Missing Among The Memorables?

"I never feel more at home in America," wrote Robert Frost (in Sports Illustrated, 1956), "than at a ball game, be it in park or in sandlot. Beyond this I know not. And I dare not." Neither do I.

Which is why I take a break from kvetching about the usual kvetchables - All-Star fiascoes, disingenuous owners pushing communication-challenged players to yet another strike, Ted Williams in the deep freeze because he turns out to have raised an avaricious (and maybe elder-abusive) vampire for a son, dubious Yankee bashers (no Yankee fan here, but less bashing and more asking why other clubs - markets big and small - can't bother minding their monies, finding their own new revenue sources, appropriately replenishing their squandered revenues, please), and Florida Marlins/Cleveland Indians/Montreal Expos wheeling and dealing, that sort of fun stuff - to kvetch about the ballot for picking baseball's most memorable moments.

Understand: None of the thirty memorables offered for voting on the ballot (a voter may choose five) is anything less. You did not have to be there to know what it was, for example, when Christy Mathewson threw three shutouts in the 1905 World Series, or when Lou Gehrig showed the quality of courage the day he considered himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Teddy Ballgame's .406 and Joe D.'s 56; Willie Mays's across-county-lines World Series catch (ever see a center field 480 feet from home plate?) and Don Larsen's across the extraterrestrial divide World Series perfect game; Carlton Fisk's "body English" homer and Reg-gie's three straight Game Six homers; Henry Aaron passing the Bambino and Nolan Ryan (with no-hitter number seven) passing disbelief; Mark and Sammy, and the Shot Heard 'Round the Universe.

Deny those and you deny your Americanhood. But, surely, even Bud Selig Era's baseball stewards could have made room for fifty choices and allow ten picks per ballot? Here, for whatever they are worth, would have been my additional choices.

1908: Boner's Ark. Following the custom of the day, Fred Merkle, New York Giants first baseman, bolted off to the clubhouse when the winning run crossed the plate. Chicago Cub second baseman Johnny (The Crab) Evers - whose team had been burned earlier in that skintight pennant race, on a Cub move just like Merkle's - called for a ball that may or may not have been in actual play and got the out rung up at second. The Giants lost the subsequent do-over game and the pennant; the Cubs went on to their last verifiable World Series win.

1923: Casey At The Bat. You can look it up - the first World Series home run ever hit in Yankee Stadium was hit inside the park, yet by a man who would, in due course, manage them to ten pennants and seven Series titles (including five straight) in twelve seasons. Only Casey Stengel did it in a New York Giant uniform. His drive to the original left-centerfield Death Valley and his sprawling run around the bases were immortalised by Damon Runyon. And, the Ol' Perfesser wasn't finished: he also hit the second Series homer ever in the House That Ruth Built - this time, he drove it over the fence.

1925: One For The Road. Aging, allegedly hung over Grover Cleveland Alexander waddled in from the bullpen to strike out Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded in the seventh of Game Seven. He went on to close the deal with a little help from Babe Ruth - the Bambino was fool enough in the ninth to try stealing second (as a base stealer, he was one hell of a power hitter), with Bob Meusel hitting and Lou Gehrig on deck. Game, set, and match, St. Louis Cardinals.

1931: Humble Howard. Philadelphia Athletics owner-manager Connie Mack took a chance that an aging, washed up veteran had one more win in his spent arm, and wheeled him out to start a World Series game. Howard Ehmke had more than one more win left in him - he set a World Series single-game strikeout record that held for 22 years until Brooklyn Dodger righthander Carl Erskine broke it by one. Ehmke's lucky number: 13.

1934: Is Brooklyn Still In The League? New York Giants manager Bill Terry pulled that crack pre-season and gave Brooklyn a season-long migraine. Mired in sixth place, the comic opera Dodgers - managed by Casey Stengel - got classic revenge on the final weekend of the season. With the Giants and the Cardinals (who weren't quite yet called the Gas House Gang, though this was that very team) going into their final two games in a flatfoot tie for first place, the Dodgers - and a few thousand of their fans - trouped up to the Polo Grounds and flattened the Giants, 5-1, behind speedballer Van Lingle Mungo. The next day, Dem Bums made a meal out of the Meal Ticket: future Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell, who came on in relief with the game tied at five - the Dodgers jumped him for three runs for the ball game. And, it turned out, for a Cardinal pennant: while the Dodgers were burying the Giants (said one placard among the Flatbush faithful at the game: Is Brooklyn Still In The League? And How!), the Redbirds were making an easy two-game sweep of the Cincinnati Reds to nail the pennant.

