The 1975 World Series--Game Six

It may have been the greatest game in baseball history. And it happened thirty years ago. It is remembered, quite simply, as Game Six.

Joe Mooney's ground crew restored Fenway's Park's dirt and grass to playadaily ble condition, allowing Game Six to begin amidst surprisingly warm 64-degree temperatures. After retiring the first two batters he faced, Nolan surrendered back-to-back singles to Carl Yastrzemski and Carlton Fisk, followed by a three-run homer to the previously slumping Fred Lynn. With that home run, Nolan tied one of the most undesirable of World Series records. Lynn's blast was the eighth that Nolan had allowed in World Series play, drawing him even with Hall of Famers Don Drysdale and Whitey Ford. Of course, no one wanted to tell Nolan that Drysdale had allowed that many over the span of five World Series and that Ford had done so in 11 visits to the Fall Classic. Nolan, in stark contrast, was pitching in only his third World Series. Nolan narrowly avoided allowing a ninth career home run when Rico Petrocelli lofted a deep drive that seemed earmarked for territory beyond "The Wall" in left, only to fall into the waiting glove of Cincinnati's center fielder.

In contrast to Nolan's pratfalls, Tiant successfully battled his cold--although he disputed reports that his back bothered him--and kept the Reds scoreless over the first four innings before showing signs of weakness in the fifth. Tiant found fortune in retiring his first batter, Cesar Geronimo, who lined directly at Dwight Evans in right field. Sparky Anderson now called on Ed Armbrister--oh no, not him again!--to bat in the pitcher's spot. The pesky Armbrister waited out a walk and then moved up to third on Pete Rose's single to center field. With the tying run now at the plate, Ken Griffey stroked an opposite-field drive that chased Fred Lynn toward the outer regions of left-center field, right near the 379-foot sign. Lynn leapt up and into The Wall, but his courageous attempt fell short. As the ball bounded back toward the field of play, Armbrister and Rose scored, Griffey steamed into third, and Lynn collapsed in a heap at the base of the wall. He lay there motionless for several moments, drawing the attention of Carl Yastrzemski, who scurried over to check on his fallen teammate. "I hit the corner of the wall and fell," Lynn told Joe Giulotti of the Boston Herald American. "The base of my spine struck a pipe which extends a few feet out of the ground and I had no feeling above my waist." His legs paralyzed, Lynn felt frightened. "I always heard that if you suffer spinal injury [you should] remain still. That's why I didn't move. It was several seconds, but it seemed like minutes before I got feeling back in my legs."

After the momentary scare, Yastrzemski and the rest of the Red Sox realized that Lynn was all right--at least physically. The disappointment that came with failing to make a spectacularly important catch had left Lynn drained emotionally, but relatively uninjured--an amazing result given the awkward way he had collided with the wall. Lynn would remain in the game in spite of a sore and stiff back that would require several bags of ice in the post-game clubhouse.

Once Lynn returned to his station in center field, Tiant had to face the middle of the "Big Red Machine" order--Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench. When Morgan lifted a harmless pop-up to Rico Petrocelli at third base, Tiant appeared to have recovered, only to falter again when Bench lined one of his pitches off the ever-present left field wall. The unusual single--unusual for any park other than Fenway, that is--scored Griffey with the game-tying run. Tiant finally ended the rally when he struck out Tony Perez, the home run hero of Game Five.

Tiant ran into more trouble in the sixth, before escaping a precarious two-out, two-runner jam. Just as in Game Four, Tiant was pitching nowhere near his level of peak efficiency. His breaking pitches lacked movement, and his fastball, one of his saving graces in the fourth game, seemed to have departed him. Even Tiant's repertoire of pace-changing wind-ups did little to confuse the Reds' batters. With his pitch count now climbing at an alarming rate, Tiant started the seventh by allowing back-to-back singles to Ken Griffey and Joe Morgan. Darrell Johnson stubbornly maintained the status quo, opting not to replace Tiant's dragging right arm with a fresher one. The next batter, Johnny Bench, followed with another hard-hit ball, but it landed squarely in the glove of Carl Yastrzemski in left field. Tiant now faced Tony Perez, whom he had struck out to end the fifth inning. This time, Perez made contact, but only managed a fly-out to Dwight Evans in right field. Griffey moved up from second to third on the medium-depth fly ball, while Morgan held his ground at first. A tiring Tiant was just one out away from ending the threat. In spite of warm-up activity in the bullpen, Johnson once again decided to stick with his ace. Perhaps viewing the outcome of the inning with overly optimistic eyes, Johnson felt that Tiant could handle the formidable right-handed bat of George Foster. Having expounded so much energy in the fifth and sixth innings, Tiant couldn't put Foster away. Foster propelled a line drive to the deepest part of Fenway's outfield expanse. The ball crashed off the center field wall before caroming back onto the outfield grass. By the time Fred Lynn retrieved the pinball shot that had dented the wall, both Griffey and Morgan had scored. The two-out, two-run double by Foster had given the Reds a 5-3 lead.

