Hairs vs. Squares Read online

  The Mustache Gang was having hot fun in the summertime. The A’s were thinking the West had already been won, but they thought wrong.

  Led by Wilbur Wood and the rejuvenated Richie Allen, the White Sox were about to make it a noisy summer on Chicago’s South Side.

  7

  Knowing baseball minds, when they revisit the 1972 All-Star Game in Atlanta, will pay particular attention to the pulse-quickening mano a mano matchups involving legendary hitters and pitchers. One such showdown saw Reggie Jackson digging in against Bob Gibson in the opening inning.

  Gibson was one of the premier power pitchers of the 1960s; Jackson, one of the premier power hitters of the 1970s. Gibson’s St. Louis Cardinals had been a dominant team the decade before, winning three National League pennants and two World Series from 1964 to 1968. Reggie’s Oakland A’s would dominate the early to mid-1970s, winning three consecutive world championships and five straight division titles from 1971 to 1975. In the game’s history, “El Birdos,” as the Cardinals of the 1960s are known, and the A’s Mustache Gang of the 1970s are two of the greatest teams ever.

  Jackson’s at-bat versus Gibson helped encapsulate a collision of eras. It was also the only time these two dominant personalities and future Hall of Famers would engage in a battle on the national stage.

  More than any other team sport, baseball is a game in a game, individual matchups in a team concept. Jackson-Gibson is the kind of vivid and classic confrontation the All-Star Game has created since its inception in 1933.

  Created by Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward to be part of the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago and also created in part to take the public’s mind off the Great Depression, the major league All-Star Game was intended to be a one-time event. It was the “Game of the Century,” a midsummer classic matching the game’s greatest players and two aging but legendary managers—Connie Mack, the “Tall Tactician” of the Philadelphia Athletics, and the recently retired “Little Napoleon,” John “Mugsy” McGraw, formerly of the New York Giants. McGraw’s Giants and Mack’s “White Elephants” had gone head to head in the 1905, 1911, and 1913 World Series, and the famed field bosses were enlisted to skipper the National and American League squads respectively.

  Played in Chicago’s Comiskey Park on July 6, that first game featured Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Al Simmons, Lefty Gomez, and Lefty Grove for the American League and Pepper Martin, Frankie Frisch, Pie Traynor, Bill Terry, and Carl Hubbell for the National League. Won by the AL 4–2, the game proved such a success—Ruth christened it with a home run off “Wild” Bill Hallahan of the soon-to-be-named “Gashouse Gang” St. Louis Cardinals—it became an annual event.

  Through the years, the All-Star Game has provided some of baseball’s most memorable moments: Hubbell fanning five future Hall of Famers—Ruth, Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Simmons, and Joe Cronin—in succession in 1934; Pete Rose running over Ray Fosse; Pedro Martinez dominating an NL lineup of Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Matt Williams, and Jeff Bagwell in 1999.

  Until the advent of interleague play in 1997, the All-Star Game and World Series were the only stages in which fans’ fantasy matchups—Joe DiMaggio versus Dizzy Dean; Whitey Ford versus Willie Mays; Derek Jeter vs. Tim Lincecum—could be realized. Yet it wasn’t just the fans’ dreams becoming reality.

  In the aftermath of the inaugural classic in 1933, Hallahan spoke of the National League team’s immense respect for Ruth: “We wanted to see the Babe,” he said. “Sure, he was old and had a big waistline, but that didn’t make any difference. We were on the same field as Babe Ruth.”

  Six decades later, Ted Williams echoed those sentiments when he spoke of All-Star competition. He always liked the All-Star Game because he wanted to see the best pitchers, Williams said in 1999. “I got a big kick out of that.”

  Fans got a big kick from seeing Bob Feller firing fastballs from atop a National League mound and Jackie Robinson running the bases in American League stadiums. By the 1950s and ’60s, the Midsummer Classic had become must-see TV. Since there was no interleague play save the World Series, the All-Star Game was the only time fans could see something as rare as Sandy Koufax pitching in Fenway Park and Mickey Mantle hitting in the Houston Astrodome.

