Despite being swept by the Orioles in the 1971 ALCS, the A’s had put the league on notice. Heading into the 1972 season, expectations ran high in Oakland under second-year manager Dick Williams. Like the great 1931 squad, this iteration of the A’s boasted several men who would eventually end up in Cooperstown: Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Williams himself.

As part of their transformation from perennial losers into an unlikely juggernaut, the A’s chose to reinvent themselves in other ways as well. Most visibly, they became identified with mustaches after Jackson grew his facial hair over the winter and refused to shave it for the season, as team rules dictated. Owner Charlie Finley failed to punish his star player, which didn’t sit well with teammates, who “had had enough of Reggie’s attitude.”1 In protest of Jackson’s defiance and Finley’s subsequent failure to reprimand him, “everyone decided to grow some type of facial hair.”2

The move was intended to force Finley’s hand, but instead of punishing everyone, the owner “decided to capitalize on the act of rebellion. He staged a “Mustache Night,’ let mustached patrons in for a reduced price and gave each player a small bonus if they wore mustaches for that night’s game.”3 Thus the Mustache Gang was born.

A’s players weren’t the only ones protesting, however, and a strike delayed the season’s start by two weeks. After the brief interruption, on a Saturday afternoon in Oakland, in front of a sparse crowd of 9,912, the A’s began their march toward three straight World Series championships in a most curious fashion. This contest had it all: a home run by a future Hall of Famer, a home run with two outs in the ninth inning against a future Hall of Famer, and a walk-off pinch-hit error.

The game started inauspiciously for the home team. Left-hander Ken Holtzman, acquired in the offseason for Rick Monday, served up a solo home run to rookie shortstop Danny Thompson, the second batter he faced. But Holtzman settled down and didn’t allow another run until Harmon Killebrew led off the seventh inning with his 516th career home run.

Meanwhile, the lone blemish on Minnesota starter Bert Blyleven’s line was a two-run homer by catcher Dave Duncan (who would later become an integral part of the next A’s dynasty as pitching coach under Tony La Russa) in the bottom of the fifth. Duncan’s home run gave Oakland a 2-1 lead. Blyleven remarked after the game, “That was the only bad pitch I made.”4

After Killebrew’s home run tied the game, the A’s immediately responded with a run of their own in the bottom of the seventh. Wayne Granger took over in relief, pitching for the Twins. Mike Epstein led off with a walk and was lifted for a pinch-runner, starting pitcher Blue Moon Odom. Odom, who was deployed as a pinch-runner 28 times during the 1972 season, stole second base before scoring on a one-out single by Dick Green. Holtzman sacrificed the two baserunners to second and third, but Granger struck out A’s shortstop Bert Campaneris.

Holtzman retired the Twins in order in the eighth, leaving Fingers to nail down the victory. Rod Carew led off the ninth with a groundout to first base and Killebrew was called out on strikes, leaving only pitcher-turned-outfielder Bobby Darwin, who whacked a 3-and-1 offering from Fingers into the second deck in left field to tie the game.5

Only three A’s batted in the bottom of the ninth and the game went into extra innings.

In the top of the 11th the Twins mounted a threat, putting runners on first and second with one out. But A’s reliever Bob Locker got Killebrew to pop out and Darwin to ground out, escaping the inning unscathed and setting the scene for a wild finish.

Joe Rudi led off the bottom of the frame with a double to left off left-hander Dave LaRoche. Slugger Reggie Jackson sacrificed Rudi to third and Sal Bando was walked intentionally to set up a potential double play. Jackson, who had 13 sacrifice hits in his illustrious career, said afterward, “I can’t remember the last time I laid down a bunt. … I was doing my job. Sometimes you’ve got to do different things.”6

Gene Tenace then batted for Mike Hegan and, with the infield playing in to try to cut off the run, hit a “crisp two-bouncer” toward third base.7 Minnesota third baseman Eric Soderholm bobbled the ball and fired home to catcher George Mitterwald, who couldn’t hang onto it when he and Rudi collided, thus ending the game on a tough error.

Rudi wound up in the trainer’s room with a scraped left knee and right elbow, but as he observed, “It was worth it. The only way I had was to run into the catcher. He had the ball and I was out if he held it.”8

He further explained, “You want to make them throw to make a play on you instead of the double play. I looked back and saw him bobble it. So I put my head down and ran. I knew he was coming home so I tried to get there and knock the ball loose,”9 adding, “I didn’t know he’d dropped the ball ’til I heard the [crowd] roar.”10

The crowd ended up roaring a lot that season and the two that followed. In an era when only four teams reached the postseason, the A’s won the World Series in 1972, 1973, and 1974. Their run of three consecutive championships has been matched or exceeded only by the New York Yankees, who won four straight titles from 1936 to 1939, five straight from 1949 to 1953, and three straight from 1998 to 2000. And it all started with a bobbled grounder to third base.

