Page 303 - 1975 BoSox

296 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
less streak when Tony Perez hit into a force play that tied the game in the fourth. Boston went ahead when Rico Petrocelli knocked in his third run of the Series with a single in the sixth after Concepcion’s error kept the inning alive. It was not pretty, but neither was the weather. Cold, rainy, and windy, the elements eventu- ally caused an adjournment of 27 minutes in the middle of seventh inning.
When the teams came back on the eld, the Reds had their third pitcher. Will McEnaney replaced Pedro Borbon, who’d been summoned by Sparky Anderson to replace Billingham for the last out of the sixth. McEnaney’s rst batter was Red Sox starting pitcher Bill Lee, whom manager Darrell Johnson kept in despite the rain delay. It was certainly not an automatic decision. Lee hadn’t won since August or started a game since mid-September.6 Johnson did not pitch Lee at all in the ALCS sweep of Oakland. e Boston Globe’s Peter Gammons said that Lee was nally “out of the celestial doghouse.”7
Lee breezed through the eighth, allowing a two-out Pete Rose single before getting Joe Morgan to bounce out to end the inning. Boston had a chance to extend its lead in the home eighth with a walk and single against Reds rookie Rawly Eastwick, but Dwight Evans fanned to end the inning.
Lee had allowed only four hits and two walks through eight innings. A day after Luis Tiant pitched the rst World Series complete game since 1971,8 the Red Sox went for the rst back-to-back complete games in the World Series since the 1969 Mets. But there were no miracles for Boston in the ninth inning in Game Two.
Johnny Bench lined an opposite- eld double leading o against Lee, and Johnson summoned Dick Drago. A converted starter, Drago was in his rst season exclusively as a reliever. At a time when starters went the distance at least twice a week on average in the American League, and Boston was third in the majors with 62 complete games, Drago’s 15 saves were in the top ve in the AL. (League leader Rich Gossage of the White Sox had all of 26.) Drago, who’d blown only three saves all year, induced a grounder from
Tony Perez that shortstop Rick Burleson made a nice play on to record the rst out, with Bench crossing to third. Drago got George Foster to y to left, too shallow to risk sending Bench home against Yaz’s arm. It was up to Concepcion, whose error had helped Boston take its 2-1 lead in the sixth. With the game on the line, the Reds shortstop hit a bouncer just over Drago’s head. ough second baseman Denny Doyle snagged the ball, there was no play. e game was tied, but not for long.
Reds baserunners had been thrown out by Fisk in each of their rst two steal attempts of the Series, and Boston shortstop Rick Burleson argued that they’d gotten Concepcion on his ninth-inning steal attempt as well. e call stood, however, and Ken Gri ey followed with a shot to left-center that hit the wall on the third bounce to give the Reds their rst lead of the World Series. When Eastwick set down the Red Sox on three ies in the ninth, the Reds could breathe a sigh of relief that they’d survived Boston, coming within an out of falling behind two games to none while scoring only once in 18 innings.
e Reds were as stunned as anyone as to what had happened to their potent bats through the rst two games. Pete Rose put it the way the public was looking at the Reds: “ at team won 108 games?”9 Yes. And that team was fortunate to win a game at Fenway Park. Gammons of the Globe was more philosophical about the view of Game Two from underdog Boston’s end. “In its emotional drain, it was a game and ad- vantage lost, but a vision for the people who make the World Series lms, a game of attitudinal and psycho- logical juxtapositions to be remembered over many a one-more-round from Braintree to San Rafael.”10
Almost 900 miles from Boston, at the same time the Reds and the Red Sox were battling at Fenway, their National Football League counterparts were facing o at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, where the World Series would head after an o day. Cincinnati won the football game that Sunday, too, the favored Bengals pulling away late to beat the New England Patriots, 27-10. But football, the sport that many Americans had come to rely on in the TV age for their