The Reds tacked another run onto their lead in the eighth, when Cesar Geronimo hooked a Tiant pitch down the right field line, just inside Fenway's oddly situated foul pole. The home run, the shortest possible at the misshapen ballpark, put the Red Sox' deficit at three runs, finally convincing Darrell Johnson to make a change. Tiant, who had claimed both of Boston's victories and was attempting to become the first pitcher since Mickey Lolich in 1968 to win three games in a Series, would not have a chance at a third. Johnson called on left-hander Roger Moret to replace Tiant and face the bottom rung of the Reds' order, which was currently represented by relief pitcher Pedro Borbon. Moret induced a ground out from Borbon, and then did the same with Pete Rose to end the inning. With a comfortable lead of three runs, the Reds had placed themselves within six outs of the world championship. Sparky Anderson hoped that Borbon could acquire three of the outs in the eighth and that Rawly Eastwick could do the same in the ninth.

Speaking of Eastwick, he quickly became the topic of conversation in the Fenway Park press box. A group of writers who had been entrusted with the duty of conducting a vote for Series MVP elected to cast their ballots on the spot. The writers decided that Eastwick, who had won two games and saved a third game, deserved the MVP--and the new car that went along with it. In the meantime, the rest of those in attendance at Fenway set their sights on Borbon and Fred Lynn, the first batter to face him in the bottom of the eighth. Lynn banged a line drive that clipped the Cincinnati right-hander in the leg. Borbon could not recover the ball in time, allowing Lynn to reach on an infield single. Borbon then walked Rico Petrocelli, putting runners on first and second and bringing the tying run to the plate. With the power-hitting Dwight Evans scheduled to bat, Anderson strode to the mound and called for Eastwick, who had just been voted MVP in a ballot that had not yet been publicly announced. Eastwick and Evans had met before, most recently in Game Three, when "Dewey" clubbed a game-tying two-run home run in the ninth inning.

This time around, Eastwick gained the upper hand. Using his trademark moving fastball, he struck out Evans. Next up came Rick Burleson, who lined to George Foster at left. The Red Sox' rally, which seemed so promising only moments ago, appeared to be flickering. With Roger Moret scheduled to bat, Darrell Johnson decided to call on one of his pinch-hitters. Preferring one with power, Johnson instructed reserve outfielder Bernie Carbo to pick up a bat. Although Carbo had previously annoyed his manager by questioning his decision not to start him in the World Series, Johnson knew this was no time to institute a grudge. Carbo offered him his best chance of coming through in the pinch, just as he had done with a home run in Game Three. As a veteran of the 1970 World Series with the Reds, Carbo was familiar with the experience of playing in the game's ultimate pressure situations. He was also familiar with Eastwick's repertoire: rising fastballs, an occasional breaking pitch, and more fastballs. When Eastwick was at his best, his riding fastball bordered on the unhittable. Eastwick and Carbo tangled evenly for the first four pitches, working themselves to a count of 2-and-2. Rather than attempt to put Carbo away with a fastball, Eastwick threw a devious forkball, which moved down and away from the batter's box. Carbo swung weakly--the "swing of a little leaguer," as described by coach Johnny Pesky, or "the worst swing I ever saw," in the words of an observant Carlton Fisk, -- but somehow managed to tip the ball with a fractional segment of his bat. The count remained 2-and-2, and Carbo remained breathing. "I only wanted to keep the inning alive," Carbo told Jim Regan of the Springfield Daily News after the game. "I was thinking, 'Don't make the final out.' Billy Williams of the A's says the worst thing you can do is make the last out of a game or the last out to end a rally."