Sources

Thanks to Stew Thornley and Bill Nowlin for research assistance. In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author relied on Baseball-Reference.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK197204150.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B04150OAK1972.htm

Notes

1 Mike Epstein, Foreword, in Chip Greene, ed., Mustaches and Mayhem: Charlie O’s Three-Time Champions (Phoenix: SABR, 2015).

2 Epstein.

3 Mark Armour, “Charlie Finley,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, sabr.org/bioproj/person/6ac2ee2f, accessed January 10, 2020.

4 Tom Briere, “A’s Nip Homer-Hitting Twins 4-3 in 11 Innings,” Minneapolis Tribune, April 16, 1972.

5 Briere.

6 George Ross, “A’s Good as over the Wall,” Oakland Tribune, April 16, 1972.

7 Ron Bergman, “What’s New? A’s in First Place,” Oakland Tribune, April 16, 1972.

8 Briere.

9 Bergman.

10 Ross.

That’s unfortunate, because Bay Area baseball fans missed an interesting game. On the field, the Athletics – reigning American League West Division champions, and just beginning their first of three straight World Series championship seasons – had to muster three eighth-inning runs to hold off their college rivals, 7-5. The game also served as an Oakland tryout for veteran pitcher Joe Horlen, who’d been released by the Chicago White Sox earlier in the month and hadn’t even signed with the Athletics at game time.

Off the field, the game was moved to the Coliseum at the last minute because of a labor dispute at the college. As of 2024, it was one of only two in-season exhibition games known to have been played at the Oakland ballpark. The other was the 1987 All-Star Game.2

Cal, as the Berkeley college is known, had won an exhibition against the Athletics on May 24, 1971, at Evans Diamond on campus.3 The A’s brought their starters to that matchup, but manager Dick Williams made it known ahead of the 1972 game that he planned to start his second-stringers.4 Even first baseman Mike Epstein, who’d attended Cal and sometimes set up Bears players with A’s tickets, wasn’t in the lineup.5

Cal entered the exhibition on a four-game losing skid, including three defeats to the University of Southern California that sank the team to third place in the Pacific 8 conference.6 Coach George Wolfman, a former minor-league player7 in his 18th season, had led the Bears to the 1957 College World Series title but hadn’t reached the tournament since.8 After posting a 24-24 record and a seventh-place conference finish in 1971, Wolfman’s squad improved to 33-21 and tied for second in 1972.9

Cal’s big hitters included first baseman-outfielder Gary Hernandez and outfielder Dave Alderete. Hernandez had led the team and the conference in 1971 with a .459 batting average in conference play, received the team’s Most Valuable Player award, and earned recognition as an All-American. Alderete led in ’72 with a .294 average and was that season’s MVP.10

The game took place against a background of labor strife. On March 31 major-league player representatives and their alternates voted to authorize the majors’ first player strike, following disagreements with owners over pension benefits.11 The strike was settled in time for play to begin April 15; seven Athletics games that had been scheduled before then went unplayed.12 Separately, left-hander Vida Blue – coming off a dazzling 24-8 season and the American League’s Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Awards – was locked in a battle of wills with Athletics owner Charlie Finley over contract terms. Blue held out until May 2 and did not pitch until May 24.13

The university in Berkeley was having its own problems. Since January, its administration had faced increasingly vocal criticism from unions over wage adjustments and grievance procedures. On April 14 more than 700 campus employees left their jobs to participate in a labor rally.14 On the following Monday, April 17, the Alameda County Building Trades Council went on strike, asking other campus unions not to cross their picket line.15

Most news accounts reported that the Athletics – fresh from their own strike – chose not to cross the line, though the Oakland Tribune wrote that team and university officials decided on their own to move the game. Either way, the Bears and Athletics met at the Coliseum.16

News stories set the attendance at about 200 people in a ballpark with room for 50,000.17 This “crowd,” mainly family members of the players, included Hernandez’s 18-year-old brother, Keith, whose later baseball achievements included two World Series championships, 11 Gold Gloves, the 1979 National League batting title, and five All-Star Game appearances.18

Horlen took the mound wearing an A’s jersey with no name or number19 and carrying a grudge against his former team. In 11 seasons with the White Sox, he’d won 113 games, thrown a no-hitter during the epic pennant race of September 1967, and posted the AL’s best earned-run average (2.06) that same season. But after slumping to 8-9 in 1971 and giving up nine earned runs in 11 spring-training innings in 1972, he’d been released. Horlen speculated that he’d been pink-slipped as payback for his service as the White Sox player representative.20

Given a new chance by Oakland, Horlen started strong, allowing two hits and no runs in his first three innings of work.21

Wolfman opted to use a different pitcher in every inning. Starter Ray DelCarlo, a senior left-hander,22 allowed one hit in a shutout first inning. His successor, Dave Forster, found big-league hitters tougher to handle. Bobby Brooks walked and Mike Hegan singled. When Hegan’s hit got past Cal left fielder Neil Cummings, Brooks and Hegan advanced to third and second on the error. Larry Haney’s single brought both runners home for a 2-0 Oakland lead.23

