Monday, Oct. 28, 1974
Making It Happen
Los Angeles Dodgers Leftfielder Bill Buckner had little doubt about how the World Series would end. "I definitely think we have a better ball club," he said. "The A's have only a couple of players who could make our club."
Aside from all questions of relative talent, the Oakland A's--a team notorious for lack of togetherness--were playing the series last week in a state somewhere between turmoil and anarchy. Two of their top relief pitchers, Rollie Fingers and John ("Blue Moon") Odom, were recovering from an impromptu locker-room brawl. Star Slugger Reggie Jackson (TIME cover, June 3) was playing on probation, having been warned by Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn for threatening a reporter. Pitcher Jim ("Catfish") Hunter was embroiled in a public contract dispute with Svengalian Owner Charles O. Finley, who was overruling Manager Alvin Dark by ordering last-minute lineup changes. So who destroyed the opposition four games to one with crisp, aggressive play? Of course, the A's.
Personality Clash. The confrontation had been billed as the "shuttle series," a jet-age throwback to New York City's "subway series" in the 1950s between the Yankees and Dodgers or Giants. As sport, the series promised to be a clash between two powerful, well-balanced teams that were highly divergent in style and personality. From California's south came the young, efficient National League champions with their motto YOU GOTTA BELIEVE (borrowed from the 1973 champion New York Mets) and a Jack Armstrong image, represented by Third Baseman Ron Cey, who said, "You've got to pull together to win." From Oakland and the Bay Area came the quarreling, opportunistic, two-time defending world champions with a slogan of their own MAKE IT HAPPEN and a harsh professionalism reflected by Pitcher Ken Holtzman, who insisted, "Team spirit doesn't apply here. This isn't the college world series. With 27,000 bucks on the line, I hate everybody."
In terms of image, Oakland never had a chance. Liza Minnelli, Cary Grant and Walter Matthau turned up for the series opener at Dodger Stadium; the Bay Area could counter only with Charlie O, the A's mascot mule. But perhaps the Dodgers misunderstood the A's. Although Oakland's internecine bloodletting is nothing new, and, in fact, usually accompanies their best play, the Dodgers seemed to think that the squab-bung would undermine the A's. "I hope they fight some more," said Dodger Manager Walter Alston.
In the first game, the A's showed how a club with the second lowest team batting average in the A.L. could win the pennant for a third consecutive year. Oakland got only six hits, but scored on a home run, a suicide squeeze bunt and a throwing error by the Dodgers. Game No. 2 gave the Dodgers a chance to recover, and Los Angeles Rightfielder Joe Ferguson provided the power with a two-run homer. When Finley tried to fight back with Herb Washington, the inexperienced sprinter whom he hired this year as unofficial designated runner, Dodger Relief Ace Mike Marshall easily picked Washington off first base.
As the action moved up the coast, competition between shoes temporarily became a series sideshow. "Hey, why don't you sign with us?" Reggie Jackson, who endorses Pumas, had asked Dodger Adidas Wearer Dave Lopes while standing on second base in the ninth inning of the second game. Salesmen from both companies were charging around the two clubhouses in Oakland trying to gain new converts.
Charlie Finley, though, was not about to be outdone by shoe hawkers. Before the start of the third game, the irrepressible owner picked up the phone located by his seat behind the A's dugout and called first President Ford and then former President Nixon to invite them to attend the next game. Both declined. Next evening Finley gave the A's a pep talk in the clubhouse and then proceeded to revise Manager Dark's lineup at the last minute by replacing Veteran Gene Tenace with Rookie Claudell Washington. Tenace, outraged by the capricious benching, asked to be traded.
Valuable Fingers. Meanwhile, on the field, the A's were taking complete command of the play. The A's won the third game behind Catfish Hunter, who had launched the A's bickering by charging Finley with failure to pay half his $100,000-a-year salary. With extraordinary fielding around second base by Dick Green, they took the fourth game with a home run from the unlikely bat of Ken Holtzman and a key two-run single by Jim Holt, an obscure bench warmer. For the second time, the win was secured by Fingers, who was still nursing a five-stitch gash he had received in his pre-series fisticuffs.
The tireless Fingers, who was named the series' Most Valuable Player, returned to the mound the next night to preserve the A's final 3-2 victory. In a crucial play hi the last game, the Dodgers' boastful Buckner was thrown out in the eighth inning trying to stretch a single and an outfield error into three bases. When the game was over, Whining Manager Dark, a devout Baptist, surveyed the scene of pandemonium on the field and announced, "A lot of people aren't going to understand this, but I say: Glory to God."
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