  The National League won every All-Star Game from 1963 through 1970, and it was during this time that the classic took on deeper meaning. For years Mays, Koufax, Gibson, Aaron, Clemente, et al. represented a rising tide of talent for which the American League had no answer. Rose, by 1970 a perennial All-Star, picked up where his predecessors had left off and, as one of the young guns of the National League, set a tone with his physical play.

  Paced by the power hitting of Jackson and the power pitching of Vida Blue, the American League responded in 1971. By 1972 a palpable dislike had grown between the stars of the two leagues. They didn’t mingle as they would in later decades, and since there wasn’t as much cross-pollination of players, the familiarity and complacency that has led to the manufactured stimulus that marks the modern All-Star Game didn’t exist then.

  What did exist was a rivalry based on a fierce sense of league pride and competitive passion, and because of that, the All-Star Games of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s were, for baseball fans, magical days that would be marked on every fan’s calendar.

  Such was the case on July 25, 1972, when the American and National League All-Stars took the field in Atlanta. Koufax, serving as a color analyst for play-by-play man Jim Simpson on NBC Radio, captured the mood of the evening during the early innings when he spoke of the pride and passion players felt when they represented their respective league in the Midsummer Classic: “It’s interesting that the All-Star Game has taken on a new complexion,” Koufax told his audience. “For years it seemed like it was just an exhibition game; the best players in baseball, both leagues wanting to win, but nobody out there [going] that hard. But this year it looks like both leagues want to win very badly. It’s a different situation, a different feeling.”

  Personifying the passion and pride of the National League was the man on the mound for the senior circuit. A ferocious competitor, Gibson’s demeanor defined the Cardinals’ championship squads of the 1960s. He was revered and feared. Gibson stood 6-foot-1 and weighed 195 pounds, and he put every inch and ounce of himself into every pitch.

  Gibson intimidated opponents. Called “Hoot” after the old-time cowboy Hoot Gibson, the Cardinal ace brought his own brand of frontier justice to the field. Surly, brusque, and unsmiling on the mound, he eyed batters from sixty feet, six inches with a squinty-eyed stare. Some hitters thought they were being stared down, and Gibson let them think that. Baseball, he knew, was as much a psychological battle as a physical one. It was only in retirement that Gibson revealed the reason for his fixed glare: he sometimes had difficulty seeing the signs from his catcher.

  Regardless, Gibson got a lot of mileage out of looking angry and was deliberately unfriendly to opponents, refusing to even say hello to enemy hitters. When Gene Clines, a young Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder, approached Gibson before a game and asked him to autograph a baseball, Gibson tossed the ball over his shoulder into left field.

  To Gibson it was important to maintain an air of mystery. He didn’t want opponents to know him, to know what he was thinking or what he was like personally. He wanted hitters to be wary of him, to be uncertain—to be, he said, intimidated. Slugger Dick Allen said Gibson was so mean on the mound that he would knock you down and meet you at home plate to see if you wanted to make something of it.

  Gibson’s ferocious competitiveness came in part from his background. He was born into a black ghetto in Omaha, Nebraska, the youngest of seven children to a widowed mother. His father had died of pneumonia shortly before his birth, and his mother worked in a laundry to support her family. “Maybe mom needed a new dress or a new pair of shoes,” he said, “but she would get by with her old dress and her old pair of shoes so she could give us something.”

  Gibson was a sickly child; he ne
arly died of the same disease that claimed his father. An older brother, Josh, coached Bob in sports to help him improve his health and strength. Sports eventually helped Gibson escape the ghetto. He was an outstanding basketball player—he would play for the Harlem Globetrotters—but was turned down for an athletic scholarship by Indiana University because he was told by the school that it had “fulfilled [its] quota of Negroes.”

  It was not the first time Gibson experienced racism. Growing up in the ghetto, he had endured racial slurs from white kids from the other side of the housing projects; fights were a near daily occurrence. As late as 1961, when he was in his second full season with the Cardinals, Gibson, his wife, and two daughters drove from Omaha to St. Petersburg for spring training. What should have been a pleasant family experience became, in Gibson’s words, “disgusting and degrading.” The young family found they could not stop for the night despite being tired because most hotels would not accommodate them. They had difficulties finding places to eat because many restaurants would not serve them. Hungry and tired, they were forced to drive miles out of their way to the black section of town. Stopping at a service station for gas, Gibson asked the attendant if his daughters could use the restroom. The attendant directed the girls to a room in the back of the station, above which hung a sign: Colored Only. Angered and humiliated, Gibson told the attendant, “Forget the gas,” put his family in the car, and left.