Carbo wanted nothing to do with the latter possibility. With his next pitch, Eastwick decided to throw Carbo his best pitch--a riding fastball--which he left over the middle of the plate. It was a pitch that Eastwick wanted to ride in on Carbo's hands, but one that stayed out over the plate, a "terrible pitch" in Eastwick's words. Using a level and compact swing, Carbo merely wanted to make contact. "I was telling myself not to strike out," Carbo told Joe Durso of The New York Times. "With four days off because of the rain, I was just trying to put the ball in play someplace." That someplace was in the direction of straightaway center field. The line drive carried, and to Carbo's surprise, carried some more. From the grass in the Fenway outfield, Cesar Geronimo stared at the ball as it cleared the center field wall. Three-run homer. Tie game. And so much for the selection of a Series MVP. Carbo clapped his hands furiously as he rounded the bases. Several times, he interrupted his home run trot with periodic leaps in the air. By the time he reached home plate, Red Sox players had already emptied the dugout and encircled the area near Reds catcher Johnny Bench and home plate umpire Satch Davidson. Carbo, who had just tied Chuck Essegian's record of two pinch-hit homers in one Series, stepped on home plate before melting into the friendly mass of grateful teammates. "It's funny," Carbo told The New York Times afterward, "but my first hit in the big leagues was a home run for the Reds, and two years later my first hit in a World Series was a home run for the Reds. And now this, against the Reds."

One of the players who scored ahead of Carbo was Boston's longtime infielder, Rico Petrocelli. "I was on first base. I came around; I was right in the middle of the pile," recalls Petrocelli. "That was so exciting. You get the chills. I remember getting the chills when that ball was hit; it looked like it had a chance. You had to wait, and then all of a sudden, it goes in the center field bleachers. I think my hair was standing on end when we rounded the bases." Petrocelli also remembers a dazed reaction on the part of Carbo, who was known for his rather offbeat states of mind. "Of course, Bernie at that time, he was kind of spacey," says Petrocelli, "and he didn't even know where he was; he was so excited."

Not wanting to lose the clutch bat of Boston's new hero, while strategically pushing the pitcher's spot one slot further back in the batting order, Darrell Johnson decided to keep Carbo in the game when the Reds came to bat in the ninth. He placed Carbo in left field, where he was greeted with a standing ovation from an appreciative Fenway. Johnson moved Carl Yastrzemski to first base and removed the slumping Cecil Cooper, who was just 1-for-18 in the Series, from the top of the lineup. The new alignment left the Red Sox a bit weakened defensively, but it hardly mattered in the top of the ninth. Dick Drago, the new Red Sox' pitcher, retired the Reds in order on two pop-ups and a ground out. Only one run--scored any which way--separated the Red Sox from a victory that would even the Series at three games apiece. And for the first time in the World Series, the Sox felt confident that they could break through against the previously impenetrable Rawly Eastwick. Denny Doyle, with hits in every game of the Series, led off the bottom of the ninth. The mercurial Doyle didn't get a hit this time, but managed to work out a walk against the faltering Eastwick. With Yastrzemski batting next, Darrell Johnson now faced an important decision. Should he let Yaz hit away, or ask him to bunt, something he rarely did? Third base coach Don Zimmer gave Yaz a clear sign: forget about squaring to bunt, swing the bat. Yastrzemski did just that, lining an Eastwick pitch into right field. Running hard all the way, Denny Doyle rounded second and headed for third. With no one out, the Red Sox had put the potential game-winning run on third base with no one out.

Having seen enough of Eastwick, Sparky Anderson called on Will McEnaney and instructed him to intentionally walk Carlton Fisk, loading the bases. McEnaney, a flaky left-hander featuring a devastating curve ball that hampered most southpaw batters, now faced rookie sensation Fred Lynn. Swinging defensively, Lynn lofted a short fly down the left field line. George Foster, who was shaded toward the line, tracked the ball down in very shallow left field, at what seemed like only a handful of yards beyond the third base bag. As Foster made the catch on the 200-foot fly ball, third base coach Don Zimmer shouted his instructions to Doyle. Wisely choosing to hold Doyle, Zimmer yelled, "You can't go. No, no, no!" Unfortunately for the Red Sox and the their fans, the message did not get through. Listening to Zimmer against the backdrop of a gasping crowd, Doyle thought his coach had said, "Go, go, go!" Noticing Doyle's surprising break from third, Foster fired home. Johnny Bench, at first blocking the plate with his powerful legs, picked the ball up on one long, comfortable hop and applied a swipe tag to Doyle. Out No. 2! A mix-up in communications, caused in part by a raucous World Series atmosphere, had resulted in the most unlikely of double plays. For the mistake-prone Red Sox, it was a nasty case of déjà vu. Earlier in the Series, the Red Sox had short-circuited a rally under eerily similar circumstances. In the first inning of Game One, Dwight Evans believed he had heard Zimmer shout "Go!" when the coach had actually yelled "No!" on an infield hit by Fred Lynn. Evans rounded third and ran for home, only to be cut down by Dave Concepcion's accurate throw to the plate.

