October 1, 1978: George Foster captures third straight RBI crown  in Sparky Anderson’s Reds finale

The Cincinnati Reds were eliminated from the 1978 National League West Division race on September 24 when the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres, 4-0.1 By the time the Reds hosted the Atlanta Braves for the last game of the season, one week later on October 1, Cincinnati had won six straight to clinch second place in the division.

With partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-60s,2 the Sunday afternoon game drew 35,840 patrons for Fan Appreciation Day.3 While meaningless in terms of the final standings, the contest was significant for two Cincinnati stars.

George Foster, the NL’s reigning MVP, entered the game with 117 RBIs, tied for the NL lead with Dave Parker of the Pittsburgh Pirates.4 Foster had led the league in RBIs in each of the prior two seasons and had the chance to join Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Joe Medwick, Josh Gibson, and Willard Brown as the only players to lead a major league in RBIs for three straight years.5

Pete Rose needed three hits to reach 200 for the 10th season of his career and break a tie with Cobb for the most seasons with 200 or more hits. He had posted a 44-game hitting streak earlier in the season and entered the day with .302 batting average.6 Rose – who had joined the 3,000-hit club on May 5 – had gone hitless in the previous day’s 4-0 victory over the Braves.

Atlanta, on the heels of a six-game losing streak, was destined for its third straight last-place finish in the six-team NL West. Manager Bobby Cox, a future Hall of Famer in his first year as a big-league manager, chose 26-year-old left-hander Mickey Mahler as his starter. In his first full season with the Braves, Mahler (4-11, 4.43 ERA) had not won a game since the first week of August, losing his last six decisions.

Reds manager Sparky Anderson countered with right-hander Tom Seaver. The 33-year-old veteran, in his first full season as a Red, had been experiencing an off year by his standards,7 but won his last four starts in September to raise his record to 16-14 (2.90 ERA).

The Braves scored a run in the second inning and two more in the third. Former Reds backup infielder Darrel Chaney singled to drive in the first run. Rookie Glenn Hubbard’s third inning leadoff homer and Chico Ruiz’s two-out RBI single gave Atlanta a 3-0 advantage.8

Cincinnati struck back in the bottom of the third. Junior Kennedy walked and advanced to second on Seaver’s sacrifice. Rose, who walked in his first at-bat, singled to right, scoring Kennedy. After a lineout to short, two walks loaded the bases. Johnny Bench hit a drive to deep left for a grand slam, his 23rd home run of the season and ninth career grand slam. Suddenly the Reds were in the lead, 5-3.

Seaver faced the minimum nine batters in the fourth through sixth innings, striking out five. The only Brave to reach base, Barry Bonnell, led off the sixth with an infield single, but Bench threw him out attempting to steal.

Duane Theiss, who relieved Mahler after Bench’s homer, held the Reds scoreless in the fourth and fifth. Leadoff walks in each inning were erased by double plays. Rose, who opened the fifth with a walk, had collected two walks and a single in three plate appearances so far in the game.

Theiss allowed a run in the sixth. Foster doubled, and Bench was hit by a pitch. A groundball force at second moved Foster to third. He scored on Ken Henderson’s sacrifice fly, increasing the Reds’ lead to 6-3.

Seaver walked pinch-hitter Bruce Benedict leading off the seventh, but two strikeouts and a foul out left Benedict stranded at first. Rick Camp relieved for the Braves in the bottom of the seventh and allowed only a two-out infield single.

Rose, who lined to left for the second out of the seventh, still needed two hits to reach the 200-hit mark. Anderson decided to replace Rose at third base with Ray Knight in the eighth inning, one of numerous late-inning replacements on both sides. With the Reds leading by three runs, it seemed unlikely Rose would see two more at-bats.9

Seaver issued his second walk to start the top half of the eighth. After an infield popout, Bonnell singled. With runners at first and second, Seaver recorded his 11th strikeout by fanning Ruiz. Chaney grounded out to end the Braves’ first scoring threat since the third inning.

Foster led off for the Reds in the eighth. Earlier, the scoreboard posted the message that Parker had left his game without getting an RBI. Foster hit a homer to left-center, breaking the tie with Parker. It was his league-leading 39th home run, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd and a curtain call from the dugout for Foster.10

Three straight singles off Camp followed Foster’s homer, loading the bases for the Reds. Another run scored when Kennedy hit into a double play. After a walk to Champ Summers, batting for Seaver,11 Camp retired Knight on a pop.

