Becoming Mr. October (9780385533126) (27 page)

I had stayed up late the night before the sixth game of the Series in 1977. I don’t know if the other guys were too excited, but in the first inning Bucky made a rare error for him with two outs, and Thurman gave up a passed ball. Then Mike walked a batter and gave up a two-run triple to deep left by Garvey. We were already down, 2–0.

That’s all right. We felt good, and we were confident. Bottom of the second, I got up for the first time, ready to go—and Burt Hooton walked me on four pitches. I don’t know if he was being cautious after watching me in batting practice, but he was there. Chris Chambliss took him deep to center-right a couple pitches later, and we got it tied, 2–2.

Top of the third, Reggie Smith, who was a tremendous player and always played well in the postseason (at least he did against us), homered to almost the same place as Chambliss did and took back the lead. That was his third home run against us. As I look back now, he was having a great Series against us and was probably on his way to the MVP.

Right idea. Wrong Reggie.

I was back up the next inning with us still down, 3–2. “Old Reliable” Thurman on first with a single. I was ready; I was in a groove. But I had something else, too.

Back in those days, the technology we had was different than it is today, but very reliable. Sometimes we looked at video, but to be honest, I never really watched video that much. Things happened too fast for me on video, and sometimes it was archaic compared with today. We used to go out and shoot it, then take what we had and put it on a fifteen-inch screen. Stop it. Dissect it. Play it back. And that was just video of batting practice. There was no video of the game, not in the clubhouse like it is today. Today there are video people and a couple rooms of equipment set up.

Players now … sometimes they come in the clubhouse after an at-bat during the game and go and dissect their actions right away.
Not a fan of that. I think the focus should be on the game, on the bench. And then there’s the preparation that the pitching coach, the catcher, and the pitcher have before the game as well—the preparation that the hitting coach and the hitters have, going over the game beforehand in great detail. It is of great value to today’s player—going over the performance and the basic tendencies of the opposing pitcher, his history against your ball club, as well as the history of his last few starts.

It’s become a science: what he throws first pitch; how many strikes, first pitch. How many curveballs during the game. How many curveballs to left-handers. How many curveballs on different counts. All good information. But sometimes too much creates clutter. I think it’s awesome that it’s available, but knowing how to apply it is also a challenge. So much information can be too much for players.

Some of the great players don’t want too much information. Some want to get out of the way of all that and let their skill sets perform. Some players like all the information; some players don’t.

I enjoyed it at times, but at others I didn’t want it. As an example, I was not a player who did well if I knew what was coming. If a pitcher tipped his hand and had a different action when he threw a curveball or when he threw a fastball and you could pick it up … I did not want to know it. I got too anxious if I knew what was coming. Hard as that is for players today to believe, I did not want to know what was coming. It’s rare, but there are players who do better just relying on their instinct. I was one of those guys. I believe Jeter is as well.

There are guys who analyze everything. The time the pitcher takes to release the baseball, how long it takes for it to get to home plate. They have it down to a tenth of a second—the amount of time it takes the catcher to receive the ball and then to throw it to second base. From that they will tell you precisely how long the leads are that you need to take if you’re going to steal. They’ll figure out that it will take a pitcher 1.7, 1.8 seconds from the start of his motion to the time the ball arrives in the catcher’s mitt. They will also time how long it takes the catcher to receive the ball and how long it takes to get to second base on the throw, maybe 1.8 seconds as well. The combined total will be 3.6 seconds. If a fast runner can get enough of a lead and arrive at second base in under 3.6, then he will have an opportunity to steal.

This is how the game is played today. Valuable information, plotted down to that much of a microsecond.

Teams nowadays go over where the fielders should play against everybody, depending on who’s pitching and what he’s throwing. The length of the grass—is it longer on one side of the infield or the other?—and how much it slows the ball down. How much range the infielders have, whether we should cut the grass that day or not … the game is that detailed.

We didn’t have any meetings with Billy like that. We barely talked. The pitchers and catchers went over things, but there really weren’t meetings for the offense in those days. The bench coach was unheard of when I played. Some teams didn’t even have batting coaches.

