Dodgerland

by Michael Fallon

  Lopes had certainly come a long way from when Lasorda named him team captain back in spring training. In fact, Lopes’s antics in the game had not gone without notice. Reggie Jackson, who had been the MVP of the previous World Series, seemed amused by the gestures. “I think the Dodgers were pretty sure they had us then,” said Jackson years later, though he also suggested that he, for one, was hardly worried. “We felt we could beat anybody,” said Jackson of the team after it emerged from the extra playoff game against Boston. “One way or another we were going to beat you.” Others of the Yankees, however, were less diplomatic than Reggie in assessing the Dodgers’ behavior. “The Dodgers really pissed us all off,” Sparky Lyle wrote a year or so later. “Lopes was hitting these home runs and circling the bases with his finger pointing in the air, as if to say, ‘We’re number one.’ How bush is that? Our guys kept saying, ‘We don’t want to just beat them. We want to really kick their ass.’”12

  That ass kicking would have to wait, however, as the Dodgers had other plans in Game Two. With Burt Hooton up against the up-and-down Catfish Hunter, the Dodgers were confident—Hooton had been the Dodgers’ most reliable pitcher over much of 1978. In the resulting pitchers’ duel, the Yankees got the scoring started in the third inning by stringing together a couple of base hits in advance of a two-out, two-run double by Reggie Jackson. The Dodgers, however, responded with a run of their own in the bottom of the fourth when Ron Cey, batting with one out and runners on first and second, singled in Reggie Smith. And they went ahead in the sixth inning when Ron Cey struck again, this time with a two-out, three-run home run off Hunter that landed halfway up the bleacher pavilion in left-center field. It would be enough for the win, though the Yankees—and particularly Reggie Jackson—were not finished. The Yankees scraped together a run off reliever Forster in the top of the seventh on a couple of hits and an RBI grounder by Jackson. Then, with Forster entering his third inning of relief in the ninth, the Yankees threatened again. Bucky Dent led off with a single, and, one out later, Paul Blair walked to put the tying run in scoring position. Lasorda, coming to the mound, made a fateful decision. Determining that Forster had run out of steam, he signaled to the bullpen to send in the right-hander, his tall and lanky twenty-one-year-old rookie steam engine of a pitcher, Bob Welch.

  After blowing a high fastball past Thurman Munson, Welch quickly got the Yankee captain to pop up, setting up a classic World Series moment. Afterward, some would deem it a showdown for the ages, the kind of tête-à-tête that could occur only in baseball. With two on, two outs in the ninth inning of a World Series Game Two, with everything on the line in a one-run battle, an untested rookie now faced the fearsome slugger who had all but demolished the Dodgers in the previous World Series (and was already responsible for driving in all three runs tonight)—Reggie Jackson. Many among the crew of esteemed national writers who were at the game—people like Roger Angell, Jim Murray, Phil Pepe, Dick Young, Dave Anderson—were, in the days and weeks that followed, effusive about the battle.13 The showdown, they suggested, was exactly the sort of moment that made baseball so great.

  With the entire season on the line for both teams, the at bat lasted nine pitches and more than seven high-pressure minutes. Adding to the tension was the fact that the entire stadium of fans—more than fifty-five thousand—were cheering, standing and stomping their feet, throughout the showdown. In the ABC TV broadcast booth, the announcers grew increasingly effusive. “You couldn’t ask for a more dramatic moment for a young pitcher right here,” said Tom Seaver from the booth, almost in awe from the start of the at bat. “You’re getting it all here,” said the homespun former catcher Joe Garagiola at the seven-pitch mark, with Jackson having fouled off four pitches and the count stuck at 2-2. “The kid against the veteran. The fast baller against the fastball hitter.” Then, a few moments later, Garagiola effused even more. “I tell you, this kid, he doesn’t have any shorts when it comes to that thing called guts. . . . He’s just lookin’ in, getting the sign, and firin’.” And still the at bat continued.