The meat of Cal’s lineup got the Bears on the board in the fourth. Alderete hit a one-out single and took third on Hernandez’s double to left-center field. Cummings’ sacrifice fly scored Alderete to make the score 2-1. Catcher Brad Brian followed with a deep drive that sent Brant Alyea to the left-field wall to gather it in.24

Senior lefty Steve Lacki pitched the bottom of the fourth for Cal, giving up a hit but no runs. More than 50 years later, he recalled the pleasure of taking a major-league mound: “The mound was perfect. When that happens it makes pitching so much easier. … I remember just wanting to move the ball around the plate and not make a mistake. I remember [the A’s] were more free-swinging than college players. They had the confidence to hit the ball and didn’t wait for the perfect pitch. As such I got them to hit a couple of fly balls and groundballs. No strikeouts. It was fun, I was naïve, and it gave me the sense that I could possibly make a living there.”25

Three more runs in the fifth put the Bears ahead of the big-leaguers, 4-2. Shortstop Ron Coffman reached on an error by Curt Blefary, playing third base.26 A walk to pinch-hitter Bob Johnson and a single by second baseman Bob Tulk loaded the bases for catcher Roy Meisner, whose hard-hit single to left plated two runs. Hernandez’s two-out single to right field scored Tulk with the Bears’ fourth run.

Horlen departed after five innings, making way for another former AL ERA champion, Diego Seguí.27 The forkball specialist stymied the collegians, working two perfect innings and striking out four.

The Athletics tied the game in the fifth off pitcher Neil Ernst. George Hendrick started the frame with a triple and scored on a single by Alyea, who was retired on a fielder’s choice hit by Brooks. Cal center fielder Greg Warzecka28 reeled in Hegan’s drive for the second out. But third baseman Don Thomas mishandled Larry Brown’s grounder and then threw the ball away for two errors; Brooks came around to knot the game at 4-4.29

Lefty Jim Roland came on for the eighth and surrendered a run. Hernandez tripled to right with one out, narrowly missing a home run, and replacement catcher Will Ash hit an infield single that Oakland’s third baseman stopped but couldn’t make a play on.30 The Bears led, 5-4.

It didn’t last. Left-hander Charles Leoni came in for the bottom half, and leadoff hitter Haney reached on Thomas’s third error of the game.31 Roland struck out32 and Cullen singled to put two runners on base. Haney and Cullen moved to third and second base on Blefary’s groundout to first.33

Hendrick, up next, had already collected three hits, so Wolfman ordered an intentional walk to set up a force at any base.34 But Alyea crossed up the strategy, ripping a double off the left-field wall to score all three runners and hand Oakland a 7-5 lead.35

Roland shut down the Bears in order in the ninth, and the game ended in 2 hours and 18 minutes. Roland earned the win, while Leoni took the loss. The unofficial “win” was Roland’s only victory of 1972; he went 0-1 in 23 regular-season appearances with three teams.

Four Cal players – Hernandez, Lacki, Thomas, and substitute shortstop Randal Hooper – went on to minor-league careers.36 Thomas peaked at Triple A, Hernandez at Double A, and Hooper and Lacki at Class A. The campus strike that gave them and their teammates the chance to play at the Coliseum was settled on June 22 after 67 days.37

Of the A’s position players on April 17, only Hegan and Hendrick played in that October’s World Series victory over the Cincinnati Reds.38 Hitting hero Alyea was traded in May to the St. Louis Cardinals, who returned him to Oakland in late July; he played just 20 games combined in his two stints with the Athletics. Roland and Seguí weren’t around for the playoffs either. Roland was sold to the New York Yankees after just two appearances in April, while Seguí was sent to the Cardinals in June.

Horlen made the most of his opportunity. Signed by Oakland on April 19, he went 3-4 with one save and a 3.00 ERA in 32 games, mostly in relief. Horlen appeared in one game of the Athletics’ AL Championship Series win over the Detroit Tigers, as well as in Game Six of the World Series. It was his only career postseason experience.

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks former Cal Bears players Gary Hernandez and Steve Lacki for responding to research inquiries.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team, and season data. Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet do not provide box scores for most exhibition games, but the April 18, 1972, editions of the Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and Berkeley (California) Daily Gazette printed box scores.

Photo credit: Joe Horlen, courtesy of the Oakland Athletics.

Notes

1 Author’s email correspondence with former Cal players Gary Hernandez and Steve Lacki, October 2024.

2 “A List of In-Season Exhibition Games, 1921-2012,” Retrosheet.org, compiled by Walter LeConte and other SABR members and accessed October 2024, https://www.retrosheet.org/InSeasonExhibitionGames1921-2012.htm. A note by LeConte that accompanies the list on Retrosheet warns that it should not be considered definitive.

3 A story in the May 25, 1971, Berkeley (California) Daily Gazette reported that the 1971 game was the teams’ third meeting: Mike Hall, “Cal’s Two-Run Ninth Nips A’s, 6-5,” May 25, 1971: 9. According to the list of in-season exhibitions cited above, the teams played again during the 1976 and 1977 seasons, both times in Berkeley.

