For Our Fall Classic, This Was a Real Classic

I saw it, but I still don’t believe it.

This was one for the ages. But was it baseball? Lord! I hope you didn’t let the kids stay up to watch it!

It wasn’t a game, it was baggy pants comedy. What was that I was saying about this World Series being a fight between two drunks in a bar--all offense.

Well?

Baseball doesn’t know whether to be embarrassed or proud. Two teams without pitchers are as defenseless as minnows in a shark tank.

But this one goes into legend. It was the highest-scoring game in World Series history. Never before have two teams scored in double figures.

They finally managed to take pitching out of the game. It was 4 1/2 hours of batting practice.

But, Lord, it was exciting! This goes on the cassettes. This one goes direct to Cooperstown. A study in glorious ineptitude.

I still find it hard to believe Toronto won it. So, I have to think, does Toronto. The Phillies got four runs on one hit in the first inning, lost the lead, 7-6, in the third, then began to bombard the fences. They led, 12-7, 14-9, and appeared to be coasting to the hangar when their Wild Thing, Mitch Williams, came in to put a lid on the coffin in the eighth. The good news is, he wasn’t wild. Or, rather, that’s the bad news. He threw these nice straight strikes--and Toronto hit them all over the place for six runs and the victory.

When you score 14 runs, you expect to win a World Series game. To come up a buck short is enough to send you to psychiatry.

It set the art of pitching back to the Stone Age. It was sandlot baseball, but who needs classic baseball when you can get to see 31 hits, three home runs, two triples, seven doubles, 14 walks, two hit batsmen and two runs walked in?

It proved the adage, when you shoot at a king, make sure you kill him. The Blue Jays were like the corpse in those mystery movies where the hero leaves him for dead only to find him suddenly coming back with a drawn gun.

The Toronto batting order is like that--a killer on the loose who won’t die.

Paul Molitor might be as good a hitter as this World Series has seen and maybe any since Pete Rose stopped appearing in them.

How good is he? Well, his manager sat the league’s leading hitter down to make room for him in the lineup Tuesday night. That he could do that says a lot about two ballplayers--Molitor and the man he replaced, John Olerud. Not too many would take a demotion like that smiling. “Play me or trade me!” is the snarl most frequently heard in a major league dugout.

You get benched in a World Series and you feel like a fourth-runner-up in a Miss America contest.

How many clubs could bench a league-leading, .363 hitter, a guy who batted over .400 most of the season?

It says a lot about Toronto that they could do that. It says a lot that John Olerud would let them.

John Olerud mouths all the proper platitudes. For the Good of the Team. Manager-Cito-Gaston-Has-to-Play-the-Cards-He-Has. All that jazz. In a way, it’s no disgrace to be lifted for a Paul Molitor. But the World Series is not just any old game. This is the Palace, La Scala, the Old Vic. Do it here, you belong to the ages. Get benched, the whole country wonders what’s wrong with you.

Nothing’s wrong with John Olerud. What he must want to say is “Bench me!? Are you kidding!? I was batting over .400! That’s Ted Williams stuff! You gonna bench Ted Williams?!”

The good news was, he was benched for Molitor, probably one of the best strikers of the ball ever to pick up a bat. He hits the ball hard every time. Even the outs. He almost never pops it up, dribbles a handle hit weakly. He backs you up when he hits.

You would think, with his numbers--lifetime over .300, and .332 with 111 runs batted in and 22 home runs this year, he would be a statue in the park some place. A candy bar. He’d be nicknamed “the Man” or “Saint Paul” or such. If he played in New York, he’d be “Old Reliable.”

But in spite of the honor, it’s just possible John Olerud would rather have played. Lincoln used to tell the story of the man who was tarred and feathered and carried out of town on a slab by a mob and was asked how he liked that. And he answered, “If it weren’t for the honor of the thing, I would rather walk.”

Olerud knows how he feels.

When Molitor hit a triple and homer in Game 2, the manager’s semi-promise to return the favor and bench Molitor for Olerud the next night went a-glimmering. He decided to put Paul on third base and keep Olerud on first.

So, why hadn’t they done that the first night?

Manager Gaston had said that he didn’t want to risk Molitor playing third base. That was arrant nonsense. Molitor has always been a third baseman by trade. He played far more games at third than first.

The controversy dimmed in the shot and shell of Wednesday’s 15-14 game, baseball’s version of Dempsey-Firpo, or even the battle of Gettysburg.

Eleven pitchers took the hill in the cannonading. Until, at one point, the Toronto brain trust had trouble contacting its relief corps in the bullpen when the score mounted in favor of the homer-hitting Phillie lineup.

The official explanation was, the bullpen phone wasn’t working.

More likely, it was the pitchers who didn’t want to be working.

It called to mind the story when another Philadelphia lineup was on the field, the heavy-hitting old Athletics. One day in Yankee Stadium, the Yankee manager contacted his relievers by phone. One of them, Henry Johnson, had just purchased a hot dog when the phone rang. “Johnson, get in there!” said the manager. “Who’s coming up?” Johnson wanted to know. “Cochrane, Simmons and Foxx,” came the answer, naming the most fearsome sluggers in the league. Johnson turned to his fellow relievers. “Don’t touch that hot dog, I’ll be right back!” he growled.

Relief pitchers were right back all night long. Eleven flingers tried to stem the tide while earned-run averages soared into the stratosphere.

It’s no wonder they didn’t want to answer the phone. They should have pitched under assumed names. It was great theater--but hardly pitching’s finest hour. But let’s hope there’s more of it.