RIP Bill Buckner

Bill Buckner with the Cubs

Its been a tough week. First, Bart Starr, one of the heroes of my coming of age era dies, and now I note the passing of Bill Buckner at age 69. He is, of course, known for one play; or rather, is known for not making one play. That’s a great shame. He had good years with the Dodgers, coming up as an outfielder/first baseman and moving almost entirely to the outfield to accommodate Steve Garvey.

Traded to the Cubs, he won a batting title (1980), made his only All-Star team the following season, and moved on to Boston in 1984, just as the Cubs finally won a pennant. He remained in Boston into 1987, appearing in the 1986 World Series, and making one of the more famous errors in baseball history. It was his second Series (1974). He finished up with the Angels and Royals, before going back to Boston for a final 22 games in 1990.

For his career his triple slash line read 289/321/408/729 (OPS+ of 100) with 2715 hits, 1077 runs scored, 498 doubles, 174 home runs, 1208 RBIs, 3833 total bases, and 15.1 WAR; a nice solid career. He got a couple of votes for the Hall of Fame in 1996.

Apparently he was fighting dementia in his final years and died yesterday. RIP Bill Buckner.

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Game Six: Wickets

One interesting thing about baseball is that you can track stats over time. For instance, you can make a list of the men who held the single season home run title from 1876 all the way through 2010. Another stat that’s easy to follow is errors. If you track them, you’ll notice that, as a rule, there has been a distinct improvement in fielding through the years. That doesn’t mean there aren’t still errors. Some are infamous. Fred Snodgrass in 1912 made an error that modern baseball fans know about. In 1941 Mickey Owen let a ball get passed him to open up a Yankees rally that won a World Series game. But if I  had to pick one error to put at the top of the infamy list, it occurred in 1986.

1986

Ray Knight scores, game six, 1986

The Red Sox and Mets squared off in game six of the 1986 World Series at Shea Stadium on 25 October. The Red Sox needed one win to grab their first championship since 1918. For the Mets, they needed two wins to secure their second championship ever. Both teams sent aces to the mound: Roger Clemens for Boston and Bob Ojeda for New York. Clemens started off well, Ojeda was shaky, giving up single runs in both the first and second innings. After that he settled down and pitched shutout ball through the sixth inning. Clemens did fine through four, then gave up the tying runs in the fifth on a walk, a single, an error (making one of the runs unearned), and a double play. Boston retook the lead on an unearned run in the seventh, but New York tied it back up on a Gary Carter sacrifice fly in the eighth inning. No one scored in the ninth, so the game went to extra innings.

Boston seemingly won the Series in the top of the tenth with a home run, a double, and  a single to give them a 5-3 lead. But of course the home team gets one last at bat, so down two runs, the Mets came to the plate in the bottom of the tenth. Pitcher Calvin Schraldi (an ex-Mets player) got two quick outs, then gave up three consecutive singles, giving the Mets one run back. Out went Schraldi, in came Bob Stanley, who promptly threw a wild pitch tying the game and sending the potential winning run to second. That brought up left fielder Mookie Wilson, who hit a slow roller to first baseman, and one-time batting champ, Bill Buckner, who let it go between the wickets for an error. Ray Knight, the runner on second (and husband to golfer Nancy Lopez), scored the winning run, which set up a game seven. The Mets won it 8-5 to secure the World Series championship.

Fans called Buckner all sorts of things. That went on for years, and I still know people who blame him for the loss. I never did. First, it was game six. So what if Boston loses it? Go out and win game seven. They actually led in game seven 3-0 going into the bottom of the sixth, when Bruce Hurst and the bullpen blew it again. BTW, Buckner went 2 for 4 in game seven, scoring one run in the eighth inning. You want to blame somebody? I got a lot of suggestions. First, blame the Mets. They played good ball, got timely hitting, and took advantage of the opportunities offered. Second, blame the Boston pitching. Bruce Hurst won 2 games and Clemens pitched well despite getting no decisions. The rest of the staff was weak (and I’m being kind to some of them). Oil Can Boyd and Al Nipper had 7.00 ERA’s.  Bob Stanley threw a critical wild pitch and closer Schraldi was 0-2 (one save) with a 13.00 ERA. Also blame the manager, John McNamara. All season he had replaced the largely immobile Buckner with Dave Stapleton late in games with Boston leading. He had done so in all three of the Red Sox wins prior to game six. For some reason (and I’ve never heard a definitive answer from McNamara) he left Buckner in the game on the 25th. Some people say he wanted to give Buckner the thrill of being on the field when the Sox won the Series, but I’ve never heard McNamara actually say that.

For the Red Sox it took until 2004 to win a World Series. The Mets have never won another. They had a couple of chances but came up short against the Cardinals in the regular season, the Dodgers in the playoffs, and against the Yankees in the one World Series they managed to get back into. Ya know, maybe there’s a curse of Bill Buckner.

Best Possible Game 6

If game 5 was the easiest Series game to pick because it was so obvious, game 6 was the hardest. There have been an inordinate number of quality sixth games in World Series history. I saw a number of them, so I chose the one I found the most exciting.

Down 3 games to 2 to the Atlanta Braves, the 1991 Minnesota Twins went into the Metrodome for game 6 needing two wins. What they got was a great game. They also ended up with the Kirby Puckett show.

The Twins broke on top with a Chuck Knoblauch single, a Puckett triple and a Shane Mack single for an early 2 run lead. In the 3rd inning Puckett made one of the most sensational catches against the glass I ever saw. It stopped a Braves rally cold. The Braves did break through in the 5th inning with two runs of their own. Terry Pendleton popped a two-run homer. Not to be outdone, the Twins went back into the lead in the bottom of the inning on Puckett’s sacrifice fly.

It took the Braves until the 7th inning to tie the game on a force out. The game remained tied until Puckett smashed a leadoff home run against Charlie Leibrandt to end the game and tie up the Series. In game 6, the Twins tallied 4 runs, Pucket had 3 RBIs and scored two runs. Heckuva performance.

Honorable mention game 6:

1947-The Dodgers tie up the Series. Famous for Al Gionfriddo’s great catch robbing Joe Dimaggio of a home run.

1975-Carlton Fisk’s “body English” home run in extra innings tied up the Series, which the BoSox lost the next night.

1986-in maybe the most famous error in World Series history, Bill Buckner leaves the wickets open.

1993-Joe Carter’s two-run blast for the Blue Jays wins the Series for Toronto.

2002-The Giants have the World Series wrapped up until the Angels rip off 3 runs in both the bottom of the 7th and the bottom of the 8th to tie up the Series. They win it all in game 7.

2003-Josh Beckett stifles the Yankees to record Florida’s 2nd World Series victory in franchise history.