World-Class Series : Five Dramatic Games Come Alive in a Baseball Fan’s Hall of Memories

The World Series, which begins Tuesday, is a show-off. Since the first in 1903, when the older, established National League called off its cold war with the upstart American League, the World Series probably has been the source of more dramatic moments in sports than any other event.

Perhaps more than any sport, baseball tends to live off its tradition, its history, its legends.

There have been many outstanding World Series games, about as many as the combined number of home runs by Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.

Here are a few--this writer’s five greatest games in World Series history.

1. Oct. 21, 1975; Game 6, Cincinnati Reds vs. Boston Red Sox

This game always will be remembered for Carlton Fisk’s dramatic 12th-inning home run, but there was much more to it. The Reds led three games to two as the Series returned to Fenway Park, but rain postponed Game 6 for three days.

Behind mustachioed ace Luis Tiant, a cigar-chomping Cuban right-hander, the Red Sox took a 3-0 lead on Fred Lynn’s three-run home run in the first inning. When the Reds tied the score in the fifth, Lynn was involved again. The center fielder was shaken up slightly while trying to catch Ken Griffey Sr.’s triple off the wall that scored two runs. In the seventh, the Reds went ahead, 5-3. When Cesar Geronimo led off the eighth with a home run, the Reds led, 6-3, and Tiant was smoking his cigar in the clubhouse.

The rest was magical. The first hero was Bernie Carbo. A former Red, Carbo had blasted Boston Manager Darrell Johnson for not playing him regularly. Pinch-hitting for Boston pitcher Roger Moret in the bottom of the eighth with two runners on base, Carbo fouled off a 3-2 pitch and then homered to tie the game at 6-6.

The next hero was Reds’ left fielder George Foster. The Red Sox loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth and Lynn hit a fly ball to him. He caught it and then made a perfect throw to catcher Johnny Bench, who tagged out Denny Doyle at home for a double play.

In the 11th inning, Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans became the hero. He made a one-handed catch of Joe Morgan’s drive in front of the stands and then doubled up Griffey with a throw to first. Rick Wise, the game’s 12th pitcher, blanked the Reds in the 12th and all that was left was for Fisk to become the game’s last and greatest hero.

Fisk hit Pat Darcy’s first pitch deep and high down the left-field line. Fisk jumped on the foul line, trying to coax the ball to land fair. It did, glancing off the foul pole. The Red Sox won, 7-6, but the Reds went on to win Game 7, 4-3, on Morgan’s run-scoring bloop single in the ninth inning. 2. Oct. 1, 1932; Game 3, New York Yankees vs. Chicago Cubs.

Did he or didn’t he? It is probably the most famous act of braggadocio in baseball history--the Yankees’ Babe Ruth calling his shot. But first, some background.

A crowd of 49,986 jammed Wrigley Field to jeer the Yankees and cheer the Cubs. Manager Charlie Grimm’s Cubs already had lost the first two games at Yankee Stadium, 12-6 and 5-2, and the locals were only too eager to vent their frustrations on the dreaded Bronx Bombers.

What’s more, Yankee Manager Joe McCarthy had a little score to settle. It was McCarthy who managed the Cubs to a pennant in 1929 only to be fired when he finished second in 1930. Then there was Cub shortstop Mark Koenig, a one-time Yankee that the Cubs picked up in late August from Detroit. But when the Cubs voted to give Koenig only a half-share of the Cubs’ pennant and World Series money, his former Yankee teammates were aghast. Ruth openly called the Cubs players “cheapskates,” and the Chicago players responded with insults of their own.

Ruth’s three-run homer deep into the right-center field bleachers gave the Yankees a 3-0 lead in the first inning off Cubs’ pitcher Charlie Root, but Chicago fought back and tied the game, 4-4, in the fourth.

Then, Ruth stepped to the plate in the fifth inning.

Root was seething. There was one out. Ruth took a strike. Then he did something odd. Ruth pointed toward the outfield. Why did he do that? Root fired another pitch: strike two. Ruth only pointed again, unperturbed. Ahead two strikes, Root tried to fool Ruth with a change-up, but Ruth hit the ball over the screen in center field, near the base of the flagpole for his second homer of the game, his 15th in World Series play and the second-most important of his career. (His 60th home run in 1927 is tops.)

The Yankees went on to win, 7-5, and swept the Cubs in four games, but the question remains: Did Ruth call his shot? Reporters at the game wrote that he had. Grimm said Ruth was only pointing toward the mound to show Cubs pitcher Guy Bush, who had been heckling him, where he would be standing the next day. As for Ruth himself, he sometimes denied calling his shot and other times confirmed it. In any event, despite teammate Lou Gehrig’s .529 average for that World Series, it belonged to Ruth. It was also his last. 3. Oct. 13, 1960; Game 7, New York Yankees vs. Pittsburgh Pirates.

This Series was one long roller coaster ride, with a fellow named Bill Mazeroski sitting in the front car. While the heavily favored Yankees of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra and Elston Howard were winning games by 16-3, 10-0, 12-0, the Pirates kept pace after six games, winning 6-4, 3-2 and 5-2. At Forbes Field for the deciding game, burly right-hander Bob Turley of the Yankees squared off against smooth-throwing right-hander Vern Law of the Pirates. It should have been a pitchers’ duel, but it was anything but.