Up by five runs, 8-3, Anderson called on reliever Pedro Borbón for the final three outs.12 Benedict doubled and scored after singles by Jerry Royster and Eddie Miller. With runners at first and second, a fly out and a force out at second put the Reds an out away from victory. Larry Whisenton’s single cut the Reds’ lead to three runs. A walk loaded the bases. Manny Sarmiento replaced Borbón. Another walk forced in a run. Chaney’s single drove in two more, tying the score, 8-8. Benedict, batting for the second time in the inning, struck out.

Gene Garber pitched the bottom of the ninth for the Braves.13 After two quick outs, Foster walked and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Vic Correll, who took over the catching duties after Bench was removed for a pinch-hitter in the eighth, fouled out to the catcher.

Sarmiento struck out the side in the 10th. Garber struck out the first two Cincinnati batters in the bottom of the inning. Kennedy singled. Ken Griffey, pinch hitting for Sarmiento, walked. Dan Driessen, pinch-hitting for Knight, grounded out.

Mario Soto blanked the Braves in the 11th. Craig Skok took the mound for the Braves and immediately ran into trouble. A leadoff walk, a stolen base, and a sacrifice put a runner on third. Two intentional walks upped the chances on an inning-ending double play but also loaded the bases. Mike Lum struck out and Henderson popped to second, ending another Cincinnati threat.

In the 12th inning each team had two runners on with one out but failed to score. Dan Dumoulin came in to pitch for Cincinnati in the 13th and struck out the first batter he faced, the 19th strikeout recorded by Reds pitchers. A one-out walk and a single again put runners at first and second for the Braves. Gary Matthews, pinch hitting for Skok, lined into a double play.

Dave Campbell retired the first two Reds he faced in the bottom of the 13th. Two walks – the 15th and 16th in the game by Braves pitchers – and a hit batsman loaded the bases. Rick Auerbach, the Reds’ third third baseman of the game, popped up to first for the third out.14

Jerry Royster doubled with two out in the top of the 14th inning. Eddie Miller, in his last at-bat of a 1-for-8 day, grounded back to Dumoulin, who threw to first for the out.

Campbell struck out Mike LaCoss, a rookie pitcher batting .069 who was pinch-hitting for Dumoulin, to start Cincinnati’s half of the 14th. After a pop out, Ron Oester singled, bringing Foster to the plate. Anderson had planned to replace him in the eighth inning, but Foster talked him out of it.15 Foster delivered a walk-off homer, his 40th of the season. It set his RBI total at 120.

Dumoulin was credited with the only win of his two-season, eight-game major-league career. Campbell, who pitched 118 games for Atlanta in 1977 and 1978, took the loss.16

After Rose was taken out at the start of the eighth inning, his spot in the batting order came up four more times.17 “Funny, wasn’t it?” said an obviously annoyed Rose to a reporter. “All year, Sparky has taken me out and I’ve never lost an at-bat. He does it in the last game and I miss four.”18

Anderson was fired on November 28, 1978. General manager Dick Wagner had repeatedly stated in August and September that Anderson would be back in 1979, but later said it was time to make a change.19

A free agent after the 1978 campaign, Rose signed with the Philadelphia Phillies on December 5, 1978. His 208 hits in 1979 gave him sole possession of the major-league record for seasons with 200 or more hits. It was the last time he achieved that milestone.

Foster had three more productive seasons for the Reds but never again led the NL in home runs or RBIs. He finished third in the league’s MVP voting for the strike-shortened 1981 season. A pending free agent, Foster was traded to the New York Mets on February 10, 1982.20

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Harrison Golden and edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: George Foster, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball Reference and Retrosheet for box scores/play-by-play information, player, team, and season pages, pitching and batting game logs, and other data.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN197810010.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1978/B10010CIN1978.htm

Notes

1 “Dodgers ‘Better’ Than 1977, But Race for Repeat Tougher,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 25, 1978: C-4.

