Page 155 - 1975 BoSox

148 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
for salary arbitration against owner Yawkey and sub- sequently the rst to lose.
During his rst season in Boston, Carbo quickly became a favorite of both the fans and the press. His gift of gab made him the Kevin Millar of his time with the media. Scipio Spinks, a former Cardinals teammate, sent Carbo a stu ed gorilla dressed in a Cardinals uniform which Carbo traveled with and named “Mighty Joe Young.”
During the magical 1975 season, Carbo was a key bench contributor for the Red Sox. He appeared in 107 games during the regular season, playing the out- eld in 85 games and serving as the DH in 13. Although he hit only .257, he amassed an on-base percentage of .409, drawing 83 walks. (Bill James, in the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, lists Carbo as 19th lifetime on the list of the highest rates of walks per 1,000 plate appearances.) He hit 15 home runs and drove in 50 runs. He had two-homer games in each of the rst three months of the season, including a one-man show in the leado spot on May 18 when he went 3-for-4, banging out two homers and driving in all four runs in a 4-2 win over the Kansas City Royals at Fenway. On April 27 he homered o Lerrin LaGrow and Tom Walker in a 5-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers. On June 10 he took Ferguson Jenkins deep twice in an 8-3 loss to the Texas Rangers.
While doing the job o the bench, Carbo continued to contribute to his developing reputation for eccentric and sometimes oblivious behavior in Boston. During the June 26 game at Fenway Park, Carbo crashed into the right- eld wall while taking a homer away from the Yankees’ Chris Chambliss, in the process dislodg- ing a chaw of tobacco in his mouth. Carbo is reported to have held up the game for 10 minutes while he searched for the missing chaw and then popped the same into his mouth upon discovering it on the warning track.
With Carl Yastrzemski, Fred Lynn, and Dwight Evans manning the out eld, and Juan Beniquez in the DH spot for all three games of the Red Sox’ sweep of the three-time defending champion Oakland A’s, Carbo
failed to get up o the bench during the ALCS. His rst postseason appearance came in Game Two of the World Series at Fenway Park. Pinch-hitting for Dick Drago, Carbo lined to left eld in the ninth inning of a 3-2 loss that knotted the Series at a game apiece.
Carbo was again used in a pinch-hitting role in Game ree at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium and this time he delivered the rst of his record-tying two pinch-hit homers in the same World Series. In the seventh inning Carbo hit for Reggie Cleveland. His solo shot narrowed the Reds’ lead to 5-3 and set the stage for Dwight Evans’ game-tying homer in the ninth. e Red Sox lost, 6-5, in 10 innings on a Joe Morgan single scoring Cesar Geronimo. Geronimo had advanced aided by the controversial no-interfer- ence call made by plate umpire Larry Barnett on Ed Armbrister.
Game Six was, of course, the game that turned this series into one for the ages. With the Red Sox trailing 6-3 and facing elimination in the bottom of the eighth inning, Fred Lynn singled and took second on a walk to Rico Petrocelli. Right-hander Rawly Eastwick entered the game in relief of Pedro Borbon. Eastwick struck out Dwight Evans and got Rick Burleson to line out to left. Carbo was sent up to hit for Roger Moret. Sparky Anderson, a stickler for playing the percentages, failed to bring in the left-handed Will McEnaney, suspecting that Red Sox manager Darrell Johnson would counter with the right-handed bat of Juan Beniquez. With two strikes on him, Carbo was fooled by what Peter Gammons reported as a “fastball that befuddled Bernardo as if it were the Pythagorean theorem.” Carbo believed that the pitch was a slider, coming in a spot in the count where he expected the fastball. Carbo barely managed to get a piece of the ball, fouling it o in what was later described by Carlton Fisk as possibly “the worst swing in the history of baseball.”
Carbo related to Peter Golenbock what happened next: “I stepped out of the box. I gured, ‘He’s going to be thinking I’m going to be looking slider, so instead I’m going to be looking fastball.’ Eastwick got the fastball up and away, where I was looking. I knew I