1938: Who Knows What Homers Lurk In The Bats of Men? The Shadows Know. Darkness falling. Gabby Hartnett. Wrigley Field. The Homer In The Gloamin'. The Cubs win the pennant.

1941: All-Star Lights Out. Ted Williams goes walkoff yard with Joe DiMaggio on base ahead of him. American League manager Del Baker could have just kissed the Splinter - and did, right smack on the forehead.

1946: Slaughtered Boston. Enos Slaughter inspires the Road Runner. Johnny Pesky can't hear any teammates hollering at him to throw home through the crowd racket. Slaughter lives up to his family name, and as the Cardinals ruin the first Boston Red Sox World Series since a kid named Ruth was sold to the Yankees, Johnny Pesky will (unfairly enough) never be allowed to live him down.

1950: Abie's Out At Home! With the pennant on the line (the teams ended the season in a flatfoot tie), Brooklyn Dodger third base coach Milt Stock takes a chance and waves rookie outfielder Cal Abrams home, when Duke Snider rips a base hit up the middle - after Philadelphia Phillies super pitcher Robin Roberts misses a pickoff sign that would have had Abrams dead at second. Center fielder Richie Ashburn, with the worst arm in the league, played shallow enough to throw Abie out at home and send the single-game pennant playoff to the tenth inning. Dick Sisler goes yard and the Philadelphia Whiz Kids...go to the slaughter: the upstart Phillies get squashed in four straight by the Yankees.

1954: Man(tle) In Orbit. Old Yankee Stadium was merely unthinkable for most righthanded hitters to go long. Griffith Stadium in Washington was impossible: the longest center and left-centerfield in the league. Nobody bothered to tell Mickey Mantle, however. With the Damn Yankees (the book that inspired that musical, The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant, appeared that year) playing the Washington Senators ("Washington - First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League"), The Mick squared off, righthanded, against former Red Sox pitcher Chuck Stobbs and went yard - out of the yard. The blast cleared the back wall of the left field bleachers and landed in a backyard across the street from the rear of the park.

1955: Wait 'Till This Year! At long last, the Brooklyn Dodgers knock off the Yankees for the world championship. Kid pitcher Johnny Podres shoots down the Bombers twice - with a lot of help from a nimble Cuban left fielder named Sandy Amoros. In a play just about equal to Willie Mays in the previous year's Series, Amoros gets on his horse and picks off a long, sinking opposite field line drive by Yogi Berra and lets the ball fall into his glove - then wheels and hits shortstop Pee Wee Reese on the fly, letting Reese throw over to first to double up Gil McDougald. It's the only World Series title ever brandished in Flatbush. Sidebar: Podres got drafted before the following season, prompting a protest (ultimately futile) from Ted Williams.

1959: Candles In The Wind. The cavernous Los Angeles Coliseum resembles a seance. As night falls, over 90,000 fans (you can look it up) hold candles aloft in tribute to future Hall of Famer Roy Campanella, the Dodger catcher who never got to finish his career in LA, thanks to the auto accident after the 1957 season that left him a quadriplegic.

1963: You Go, Gramps! Warren Spahn became a 20-game winner - for the thirteenth time in his career. At age 42.

1965: Dandy Sandy. Exhausted, nothing left to throw but a fastball that does a bad imitation of the one that makes this sweet-mannered man a one-man terror machine on the mound, Sandy Koufax - on two days' rest - nails a World Series by shutting out the Minnesota Twins for a second consecutive time. (Eat your heart out, Jack Morris!)

1966: They Also Served. In a short speech that stunned the audience, Ted Williams' accepted his induction into the Hall of Fame with both an emotional thanks to his mentors and Boston fans...and a passionate salute to the Negro League greats who were not in the Hall because they were not allowed back into the Show until 1947. The Williams speech may well have prodded the creation of the committee that, in due course, evaluated and enshrined the absolute best of the Negro League stars - beginning, deservedly, with Satchel Paige's enshrinement in 1971.

1966: Tony the (Flying) Tiger. A record for consecutive grand slams (two) in one game is set - by a pitcher. Atlanta Braves ace righthander Tony Cloninger (later a successful enough pitching coach) had a modestly decent career on the mound, but which do you think he is remembered for best?