  In 1964 Gibson beat the Mickey Mantle–Roger Maris Yankees in Game Seven of the World Series, then established his legend three years later when he defeated the “Impossible Dream” Red Sox three times in the Fall Classic, including another route-going Game Seven performance. Gibson’s greatest season came in 1968, when he set a modern record with a 1.12 earned run average, threw 13 shutouts—a stunning 5 in succession—and in one ninety-two-inning stretch surrendered a grand total of 2 runs. In the process, he pitched the Redbirds to another pennant.

  Along with Koufax, Drysdale, Marichal, McLain, et al., Gibson thrived in the era of the high mound and high strike, an era in which fierce pitcher-hitter confrontations made every game seem like high noon. Gibson’s dominance during the Year of the Pitcher led to what has become known as the “Gibson Rules” in 1969: the lowering of the pitcher’s mound from fifteen inches to ten and the reduction of the strike zone from the batter’s armpits to his jersey letters.

  Still Gibson remained dominant despite the rules changes. He won 20 games again in 1969, posted a 2.18 ERA, and threw an “immaculate inning” against the Dodgers, striking out the side on nine pitches. In 1970 he struck out a career-best 274 batters and won a career-high 23 games and another Cy Young award. On August 14, 1971, he no-hit the eventual world champion Pirates 11–0. By the time he climbed the hill for the Midsummer Classic, he had won 11 straight.

  The AL All-Stars in Atlanta were well aware of Gibson’s greatness and persona. The scowling right-hander retired leadoff hitter Rod Carew on a groundout to second baseman Joe Morgan to start the game and Bobby Murcer on a pop foul to catcher Johnny Bench. That brought Jackson to the plate.

  A student of baseball history, Jackson was aware of the moment when he dug in against Gibson. Rather than jockey the count, Reggie roped the first pitch—a hard breaking ball—for a line drive double to deep right-center field. “Jackson took dead aim,” Simpson told listeners. Thirty-seven years later Jackson and Gibson got together again, collaborating on an insightful book about the battle between hitter and pitcher.

  There were other notable matchups that starry night—Jackson versus Steve Carlton; Jim Palmer versus Aaron and Mays, the latter subbing for the injured Clemente. The abundance of future Hall of Famers on both sides promised a close contest, and that’s precisely how it played out. The AL led 1–0 early, following Carew’s RBI single off Steve Blass, but the NL rallied to take the lead in the sixth on a two-out, two-run homer by the hometown hero, Aaron.

  The AL came back in the eighth to take a 3–2 edge on a two-run homer by Cookie Rojas. The NL tied it in the bottom of the ninth on a Lee May groundout off Wilbur Wood that scored Billy Williams. In the tenth San Diego’s Nate Colbert drew a leadoff walk from Baltimore’s Dave McNally. A sacrifice bunt by San Francisco’s Chris Speier put Colbert in scoring position, and Joe Morgan ended the exciting evening with a single to right-center that scored Colbert for a 4–3 finish.

  For Colbert, crossing the plate with the winning run was not the only time that season the Atlanta ballpark would provide one of his more memorable career highlights. One month later Colbert had what Braves manager Lum Harris called the “greatest night any player’s ever had.” Colbert had arrived in Atlanta that August for a series with the Braves nursing an ailing knee. He had suffered the injury the previous week while sliding into home plate. Despite being hobbled, Colbert was not about to miss out on playing in Atlanta.

  Nicknamed the “launching pad,” the Braves’ ballpark annually led the league in home runs hit within its confines. In the opening game of a doubleheader, Colbert hammered two homers and drove in five runs in a 9–0 victory. In the nightcap he plated eight more runs and hit three homers, including a grand slam, to power an 11–7 win.

  Don Zimmer, in his first season managing the Padres, said years later that Colbert’s cloudburst was one of the greatest days in baseball he had ever witnessed.

  Colbert’s totals for the twin bill were a major league record 13 RBIs, 22 total bases, and a record-tying 5 home runs. It is interesting that the home run record Colbert tied had been set May 5, 1954, by Musial in a doubleheader against the Giants. In the stands that day was one particular eight-year-old named Nate Colbert, who, like most young baseball fans growing up in the Gateway City, idolized Stan the Man.

