Page 233 - 1975 BoSox

226 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
watch a game from the bullpen. Williams thought it would be funny to borrow a rope to tie Howard up so he couldn’t leave the bullpen.Sherry said,“Williams comes around a dirt pile with a noose, and Howard just picked him up and threw him over the dirt pile in the bullpen. Howard didn’t even get mad.”5
e Dodgers gave Williams a $5,000 raise to $16,000 in 1961. He mostly remained in the starting rotation, but occasionally relieved. He went 15-12, but his ERA grew to 3.90 in the second-place Dodgers’ last year in the Coliseum. Williams walked over 100 batters as he continued to struggle with command of his pitches.
In 1962, the team’s rst year in Dodger Stadium, the team won 102 games and nished tied for rst with the San Francisco Giants. is led to Williams’s second pennant playo in four years. e Dodgers lost the rst game, but in the second game at home they came back to take a one-run lead going into the eighth inning. Williams came on in relief with Giants on board and got out of the inning after giving up a run to tie. He retired the Giants 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth, and the Dodgers scored in the bottom of the inning to give Williams the blown save and the win.
e Dodgers remained at home for Game ree, on October 3, 1962. Juan Marichal started for the Giants and Johnny Podres for LA. e Dodgers moved ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the sixth on Tommy Davis’s two-run homer. ey scored another run to take a 4-2 lead into the ninth. Ed Roebuck had pitched well in relief of Podres, but didn’t have much left. e Giants scored a run and had the bases loaded with pinch- runner Ernie Bowman on third, Felipe Alou on second, and Willie Mays on rst.
Williams and left-handers Larry Sherry and Ron Perranoski, were warming up. Right-handed Orlando Cepeda was at the plate, with lefty Ed Bailey on deck. Alston, in what would become one of the most second- guessed manager’s moves in baseball history, brought in Williams. Perranoski assumed Alston wanted the platoon advantage. As Williams left the bullpen, Perranoski told him, “You get Cepeda, I’ll get Bailey.”6 Dodgers catcher John Roseboro said,“We all worried
about Williams. He was wild and inconsistent. (Coach) Leo Durocher came to the mound to make the change, and while we waited for Williams, Durocher said to me, ‘He’ll walk the ballpark.’ I said, “He’ll be okay.” I wanted him to be.”7
Williams had pitched the day before, and struggled with control all season. In his book Nice Guys Finish Last, Durocher said he begged Alston to bring in Don Drysdale, but Alston said he was saving Drysdale for the World Series. Drysdale had also thrown over 150 pitches in the rst playo game.
Williams got Cepeda on a sacri ce y that plated Bowman with the tying run and sent Alou to third. One more out would give the Dodgers a chance to win it in the bottom of the ninth. Ed Bailey strode to the plate. Williams said, “I gure that’s it for me—Ronnie will be pitching to him—so I started walking to the dugout, then looked up and saw Alston wasn’t coming.”8
It couldn’t have worked out worse. Roseboro said, “Trying to throw one by Ed Bailey, Williams threw into the dirt. I made one of the better blocks of my career and kept the runner on third, but the runner on rst (Mays) went to second.”9 Alston ordered Bailey walked to set up a force at any base. at also left Williams with no place to put the next batter, third baseman Jim Davenport. Williams battled Davenport, but ultimately walked him, forcing in Alou for the go-ahead run. Perranoski came in and got the next man to hit a grounder at second baseman Larry Burright, who kicked it, dropped it, and didn’t make a play. at put the Giants ahead by two before Perranoski struck out pinch-hitter Bob Nieman to end the inning. e Dodgers went down in order.
Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Blunders quotes Williams about his walk to Davenport: “It never bothered me that much because I gave it all I had and it didn’t work out. Had I let up and thrown a half-assed fastball and the guy had gotten a base hit I never would have forgiven myself. But I walked him at 100 mph, giving my best shot.”10