2 Cincinnati Enquirer, October 1, 1978: A-1.

3 Hal McCoy, “Miffed Rose Gets Record Salary Offer,” Dayton Daily News, October 2, 1978: 6.

4 Parker finished the season with an NL-best .334 batting average, his second successive season leading the league, and was named the NL’s 1978 MVP.

5 Earl Lawson, “Foster Has RBI Crown,” Cincinnati Post, October 2, 1978: 23. Ruth (whose consecutive RBI crowns were from 1919-21), Cobb (1907-09), Hornsby (1920-22), Medwick (1936-38), Gibson (1933-38 and 1942-44), and Brown (1937-39 and 1946-48) are all in the Hall of Fame. The Cincinnati Post article included Honus Wagner as a three-consecutive RBI champion; however, his four RBI titles were in 1901, 1902, 1908 and 1909. The author included Negro League players Gibson and Brown, neither of whom were mentioned by the Cincinnati Post.

6 Rose’s streak broke the post-1900 NL record of 37 games, set by Tommy Holmes of the Boston Braves in 1945. Willie Keeler is the NL record-holder, with a 45-game streak that started in 1896 and ended in 1897. Joe DiMaggio set the major-league record of 56 games in 1941.

7 An All-Star in 1978 for the 11th time in his career, Seaver was still in the top 10 in most NL pitching categories, including third place in strikeouts. He also threw the only no-hitter of his career on June 16.

8 Ruiz, a rookie, played for the Braves in 1978 (48 plate appearances) and 1980 (29 plate appearances), with four career RBIs.

9 “Miffed Rose Gets Record Salary Offer.” Knight had been Pete Rose’s backup at third for two full seasons, but because he made a total of only 171 plate appearances, he still qualified as a rookie.

10 “Foster has RBI Crown.” Greg Luzinski, with 35 home runs, was Foster’s nearest competitor for the NL home run crown. Boston’s Jim Rice led the majors in 1978 with 46 homers. Foster’s 52 home runs were tops in the majors in 1977.

11 Summers was a September call-up. He was the American Association’s 1978 MVP.

12 Borbón had been a key member of Cincinnati’s bullpen since 1972, but his ERA had jumped from 3.19 in 1977 to 4.56 entering this game. His full-season WAR also went from 2.1 in 1977 to -0.8 in 1978.

13 Royster pinch-hit for Camp in the top of the ninth. Garber ended Rose’s 44-game hitting streak on August 1, 1978, by striking him out in the ninth inning.

14 Auerbach ran for Griffey in the 10th and replaced Knight, who Driessen pinch hit for in the inning, at third base to start the 11th.

15 Bob Hertzel, “Foster at 40 HRs, But Woe for Rose,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 2, 1978: D-2.

16 Dumoulin, a September call-up both years, pitched in five games for the Reds in 1977 and three in 1978. This win was the only major-league decision for the 24-year-old right-hander. Campbell, a 27-year-old righty used exclusively in relief, pitched in 65 games in 1977 (13 saves, 3.05 ERA) and 53 in 1978 (1 save, 4.80 ERA). It was the last major-league appearance for either pitcher.

17 Knight popped to short in the eighth, Driessen grounded out in the 10th, pitcher Paul Moskau pinch-hit for Soto in the 12th and singled, and LaCoss struck out in the 14th.

18 “Miffed Rose Gets Record Salary Offer.”

19 Hal McCoy, “The ‘Why’ Is Still Missing,” Dayton Daily News, November 29, 1978: 25. Anderson had guided the Reds to five division titles, four NL pennants, and two world championships in nine years. He was hired by the Detroit Tigers after the start of the 1979 season and in 1984 became the first manager to win World Series championships in both the AL and NL. Cox and Anderson faced each other again in the AL East Division from 1982 through 1985, when Anderson managed the Tigers and Cox managed the Toronto Blue Jays.

20 Dave Anderson, “Trevino Caught Reds’ Eyes Long Ago,” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 12, 1982: C-1. The Mets traded catcher Alex Treviño and pitchers Jim Kern and Greg Harris for Foster. He signed a $10 million, five-year fully guaranteed contract with the Mets, the largest contract in NL history at the time. Earlier in the offseason the New York Yankees outbid the Mets for Dave Winfield, signing him to a $22.5 million, 10-year deal. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported the contract at $22.5 million, but Winfield’s SABR biography indicates he signed for $23.3 million.