I think nowadays having specific coaches helps teams be more aware of tendencies, because there are some great baseball minds available to you. But my first couple years on the Yankees, we didn’t have hitting coaches. Later, we had Charley Lau, but before that I don’t think there was anyone specifically for hitting. You did it yourself.

You worked with other players like Lou Piniella and Roy White, who were knowledgeable about hitting. Guys like Munson and Bobby Murcer a couple years later, when he came back to the team—he was an outstanding baseball man. Chris Chambliss had knowledge. You might talk among yourselves with guys who knew how someone would pitch against you.

But before the World Series, we had reports from our experienced advance scouts. We had a guy named Jerry Walker, who had twenty-plus years in the game, but most of all we had the great Birdie Tebbetts. Birdie was in his mid-sixties, a former major-league catcher. I had worked with him when we were in Oakland. Both he and Jerry Walker were there as advance scouts, because the A’s were usually in the postseason.

Gene Michael, who was a coach at this time for the Yankees, also had a tremendous baseball mind. He still does today. Many people give him some credit for the collection of great players who came through the Yankees’ organization in the 1990s. You know, I learned a lot from Gene Michael about using scouting reports.

These guys all went out and scouted National League teams we were likely to see in the World Series. From them, you could learn the
“tendencies” that their pitchers had, as well as hitters and defenders, who had a good arm and who was accurate. They gathered a wealth of info.

You had to have that, because in the days before interleague play you didn’t really see the National League guys. Maybe at the All-Star Game, or a little bit in spring training. But not much. And in the spring, you wouldn’t see as much. They’d be working on things, getting ready for the season. You never saw what they were like at the top of their game, giving it everything they had.

I leaned on Michael and Tebbetts most of all. I had my own meetings with them after they talked to the whole team before each World Series game. I would huddle with them for a good twenty to thirty minutes. I used our scouts in my own special way, to try to get a little more specific, more detailed knowledge. I’d asked them when they went out on the road to scout, “When you go watch the Dodgers, would you find out the pitch sequences for me? Find out what pitches they like to throw in different pitch counts. The counts I am most concerned about are 1–0, 2–0, 2–1, 3–1—when I have a free wheel. Take note of what they throw in those counts to guys like myself: Willie McCovey, Willie Stargell, Billy Williams, Al Oliver.” Any left-handed hitter with sock. Boom in the barrel.

They were the guys I thought I was most like—the guys I
hoped
I was like. Left-hand hitters with power. Like me, they had the dynamite in the barrel. The danger level was the same. I thought if the scouts could see twenty at-bats with hitters like that by a certain pitcher, I could find out some tendencies.

And I thought if I had seven or eight of those situations, I could pick out which ones were the free passes—I could look for a pitch to hit. Eight out of nine times, or six out of eight—if they threw the same thing that often on a 2–1 count or a 2–0 count … I had a free look. I could take a shot for a banger. For a bridge piece. You know—a chance to collect a toll.

There were always fans—there were
writers
—who didn’t understand the game. Who insisted on looking at me as just a big, unthinking guy
who went up there and swung for the fences. They thought I struck out too much. Sometimes I did. They didn’t think of me as a complete player.

They had it wrong, I thought. What I understood was what my role was. I understood that I had four chances a game to put a number on the board. One, two, three, four. That was my role.

That wasn’t the role for everybody. Great as players like Derek Jeter and Pete Rose are, you can’t ask them to go up there and try to hit it out. They have their roles; there’s a lot of things players like that do. Their role is to get on base, move the runners along, keep the rally going. Jeter is a great clutch player, probably the best in the game in his era—it’s either him or Mo! (When you add Mo to the mix, I guess, we all become second. Even Ali.) Jeter is a guy you always want there to drive in a big run. The greatest.

Roles change sometimes. You can expand your role. Jeter’s hit some big home runs. I remember he hit a home run on the first pitch against the Mets in the World Series, leading off the fourth game after we’d lost the night before. Had a home run the game after that, to tie the score. Great players can expand their roles at times.

