Let's Boil It Down to the Real Classics

By ROSS NEWHAN

Oct. 18, 1997 12 AM PT

MIAMI —

The road leading to Dade County was paved with gold. Dorothy and Toto would have been dazzled.

The division and championship series in both the American and National leagues produced an array of 24-karat gems.

Of the 27 games in the six series, 10 were decided by one run and 16 by two or fewer.

“The playoffs are always exciting, but we may be taking them to another level,” Cal Ripken Jr. said on a day off in the American League championship series.

“Every call and every play seems life and death. We may have a nervous breakdown before it’s over.”

Ripken survived, but his Baltimore Orioles didn’t. Neither did the Atlanta Braves, the only team that won more games than the Orioles during the regular season.

Bizarre and brilliant. Baseball’s special magic and magnetism.

The playoffs were two runs scoring on a wild pitch and Mike Mussina and Livan Hernandez each striking out 15 in the twilight. They were 21-year-old Jaret Wright beating the defending World Series champion New York Yankees twice, and 39-year-old Orel Hershiser proving that the Bulldog still has bite.

They were Randy Johnson losing twice and Mussina starting four postseason games, which put him on a pedestal with Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson. They were Dusty Baker displaying emotion on every pitch and Bobby Cox sitting placidly while Tom Glavine got raked.

They were Jim Thome, who hit 40 homers during the regular season, going without one, and Tony Fernandez, who hit 11, winning a pennant with one. They were Jim Leyland and Bobby Bonilla, shedding the frustrations of Pittsburgh, embracing emotionally at home plate, and Barry Bonds, who also experienced the frustrations of Pittsburgh, coming up empty.

They were that and more. And now, the World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Florida Marlins, and an editor wonders if the Series, which annually produces some of the most memorable moments and memories in sports, can measure up to the first two weeks of October.

“The playoffs have set a tone,” he says. “How about looking at the five greatest World Series games ever?”

“Whose greatest?” I ask.

“Your greatest,” he says.

Nice task. Greatest ever. One problem.

A veteran reporter, yes, but was I there for the Creation?

Was I there when Christy Mathewson threw three shutouts in six days of the 1905 World Series? Did I see Bill Wambsganss make that unassisted triple play in the 1920 Series, or Grover Cleveland Alexander come out of the bullpen to strike out Tony Lazzeri in 1926, or Babe Ruth call his shot in 1932, or Mickey Owen muff that third strike in 1941, or Cookie Lavagetto break up Bill Bevens’ no-hitter in 1947, or Jackie Robinson steal home in 1955, or Willie Mays race halfway to Yonkers to catch Vic Wertz’s drive in 1954, or Bill Mazeroski hit that home run in 1960?

No, I wasn’t there for any of those, or a lot of other great plays, and it seems that any list of the five greatest Series games or moments has to come from the camera of the mind, having been there, having experienced the emotions, the setting, the buildup.

Then too, does one moment translate to a great game or does it take more than that? Does a series of moments translate to a great game?

I think about the Series, for example, and I see a montage of great fielding plays by Brooks Robinson and Graig Nettles. I see Koufax in ’65 and Gibson in ’67 and ’68 and Hershiser across a galaxy of great games and moments in ’88. I see Bill Buckner in a sad end to a great game in ’86 and an exultant Joe Carter circling the bases after hitting the decisive home run off the Wild Thing in Game 6 in ’93 and I think about an absolutely wacky and wonderful 15-14 game in that same Toronto-Philadelphia Series.

The five greatest Series games?

Well, here’s an arbitrary list of recent vintage culled from the memory and emotion of having been there, with one exception:

1. Carlton Fisk and Game 6 of the 1975 Series between the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox.

The best game in what might have been the best Series ever.

It had a 4-hour 1-minute wringer at Fenway Park that stretched from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.

A game delayed by rain for 72 hours that began with the Reds leading the Series, three games to two.

A game in which: Fred Lynn hit a three-run homer in the first for the Red Sox; the Reds came back for a 6-3 lead; Bernie Carbo hit a three-run, pinch-homer to tie it, 6-6, in the eighth; the Red Sox failed to score with the bases loaded in the ninth; Boston right fielder Dwight Evans deprived Joe Morgan of a home run with a leaping catch in the 11th, and Fisk won it when he hit Pat Darcy’s first pitch of the 12th off the left-field foul pole--Fisk providing an indelible image as he leaped, his arms raised, applying mystic body English. A 7-6 final that delayed the inevitable. The Big Red Machine won Game 7, 4-3.

2. Kirk Gibson and Game 1 of the 1988 Series between the Dodgers and Oakland A’s.

A moment frozen in time: Gibson, unable to play because of injuries to both legs, limping to the plate to pinch-hit with two out in the ninth inning, Mike Davis on base after a costly walk, and the invincible Dennis Eckersley trying to preserve a 4-3 lead, the result of a grand slam by Jose Canseco off Tim Belcher in the second inning.

Gibson turned the Series around, paving the way for Hershiser’s MVP award, when he slugged that improbable, two-run homer into the right-field pavilion and hobbled around the bases, pumping his left arm in accompaniment to the roar of the Dodger Stadium crowd.

3. Reggie Jackson and Game 6 of the 1977 Series between the Dodgers and Yankees.

The game that always will personify Mr. October. Three home runs on three consecutive pitches by three pitchers--Burt Hooton, Elias Sosa and Charlie Hough--as a Yankee Stadium crowd of 56,407 went, well, nuts.

The Babe is the only other player who hit three home runs in a Series game, having done it in 1926 and ‘28, but only Jackson has hit four consecutive homers over two games, as he did in ‘77, or hit five in a Series, as he did that year.

The electricity of that performance was still in the air a year later when, in a game-on-the-line, full-count duel in Game 2 of the ’78 Series, the Dodgers’ Bob Welch, only 21, struck out Jackson with two on and two out in the ninth, preserving a 4-3 victory, a memory that could easily have made this list.

4. Don Larsen and Game 5 of the 1956 Series between the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers.

Wasn’t there, but how do you keep the only perfect game in Series history off any list--no matter the time frame or criteria?

5. Jack Morris and John Smoltz and Game 7 of the 1991 Series between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.

There is nothing to compare with Game 7 of a World Series and this one was as tense as they get, with a capacity crowd in the Metrodome raising the roof.

Morris, 36, making his third Series start, and Smoltz, 24, were on top of their games. They matched shutouts through seven innings before a baserunning blunder by Lonnie Smith allowed Morris to escape an eighth-inning threat and ultimately go the distance for a 1-0, 10-inning victory. Pinch-hitter Gene Larkin delivered a bases-loaded single over a drawn-in outfield off Alejandro Pena after Smoltz had pitched 7 1/3 innings.

Morris was the MVP, but Kirby Puckett, in a performance just as memorable, kept the Twins alive in a great Game 6 by depriving Ron Gant of a home run with a leaping catch in the third inning and a game-winning homer off Charlie Leibrandt in the 11th.

So, there are one man’s list and assorted memories. Will the ’97 Series provide others and live up to the playoff prelude? One thing is certain: It has been a tough act to follow.

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NEWHAN’S 5 GREATEST SERIES GAMES

1. GAME 6, 1975

Boston 7, Cincinnati 6 (12)

2. GAME 1, 1988

Dodgers 5, Oakland 4

3. GAME 6, 1977

N.Y. Yankees 8, Dodgers 4

4. GAME 5, 1956

N.Y. Yankees 2, Brooklyn 0

5. GAME 7, 1991

Minnesota 1, Atlanta 0