Not--So--Great Moments in Baseball, Too

Comes now major league baseball with a request we pick the 20 greatest moments in baseball history.

What they have in mind, of course, is Babe Ruth’s called-shot World Series home run in 1932 or maybe Don Larsen’s perfect game in the World Series in 1956, Pepper Martin’s runaway with the 1931 A’s-Cardinals Series.

Those are all right in their way. But it is the notion here that not all the great moments of baseball history were champagne and caviar. There was the view from the other dugout.

1932--It’s all very well to talk about the called shot Babe Ruth hit as an all-time baseball highlight but what about the hanging curve Cub Pitcher Charlie Root threw him?

Ever ask yourself why didn’t Root walk him? Charlie Root is clearly the unsung hero of this part of baseball history.

For one thing, the wind was blowing out in Wrigley Field that day and every pitcher knew what that means, a home run wind. Ruth had already hit a three-run homer off him in the first inning. Charlie could have put him on.

Instead, he gave him a second gopher ball.

So, let’s hear it for Charlie Root and his great day. A good, game goat.

All the rest of his life, Charlie bitterly denied that Ruth had pointed to the bleachers before hitting his home run shot.

“If he had, I would have knocked him on his butt!” growled Charlie.

Great idea, Charlie. Why didn’t you?

1917--The baseball highlight of this year is easy. Heinie Zimmerman, a third baseman for the New York Giants in the World Series against the White Sox, catches Chicago’s Eddie Collins off base. And chases him across the plate with the winning run of the Series.

If that isn’t a highlight, I never heard of one.

Heinie, as a matter of fact, had put Collins in scoring position with a two-base throwing error.

Heinie always insisted that there was nobody to throw the ball to at home plate but the umpire. But the third base coach of the White Sox insisted he distinctly heard Heinie fluff off pleas to throw the ball home.

“I’ll get this monkey myself,” Heinie was reportedly heard to murmur.

Interestingly enough, Heinie was later forced out of baseball for gambling. On his own team, of course.

1951--The Little Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff is what? Bobby Thomson hitting a home run in the bottom of the ninth with two on to give the Giants the pennant over the Dodgers in a playoff?

Not necessarily.

The Little Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff could be the little manager, Charlie Dressen, waving a relief pitcher in from the bullpen to relieve Don Newcombe with one out and two on to face Thomson. Newcombe had won 20 games that year, the reliever, Ralph Branca had won 13.

But more important, Bobby Thomson had hit a home run off Branca to win the first game of that three-game playoff. He hit another one here.

A great moment in baseball history has to be Charlie Dressen waving in the relief pitcher at that moment, handing him the ball and saying, “Just be sure you don’t walk him.”

1985--Speaking of great moments in managerial history, come with me now to the dugout of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the ninth inning of the sixth playoff game between the Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals.

The Dodgers are leading, 5- 4, there are two out, men on second and third, Tom Niedenfuer is their pitcher and the batter is Jack Clark. The Cardinals have hit 87 home runs this year and Clark has hit 22 of them. First base is yawningly open.

You put Clark on with an intentional walk in that situation, right?

Nah! You serve him up a 450- foot home-run ball and the National League pennant.

Any discussions of great moments in baseball have to include the chirp from the Dodger dugout that day when someone said, “Make him be a hitter, Tom!”

1966--Sandy Koufax’s last game has to be one of the great moments of baseball, right? OK.

It’s Game 2 of the World Series, Baltimore against the Dodgers. It’s the fourth inning. There is no score, there is one out, a man on first. Baltimore’s Paul Blair hits what looks to be a routine fly ball to center. One of the best center fielders in the game’s history is camped under it. He drops it.

Men on second and third. The batter is the light-hitting catcher, Andy Etchebarren. He is overmatched and hits a little soft fly to center field, where the best center fielder in the league drops it.

The center fielder then picks the ball up--and throws it into the Dodger dugout.

Since the Dodgers are not going to score this day, that is the old ball game and, as it happens, the old World Series. Willie Davis sets a record, three errors in one inning--on two balls.

Great moment? Well, it hadn’t been seen before. And hasn’t since.

1925--Roger Peckinpaugh, ordinarily a sure-handed shortstop who had made only 28 errors all season, contrasted with the league lead of 53 by Chicago’s Ike Davis, and who had been chosen most valuable player of the league that year, weighed in with eight errors in seven games in the World Series, including two in the crucial seventh game.

He had led the league in starting double plays the year before but here he threw most of his double-play balls away and cost Walter Johnson the last World Series he pitched in, although Walter surely helped by giving up 15 hits and nine runs himself.

1962--The ’62 pennant seemed safely in the Dodgers’ grasp going into the ninth inning of the final pennant playoff game. They led the Giants, 4-2, and needed only three outs to nail down the championship.

They had the best pitcher in baseball wandering around the locker room in his underwear while the relief staff went out to try to get Harvey Kuenn, Willie McCovey, Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda out.

Don Drysdale won 25 games, the Cy Young Award and most of everything else that season. He had pitched a league-leading 332 innings, had an ERA of 2.83. He stayed in his long johns while the Giants got four runs--and the National League pennant--on two hits, both singles and one that didn’t leave the infield, four walks, an error and a wild pitch.

One of the relief pitchers walked the pennant home, giving up the decisive run with a base on balls with the bases loaded.

I leave out such well-bruited boners as Fred Merkle’s failure to touch second base, which cost the Giants the 1908 pennant; Fred Snodgrass’ dropping the championship in the Series of 1912 in center field; Mickey Owens’ dropping the third strike in 1941. Those are just cripples, 3-1 pitches. But I would like to close with one other.

1926--We are all aware of how Grover Cleveland Alexander, aging and hung over, came in to strike out Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded in the seventh inning in the storied seventh game of the Series between the Cardinals and the Yankees.

But you might never have heard of that if a somewhat overweight, un-fast outfielder who got walked with two out in the ninth inning and undertook to try to steal second.

Nobody ever figured out why Babe Ruth did it. He had stolen exactly two bases all that season. And Lou Gehrig was at bat. Ruth made a lot of baseball history. But that day, all he did was preserve Grover Alexander’s.

It’s easy to make history throwing to the right base, making the right pitch, getting the historic hit. But how about the guys who set it up, made it all possible?