Summer of '68: The Season That Changed Baseball--And America--Forever (26 page)

Before anybody took the mound in Game Two, however, Eugene McCarthy had free rein of the field.
Life
magazine had commissioned the former Democratic presidential candidate to write a series of stories about the Fall Classic, and now a flock of photographers followed him, recording his every move. As a college student, McCarthy had played first base at St. John’s College in Minnesota, and on the Watkins semipro team in the Sioux League. “My grandfather and my uncle played,” McCarthy explained, “so I did.... I wasn’t a bad hitter, but I didn’t like certain pitches. You could say I ran for Congress so that I could outlaw the inside curve.”

When Tigers’ coach Tony Cuccinello asked about his ability, McCarthy said there were times he “could have been mistaken for Gil Hodges. I hit a lot of long fouls.”

With all the great players assembled in St. Louis that afternoon, McCarthy curiously targeted Cardinals’ reliever Joe Hoerner for an interview. Besides saving seventeen games in 1968, Hoerner was known for wielding a mean fungo bat. His towering blasts during pregame infield practice had once glanced off the underside of Houston’s famed Astrodome. McCarthy wanted a firsthand demonstration and Hoerner indulged him by lofting several high fly balls toward the outfield.

In bypassing seven future Hall of Famers who were participating in the 1968 World Series (Al Kaline, Bob Gibson, Eddie Mathews, Lou Brock, Orlando Cepeda, Tim McCarver, and Steve Carlton) for a relief pitcher swinging a fungo bat, McCarthy perhaps underscored, in some way, why he had lost the nomination to Hubert Humphrey

“That was the problem and the attraction of McCarthy,” Tom Hayden said. “He was . . . odd.

“Imagine this was September, just before the election in perhaps the worst of all years since 1865 or 1918. Hundreds of thousands of young people gave up a year of their lives for him. Then he got interested in fungo bats? Sounds like a common reaction to the traumas of the year, but he was supposed to lead.”

After summerlike conditions for Game One, a cold front moved through St. Louis, dropping temperatures into the fifties by the first pitch. Overnight, Lolich had developed a groin infection and required medication in order to make his surprise start. “I never did get nervous before the game,” he later explained. “I was a little groggy because (team physician Dr. Clarence Livengood) gave me a couple of capsules and I just never tightened up.”

If anything, Lolich appeared a little too groggy for his own good early on. The Cardinals’ Julian Javier singled and Curt Flood walked in the first inning. That left it up to Kaline, back in right field, to single-handedly keep the game scoreless. First the Tiger known simply as “Six” (for his jersey number) made a running grab of Orlando Cepeda’s foul fly ball, and moments later he tracked down Mike Shannon’s liner to right-center field. No report as to whether McCarthy was impressed.

St. Louis starter Nellie Briles, meanwhile, set down the first four Tigers he faced before Willie Horton turned on a fastball, launching it deep into the left-center field bleachers. With the home run the Tigers held their first lead of the Series.

The following inning the sports gods once again demonstrated their penchant for irony. Even though Smith had started Lolich ahead of Wilson in order to have a better bat in the lineup for Game Three back in Detroit, it was actually Lolich who helped supply the long ball there in St. Louis. In the top of the third inning, he pulled a ball deep down the left-field line. To everyone’s amazement, the ball stayed fair, falling softly into the left-field seats for a home run. The dinger would in fact be the very first and very last of Lolich’s sixteen-year professional career.

As he began his home-run trot, Lolich missed first base, prompting coach Wally Moses to call him back to make sure he touched them all. “I’m not used to this sort of thing,” Lolich told him.

“I still won’t believe he hit a home run,” McLain later said, “until I see a replay.”

From then on, the Tigers were in control. Norm Cash, who had been Gibson’s record-setting strikeout victim the day before, clubbed a solo home run. Briles departed after two batters in the sixth, and prompting a string of Cardinals’ relievers that included twenty-three-year-old Steve Carlton.