1968: Dennis the Menace. Yanking the Detroit Tigers to the American League pennant (and a stirring seven-game World Series win over the St. Louis Cardinals), Denny McLain becomes the first major league pitcher to win 30 games in a season since Dizzy Dean pulled it off in 1934. Neither the so-called Year of the Pitcher nor McLain's own self-destructive personality (his inability to shake his taste for hustling, gambling, and shady business doings, in search of the fast bucks he spent even faster, eroded his baseball talent - three years later, he was a 20-game loser - and landed him into two prison terms in due course) could diminish that achievement - not even in the Year of the Pitcher.

1969: One Small Step For Man, Several Flying Leaps For Mankind's Miracles. Shock number one: The New York Mets winning the National League East in a near-runaway after the equally upstart Chicago Cubs collapse in August. Shock number two: They win the National League pennant in a dazzling three-game sweep of the Atlanta Braves. Shock numbers three, four, five, and six: After losing Game One, the Mets - who already have the King's Royal Rifles on the mound - also turn into the Flying Wallendas in the field. The Baltimore Orioles, expected to squash the game little Metsies, get a four-game lesson in destiny. Quote of the Year: "When those astronauts walked on the moon, I knew we'd win. I knew then that anything was possible." - Met relief pitcher Tug McGraw.

1972: The Ritz Carlton. The 1972 Philadelphia Phillies stunk up the joint - except when lefthander Steve Carlton pitched. Carlton won 27 games with a dead last club, the most by a Phillie since Robin Roberts won 28 in 1952 and the most by a National League pitcher since Sandy Koufax said farewell with a 27-win 1966.

1976: They're Baaa-aaack! After a twelve-year drought that not even their worst enemies would have predicted (which proves how much they ignored the parching of the famed farm system even before 1964), the Yankees win the pennant the old-fashioned way: with a little last-minute drama. Hirsute first baseman Chris Chambliss belts a walkoff home run in the bottom of the ninth of the deciding League Championship Series game against the Kansas City Royals.

1978: The Bloom Comes Off The Rose. Pete Rose's 44-game hitting streak is stopped in his final at-bat of the night - by an Atlanta Braves pitcher whose specialty was nastily-dancing, sidearm-delivered off-speed breaking stuff. Rose almost ruined the splendor of his achievement (it was the longest streak since Joltin' Joe) when he practically had a hissy after the game - kvetching about how rude it was for the pitcher not to have challenged him with a fastball. Never mind that Gene Garber had a fastball that compared to a DC-3. Or, that you might think, after sixteen seasons in the Show, that Pete Rose of all people would have learned how to lay the wood on an off-speed curve ball. Time to give Garber his props for what he was: the man who stopped Rose's hitting streak, fair and square.

1978: Bucky Bleeping Dent. Fenway Park. No wonder Red Sox Nation believes itself cursed. A shortstop who usually has the long-ball pop of the Venus de Milo bops one into the nets behind the Green Monster. Forgotten: Reggie Jackson hitting the actual game-winning homer later in the game.

1982: The Crackerjack Jack The Crackerjack Old-Timers' Game, RFK Stadium in Washington. To give the old guys a break, the outfield fences were cut in practically to Little League dimensions. For the National League old-timers, Hall of Famer Warren Spahn started the bottom of the first. Leading off for the American League geriatrics: Luke Appling, the Hall of Fame shortstop of the Chicago White Sox. Spahnie delivered something doing an imitation of his once-famous screwball. Old Aches and Pains didn't need the cut fence: at age 75, Appling swung and the ball disappeared - all the way into the left field seats. "Oh, thank you, Spahnie! Thank you, Spahnie!" Appling hollered happily as he rounded the bases...with Spahn playfully chasing him all the way, whacking him on the behind with his glove.

1985: A Royal Pain. First base umpire Don Denkinger commits the most infamous blown call in World Series history and makes room for the Kansas City Royals to tie the World Series at three each. Game Seven: Still steaming, the St. Louis Cardinals spend more time fuming than playing baseball. Can't really blame them that much, because guess who turned up calling balls and strikes that night. The Royals showed as much mercy as Queen Athaliah, burying the Redbirds, 11-0, for game, set, and Series. Cardinal Sin Dept: When testy St. Louis starter John Tudor got blown out of the game early, he vented his frustration by punching an electric fan in the clubhouse, injuring his hand. In the press box, where Tudor's often sour demeanor made him a favourite target of sportswriters, the news was greeted gleefully: Aha, cracked one reporter, the shit just hit the fan!

2002: Godspeed, Teddy Ballgame. Fenway Park celebrates a life more than it mourns a death. The ballpark announcer, after giving a warm and empathetic recap of the most singular career in Red Sox history, finishes - stirring a thunderous standing ovation - by saying what Ted Williams himself, as a boy growing up in San Diego, admitted he most wanted people to remember him by as a baseball player: There goes Ted Williams...the greatest hitter who ever lived!

