Game Six

by Mark Frost

  That trend had continued into the World Series; Cooper stepped in as Boston’s first batter in Game Six with only one hit in thirteen at bats.

  Opposing Cooper on the mound was Reds starting pitcher Gary Nolan. In its broad outlines, the twenty-seven-year-old Nolan’s career bore a more than passing resemblance to that of Luis Tiant. He had arrived in the major leagues in 1967 as a highly touted eighteen-year-old prospect, after less than one full season of minor-league ball, and won fourteen games as a rookie while striking out more than two hundred batters. By 1970, when Sparky took over and the early edition of the Big Red Machine made its first trip to the World Series, Nolan had established himself as the staff’s ace and one of the premier power pitchers in the National League. He continued to enhance that reputation through 1972, when the Reds returned to the Series against the A’s; Nolan turned in his finest performance to date that year, going 15–5 with a 1.99 earned run average. But a minor flaw in his mechanics finally caught up with him late in that season; after coming down with a sore shoulder, he discovered that years of throwing slightly across his body had seriously frayed his right rotator cuff. At a time when the soundness of pitchers’ arms was under much less scrutiny—one of the most frequent prescriptions for arm trouble then was still to “throw through it”—Nolan was encouraged by the team to gut it out for the remainder of the season. When the injury persisted into 1973, he went to see Dr. Frank Jobe in Los Angeles, just then establishing his reputation as the country’s first orthopedic surgeon with an enlightened understanding of—and operating table solutions for—damaged throwing arms. Jobe recommended immediate surgery; once again the Reds counseled Nolan to hold off and see if he could rehab the injury with a regimen of physical therapy. He complied but was able to throw only ten innings in ’73 before shutting it down for the season, and finally went under the knife in the spring of 1974 to remove what turned out to be a large calcium deposit that had been ripping a hole in his shoulder muscle.

  After almost two years on the sidelines, Nolan had returned to the Reds rotation in 1975, and gone 15–9 in his thirty-two starts, but he was a less dominant pitcher now, and in his absence twenty-four-year-old Don Gullett, a flame-throwing left-hander, had stepped in to replace him as the Reds’ number one starter. Nolan no longer threw anything like the same blazing fastball, but he could still spot the one he had, as well as a sharply breaking curve, for strikes, and he retained command of his best “out” pitch, an exceptionally well-disguised changeup. Like Luis Tiant—even more so—he now relied on control, guile, and skill instead of sheer speed. Both men had confronted the fate that awaits almost every professional pitcher: when the unnatural strain of repeatedly throwing a five-ounce sphere as hard as you can for sixty feet, six inches causes the sinew and bones of your arm, shoulder, or elbow to break down. These two, unlike most, had worked their way back from devastating injury to the winner’s circle, but unlike Tiant, Nolan had never lost the support of his team. A highly intelligent student of the game, family man, stand-up guy, and committed team player, Gary Nolan embodied more than any other man on their roster the straight-arrow values that the Reds prized and projected as an organization. He never griped to the press about his injury or bemoaned the bad luck that had befallen him, soldiering on to do whatever Sparky and the team asked of him, but since the injury, all through the ’75 season, and for the rest of what remained of his career, he pitched in constant and considerable pain.

  Nolan had been the Reds’ starter in Game Three back in Cincinnati—his fifth career World Series start—throwing four strong innings while allowing only a single run on a Carlton Fisk home run. When his neck and shoulder tightened up, Nolan left the game with a lead the Reds would eventually yield and then reclaim for the win in the bottom of the tenth inning, after one of the most controversial plays, also involving Fisk, in Series history. It had appeared as if that would be Nolan’s only action in the Series—the nature of his arm trouble made it impractical for him to be used out of the bullpen, where he might have to warm up more than once—when Sparky named Jack Billingham as his starter for Game Six and, if necessary, Don Gullett in Game Seven. The extended rain delay over the weekend changed all that.

  Nolan snuck an inside fastball past Cooper for a called first strike, then came right back at him with another down and away that Cooper swung on and missed.

