Boos to Cheers: Darrell Porter and the 1982 World Series

Darrell Porter got hot in 1982’s postseason, but his work with the pitching staff may have also been crucial to the championship. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

 

Darrell Porter’s second season as a St. Louis Cardinal was difficult. He was playing on an incredibly talented team with great fielding at every position, solid starting pitching, and a future Hall of Famer as a closer. But the alumnus of Southeast High School in Oklahoma City batted only .231, a significant step down from 1979 when he had played for Kansas City and became one of the few players in baseball history to have 100 runs, RBIs, and walks in a season.1 As the catching successor to the popular Ted Simmons, a six-time All-Star who had spent thirteen seasons behind the plate in St. Louis, Porter was the target of fans’ boos. “[Darrell] took some heat in St. Louis during that 1982 season because he did not hit particularly well and had replaced a Cardinal favorite in Ted Simmons,” Mike Ramsey, a versatile infielder who played second base, shortstop, and third for St. Louis in 1982, says.2

“Everybody expected Darrell to do what he did in Kansas City,” pitcher Jim Kaat explains. “Well, St. Louis is a little bigger ballpark, and some of those fly balls that might have been home runs in Kansas City were warning track outs in St. Louis.”3 After one of those warning track outs, Porter would return to the dugout frustrated. Placing his bat in the rack, he would say something along the lines of “You turkey turd! You flew out again to left field!”

“The strongest language he would use was ‘turkey turd,’” Kaat says.

Porter had found sobriety after struggling with alcohol and drugs in Kansas City.4 Staying clean was a constant effort and priority for him.5 Despite his difficult journey of recovery from addiction, one coach jabbed Porter with a low blow after Porter lofted a fly ball for an out and leaving men stranded on base: “Darrell, I liked you better when you were drinking.”

“That was really mean-spirited,” Kaat says. “And, it got real quiet in the dugout, and nobody knew exactly what to say, but, you know, that’s the kind of stuff Darrell was going through early in the season because he just wasn’t producing.”

Despite the struggles and the negativity, Porter persevered. John Stuper, a rookie pitcher who worked with Porter in seventeen games in 1982, was impressed with how unflappable Porter was. “When Darrell struggled during that year, they let him know it, but it didn’t bother him. He never said anything. He would just come out and hit extra, work hard. Things rolled off his back.”6

Porter also took the time to make Stuper, a right-handed starter who joined the Cardinals from the minor leagues that June, feel welcomed. “You were comfortable around Darrell, always,” Stuper says. “You ever been around somebody, even if you don’t know them that well, they’re just so friendly and so easygoing that you’re instantly comfortable around them? That’s the Darrell I remember.”

Ramsey echoes the sentiment. “Darrell was great. One of my favorite teammates. Tough physically and a very good catcher.”

Behind the plate, Porter offered multiple qualities. He called an excellent game, presented a good target, blocked the ball well, and, with his strong and accurate arm, threw out baserunners. He also noticed when his young pitcher Stuper started to deviate from his usual mechanics. When that happened, Porter trotted out to the mound. “Hey, you’re dropping your arm a little bit,” Porter pointed out. “Be sure to keep it up at the exact same release point as where your fastball is.”

Stuper was receptive to Porter’s observations, recalibrated, and returned to his original form. “He didn’t force himself on you,” Stuper says. “He just made suggestions. You thought to yourself, ‘Heck, that’s an All Star catcher. I’m a rookie. He probably knows a little bit more than I do. So, I’ll go with it.’ But, he didn’t force himself on you. He was a quiet leader.” If Stuper struggled during a game, Porter visited the mound and shared a kind and encouraging word with his young pitcher. “Come on, John!” he would say. “You can do this!”

Porter worked well with veteran pitchers, too. By 1982, Kaat was pitching in his twenty-fourth season in the major leagues. At 43-years-old, Kaat knew how to pitch and understood what he could do effectively. So did Porter. And, the two of them kept their approach direct and uncomplicated. “When I came in, it was pretty simple,” Kaat says. “I side-armed left-handers. I threw a fastball that I’d try to run inside, and I threw a curveball that I tried to sweep outside. We kept it pretty simple.”

“He was one of the quick into the shower, quick out,” Kaat says. “My locker was right near the shower. He’d practically be in and out before I ever had my uniform off. He explained to me one day, he said, ‘You know, I just can’t stick around with you guys and do that anymore.’ We all respected his personality from that standpoint.”

When looking back on his experiences with Porter, Kaat recalls their non-baseball conversations about Porter realigning his life and his priorities. Kaat cheered Porter on and supported him. “Off the field, he changed his life and had to discipline himself,” Kaat says. “He said he was so shy when he was a younger player, and so he found out if he went out and had a couple beers that would relax him. Or, when he’d have too many and then the next day he had to take something to bring him up. He was on that roller coaster. So, my talks with him were about encouragement, how I was proud of the fact that he got his life in order and was conducting himself the way he needed to.”

Meanwhile, Porter helped Stuper adjust to pitching at the highest level. Individually, Stuper had a great year, winning nine games and maintaining a 3.36 ERA in twenty-three appearances. Likewise, the team had a terrific year as the Cardinals won the National League Eastern Division to face the Atlanta Braves in the Championship Series. As the Cardinals swept the Championship Series to claim the National League pennant, Porter caught fire.

“Maybe he felt weight lifted off his shoulders because people couldn’t say, ‘Oh, we couldn’t make it to the World Series because of him,’” Stuper says. “He turned into Reggie Jackson for us. He’s like Mr. Clutch. If there was a chance for a big hit, he seemed to get it every time.”