But I knew what my role was. It was to be a banger. Put a number on the board, and drive in runs.

In the sixth game of the World Series against the Dodgers, I remember calling upstairs to Gene Michael in the box in Yankee Stadium. Checking how he thought they would pitch me. I got a lot of insight from Stick and trusted him; I trusted our scouts. They had so much time in the game.

We were in agreement that they would try to come in on me. It’s the most common approach with most players with power. Once a player gets his arms extended, he’s able to hit the ball a long way. Better keep that player crowded, keep the ball in and make him hurry, keep the ball in on him so that he doesn’t get a chance to extend his arms. If he does, it’s a loud sound: boom!

After I got a walk my first at-bat, Stick said, “Hooton’s gonna pitch
you fastball in.” That’s what I expected. Nice to have him co-sign my thought.

What I did was, I stepped back in the batter’s box about four inches—four inches farther away from the plate. From the tips of my shoes to the balls of my feet, that’s how I measured it.

I always cleaned the batter’s box before I got in. Did a little gardening. I didn’t want to see another guy’s mark and think it was mine. I always went in, swept everything away with my feet—and that gave me the chance to measure where I wanted to stand. Four inches farther away from the plate than where I would normally stand. Then I
leaned
forward, toward home plate, to make it look as if I wasn’t in a different spot.

Soon as Hooton threw the ball, I was spinning.

I hit it hard, a low bullet—a nice four-iron—that went deep into the crowd in right field. It got out in a hurry, and it scored Munson ahead of me and put us up again. I came back into the dugout, saw the camera right there in front of me with the red light on, and just held up one finger.

I knew I was going to do well. The ball seemed big, and I was very comfortable and confident. The crowd was very much on my side, screaming on their feet, full of support. I could look in George’s box and see he was standing up. I could see friends and family sitting close by. Nice feeling.

I got up again in the next inning. We’d scored another run in the fourth. We were up, 5–3, and the Dodgers had pulled Hooton for Elias Sosa. They knew they had to stop us there.

Sosa was an outstanding relief pitcher. Threw hard. Harder than Hooton, ninety-five miles an hour or so. Seems the Dodgers always had guys who threw in the high nineties.

This time Willie Randolph was on first when I came to bat. I knew Sosa was still going to keep the ball inside. I watched him warming up when he came in; I saw what he threw. I thought of Stick and Birdie Tebbetts again and what we had talked about. That was enough. I knew Sosa would try to pitch inside as well.

I was just hoping he’d hurry up and throw a strike early. Sure enough, he threw it in. I turned on it. Smashed it. I was worried it
wasn’t going to stay up because I thought I’d got on top of it a little. It was hit so hard I didn’t think it had a chance to get up high enough to get out. I was afraid I smothered it a bit. I remember running down to first base saying, “Stay up, stay up, stay up, stay up, stay up.”

It did.

It seemed like I hit it harder than the last one. Too fast for anybody to snare it. Went just four or five rows into the seats, but it was enough. I think it might have gone through the wall if it had been a little lower. I noticed that the moment it went out, Tommy Lasorda came running out to the mound to pull his pitcher. Too late.

I was just excited that I had put us ahead by 7–3. I knew we had a good chance to win then. And I could hear the fans. They were yelling, “Reg-gie! Reg-gie! Reg-gie!” The whole Stadium.

That was nice to hear. It helped, hearing that. It helped me to focus.

You focus on the moment. Just the pitcher and me. If I got anything to hit, I was going to be on it.

I’m just focused on the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hand. And I was going to put a swing on it, and I was going to be on time. You want to have the barrel of the bat there, right on the ball. Oh, boy, did I!

In the dugout, I turned to the camera, held up two fingers this time, and dropped a big “Hi, Mom!” She couldn’t be at the game, she wasn’t feeling well, but I was the one who started that whole “Hi, Mom!” thing. This was October 18, 1977—so I want the copyright on “Hi, Mom!” LOL.