  When Commissioner Bowie Kuhn called off Game Six on Sunday for the second day in a row both Sparky and Darrell Johnson had taken the opportunity to reassess their starting pitching assignments. Given his commanding performance in the Series to date, moving a rested Luis Tiant up from Game Seven to a must-win Game Six was a no-brainer for Johnson, although it prompted an entertaining eruption in the press from voluble Sox left-hander Bill Lee, who was pushed back to a possible Game Seven. The choice Sparky made with Larry Shepard—dropping Jack Billingham for Nolan, but keeping Gullett slated for a Game Seven—appeared to be a riskier call. Billingham had been the winningest pitcher on the Reds staff over the last three years, a tall, seasoned, rubber-armed sinker-baller who on the face of it seemed a better fit for the challenges any pitcher faced in Fenway Park: keeping the ball on the ground, to use the slow infield track to his advantage and minimize the hazards of the Monster in short left. Billingham had demonstrated he could do exactly that during his only start of the Series, in Game Two, holding the Red Sox to a single earned run through six innings, a game the Reds then went on to win with two runs in the top of the ninth.

  In explaining the rearrangement of his rotation to the press on Sunday, Sparky reasoned that the rain delay had allowed Nolan’s tender arm to recover from his last start, and since he couldn’t throw out of the bullpen, giving him the ball to start Game Six was the only way to utilize one of his best men. Sparky was also privately concerned that his celebrated relief corps had begun to tire after he’d worked them so hard throughout the year, and keeping Billingham in reserve in the bullpen should Nolan falter early seemed his best insurance policy. Having already lost two World Series, Sparky had also decided to shorten his notorious hook another notch on this night and throw every arm he had except Gullett at the Red Sox to win Game Six, anything to avoid another final, deciding contest. And Gary Nolan felt good as he took the mound; he’d warmed up without any pain or stiffness despite the cool weather, and his fastball had some visible pop in it.

  Nolan came back with a change of pace perfectly set up by the first two fastballs; Cooper tried to adjust to it mid-swing, but the ball lofted off his bat for an easy fly out to center fielder Cesar Geronimo.

  Red Sox second baseman Denny Doyle came to the plate. Perhaps more than any other man on the field that night, Denny Doyle was just happy to be there. A classic old-school middle infielder—he stood only five-nine and weighed 175—the thirty-one-year-old small-town Kentucky native had spent five years in the majors toiling on mediocre teams in Philadelphia and Anaheim before coming over to the Red Sox in a trade on June 13. He’d never hit much—his career average was .242—acknowledging he’d only made it this far in the game because of his glove and hustle, and that spring for the Angels he’d abruptly lost his starting job to a talented rookie from Massachusetts named Jerry Remy. Riding the pine for a last-place team, Doyle had started to worry his major-league career might be over—he had a wife and three young daughters to support, with no formal training in any other field to fall back on—when the Red Sox, desperate for a second baseman to lighten the workload of their oft-injured longtime starter Doug Griffin, pulled the trigger on the deal, obtaining Denny Doyle for cash and the proverbial “player to be named later.”

  Given scant attention in the press at the time, this turned out to be general manager Dick O’Connell’s most important transaction of the season. Energized by his new opportunity, the left-hand-hitting Doyle joined the team in Kansas City and made an immediate impact, with a defensive play that preserved a win in his first start, and a crucial home run in his second. The Red Sox went on to win their first
six games in a row with Doyle at second base. Doyle’s sound fundamental abilities to bunt, execute the hit-and-run, and advance runners proved to be a perfect fit in the number two spot of their lineup, which helped compensate for the lack of an ideal leadoff man. He continued to play sound defense, turned the double play to perfection, and hit over his head all season; in his eighty-nine games with the Red Sox Doyle averaged over .300 for the first, and only, time in his career. When hard-luck Doug Griffin was seriously beaned for the second time in the season at the end of August, Doyle had the second base job to himself for most of September’s stretch run, and throughout the American League Championship against the A’s. Griffin had made only one pinch-hit appearance in the Series through five games, while the dependable Denny Doyle had hit safely in every game so far, the only man on either team to do so.

  Nolan started him with a fastball that Doyle fouled straight back.

  Because their surge to the American League title had coincided with his arrival, the slightly elfin Doyle had been adopted by the Red Sox and their fans as a kind of good luck charm during the ’75 season; seldom, either, does it hurt to be named Doyle in Boston. He was a steadying veteran presence in the locker room, and another hardworking grinder on the field, so he fit right in with the tone set by Yastrzemski, Fisk, and Rico Petrocelli, the team’s acknowledged leaders. The other Red Sox often kidded him that, despite his size, he was far from the fleetest foot on the team, and he walked with a sprightly, splayfooted gait, so naturally they nicknamed him “Ducky.”