“It wasn’t my day,” Briles said. “And often when it isn’t the pitcher’s day, it often isn’t the team’s day, either.”

Carlton replaced Briles with a man on before Jim Northrup’s single and Don Wert’s walk loaded the bases. Dick McAuliffe then hit a sinking line drive to center field that glanced off Curt Flood’s glove. Two runs came around on the rare miscue by the game’s best center fielder, and with that Detroit had a 5–0 lead. McAuliffe’s liner was certainly a difficult play, but one that Flood had often made throughout the ’68 season.

A day after being baffled by Bob Gibson’s dazzling repertoire, the Tigers were beginning to resemble their old selves. Soon they were once again playing with swagger and plenty of trash talk in the dugout.

“Oh, we had some fun,” Gates Brown recalled. “I mean we had fun most of the time anyway. The guys on that ballclub recognized that you were much more prone to win when you were loose and happy with yourself.”

In the seventh inning, with Detroit comfortably ahead 6–1, manager Mayo Smith moved Stanley back to center field. Northrup shifted to left and Ray Oyler came in to play shortstop. The odd man out was Horton, who stewed in the Tigers’ dugout after leaving the field. “I want my three best arms out there when we’re ahead,” Smith had told the press. The Tigers’ manager didn’t fully communicate his game plan to Horton, however.

“I sure wasn’t happy,” Horton later said. “I had played out there the whole year, with Al Kaline hurt. I wasn’t that bad an outfielder. I’d worked hard on my game. I felt the least Mayo could have done was tell me before he started pulling people out.”

Regardless, the way Lolich was pitching that afternoon, he could have had the Three Stooges in the outfield and won. The only concern remained Lou Brock, who stole another two bases after having stolen one in the first game. In fact, the only time Lolich lost his composure occurred when Brock stole second base despite Detroit holding a 6–1 lead in the eighth inning.

“It was definitely for his own self-glory,” Lolich said, a comment he later claimed was taken out of context. “He wants to set a record for stolen bases or something, There can’t be any other reason.... Sure, I could disregard him. But when he takes a big lead like that, it’s almost an insult.”

Out in the Detroit bullpen, rookie Jon Warden, Pat Dobson, and John Hiller kept a keen eye on Lolich. Due to the medication he was on nobody really expected the left-hander to go the distance. Yet in a methodical, almost understated way, that’s exactly what he did, securing the victory after allowing just six hits. While his nine strikeouts paled in comparison to Gibson’s seventeen the day before, Lolich had been in control throughout. “None of the Cardinals’ six hits off Lolich was stroked with much authority,” the
Sporting News
reported.

Through it all, Gates Brown, who would have pinch-hit for Lolich if the pitcher had come out of the game, took a more relaxed approach to it all. “I enjoy days like this,” he said, “just sitting back and watching my guys run around the bases.”

With the Series heading to Detroit for the first time in twenty-three years, the Tigers’ hitters had regained their mojo. “We’re in good shape now,” Smith declared, “all even and going back to our own park for three games.”

But what the Detroit manager left unsaid was that the Tigers would have to face Bob Gibson twice more if the Series went seven games.

FINAL SCORE: TIGERS 8, CARDINALS 1
Series tied at one game apiece

During the off-day, before Game Three in Detroit, Tigers’ manager Mayo Smith called outfielder Willie Horton into his office for a private meeting. There Smith told Horton that he would continue his defensive strategy: If the Tigers held a lead late in a game, Mickey Stanley would shift back to center field, with Al Kaline staying in right and Jim Northrup taking over for Horton in left. The Tigers had several good-field, no-hit infielders in Ray Oyler and Dick Tracewski. One of them would man shortstop.

As Smith explained to Horton, the manager knew he could cover as much ground as Northrup, but he didn’t think he could throw as well. “I wasn’t really that mad to hear it,” Horton later said. “He’s the manager and I understand he has to make decisions.”