  Throughout the at bat Jackson looked agitated, nothing like himself in Game Six of the 1977 World Series. His swings were desperate, out of control, his body twisting and torquing, struggling to keep up with the young pitcher’s speed. For his part, however, Bob Welch seemed preternaturally calm—calmer than anyone had a right to be under the circumstances. He looked like he was working on his car in the driveway, not throwing a small leather sphere at one of the most feared sluggers in the league in front of fifty-five thousand screaming people (and millions more watching television at home). Years later, in his as-told-to biography, Tom Lasorda took some amount of credit for setting up the showdown, as he had specifically chosen Welch to work in this situation for reasons that went beyond his talent as a pitcher. Certainly, Lasorda, like many in the Dodger organization, loved Welch’s arm, the movement and velocity he got on the ball. But Lasorda had seen something in Welch during the season, something he thought more important. “Having dealt with many young players in both the major and minor leagues,” Bill Plaschke wrote years later, “Lasorda recognized the look in Welch’s eyes: the kid had no idea where he was, no clue about the importance of the situation. The kid was perfect.” And how Lasorda treated Welch as the young pitcher took over the mound in the ninth inning was intended to assist him. “Instead of giving him a pep talk, he [Lasorda] handed him the ball, shrugged, and uttered two words: ‘Throw strikes.’”14

  Whatever the real situation the fact that the veteran seemed somehow less in control than the rookie only added more juice to the drama. In reality Welch was anything but blasé or overly confident, either in the World Series or as a ballplayer. In fact, he was the opposite, uncertain of his place on the team, of whether he would fit in and be able to stay up in the Major Leagues. In his own assessment of that first season, Welch was awkward with his teammates and the press, and he was never able to think of the right thing to say. “The press thought I was vague and distant,” Welch would say in his own biography, “and I guess I was.”15 Originally from the Detroit area, from a family of hardworking, hard-drinking salt-of-the-earth types, Welch would later reveal another aspect of his personal makeup: he was an out-of-control alcoholic. But that wouldn’t be an issue for a while yet, as he had yet, in his first season, to grow so erratic that he would require treatment to clean up. He was not drunk facing Jackson in 1978, nor was he hungover. He was just a cipher.

  On the eighth pitch, Welch let the ball get away from him a little, tailing high and wide. The count was now full. Oddly, Jackson seemed stunned by the pitch, as if it had shown him something, some extra speed or movement that he’d not expected. Before the at bat, as Welch had warmed up on the mound, Jackson, who was careful in how he prepared for games, had spoken briefly to Graig Nettles about the kid. Jackson was hoping, in order to get a potential leg up, to learn one more bit of information about the rookie pitcher and what Jackson might expect to see from him if he happened to face him. Now, as the crowd ramped up the noise in anticipation of the payoff pitch, Jackson looked back and forth, to the screen and back at the pitcher, confused and disbelieving. And as he checked back into the batter’s box, he gave his head a quick, private shake. Welch looked in and checked the sign from Yeager, though both of them knew what he was going to throw. Over in the dugouts, on both sides, the benches were alive with agitated movement. Coaches, players, batboys, attendants—everyone knew this was the ball game. It was the ninth pitch of the at bat. Either Jackson would now explode with a long hit—a bases-clearing double, or perhaps even a home run—or the Dodgers would prevail. In the Dodger dugout Lasorda sat amid a tangle of men, looking away from the field. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, almost as if in prayer. Welch set and delivered. It was his hardest fastball yet, a frozen rope of a pitch, a bit down and in. Jackson swung over the pitch, recoiling so hard after that he almost fell over. When he recovered his balance he exploded in frustration, slamming his bat down and barking like a
drill sergeant. Jackson had been fooled. The kid had prevailed, and the Dodgers had gone up in the World Series, two games to none.

  Baseball is a game of long history, but it is also, because of its particular stop-start rhythm, a game of emotional shifts, sometimes quick and subtle, sometimes jarring and devastating. In baseball one moment’s euphoria can in the next instant become doom. A hitting streak is always in danger of becoming a game-ending double play, and a 0-21 slump can end with a game-winning home run. On October 11, 1978, the Dodgers were as high as they had been in October in many years. In the first two games of the Series, both at Dodger Stadium, the team had beaten their old rivals, and all was well. “It was unbelievable,” said one man who was in a position to see events unfold, catcher Steve Yeager. “What a performance!” exclaimed Tom Lasorda. “That boy can pitch,” said Bill North. It was the sort of performance, everyone understood, that could prefigure a glorious sweep to a championship. “All the Yankees seem to be swinging right now,” wrote an L.A. sportswriter the day after Welch’s dramatic performance against Jackson, “at the hard end of the Dodger rope.”16