  With his quick bat, Doyle turned on Nolan’s next pitch, a fastball up in the zone that Doyle chopped sharply on one hop a step to the right of Reds first baseman Tony Perez. The swing imparted considerable backspin to the ball, and it kicked up and caromed off the heel of Perez’s glove, but he had just enough time to pick it up and toss it to Nolan covering first for the out, a step ahead of Doyle.

  Carl Yastrzemski stepped into the left side of the box, twice carefully measuring the outside corner of the plate with a single tap of his bat, then stood erect and lofted it straight and high, and stared down his hawkish beak toward Nolan. With his raptor’s eye, Yaz took the first pitch, a slow curve low and away, for a ball, then laid off a high fastball for ball two. The thirty-six-year-old Yastrzemski was still at any time one of the most dangerous hitters alive; ahead in the count, he was an assassin. Nolan kicked around the mound for a beat, gathering himself, frustrated that he’d missed with both those pitches. He’d gotten Yastrzemski out twice in Game Three by keeping the ball low and inducing grounders to the right side. That’s the signal Bench gave Nolan again now—they’d been battery mates since the Instructional League, had come up to the Reds as rookies, become close friends and then major-league stars together; by now they could almost read each other’s mind on the field—but Nolan missed again with a fastball, just outside, behind to Yaz 3–0 now.

  On a signal from Darrell Johnson in the dugout, the Red Sox third base coach Don Zimmer flashed the take sign, something of a surprise; Yastrzemski had led the team in walks, wasn’t ever inclined to chase bad pitches, and Johnson usually gave Yaz the green light under any circumstances, but not here, not in this game; this early in the contest he wanted base runners any way he could get them. Taking all the way, Yaz watched a hittable fastball sail across the meat of the plate for strike one.

  Now the payoff: Forced to come back into the zone, Nolan threw a moving fastball that drifted up and over the inside corner, an effective pitch to most batters; Yaz unleashed a full-bodied hack and lashed it past Perez into right field for the game’s first hit. The ball skidded on the damp grass, losing most of its steam by the time Ken Griffey picked it up and tossed it back to Morgan covering second.

  Cleanup hitter and catcher Carlton Fisk stood in, the first right-handed bat in the Red Sox lineup. With his broad-boned frame, Fisk looked even larger than his six-two, 225 pounds; he was in fact one of the biggest men to ever play his position. He was raised on his family’s New Hampshire cattle farm, and both of Fisk’s parents had been superb athletes; all six of their children inherited the talent. Carlton had been the slowest of the Fisks’ four boys to grow into his body; the early nickname his brothers hung on him, “Pudge,” certainly no longer applied, but would stick throughout his life. Harsh New England winters limited Fisk’s early baseball career; basketball was his best and favorite sport early on, and playing center for his small high school against much taller players helped forge his pronounced mental and physical toughness. Those skills earned Fisk a basketball scholarship to the University of New Hampshire, where his older brother Calvin was captain of the soccer team, and as an undersized power forward he led their freshman team to an undefeated season. Despite playing less than a hundred baseball games in his amateur career—many of them as a pitcher; he ended up behind the plate almost by accident, when he replaced his injured older brother in a game—Pudge attracted enough attention from the Red Sox to be selected as a catcher in the first round of the 1967 draft. (His brothers Calvin and Conrad were also drafted by the Orioles and Montreal Expos respectively, but Uncle Sam’s draft took priority. Calvin ended up in Vietnam, and the Orioles had lost interest by the time he returned; Conrad blew out his arm before he ever pitched a professional inning.) Facing the reality that having reached his full height he’d never play for the Celtics, and eager to make a living and reduce the financial burden on his family, Fisk left college after one year to accept an offer from the Red Sox, the team he’d loved since childhood, the only one, Fisk had insisted to all the pro scouts who took an interest in him, that he would ever play for.

  Pitching from the stretch, Nolan’s first fastball to Fisk missed high and over the middle of the plate, not the outside corner where Bench had set up.