Still, the strategy annoyed Horton. After coming up as a catcher, he had significantly improved his throwing mechanics. During spring training and routinely before regular-season games, Stanley had taught him how to deliver a ball with more pace and distance from the far reaches of the outfield.

“Personally, I owe a lot to Mickey Stanley,” Horton said. “Playing catcher as a kid—that’s a different throwing motion. Mickey spent a lot of time with me, teaching me how to play the outfield. One of the main things he did was redo my throwing mechanics. He told me to pretend that I was on a bus and pulling down the rope to get off. That motion from top to bottom—a good throwing motion. That was so important to me because until that point I had thrown more like a catcher—everything compact and from the chest. Years later, I had to learn something that basic while at the major league level, and Mickey Stanley was the guy who took the time to teach me.”

Of course, such discussions didn’t make headlines back in 1968. Instead the front page of the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ran another photo of Bob Gibson from Game One. Along on the front page was a story about George Wallace, who was also running for president, naming retired Air Force general Curtis LeMay as his vice-presidential choice. The architect of the systematic bombing of Japan in World War II, LeMay advocated that more military pressure be brought to bear upon North Vietnam, perhaps even the use of nuclear weapons. “When you get in it, get in it with both feet,” LeMay said, “and get it over with as soon as you can.”

Other top headlines included student demonstrators clashing with government troops in the Tlateloco section of Mexico City—this just ten days before the Summer Olympics were scheduled to begin. Mexican authorities blamed extremists and Communist agitators within the students’ ranks for initiating the violence. But decades later, in documents released by the National Security Archive, it was revealed that the Mexican Army fired indiscriminately at the demonstrators. After the bloodbath, surviving protesters were dragged away and many were never heard from again. Ironically, the dove of peace was the symbol for Games of the XIX Olympiad, with billboards in Mexico City already proclaiming, “Everything Is Possible with Peace.”

“We have conferred with Mexican authorities and we have been assured that nothing will interfere with the peaceful entrance of the Olympic flame into the stadium on October 12, nor with the competition which follows,” Avery Brundage, president of the International Olympic Committee, said in a statement. “As guests of Mexico, we have full confidence that the Mexican people, universally known for their sportsmanship and great hospitality, will join the participants and spectators in celebrating the Games, a veritable oasis in a troubled world.”

October 5, 1968

Game Three, Tiger Stadium, Detroit, Michigan

In the Motor City, the riots of a year ago were forgotten for now. In the days before Game Three, Detroit city street workers stenciled orange and black Tiger faces on the downtown streets, and Washington Boulevard was renamed Tiger Drive with orange stripes running down the center of it. By game time, the old ballpark at Michigan and Trumbull was packed with 53,634 boisterous fans, and even though it wasn’t his day to pitch, Denny McLain couldn’t help stealing some of the limelight. “Whoever wins today will win the World Series,” he told the press.

Early on in Game Three, Al Kaline proved himself worthy of inclusion in the Tigers’ lineup yet again when he laced Ray Washburn’s pitch into the left-field seats, staking Detroit to an early 2–0 lead. Much to their fans’ delight the hometown team appeared to be in good shape as starter Earl Wilson proceeded to shut out the Cardinals through the first four innings.

Throughout the regular season, however, Wilson’s luck had often gone south at the most inopportune times. Repeatedly, he had gotten hurt when it mattered most. So it happened again in Game Three.

In the fifth inning, Lou Brock singled and once again swiped second base. To put his base-stealing in proper perspective, during the regular season Brock had stolen sixty-two bases, while the entire Detroit team recorded just twenty-six. The Tigers had no answer for him, and as a result the stage was set for the Series to run away from them.

“Speed, running on the base paths, starts rallies,” Brock explained years later. “When a team runs, it forces the other team into mistakes. When a runner takes off from first, the shortstop and the second baseman move to cover him—and that opens a hole in the infield that shouldn’t be there.

“That gives the batter a break, because most batters like nothing better than fastballs—especially when they are anticipating fastballs.” In other words, an infusion of speed can hotwire any offense.