4 Ken Jacobson, “Tovar’s ‘Hit’ Edges A’s; Horlen Vs. Cal,” Berkeley Daily Gazette, April 17, 1972: 9.

5 Author’s correspondence with Gary Hernandez, October 2024. A list of the position players who started against Cal, followed (in parenthesis) by the names of the Athletics’ regular starters that season: catcher Larry Haney (Dave Duncan); first baseman Mike Hegan (Mike Epstein); second baseman Tim Cullen (Cullen); shortstop Larry Brown (Bert Campaneris); third baseman Curt Blefary (Sal Bando); right fielder George Hendrick (Ángel Mangual); center fielder Bobby Brooks (Reggie Jackson); and left fielder Brant Alyea (Joe Rudi). Cullen was not a starter at the time of the exhibition; he later claimed the starter’s role at second base after regular starter Dick Green had early-season back surgery.

6 “BatBears Host Oakland A’s” and John Gunn, “Bear Glovemen Drop Three, Fall to Third Place,” Daily Californian (Berkeley, California), April 17, 1972: 5, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucbk.ark:/28722/h2n010622&seq=3. The Daily Californian is the student newspaper of the University of California, Berkeley.

7 According to Baseball-Reference, Wolfman played parts of two seasons in the Pacific Coast League, then a Double-A circuit, in 1934 and 1935.

8 2021 Cal baseball media guide: 42 and 44, accessed October 2024, https://calbears.com/documents/2022/8/3/2021_Cal_Baseball_Media_Guide.pdf. Cal next reached the College World Series in 1980.

9 2021 Cal baseball media guide: 72. The 1972 season marked Wolfman’s last winning season at Cal: He went 21-31 in 1973 and was replaced by former Cal star and 1958 AL Most Valuable Player Jackie Jensen.

10 “Clout King” (photos and caption), Berkeley Daily Gazette, May 17, 1971: 12; 2021 Cal baseball media guide: 45 and 49-50.

11 Denne H. Freeman (Associated Press), “Strike Hits Major League Baseball,” San Bernardino (California) Sun-Telegram, April 1, 1972: 1. Major-league umpires had previously struck for a single day, October 3, 1970, the first day of the American and National League playoffs. Those games went on using recently retired umps and minor-league arbiters, several of whom never worked in the majors again.

12 The Athletics had played only two games entering the April 17 exhibition. They won their opener against the Minnesota Twins, then lost the next day.

13 Rich Puerzer, “Vida Blue,” SABR Biography Project, accessed October 2024, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/vida-blue/.

14 Richard Goering, “Issues Laid Bare at Turbulent Labor Forum,” Daily Californian (Berkeley, California), April 17, 1972: 1, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucbk.ark:/28722/h2n010622&seq=1.

15 “Building Tradesmen Strike,” Daily Californian, April 17, 1972: 1.

16 The San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, and an unbylined United Press International item said the Athletics players decided not to cross the line. The Oakland Tribune’s Ron Bergman, in contrast, wrote that the A’s players “never had a chance to decide” whether to honor the picket line, saying the decision was made at “an administrative level.” Ron Bergman, “Horlen Jury’s Still Out,” Oakland Tribune, April 18, 1972: 43; Dick Friendlich, “Pickets-A’s Move Game to Oakland,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 18, 1972: 43; unheadlined item, Martinez (California) Morning News-Gazette, April 18, 1972: 7; “McLain Gets Big Chance Tonight,” San Francisco Examiner, April 18, 1972: 45.

17 “McLain Gets Big Chance Tonight”; Friendlich, “Pickets-A’s Move Game to Oakland.” In 2024, Hernandez guesstimated the crowd size at 400 to 500 people. His teammate Lacki didn’t put a number on the attendance but had a similar recollection: “There was no crowd. Just friends and family.” Author’s correspondence with Gary Hernandez and Steve Lacki. Seating information for the Coliseum obtained from the Seamheads.com ballpark database, accessed October 2024, https://www.seamheads.com/ballparks/ballpark.php?parkID=OAK01.

18 Author’s correspondence with Gary Hernandez. Keith Hernandez, who’d been chosen by the St. Louis Cardinals in the June 1971 draft, played his first minor-league season at Classes A and Triple-A in 1972. However, the younger Hernandez suffered a broken arm in spring training that year, and thus would have been available to attend this game. Tom Duffy, “New-Look Cards Open FSL Play,” St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, April 13, 1972: 1C. In another Cal-A’s connection, Gary Hernandez recalled that he’d chatted amicably with Oakland catcher Gene Tenace at the 1971 Cal-A’s game. A decade later, Tenace and Keith Hernandez were teammates on the 1981 and 1982 St. Louis Cardinals.

