Page 271 - 1975 BoSox

264 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
mained “easily the broadcast highlight of my life.” A decade hence he said: “It would have been nice to have a rhapsodic call, but there wasn’t time, just incred- ible doubt about whether the ball was fair. You had a split-second and had to get it right,” recalling “I was totally in the moment.” e moment has lasted 40 years.
Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis was 4 when he saw his rst Fenway game in 1938. For Game Six in 1975 he and wife Kitty sat along the third-base line. “ ings looked so bleak,” he said. “ en, out of nowhere, Carbo hits that blast.” ey left Fenway thinking that “win or lose Game Seven, we’d seen one of the great games ever.” John Kiley began to thump “ e Hallelujah Chorus.” Streets around Fenway heaved. In Beijing, nearly 11,000 miles away, it was Wednesday noon. George H.W. Bush, then envoy to China, and the embassy sta “cheered as Fisk’s homer cleared the wall.” Sparky Anderson sleepwalked to his hotel. Next night Boston led Game Seven, 3-0, till Rose upended Doyle on a probable sixth-inning double play. After Fisk ordered a curve, Bill Lee threw a blooper that Perez must have orbited: 3-2. In the 3-all ninth inning, Darrell Johnson inexplicably relieved Jim Willoughby for rookie Jim Burton, who forged a game-ending run more redolent of Deadball than the Big Red Machine. Ken Gri ey walked, was sacri ced, advanced on a groundout, and scored on Morgan’s Series-winning lob. Yaz made the nal out. Burton pitched one more big-league game.
Martin called Game Six “a keeper,” luring 66 million viewers — A.C. Nielsen’s fth-rated all-time sports TV audience. It was a changer, too. A night later a then-record 75,890,000 watched, presaging the rst all prime-time Series in 1985. Fisk topped TV Guide’s 1998 “Fifty Greatest Sports Moments”: “Every little boy who has ever played on a sandlot has dreamed of winning a World Series game with a last at-bat home run. ... In short, do what ... Fisk did. As if in a trance, the catcher bounced up and down near home plate, waving at the ball, willing it to stay fair. And when the ball obeyed, he leaped into the air and began his trot around the bases, both sts raised — just like a kid on the sandlot.” Fisk’s haymaker introduced the
reaction shot, changing sports coverage. “Since then,” said famed NBC producer Harry Coyle, “everything accents people’s response to the play.” Lou Gerard’s camera had been inside the Wall, “my task, no matter what — follow the ball. As Fisk swung I saw a rat four feet away. I didn’t dare cause harm by moving, which is what I’d have had to do to shift the view nder.” By accident, the lens stayed on Fisk.
A week after the nal pitch the Pirates ended the 28-year reign of Bob Prince, the King of Pittsburgh Baseball. Given his Steel City past, Stockton seemed a natural successor. “ e only way I’ll leave the Sox is if they re me,” Dick said, denying it. e Series had elevated him, buoyed freedom to leave or stay. At Fenway, change arrived, some unwelcome. “In the Series Lynn hit the center- eld concrete wall and crumpled to the grass, the whole park quieting,” said Peter Gammons. In 1976 Sox owner Tom Yawkey padded the out eld fence base, replaced the Wall’s tin façade with plastic, shrank the board by dropping NL scores, and moved it 20 feet to the right. An enclosed press box rose. Up went a center- eld ad message board. Jim Rice was the sole Townie to hit 25 homers. at July 9, Yawkey died, changing the immutable. Suddenly, it felt like being told that the Pilgrims landed at Bayonne. Changeless was the end: e Red Sox lost. As in 1947 and 1968, Boston in 1976 found defending a title harder than winning it. “With the talent we have on this club,” said Yaz, “playing .500 [83-79] is a disgrace.”
“We need pitching!” Number 8 chimed in 1977. Ferguson Jenkins’s 3.68 earned-run average led the sta . In exquisite irony, reliever Sparky Lyle, traded by Boston to New York in 1972, won the Cy Young Award, helping New York edge the Townies by 21⁄2 games. By contrast, Boston’s punch sired records as varied as New England foliage: a major-league 33 homers in 11 straight games; another record ve or more home runs in eight set-tos; on July 4 tying a big-league record eight homers in a game. On a three- game weekend in the Fens in June 1977, the Sox clubbed 21 homers o Yankees pitching, including four straight homers vs. Cat sh Hunter. Twice Boston