Then I'd better not tell them that when I was a kid my best pitch was a weird kind of palm ball I used to throw, semi-submarine style, where the ball would tip off my fingertips as I released it - I'd hold it with my fingers off the ball from the middle knuckles up and otherwise throw it like a fastball...the tip off the fingertips would make it come in with no speed even though it looked like the hard one, and it dropped when it reached the plate unless I turned my hand, in which case it rose just so. When I threw it right, that is. When I threw it wrong, it rose, all right - over the fence off the end of a bat.

Here's the one that most amazes me for not being in either MLB's list or yours, Bluesy:

1932: Ruth Calls His Shot. During the 1932 World Series, in response to a bunch of bench jockeying by the Cubs, aging Yankee slugger Babe Ruth points out toward the right-centerfield bleachers at Wrigley Field . . . and then hits a home run to that spot!

Through the years, there has been some controversy over whether Ruth actually was "calling his shot" or if his gesture had some other meaning.

Also, as he was rounding the bases, Ruth was really giving it back to the Cubs' bench: "Atcha! Atcha!"

Or how about another Ruthian moment:

1935: Ruth Goes Out with a Bang! Fat, old, broken-down Babe Ruth, now playing with the lowly Boston Braves, summons up enough strength to blast three home runs in one game right at the tail end of his career.

Finally, one last moment from the most legendary and memorable player of them all:

1948: The Babe's Farewell. Dying of throat cancer, a gaunt, ashen, raspy-voiced George Herman Ruth bids a touching farewell to the fans at Yankee Stadium.

In a way, I wasn't surprised to see nothing from Babe Ruth represented - because the man was just too damned big to isolate really, legitimately memorable single moments (Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner have the same problem, seemingly, and you can make a case that likewise applies to Walter Johnson). A lot of what one might deem the Bambino's memorables were in due course eclipsed by later men in various ways and places. Those can never take Ruth's place in the history of the game, but it is no insult to his memory to say that when the record is reviewed objectively, the Bambino's entire career was a more memorable moment than individual performances or appearances therein turned out to have been. That of itself is one hell of an achievement, if pondered the right way.

Consider: The "called shot". Never happened. Those who were there have said mostly that what Ruth was holding up was a finger signal indicating how many strikes were in the count. Ruth himself seems to have admitted he never actually called his shot but, since the story got around anyway and he was a big fat ham as it was, what harm was there in going along with the gag? (Both the Yankees and the Cubs were taking bench jockeying to new levels of constancy in that World Series.)

Consider, too: The final three homers. Would have been nice if he really did go out with a bang like that. Trouble is - it didn't happen in his actual final game. Reality bites, alas.

As for the Babe Ruth farewell, it was legitimately touching (anyone who has ever heard an uncut recording of the speech cannot say otherwise) - but it insults both Ruth and Lou Gehrig to compare it to Gehrig's farewell. Gehrig was a far younger facing death than Ruth was a decade later.

Though, speaking of Ty Cobb, you could make a case for this as an all-time memorable moment candidate...

1912: Four Apostrophes For Cobb Ty Cobb is suspended indefinitely after he storms into the stands to beat a heckler senseless. Tiger teammates protest the suspension and strike. Facing a heavy fine for failure to field a team, Tiger management rounds up a gang of sandlotters to face the Philadelphia Athletics. The A's pound the living whey out of the game sandlot fellows: 24-2, and when American League president Ban Johnson reduces Cobb's suspension to ten days, the Tiger regulars come back and spare the sandlotters further Eighth Amendment violations. Cobb's replacement in center field for that voluntary manslaughter is unknown to this day - because his surname was too long to appear in the box score in any way other than this: L'n'h's'r.

I know the three homers didn't come in Ruth's final game, but it was right near the end, when it looked like he was all washed up, and no one expected it from him. Also, if I'm not mistaken, one of the three was a mammoth tape-measure blast. But that part might be just the imagination that Ruth always conjures up. What a bigger-than-life character he was! And with performance on the field to match! Truly the greatest baseball player ever, and, in my opinion, the greatest player in any sport.

As for the most memorable moment in baseball history, I might vote for Mazeroski's 1960 seventh-game, ninth-inning, Series-winning home run for the underdog Pirates against the much-favored Yanks (who had vastly outscored the Buccos in that Series). Can't get more storybook than that.