19 Bergman.

20 Bergman; Dick O’Connor, “The Strike Victim,” Palo Alto (California) Times, April 18, 1972: 28.

21 Bergman, “Horlen Jury’s Still Out.”

22 Gunn, “Bear Glovemen Drop Three, Fall to Third Place.”

23 Mike Hall, “Alyea’s Double Dumps Bears, 7-5,” Berkeley Daily Gazette, April 18, 1972: 9.

24 Hall.

25 Author’s correspondence with Steve Lacki, who went on to pitch three seasons (1973-75) at Class A in the California Angels organization.

26 Available game stories do not specify whether Blefary’s boot was a fielding or throwing error.

27 Seguí won the AL earned-run title in 1970 with a 2.56 ERA.

28 The Berkeley Gazette’s game story said Warzecka made “a great catch in left,” while also mentioning Cummings playing left. The Oakland Tribune’s box score has Warzecka in center.

29 Hall, “Alyea’s Double Dumps Bears, 7-5”; John Gunn, “Second String A’s Top BatBears,” Daily Californian, April 18, 1972: 4, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucbk.ark:/28722/h27s7j536&seq=3.

30 Author’s correspondence with Gary Hernandez; Hall, “Alyea’s Double Dumps Bears, 7-5.” This story credits Cullen with the play at third, but box scores make no mention of Cullen moving from second base to third. The box score in the Oakland Tribune has third baseman Blefary and catcher Haney switching places at some point in midgame, making it most likely that Haney fielded Ash’s hit. In 480 regular-season big-league games, Haney made seven appearances at third base, none of them in 1972.

31 Bergman, “Horlen Jury’s Still Out”; Hall, “Alyea’s Double Dumps Bears, 7-5.” Again, game stories do not specify whether this was a throwing or fielding error. In Hall’s story, Wolfman described Thomas as usually one of Cal’s most dependable fielders.

32 It’s worth noting here that Oakland manager Williams used no substitutes beyond the two relief pitchers. Game stories do not explain whether Williams let Roland hit for himself because he wanted Roland to get another inning of work, or because he hadn’t brought a full complement of bench players with him. In email correspondence with the author, Cal’s Lacki said he believed that Reggie Jackson, Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, and the Athletics’ starting pitchers were not present.

33 Hall. This story suggests that Cal should have been able to turn an inning-ending double play on Blefary’s grounder.

34 Bergman and Hall. Both Hendrick and Alyea were right-handed hitters against the lefty Leoni, so there was no advantage from that standpoint.

35 Both Bergman and Hall described Alyea as having been insulted by the intentional walk to Hendrick. But Alyea is not quoted directly in either story, so it’s not clear whether Alyea directly voiced his anger after the game or whether the writers were speaking figuratively.

36 Baseball-Reference.com, “University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA) Baseball Players,” accessed October 2024, https://www.baseball-reference.com/schools/index.cgi?key_school=42a92ccb.

37 Steve Duscha, “UC Strike Is Over,” Berkeley Daily Gazette, June 23, 1972: 1.

38 According to Baseball-Reference, Cullen was eligible for the postseason but did not appear in the Series.

The 1972 A’s featured a potent lineup (Bert Campaneris, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando) and finished second in the American League in runs scored. They enjoyed a deep pitching staff anchored by Cy Young Award candidate Catfish Hunter and reliever Rollie Fingers. Their only weakness was second base. Dick Green started the season at second, but went down with a herniated disk in April. He returned on a part-time basis in August and September. Ted Kubiak and Tim Cullen were backups.

In the last week in August, the A’s acquired veteran Dal Maxvill from the St. Louis Cardinals for reinforcement. Manager Williams then looked at his four good-glove, no-hit second basemen, and his deep bench, and decided that he would use revolving second basemen. Any time a second baseman came up leading off an inning, or with a chance to score a run, Williams would use a pinch-hitter.

“Of course I want to play every game, every inning,” Maxvill said after his acquisition. “But (Williams) told me before he started this rotation of second basemen that he had some pretty good left-handed pinch-hitters and wanted to use them.”1

The White Sox, for their part, were enjoying a resurgence after four straight losing seasons, sparked by Dick Allen who was leading the American League with 36 home runs and 108 RBIs. They had led the West Division in August, but weakened in September.

On September 19 the White Sox jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning on RBI singles by Mike Andrews, Ed Spiezio, and Ed Herrmann. In the bottom of the second, the A’s placed runners on first and third with two outs, so Williams made his first player move of the night, sending Don Mincher up to bat for second baseman Maxvill. Mincher struck out. Kubiak took over at second.

The White Sox extended their lead to 4-0 in the fourth on a home run by Herrmann. In the home fifth, Williams went to his bench again. Gonzalo Marquez batted for Kubiak and singled, and Mike Hegan batted for starting pitcher Blue Moon Odom. Hegan popped out, but the A’s scored three times on Campaneris’s single, Joe Rudi’s two-run double, and Matty Alou’s single. In the sixth, Green took over at second and Bob Locker came in to pitch.