  Zimmer recalled Colbert’s being a big, imposing hitter. The Padres had a lot of good, hard-working players, Zimmer said. They just didn’t have enough of them. San Diego’s feast-or-famine experience in ’72 was further exemplified in a pair of pitching exploits. On July 18 San Diego starter Steve Arlin, who was leading the majors with 21 losses, was one strike away from no-hitting the Phillies when light-hitting Larry Bowa chopped a bouncer over the head of third baseman Dave Roberts, who was playing in in an eventual 5–1 win. On September 2 the Padres were no-hit by the Cubs’ Milt Pappas, who lost his bid for a perfect game with two outs in the ninth when Larry Stahl drew a controversial walk.

  Just as Colbert was one of the NL’s young stars, so too was Houston’s Cesar Cedeno. Just twenty-two years old in 1972, the native of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic was called by Astros field boss Harry Walker the best young hitter in the major leagues. As late as August 28, Cedeno was leading the league in batting with a .343 average, and the Astrodome was being called Cesar’s Palace. He was eventually overtaken by Braves teammates Ralph Garr and Dusty Baker, but Cedeno concluded the season with a .320 average that represented a fifty-six-point jump over his 1971 mark.

  Pitchers who made a mistake in the strike zone paid the price of rendering unto Cesar, who was part of the rising tide of Latino talent. As baseball writer George Vass asked at the time, baseball was the national pastime, but which nation were we talking about? Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic were among the Latin American countries turning out superstars named Clemente, Cedeno, Marichal, and Oliva. Before them had come Minnie Minoso, Camilo Pascual, Zoilo Versalles, Roberto Avila and Chico Carrasquel. The influx of impact players from Latin America included Luis Aparicio, Bert Campaneris, Orlando Cepeda, Mike Cuellar, Tony Perez, and Luis Tiant, and it was continuing with younger standouts Cedeno, Cesar Geronimo, and Jorge Orta.

  White Sox general manager Roland Hemond, a veteran Latin talent scout, thought the number of Latin Americans in the majors hadn’t yet peaked. Latin countries would be a rich source of talent in the coming years. At the start of the 1972 season, 9 percent (84) of the 960 players listed on the rosters of the twenty-four MLB teams were Latin American. Hemond expected that number to jump to 11 percent in ’73, considering that th
e quality of Latin players was improving every year.

  During an NBC-TV Game of the Week telecast in the summer of ’72 Tony Kubek marveled at the way Latin American ballplayers exuded their love of baseball. Curt Gowdy used to fish in Cuba and spent some time in Havana before Fidel Castro came to power. Gowdy saw how popular the game was in Cuba, and he knew that in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, baseball was “the” game. He wondered how many major league players there were in Cuba in ’72 and estimated “20 or 30” could play major league ball if Castro allowed them to leave the imprisoned isle.

  Better education, better playing conditions, and a greater hunger to succeed were the driving forces behind the success of Latin players. The driving force behind the Astros was a talented lineup. Despite playing in the dead air of the Astrodome, Cedeno and Doug Rader slammed 22 homers apiece to pace the Glasshouse Gang. Jimmy Wynn blasted 24, and Lee May, swirling his bat like a swizzle stick, had a team-high 29 homers and 98 RBIs. Bob Watson batted .312, and on June 18 twenty-three-year-old lefty Jerry Reuss carried a no-hitter into the ninth against the Phillies before Bowa broke up yet another bid at baseball history.

  The Astros battled the Reds and Dodgers throughout the summer and owned first place in late June. With Colbert’s acrobatic catches in the deep recesses of the outfield robbing Mays and Willie Stargell of home runs and Rader performing larceny with his glove; with Johnny Edwards beating the Cubs with a blast in an eleven-inning thriller and Wynn clubbing his two hundredth career homer; and with Reuss, Dave Roberts, and Larry Dierker having moments of excellence on the mound, it made for an exciting summer in the Lone Star State:

  Astros play-by-play man Gene Elston on April 24: “Here’s the 2-2 pitch and Edwards slams a long drive to right. It’s gonna go! Home run, Edwards, and the Astros win it 3–2 in 11!”