But that part might be just the imagination that Ruth always conjures up. What a bigger-than-life character he was!

That was probably one of his most endearing qualities. Self-centered he may have been as a man, but he had at least the grace of a sense of humour about it in the right places. And if people wanted to exaggerate what he did, he probably figured who the hell was he to argue. I'm given to understand he couldn't resist adding to the mythology about the "called shot" homer once he realised nothing he said could straighten it out, anyway.

I don't know that I'd disagree if the Mazeroski homer ended up in the final top five memorables. You nailed one of the critical reasons: the Yankees outscoring the Pirates in that Series, not to mention the high score of the game by the time it got tied up for the bottom of the ninth. That Pirate team was a pretty good team, too, very underrated pennant winner among discussions of great single-season teams.

Speaking of the Pirates, you could make a case for memorability for...

1959: Harvey's Wallbanger - Twelve perfect innings. Wrecked in the thirteenth on an error, a hit, and a two-run homer that turned into a long double (because Henry Aaron inadvertently let Joe Adcock, who hit the blast, pass him on the basepath - or was that Adcock passing Hammerin' Hank on his own steam?) but still meant the game. Could you blame Harvey Haddix if he felt like banging his head against the wall? (Sidebar: The winning pitcher also pitched all the way that night: Lew Burdette (a.k.a. Chief Slobber on Stitches) of the Braves. When he argued for a contract raise the following year, he used the Haddix broken perfecto as his rationale: That guy pitched the greatest game in baseball history and he still couldn't beat me - so I must be the greatest pitcher in baseball!)

Hornsby had the nasty habit of making himself persona non grata just about everywhere he went from that point on. He lost his last managerial job when he had the St. Louis Browns in the early 1950s and so alienated the team that a contingent led by pitcher Ned Garver were ready to go to owner Bill Veeck with a petition to dump him...unaware that Veeck himself was planning to make that very dump. When the news came, the players threw a huge party.

Ned Garver has another interesting footnote: he was part of the first three-way tie for first place in MVP voting ever - in 1951, Garver, Yogi Berra and Allie Reynolds of the Yankees got the same number of first-place votes! Berra ultimately won the award (his first of three). Garver rated because he had had his career season in '51, a 20-game winner with a dead last club.

Those Oakland Athletics began their World Series three-peat against the Big Red Machine in the 1972 Series, winning in seven games. Here were the home runs:

Game One: Gene Tenace, Oakland (2)
Game Two: Joe Rudi, Oakland
Game Three: None
Game Four: Tenace
Game Five: Pete Rose, Denis Menke, Cincinnati
Game Six: Johnny Bench, Cincinnati
Game Seven: None

In 1973, the A's took on my surprise New York Mets (they'd won the NL East after starting September at the bottom of the heap and beat the Reds in a somewhat wild League Championship Series). The A's won in another arduous seven-game set. Here were the home runs:

Game One: None
Game Two: Cleon Jones, Wayne Garrett, Mets.
Game Three: Garrett
Game Four: Rusty Staub, Mets
Game Five: None
Game Six: None
Game Seven: Bert Campaneris, Reggie Jackson, Athletics

Finally, the A's got the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 1974 Series, and of all three of the consecutive Series triumphs it was against the Dodgers that Gang Green had their easiest time, winning in five. Here were the home runs:

Game One: Jimmy (The Toy Cannon) Wynn, Dodgers; Reggie Jackson, Athletics
Game Two: Joe Ferguson, Dodgers.
Game Three: Bill Buckner (yes - that Bill Buckner), Willie Crawford, Dodgers.
Game Four: Ken Holtzman (believe it - or not), Athletics.
Game Five: Ray Fosse, Joe Rudi, Athletics.

Kind of looks to me like Gene Tenace and Joe Rudi did the bulk of the long bomb damage against the Big Red Machine. I still remember people saying how surprising it was that even the Mets' precision pitching staff was keeping the Oakland big boppers in the park until Campaneris (who wasn't exactly a big bopper) and Jackson unloaded in the final game. It's probably even more surprising that the 1972-74 A's, who were the powerhouse their reputation has had them being, won only one of those three straight Series titles in less than seven games, and that even the 1973 Mets - who'd turned it on in the final month and made themselves play like the only quality team in a very weak NL East that year (they went 27-13 after 20 August and it included winning 21 out of their last 29 games) - could have taken those A's to a seventh game. The 1974 Dodgers, who were probably a somewhat better team than the 1973 Mets, were probably stunned that the Series ended in five.

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