Locker gave way to Darold Knowles in the top of the sixth, and the A’s kept the game close when Reggie Jackson made a strong throw to the plate to nail Ed Spiezio, who was attempting to score on a fly ball. Spiezio bowled over catcher Gene Tenace, but Tenace held onto the throw to complete the double play.

In the bottom of the sixth, Green came to bat with two out and nobody on, but again Williams couldn’t abide a second baseman batting, and called on Angel Mangual to pinch-hit. He grounded out. Tim Cullen took over at second. In the seventh, George Hendrick pinch-hit for Knowles, and Rollie Fingers came on to pitch.

With two outs in the bottom of the eighth, and the White Sox still leading 4-3, Mike Epstein walked. Williams called on Allan Lewis, the “Panamanian Express,” to pinch-run. Lewis failed to advance, and Williams then did something unusual. With his bench already depleted, he allowed Lewis to remain in the game in the ninth inning, playing right field. In a major-league career spanning 156 games, Lewis would take the field only 10 times.

In the top of the ninth, light-hitting Chicago shortstop Luis Alvarado hit a surprise home run, extending the White Sox’ lead to 5-3. In the bottom half, with a man on, Dave Duncan batted for Cullen and struck out and Brant Alyea batted for Fingers and walked. Alyea represented the tying run, and was slow of foot. With no fast position players left on his bench, Williams sent in pitcher Vida Blue to pinch-run.

With runners on first and second and one out, Bert Campaneris grounded to first baseman Dick Allen. Allen chose to go to second for the force out. One writer suggested that he might have had better luck stepping on the base and throwing to second for a tag play on Blue.2 As it happened, Campaneris reached first on the fielder’s choice, stole second, and scored on Joe Rudi’s two-out, two-run, game-tying single.

The 5-5 game went into extra innings, with Dave Hamilton on the hill for Oakland. Williams was out of infielders, so Duncan remained in the game to catch and catcher Gene Tenace moved to second base. Tenace to this point had only played one inning at second base in his career.

In the bottom of the 10th, Reggie Jackson led off with a double, whereupon Williams was burned by the presence of Allan Lewis in his lineup. Lewis struck out attempting to sacrifice, and Jackson died at second. In the top of the 12th, it was the White Sox’ turn to threaten; they loaded the bases, prompting Williams to switch to reliever Joe Horlen as his 26th player, and Horlen got out of the jam. In the 13th, the A’s weren’t as fortunate. Gene Tenace, struggling at second base, failed to cover first on a bunt, and Ed Spiezio beat it out with Jorge Orta taking two bases on the play. The White Sox went on to score twice on a single by Luis Alvarado. But Dave Duncan hit a two-run homer to tie the game, 7-7, in the bottom of the inning.

In the 14th inning, Williams’s maneuvering took a turn for the surreal. Reggie Jackson reached base on an error. Noting Lewis’s earlier failure, Williams called on pitcher Catfish Hunter as a pinch-bunter — a rare case of a pitcher batting for a position player. Hunter not only advanced Jackson but beat out his bunt. Gene Tenace sacrificed, and Sal Bando was intentionally walked, bringing up Duncan. Despite Duncan’s prior home run, Williams called for a suicide squeeze. Hard-throwing White Sox reliever Goose Gossage fired a low and outside fastball, Duncan failed to get the bat on it, and Jackson was hung out to dry and eventually tagged out back at third base. With first base open, the Sox intentionally walked Duncan to get to Horlen.

Dick Williams played his next-to-last card, sending up his last position player, third-string catcher Larry Haney, to bat for Horlen. Haney was the 28th player used by the A’s, breaking the previous record of 27 set in 1969 and tied in 1970.3 Haney grounded to first.

Gary Waslewski, the last available Oakland relief pitcher, took the mound in the top of the 15th, with Haney taking over at second base (for the first and only time in his career) and Gene Tenace replacing the departed Lewis in right field. Rookie Jorge Orta hit the second home run of his career to put the White Sox ahead for the third time, 8-7.

This time, the lead would hold — but not before Williams made one last move. The A’s placed runners on first and second with two outs in the bottom of the inning, bringing up Waslewski, a career 4-for-88 (.045) hitter. Williams sent up Ken Holtzman, the next night’s starting pitcher and a career .158 hitter, to pinch-hit. “There were a number of reasons I used Holtzman,” Williams said after the game. “To begin with, he was the last player I had.”4 (It would be interesting to know what the other reasons were, but if Williams gave them, no reporter wrote them.) If the A’s tied the game, Holtzman would have had to stay in and pitch.

Gossage struck out Holtzman on three pitches, bringing the five-hour marathon to an end. “If we win tomorrow, we’re going to win the pennant!” White Sox manager Chuck Tanner gushed.5 His prediction was not tested. The A’s won the next night, effectively ending the pennant race, and clinched the division eight days later.

The total of 30 players used by Oakland has been tied (by Colorado on September 15, 2015), but never surpassed. The 51 players used by the two teams was also a record at the time, since broken. The six second basemen used by Oakland set a record for the most players to play any position other than pitcher, and that record also has since been tied but not broken.