  On October 12, as the team traveled to New York, players were at ease. It seemed, at last, the struggles and trials of the long and contentious season—of the past several seasons—were behind them. Winning does that, of course. Winning makes everything seem right. Except, as it happened, Welch’s strikeout of Jackson turned out to be pretty much the last high note for the Dodgers for the rest of the Series. Lasorda and the Dodgers landed in New York, and almost immediately the team’s mood dimmed. Perhaps they recalled their treatment at Yankee Stadium a year ago—when fans attacked the team bus, phoned death threats to several players in their hotel rooms, and showered the team with abuse and physical projectiles. Whatever the reason there’s no explanation for what happened next: they lost three straight games to the Yankees. The first was a 5–1 loss to the dominating Ron Guidry in Game Three that amounted to the first World Series pitching loss of veteran Dodger pitcher Don Sutton’s career. In the game, while the Yankees started their relentless attack in the first inning—when Roy White homered off Sutton—the Dodgers could manage only one extra-base hit.

  In Game Four the Dodgers lost a heartbreaker that many believe should not have been a loss. It was, to many, a quintessential example of the ball breaking in the Yankees’ direction. To Dodger players, staff, and supporters, the game was marred by what they saw as at worst blatant cheating, and at best a blown call. The play in question occurred in the sixth inning. At the time the Dodgers were holding on to a comfortable 3–0 lead. John had been baffling hitters as usual, recording nine ground outs in the first five innings. In the sixth, however, after rallying to load the bases with one out, the Yankees sent Lou Piniella up to face John. With two pitchers up in the bullpen, John treated Piniella carefully, pitching him low and on the outside part of the plate. On a 1-0 count Piniella connected on a John sinker and hit a soft, sinking line drive to Dodger shortstop Bill Russell that he seemed poised to catch. But the wily shortstop, seeing the runners frozen on the base paths, let the ball bounce off his glove, perhaps thinking he could end the inning in one easy play. Scooping the ball up, Russell stepped on second base, forcing Jackson for the second out, and then threw toward first base to double-up Piniella. Unfortunately, the ball never reached first, instead striking Reggie Jackson and scuttling off into foul territory behind first base. Confusion followed, as Yankee base runners ran wildly around the bases while Dodger fielders gestured at Jackson. Lasorda, of course, rushed to the scene, loudly objecting that Jackson had interfered on the play and the batter should have been called out. “He got in the way of the ball,” Lasorda shouted at first base umpire Frank Pulli. “He’s gotta get out of the way. He got in the way of the ball. He’s gotta get out of the way! . . . He was standing there, he made no attempt.”17 Despite Lasorda’s vigorous protests, the home plate umpire, after a short huddle, called the ball dead but with no interference. Piniella was safe and awarded second base, and two runs were given to the Yankees. The Dodgers were deflated. Two innings later the Yankees tied the game, and in the bottom of the tenth they scored again for the 4–3 Series-tying win.

  After the game, and for many years afterward, members of the Dodgers railed at the injustice of it all—especially after seeing the replays, which clearly showed that Jackson had leaned his hip into the ball—claiming these were “illegal tactics.” Jackson, in the immediate aftermath, was wisely low-key in response to questions. “I didn’t know where the hell to go,” he said of the moment before he was struck by Russell’s throw. “I just froze.”18 Years later, however, after the dust had settled, Reggie Jackson was far more candid about the play. “Did I mean to do it?” he asked rhetorically.

