gap for a double. There was no way to throw a fastball past him when he felt like this, when his eyes felt sharp, when his whole body felt as sensitive as a tuning fork. He was hitting .319. He felt alive.

  The game went on. The Reds thought they won in the top of the tenth when they scored twice, but the Astros scored two runs in the bottom of the inning to keep the game going. The game stretched on and on, and in the fourteenth inning Rose came up again, only this time he faced Joe Niekro, the brother of the great Braves pitcher Phil. The Niekros threw knuckleballs. And unlike fastballs, knuckleballs just pissed off Pete Rose. Hard fastballs, like J. R. Richard’s fastball, spoke to Pete Rose. He thought baseball should be like a gunfight at high noon, two men under a high sun, facing off, one winner and one loser, one quick and one dead. Pete wanted a pitcher to throw his best fastball, and he would swing his best swing, and they would see who was the better man. Pete felt pretty certain that he was the better man.