Indeed, in the Championship Series, Porter batted .556. He also got on base with his keen eye: he had five walks. He scored a run in every game. He threw out baserunners. And he handled the pitching staff effectively. Cardinals pitchers gave up only five runs over three games.7

With the sweep, the Cardinals advanced to the World Series to face the Milwaukee Brewers. Porter continued his hot hitting, and he continued mentoring Stuper who started Game Two in St. Louis against future Hall of Famer Don Sutton. “We compared every Brewer hitter to a hitter in the National League,” Stuper says. “That’s how we did it then. Now, they’ll have fifteen hours of film on every hitter. But, that’s the way we did it. Hey, this guy’s kind of like Bill Madlock. This guy’s kind of like…And, so, it gave you a point of reference.”

Even though he was on baseball’s biggest stage, Stuper maintained his composure. He kept things in perspective, telling himself it was still a baseball game, just like any other. He would be throwing a ball to his catcher. An umpire would be calling balls and strikes. Stuper needed three outs every half inning. “I tried to divvy the game up into little segments so that it wouldn’t overwhelm me,” Stuper says. Augmenting this approach was Porter who, as he had been all season, was an illustration of calm and ease. “He looked like he was preparing to go on a picnic.”

Stuper pitched four innings and gave up four runs when Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog called in Kaat from the bullpen in the top of the fifth. As Stuper watched the rest of the game from the bench, with the score at 4-2 he knew he would be tagged with the loss unless the Cardinals rallied.

They did, courtesy of Darrell Porter. In the bottom of the sixth, with Cardinal baserunners on first and third, Porter stepped to the plate to face Sutton. Porter ripped a two-run double to tie the game.8 “Darrell comes up and hits an opposite-field double,” Stuper remembers. “He hadn’t hit a ball to left field in like six years.”

With the game tied, Stuper was off the hook. Porter wasn’t finished yet, though. In the bottom of the eighth, he hit a single to contribute to a rally that loaded the bases and set the stage for Brewers pitcher Pete Ladd to walk Steve Braun. George Hendrick scored, and the Cardinals took the lead, and ultimately won Game Two, 5-4.

Over the next three games, the Series see-sawed back and forth. By the time Stuper’s turn in the rotation rolled around again, the Cardinals were in a must-win situation. Going into Game Six, the Brewers led the series, 3-2. Stuper and Porter shared a couple of goals: 1) Win the game to force a decisive Game Seven. 2) Pitch a complete game to save the bullpen, so that all arms would be available for that final game.

The battery achieved their goals and delivered a gem. They had a great rhythm with Stuper retiring fifteen consecutive hitters between the third and eighth innings. Stuper nearly had a shutout, and the Cardinals won, 13-1, to force Game Seven. Again, Porter was a force at the plate, hitting a home run in the fourth.

In Game Seven, Porter again delivered, this time with an RBI in the bottom of the eighth to add to St. Louis’s lead. And, the game ended with relief maestro Bruce Sutter striking out Gorman Thomas and the Cardinals winning the team’s ninth World Series championship.

Stuper points to that moment and notes something interesting and miraculous. “If you see the end of the game when Bruce strikes the last guy out, Darrell takes his mask off. And, he throws it up in the air. You don’t see it come back to earth. Nobody knows where that mask went,” Stuper says. “Just watch it. He’ll throw his mask up in the air. It’s an angle of the camera where you could see it if it came back down, and it didn’t. I don’t know if God took it or what, but it didn’t come back down.”

As the Cardinals celebrated their championship and learned that Porter was named the World Series Most Valuable Player, Stuper was happy for his batterymate. “I remember just the sense of relief that Darrell had. Just this sense of relief he had that we won. He was a big reason that we won. Just a relief. I could feel this huge weight just coming off his shoulders. And, I was so happy for him.”

Ramsey agrees: “It was extremely exciting for all of his teammates when he turned it on during the ‘82 playoffs and the World Series.”

Stuper played for St. Louis for another two seasons, and he compares the organization to a family. The team prides itself on staying connected with and celebrating its alumni and their contributions throughout the team’s history. Reunions are common, and Stuper attends. He enjoys seeing former teammate Kaat who, like Porter, made him feel welcomed as a rookie in 1982, but he misses his catcher. Porter died in 2002 at age fifty.

“He’s a member of the Cardinal family, and I’m just very very sad that he’s gone and that he can’t come back to the reunions. He can’t come to the fantasy camps. He can’t do any of that,” Stuper says. “He was such a fine gentleman. A great player. Clutch player. I have a ring because of him. I miss him. I just miss him.”

An Oklahoma native, DOUG WEDGE has written three baseball history books, Pinnacle on the Mound: Cy Young Award Winners Talk Baseball, Baseball in Alabama: Tales of Hardball in the Heart of Dixie, and The Cy Young Catcher (with co-author Charlie O’Brien). He lives in Oklahoma City.

 

Notes

1. “Darrell Porter,” Baseball Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/porteda02.shtml. References to statistics are to this source unless otherwise noted.

2. Mike Ramsey, Letter to author, September 2020. All quotations attributed to Mr. Ramsey are from this letter unless otherwise noted.

3. Jim Kaat, Interview with author, September 3, 2020. All quotations attributed to Mr. Kaat are from this interview unless otherwise noted.

4. Will Grimsley, “World Series MVP Porter Recalls Personal Struggle,” Oklahoman, October 27, 1982.

5. Darrell Porter with William Deerfield, Snap Me Perfect (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984).

6. John Stuper, Interview with author, May 12, 2020. All quotations attributed to Mr. Stuper are from this interview unless otherwise noted.

7. Jim Lassiter, “World Series Starts out Like 1960’s Classic,” Oklahoman, October 15, 1982.

8. Steve Wulf, “A Hopping Good Series,” Sports Illustrated, October 25, 1982, https://vault.si.com/vault/1982/10/25/a-hopping-good-series.