The Pirates took a 4-0 lead in the first inning and knocked out Turley. Bill (Moose) Skowron got one of the runs back for the Yankees with a home run in the fifth and New York took a 5-4 lead in the sixth, knocking around 5-foot 8-inch Pirate reliever Elroy Face. Berra’s three-run homer along the line and into the upper right-field stands was the big blow. When the Yankees scored two more runs in the top of the eighth for a 7-4 lead, they looked like a winner.

It might have been over if not for a pebble. With a runner on in the bottom of the eighth, Bill Virdon hit a grounded toward Yankee shortstop Tony Kubek that looked like a sure double play for pitcher Bobby Shantz. But the ball hit a pebble in the dirt infield and bounced up and struck Kubek in the throat. A single and an infield hit scored two runs and then reserve catcher Hal Smith hit a three-run homer over the left-field wall off pitcher Jim Coates for a 9-7 Pirate lead.

Three outs away from defeat, the Yankees tied the game, 9-9, with two runs in the ninth. Ralph Terry, who came on after Smith’s pinch-hit homer and finished up the eighth, took the mound to begin the ninth. The end came two pitches later. Mazeroski drove Terry’s second pitch over the left-field wall to win the game for the Pirates, 10-9, and earn a permanent place on the highlight films as he rounded the bases, avoiding the fans who ran onto the field to congratulate the man who took them on a wild ride. 4. Oct. 8, 1956; Game 5, Brooklyn Dodgers vs. New York Yankees.

During the season, 27-year-old right-hander Don Larsen had a record of 11-5. In this game against Larsen’s no-windup delivery, the Dodgers had no hits, no runs, no anything as Larsen pitched himself into the heart of baseball lore with the only perfect game in World Series history.

Larsen threw just 97 pitches to win, 2-0, before 64,519 at Yankee Stadium. Manager Casey Stengel took a chance on Larsen, who had given up four runs and four walks in less than two innings in Game 2, calling on him again with the Series even, 2-2. It was one of the best decisions in baseball history.

Mickey Mantle, topping off a regular season in which he hit .353 with 52 homers, gave Larsen the only run he needed in the fifth with a home run into the lower stands just inside the right-field foul pole.

Mantle also made the game’s toughest defensive play, saving Larsen’s perfect game with a running one-handed catch of Gil Hodges’ drive to left-center in the fifth. Larsen retired Carl Furillo on a fly ball and Roy Campanella on a ground out to Billy Martin to begin the ninth. Standing between him and his destiny was pinch-hitter Dale Mitchell. Larsen’s first pitch was a ball outside. The second pitch was a called strike. Mitchell swung at the third pitch and missed and he fouled the fourth pitch into the left-field stands. Larsen sent one last pitch to Mitchell and as the ball crossed the plate, umpire Babe Pinelli’s right arm went up for called strike three.

Catcher Yogi Berra leaped into Larsen’s arms and Larsen jumped into the record books. The Yankees went on to win the Series in seven games. Other turning points: Pinelli would never umpire another game, Dodger superstar Jackie Robinson would never play another game and the Dodgers would never play in another World Series as a team from Brooklyn. 5. Oct. 15, 1988; Game 1, Oakland Athletics vs. Los Angeles Dodgers.

This Series was supposed to be a mismatch, largely because the mighty A’s had breezed through as expected while the Dodgers surprised many with a pennant built on an upset over the favored New York Mets. What’s more, star outfielder Kirk Gibson, signed as a free agent over the winter, was limping. Gibson barely got through the National League championship series with the Mets because of a strained left hamstring and a bruised right knee.

It was a runaway, all right, but by the Dodgers. And it all started with Game 1 when Gibson had one of those storied nights worthy of the Fall Classic. The Athletics loaded the bases in the first inning at Dodger Stadium, but failed to score against Tim Belcher. Mickey Hatcher’s two-run home run gave the Dodgers a quick lead, but Belcher quickly got into trouble again. He loaded the bases to bring up Jose Canseco, who hit 42 homers during the season. Canseco hit another this time. His grand slam home run gave Dave Stewart a 4-2 lead.

The A’s still led, 4-3, as the Dodgers batted for the last time in the bottom of the ninth. Ace relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley retired the first two hitters, but walked pinch-hitter Mike Davis. Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda looked down the bench for someone to hit for relief pitcher Alejandro Pena. He saw Gibson and knew he was hurting because Gibson had received a cortisone shot in his knee before the game and could barely run. But up to the plate walked Gibson, bat in hand. He worked Eckersley to a full count, then sent the next pitch into the right-field seats for a two-run homer and a 5-4 Dodger victory.

Gibson hobbled around the bases, pumping his fist in the air. He would not play again in the Series, which the Dodgers won, 4-1. Gibson’s two-out, ninth-inning homer to win the game and his circling the bases when he could barely walk were highly dramatic fare, and if there’s anything consistent with the greatest games in World Series history, it was impeccable timing. 1990 WORLD SERIES SCHEDULE All Times Pacific Tue.--At NL champion, 5:32 p.m. Wed.--At NL champion, 5:29 p.m. Fri.--At AL champion, 5:32 p.m. Sat.--At AL champion, 5:29 p.m. Oct. 21--xAt AL champion, 5:29 p.m. Oct. 23--xAt NL champion, 5:29 p.m. Oct. 24--xAt NL champion, 5:29 p.m. x--If necessary The first-ever Series on CBS will be announced by Jack Buck and Tim McCarver. All telecasts begin at 5 p.m.