  Let’s just say it was what Roger Angell called it, “an almost chance reaction.” I had started to second, but I had no chance to get there before Russell did. I saw the ball coming toward me, and I thought, “I’m going to get hit in . . . a highly sensitive area.” So I moved just a little. . . . I could’ve jumped all the way to one side or another. But I thought, “I’m in my right-of-way. I’m in the baseline. I’m going to be out anyway, so why not just stand there and play stupid?” I thought, “I’m out anyway, so it’s not so bad if I stay here and let it hit me.”19

  Whatever Jackson’s reasoning, or the nuances of the rule book, the effect of the play was it caused a sea change in the emotional narrative of the Series. The Dodgers, who had been within a hair of taking a 3–1 Series lead with two of the last three games to be played in Los Angeles, knew what they had lost. And when the team should have been focusing on the games yet to be played, now they were stuck in reviewing over and over what had happened. As a result the Dodgers could never really get back into the Series, losing a sloppy Game Five in New York, 12–2, to the rookie pitcher Jim Beattie, and then failing to rally in Game Six, despite being back at home with their own ace Sutton on the mound against the ailing Hunter. In the end it all proved too much for the deflated boys in blue. Once again, it was Reggie Jackson who crushed the Dodgers in the World Series, though this time he had done it with his hip, not with his bat.

  Afterword

  Leaving Babylon

  Nobody is apt to look back on the 1970s as the good old days.

  —Time, August 27, 1979

  In the eighth inning of Game Six of the 1978 World Series, the Dodgers threatening with runners on first and third and one out, Bill Russell laced a sharp line drive down the third base line that looked, after it was struck, like a sure extra-base hit. Fans all around the city—working late in the office, at home in their TV rooms, listening in on the radio—momentarily leaped up in excitement, only to be immediately disappointed. People talk about the balance that exists in baseball between team effort and individual effort, how winning often depends on both well-coordinated teamwork and occasional game-changing individual performance. Russell’s line drive could have been the individual effort that made the difference for the Dodgers, likely leading to two runs with the middle of the lineup due up and runners still on base. But it was instead a moment for another individual, Yankee third baseman Graig Nettles, to make the difference in the game. Taking a step to his right, Nettles cleanly fielded Russell’s smash, smoothly threw the ball to second baseman Doyle, who stepped on second base for the force and threw on to first base to complete the double play and end the inning.

  One inning later, after the last out was recorded in the 1978 World Series, a shell-shocked and disbelieving Tom Lasorda left the dugout at Dodger Stadium, entered the tunnel underneath the lower concourse, and walked to the home clubhouse. He lagged behind most of his players, his heart heavy in his chest. Later, he barely recalled entering the clubhouse and speaking to his players. He must’ve said encouraging words, but he couldn’t swear to it afterward. After speaking, Lasorda left the clubhouse and walked to his office. There, he collapsed in his office chair and stared forward at nothing in particular. Members of the press came
by, but for once he waved them away. His head hurt, his eyes were streaming tears, and he didn’t want to talk. He couldn’t believe it. His team, all his boys, had now lost it all two years running to the Yankees. He would never forget this moment, he told himself, never. He would carry this bitterness, this resentment—especially over that bastard Jackson—with him through life. It was just too much. He would never get over this, he told himself. Never.

  Tom Lasorda was not the only person who struggled with disappointment and bitterness after the end of the 1978 World Series. For days afterward many Dodger players, staff, and team followers struggled to contain their bile toward the Yankees, their fans, stadium officials, Reggie Jackson, and the team’s owner. Famous Dodger fan Lillian Carter, for example, was out to dinner with family friends on the night of Game Six, and when she heard the final score of the game she fell suddenly ill. Closer to home, meanwhile, Bill Russell told members of the press that a good part of the troubles of the Dodgers in the Series was because of the New York fans who, he said flatly, were “animals.” Dave Lopes was even more blunt, suggesting that nothing could improve Yankee Stadium beyond a bomb blast. Adding fuel to the frustration of the Dodger camp was a newspaper commentary by writer Bruce Lowitt. Pointing out that New York was the more hardscrabble place, a city that had “the best and the worst but always the most” and was “facing bankruptcy and telling the rest of the country to buzz off,” while Los Angeles was the “laid back land of the avocado, suntans, smog tans, easy living, starlets living in a dream world,” Lowitt suggested that in the conflict of the two urban outlooks—as seen through the lens of a battle between their respective baseball teams—there was no contest. “Los Angeles is Tom Lasorda’s love boat,” wrote Lowitt, “cruising along like the Titanic, destined to run into that cold, hard, sharp, dealing thing called the Yankees, to get itself ripped to shreds . . . and to sink. New York is Dracula in pinstripes. Frankenstein in spikes. You can bet against it all you want, you can burn it, shoot it, rip it apart. But you can’t kill it. And it’ll getcha.”1