A Red Sox' win, which had seemed like a foregone conclusion only seconds ago, now figured to be more problematic. Although Yastrzemski had alertly moved up to third on Foster's throw to the plate, he could no longer score on an out, since there were now two men down. A base hit, or a Cincinnati error of some kind, would have to occur in order to end the game in Boston's favor. Rico Petrocelli, hitless in the game though productive in the Series, stepped in against McEnaney, who remained in the game. Petrocelli hit a medium-speed grounder toward third base. Pete Rose picked the ball up off the infield dirt, which remained surprisingly firm in spite of three days of rainstorms, and threw to Tony Perez at first. The Red Sox' rally, which had appeared destined to end the game, was over.

It was on to the 10th inning. And then the 11th inning. When Pete Rose stepped to the plate to lead off the inning for the Reds, he decided to say something to Carlton Fisk, who was about to crouch behind the plate. "This is some kind of game, isn't it?" Rose said in wonderment to his opponent, who couldn't believe the words he was hearing. "Pete Rose said that to me," a shocked Fisk informed Sports Illustrated afterwards. It was not the kind of thing that a player, certainly not a competitive one like Rose, usually said to another player on the opposing team. Yet, this was not a game of usual circumstances.

A few moments later, Rose reached first when he was hit by a pitch, but was soon forced out when Fisk deftly fielded an attempted sacrifice bunt and pinpointed a strong throw to second. It was an especially nifty play by Fisk, given the pain and soreness he had combated throughout an injury-plagued season. But the Red Sox still had to deal with the middle of the Cincinnati order. With the fleet-footed Ken Griffey now on first, Joe Morgan launched a high fly ball toward the deepest regions of right field. At first sight, the ball appeared to have home run distance, causing Griffey to make a hard run toward second. Dwight Evans, employing a series of long, graceful strides, gave chase to Morgan's blast. The ball not only had the necessary footage to elude Evans and score Griffey, but it had seemed to have enough length to reach the wall, maybe even exceed it. Then, without warning, Evans stabbed the air with his glove hand. Amazingly, the ball stuck in his glove--a remarkable catch. Evans wasn't done. Although his momentum pushed him into the fence and brushed him up against the fans (who graciously moved back to accommodate him), Evans stopped himself quickly, re-gained his balance, and unfurled a strong but inaccurate throw wide of first base. Carl Yastrzemski flagged the ball down and relayed to Rick Burleson at second base, doubling Griffey off the bases and erasing what might have been the go-ahead run.

Although many observers had concluded that Morgan's drive was destined for extra bases, Evans felt otherwise. "I knew I had a chance. The ball was hit fairly low," Evans told the Springfield Daily News. "I stuck up my glove and the next thing I know I was wheeling and throwing the ball in the location of first." Evans' play didn't just save one run; it prevented two runs from scoring. "It would have been a homer because the fence is only three feet high there."

Bill Plummer, a backup catcher for the Reds who was watching the play from the bullpen, confirmed Evans' diagnosis. Plummer said that the ball would have landed two or three rows into the outfield seats. Evans' play drew the ultimate level of respect from opposing manager Sparky Anderson. "You will never see any better [catch] than that one," Sparky told Gerry Finn of the Springfield Union. "At least, I don't think I will." Keep in mind that Anderson had also witnessed Joe Rudi's outfield robbery against his Reds in the '72 Series.

The next inning, Cincinnati tried to mount another rally against Boston's suddenly stubborn and stingy combination of defense and pitching. The Reds put two more runners on base, but veteran Rick Wise, a one-time ace now nearing the end of a long career, retired Dave Concepcion on a fly-out and Cesar Geronimo on strikes.