Sources

retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B09190OAK1972.htm

baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK197209190.shtml

Notes

1 Ron Bergman, “Maxie’s Glove Boosts A’s, and His Bat Is Potent Too,” The Sporting News, October 14, 1972: 12.

2 Richard Dozer, “Sox, A’s in Extra Innings,” Chicago Tribune, September 20, 1972: 63.

3 Baseball Record Book, The Sporting News, 1972, 298.

4 Glenn Schwarz, “Dramatic Victory Lifts White Sox,” San Francisco Examiner, September 20, 1972: 61.

5 Schwarz: 66.

Márquez got his chance in the bottom of the 11th. With Detroit leading 2-1 and runners on first and second and one out, he drilled a single past Norm Cash at first base to tie the game. When Al Kaline’s throw from right field got past third baseman Aurelio Rodríguez, another run scored, giving Oakland an electrifying walk-off victory. It was the first postseason win for the Athletics franchise since 1931.2

The hero was a little-known Venezuelan with only 21 career at-bats in the big leagues. Márquez had been a first baseman in the A’s minor-league system since 1966, hitting for a high average with little power. In 1970 he batted .341 in his first year at Triple A, falling short of winning the American Association batting title by one percentage point.3 But his mother fell seriously ill, and he sat out the entire 1971 season to take care of her.

Márquez returned to the Triple-A Iowa Oaks in 1972 and continued to hit over .300. He was called up by Oakland on August 11 and made his major-league debut that night with the A’s fighting for first place. The 32-year-old – believed to be 26 at the time – started only one game, a meaningless contest on the final day of the regular season.4 Márquez went an impressive 7-for-16 (.438) with 3 RBIs as a pinch-hitter, helping Oakland finish 5½ games ahead of the second-place Chicago White Sox in the AL West Division.

Márquez was initially left off the postseason roster. But when pitcher Darold Knowles broke his thumb, Oakland manager Dick Williams chose to replace him with Márquez and go with just eight pitchers.5 “I wanted another bat to use with our second base situation,” Williams explained.6

The situation Williams was referring to was his habit of pinch-hitting for his four weak-hitting second basemen in key situations – even in the early or middle innings.7 It was not unusual for Williams to use three or four second baseman in a game, and in September a second sacker played the entire game only three times.

While the A’s clinched their division with six days left in the regular season, Detroit claimed the AL East Division title by capturing two out of three from the Boston Red Sox in a season-ending winner-take-all series.8

Detroit’s ace, Mickey Lolich, got the start in the ALCS opener on October 7. Five days earlier, he had moved the Tigers into first place with a masterful 15-strikeout performance against the Red Sox. The 32-year-old lefty finished the regular season with a 22-14 record and a 2.50 ERA. Catfish Hunter took to the mound for the A’s. He boasted a 21-7 record and a 2.04 ERA, which was third best in the AL.

Casey Stengel tossed out the ceremonial first pitch.9 The 82-year-old Hall of Famer, who had managed the Pacific Coast League’s Oakland Oaks from 1946 to 1948, received a warm welcome from the 29,566 fans in attendance.10

After both pitchers recorded one-two-three innings, Cash led off the second for the Tigers. The 38-year-old slugger came into the game hitting .324 with 8 homers in 71 career at-bats against Hunter. Cash continued his dominance by lining a 2-and-1 fastball over the right-field fence for a home run.11

Oakland put two runners on base with one out in the bottom of the second on an infield single and a walk.12 After catcher Gene Tenace flied out, Williams sent Ángel Mangual in to pinch-hit for his starting second baseman, Dick Green. Lolich escaped the jam by retiring Mangual on a groundout.

Campaneris walked with one out in the third, and Matty Alou looped a single to right field to put runners on the corners.13 Campaneris came home with the tying run on Joe Rudi’s sacrifice fly.

Hunter set the Tigers down in order in innings three through six. His streak of 15 consecutive outs was snapped when he walked his nemesis, Cash, with one out in the seventh. Hunter also issued a two-out walk before escaping the inning unscored on.

Detroit catcher Duke Sims opened the ninth with a double. Only six Tigers had reached base against Hunter, but Williams brought in southpaw Vida Blue with the left-handed-swinging Cash up next. (Blue had been merely average in 1972 after winning the AL MVP and Cy Young Awards the previous season, so he was shifted to the bullpen for the ALCS.14) Cash bunted and third baseman Sal Bando’s throw to first was dropped by second baseman Ted Kubiak, putting runners on the corners with nobody out.

