Page 305 - 1975 BoSox

298 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
his crouch, threw o his mask, and grabbed the ball with his bare hand. at is when Armbrister stopped and crept slightly backwards, just enough to make contact with Fisk. e catcher eschewed tagging the batter inches from him and went for the force play. e play at second would have been close, but the throw was over the glove of shortstop Rick Burleson and continued into center eld. Geronimo kept running and barely beat Fred Lynn’s throw to third base as Armbrister sprinted to second. e winning run was 90 feet away, and home plate was where several Red Sox were streaming to demand to know why interference had not been called.
Umpire Larry Barnett, an American League arbiter, let the play stand. Red Sox manager Darrell Johnson fumed at Barnett before appealing to rst-base umpire Dick Stello, but Stello diplomatically demurred to the ump with the play in front of him. Instant replay was decades from becoming part of the umpiring process, but the men in the booth had full access to the technol- ogy. NBC announcers Tony Kubek and Marty Brennaman, Cincinnati’s play-by-play man during the season, felt that the call should have been interfer- ence, as did all of New England and millions more across the country hanging on every pitch.
“I just stood there for a moment, watching it,” Armbrister told reporters who mobbed the obscure
out elder after the game.“ en [Fisk] came up from behind me and bumped me as he took the ball. I just stood there because he hit me in the back and I couldn’t move.”12
Fisk was so angry at the umpire and the turn of events that he moved away from Barnett, standing by himself for several moments on the Astroturf beyond the home-plate cutout. It was his second throwing error of the game; he had made a poor throw on George Foster’s steal of second base back in the second, the same inning he’d homered.13 e game, almost three hours old, was still alive, though Boston’s hopes hung in the balance.
Johnson brought in Roger Moret, who walked Pete Rose to set up a force play at any base with no one out. Sparky Anderson opted to pinch-hit Merv Rettenmund for the lefty-swinging Ken Gri ey against the southpaw. Moret caught Rettenmund looking and suddenly the Red Sox were a double play away from getting out of the mother of all jams. e next batter, however, was Joe Morgan, the second baseman who would be named MVP of the National League for 1975 — and later for 1976. Morgan lined a single over the drawn-in out eld and the Reds had won in their nal at-bat for the second straight game. Cincinnati led the Series and all bunts were o , you might say.
Game Four:
October 15, 1975, at Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati
Red Sox 5, Reds 4
Of the last eight World Series, ve had gone seven games and the other three had been decided in ve games — each of the latter held lessons applicable to the 1975 Red Sox. In 1969, 1970, and 1974, the losing team was not only forced to watch the home team celebrate at the end of Game Five, but they did so knowing they’d blown their “home- eld advantage,” missing the chance to bring the Series home for Games Six and Seven and a possible rally at their home park.
If the Red Sox won Game Four of the 1975 World Series, they would be assured of at least one more crack at the Reds at Fenway Park, where they’d come within an out of winning twice to open the Series. But if the Red Sox lost Game Four behind their best pitcher, Luis Tiant — and with Cincinnati’s ace, Don Gullett, set to start Game Five — chances were that Boston would know how the 1969 Orioles, 1970 Reds, and 1974 Dodgers felt: Enduring a winter of what