The sixth game of the World Series, seemingly as long as the string of rainouts that had preceded it, moved to the bottom of the 12th inning. By now, Sparky Anderson had used up three of his regular starting pitchers and four of his best relievers, leaving him with an obscure rookie right-hander named Pat Darcy on the mound. As Cincinnati's eighth pitcher of the night, Darcy represented a piece of baseball history. No team had ever used as many hurlers in a World Series game. More pertinently, Darcy had retired all six of the Red Sox' batters he had faced in the 10th and 11th innings. In reality, Darcy represented Anderson's last viable pitching option of the night. Anderson had only two other pitchers on his entire staff who had not seen action during the marathon. One was Don Gullett, who was scheduled to start Game Seven, and the other was Clay Kirby, the only man on the staff who had yet to make an appearance in the World Series. Even though Darcy was about to embark on his third inning of work, Sparky simply couldn't use Gullett, and he didn't want to use Kirby. So Darcy it was.

The 25-year-old right-hander now prepared to face Carlton Fisk, the first batter for the Red Sox in the 12th inning. Darcy and Fisk had faced each other one time before in the Series, with Fisk drawing a walk in Game Three. Darcy didn't want to walk Fisk this time, not with Fisk being the leadoff man in extra innings of a tie game, not with him representing the potential game-winning run. Darcy wanted to maintain an aggressive approach. Go after Fisk, get him out, and then pitch more carefully to the left-handed hitting Fred Lynn, waiting in the on-deck circle. In the meantime, Carlton Fisk had a contrasting thought on his mind. "It's funny you know, that recollection--some of it is really fuzzy," says Fisk. "We're standing on the on-deck circle. As the warm-up pitches conclude, "I say, 'Fred, I'm gonna hit one off the wall. Drive me in.' He looks at me with that little smirky smile, [as if to say] 'Oh, that sounds good to me.' It was just one of those feelings that you just know--you just had a feeling that something good was going to happen that inning."

Darcy missed with his first pitch, a fastball that sailed too high. Darcy now faced even more pressure to put his next pitch within the strike zone. With the clock now reading 33 minutes past the midnight hour, Darcy delivered his second pitch. He threw a sinking fastball, one that ran down and in on Fisk. A pretty good pitch--to most hitters, at least. But not to Fisk, in this at-bat, in this ballpark. "I don't think about it every day," Fisk says of what followed, a hooking, high-arching drive that seemed to float as it traversed the left field line, before nesting in the screen attached to the foul pole, having met the minimum requirements of a home run at Fenway Park. "It's not something that I forget; it's just something that I don't think about every day. It happened so early in my career--the third or fourth year of my career, and I played 20 years after that--that it almost seems like it happened to a different player. Like I'm looking at someone else doing that dance, or hitting that ball and having it hit the screen." Fisk's dance, which consisted of an act of overt body English, fully replete with sets of jumping and waving, was uncharacteristic of a player who usually reacted to success with a more reserved demeanor. "That was the only time [I did something like that], in probably the only game that I've ever played that has ever meant that much. It happened to be a situation that was totally spontaneous. I don't remember doing things like that. Not that I played the game unemotionally. I always thought it was the player's right to be somewhat animated for doing well. Pitchers do it when they strike out hitters. Infielders do it, outfielders do it, when they make great plays. Hitters do it, and sometimes take it to an extreme, which offends a lot of people. But [you should] do it in a respectful way--I think everybody ought to be happy about doing well." A star player, often a stoic, now showing his human side. "A lot of people who viewed that game realized we're all people and we run the full gamut of emotions, maybe even more intensely than the fans."

Once Fisk ceased his repeated motions of body English, he turned his attention to the most basic of home run rituals. "I made sure I touched every one of those sweet white bases," Fisk told Maury Allen of the New York Post. "The fans jumped on the field, but I would score even if I had to stiff-arm them." For Fisk, the home run represented the culmination of one of the most memorable games in the history of professional baseball. "There was a certain alignment of the stars that evening," Fisk says. "I always think that game sort of defined both our teams in a lot of different ways." Two terrific teams playing the game at its highest level of professional competition.

An incredible game had exhausted its participants, including the managers. "The way I hurt all over," Sparky Anderson told United Press International, "it was probably as good a ballgame as I've ever seen."