  A much harder thing for Carlton Fisk to accept about baseball was losing; he had never done much of it, ever, in any sport. The passion and fiery will to win that would become the hallmarks of his Hall of Fame career took a beating in the lower ranks of the minor leagues. He occasionally struggled at the plate, but continued to hit for power and play solid defense wherever they sent him, and within three seasons Fisk ended up in Triple-A at Louisville, where manager Darrell Johnson, the onetime major-league catcher, made a project of teaching him the finer points of baseball’s most complex position. Under Johnson’s tutelage, Fisk earned a September call-up to the Red Sox in ’71 and made an immediate impact on both sides of the plate. During the spring of 1972, when starting catcher Duane Josephson was badly hurt in only the third game of the season, Fisk walked on stage and grabbed the job in his Bunyonesque fists. For Boston fans he seemed almost too good to be true; a towering, ruggedly handsome New Englander with phenomenal power, the strength of an ox, catlike reflexes, fearsome competitive drive, and the balls to call out any pitcher—rookie or veteran—during a game who didn’t measure up to his high standards. Carlton Fisk’s 1972 season played out like a dream; he was named to the All-Star team, hit .293 with twenty-two home runs, earned a Gold Glove, and became the first player in the American League ever named Rookie of the Year by unanimous vote. Comparisons to the Reds’ Johnny Bench, already his generation’s and perhaps history’s gold standard at the position, inevitably followed. The Red Sox, who hadn’t been able to develop a standout catcher in a generation—they hadn’t landed a starting catcher on the American League All-Star team since 1953—appeared to have found a new field general. But in spite of his remarkable debut season, the bitterness of losing the East Division by a half game to Detroit lingered even longer for the driven Fisk than all the postseason accolades. He was nearly inconsolable in the locker room after their final loss, as Tom Yawkey tried in vain to comfort him, stricken more by Fisk’s suffering than his own.

  Fisk came back to earth the following year in 1973; although his home run and RBI totals increased, and he made his second All-Star team, his batting average dropped fifty points during the second half of the season. Refusing to take days off, he lost twenty pou
nds from the heavy workload, visibly tiring down the stretch as pitchers fed him a steady diet of curveballs. He also became something of a lightning rod for opposing teams—not unlike Pete Rose, in this one respect—irritating them with his relentless will to win and assertive presence on the field. Prickly Yankee catcher Thurman Munson, an established star considered the best backstop in the American League before Fisk arrived, resented Fisk being selected ahead of him to that year’s All-Star team and took repeated public exception to Fisk’s haughty manner. In early August, with the two teams in a tight East Division race, and deadlocked in the ninth inning of a tense game at Fenway, Fisk blocked home plate after batter Gene Michael missed a suicide squeeze attempt and Munson stormed down the line straight at him. Fisk didn’t yield when Munson crashed into him, tagging him hard for the out. When Munson tried to keep his weight on top of Fisk, in an effort to allow the base runner behind him to advance, Fisk kicked him off and the two ended up in a fistfight that cleared the benches. Unlike Pete Rose, none of what Fisk did in pursuit of winning was consciously or deliberately provocative; it appeared to be simply an expression of who he was and the way he’d been brought up.

  Pure Connecticut River granite, as teammate Bill Lee described him. Pudge wouldn’t ask out of a game if he had both legs cut off.

  Despite winning four more games during the season, the Red Sox finished second in the division in 1973, this time eight games behind the Orioles; popular manager Eddie Kasko lost his job, and Fisk’s former tutor Darrell Johnson was brought up from Pawtucket to replace him. Johnson cleaned house in 1974, releasing on the same day three future Hall of Famers who were near the end of their careers: pitcher Juan Marichal, designated hitter Orlando Cepeda, and shortstop Luis Aparicio. This opened up opportunities for many of the youngsters Johnson had managed at Triple-A, and they responded by seizing the East Division lead through the end of June. Both their star catcher and, as it turned out, the Red Sox postseason prospects, ended on June 28 in Cleveland, when in the ninth inning of a tie game Fisk extended his leg to protect the plate on a play at home. The throw came in high, and Cleveland outfielder Leron Lee barreled into him, shredding Fisk’s vulnerable and exposed left knee in a brutal collision. After extensive surgery to repair two torn ligaments, he was placed in an ankle-to-thigh cast and the prognosis was dire; doctors warned Fisk that not only might his career be over, but he could be left limping for the rest of his life.