Williams brought in Rollie Fingers to pitch to Willie Horton; Tigers manager Billy Martin responded by inserting the left-handed-swinging Gates Brown as a pinch-hitter.15 After Fingers retired Brown for the first out, Martin called for the suicide squeeze with Jim Northrup at the plate.16 Much to Martin’s chagrin, Northrup bunted the ball foul and later hit into a rally-killing 4-6-3 double play.17

Nobody on either team then reached base until the 37-year-old Kaline, in his 20th season with the Tigers, batted with one out in the 11th.18 He slammed a slider from Fingers over the left-field wall, giving the Tigers a 2-1 lead. The next batter, Sims, tripled, only to be stranded at third when Fingers retired Cash and Mickey Stanley on groundouts.19

Lolich returned to the mound for the bottom of the 11th and surrendered a leadoff single to Bando. Blue Moon Odom pinch-ran and he advanced to second when Mike Epstein sliced an opposite-field single into left field.20 The managerial wheels continued to turn as Mike Hegan ran for Epstein and rookie right-hander Chuck Seelbach came on in relief of Lolich.21 Tenace, who was 0-for-4 and had stranded six baserunners, bunted. But Rodríguez pounced on the ball and fired a strike to shortstop Ed Brinkman covering at third; Brinkman’s relay to first pulled second baseman Dick McAuliffe off the bag, preventing Tenace from being doubled up.22

With one out and runners on first and second, Márquez pinch-hit for second baseman Dal Maxvill.23 After Seelbach got ahead 1-and-2, Márquez fouled off four consecutive pitches.24 He drilled the next pitch between Cash and McAuliffe and into right. Hegan scampered home with the tying run, and Tenace headed for third.

Kaline’s throw was an accurate one-hopper that narrowly missed hitting Tenace as he slid headfirst into third. The ball skipped past Rodríguez and rolled to the wall beyond the Oakland dugout, allowing Tenace to race home with the winning run.25

Márquez “set Charles O. Finley’s exploding scoreboard into action with his big hit,” wrote Hal Bock of the Associated Press. “The A’s spilled out of the dugout and surrounded the rookie pinch-hitter, who seemed calm in all of the commotion.”26 Márquez had became the fourth Venezuelan to drive in a run in a major-league postseason game.27 “It was the biggest hit of my life,” he said.28

Márquez’s pinch-hitting magic continued throughout the postseason. He had a pinch-hit single and scored what would have been the series-clinching run in the top of the 10th inning of Game Four had the Tigers not rallied for a stunning victory. But Oakland won the AL pennant thanks to outstanding pitching from Odom and Blue in Game Five.29

The A’s went on to defeat the Cincinnati Reds in a thrilling World Series that went the full seven games. (It was the first of three consecutive World Series titles for Oakland.) After struggling in the ALCS,30 Tenace hit four homers, knocked in nine runs, and was named the World Series MVP.

Márquez contributed three hits in five pinch-hit appearances, including a single in Game Four that ignited a game-winning rally in the bottom of the ninth. His three hits tied the record for the most pinch-hits in a fall classic.31 As of 2024, no player had more pinch hits in a World Series than Márquez.

When the designated hitter was introduced in 1973, Williams considered using Márquez in that role before deciding to go with a power hitter.32 Márquez played infrequently early in the season and he was demoted to Triple-A Tucson in June. After hitting .329 for the Toros, he was traded to the Chicago Cubs on August 29 in return for first baseman Pat Bourque.33 When the trade was announced, the Oakland Tribune referred to Márquez as “last year’s pinch-hit hero.”34

Márquez played his last big-league game in June 1974 and in December the Cubs sold his contract to Puebla in the Mexican League. He hit .235 in a major-league career that was limited to just 115 regular-season at-bats, 47 of which were as a pinch-hitter.35 Márquez continued to play baseball in Venezuela until he died tragically in a car accident in December 1984. He was inducted into the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Harrison Golden and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to using the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, Retrosheet.org, The Sporting News contract cards, and Rory Costello’s SABR biography of Gonzalo Márquez. Unless otherwise noted, all play-by-play information for this game was taken from the article “Marquez’s Hit Turns It Around” on page 37 of the October 8, 1972, edition of the Oakland Tribune. The Detroit Tigers radio broadcast of the game can be found on YouTube, as can the video highlights.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK197210070.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B10070OAK1972.htm

Photo credit: Gonzalo Márquez, courtesy of the Oakland Athletics.

Notes

1 Ron Bergman, “Marquez’s Hit Turns It Around,” Oakland Tribune, October 8, 1972: 37.

2 The previous postseason win for the franchise was by the Philadelphia Athletics over the St. Louis Cardinals in Game Six of the 1931 World Series. Lefty Grove was the winning pitcher. The Athletics lost Game Seven. The franchise missed the postseason for the next 40 years. (The Athletics had won the World Series in 1929 and 1930.) The Oakland A’s were swept in the 1971 ALCS by the Baltimore Orioles.

3 Twenty-one-year-old first baseman Chris Chambliss of the Wichita Aeros won the batting title with a .342 average. Márquez was named the American Association’s All-Star first baseman in a vote by the league’s sportswriters. Bill Hodge, “Chambliss Wins Association Hitting Title,” Wichita Beacon, September 12, 1970: C-1; “Spriggs Is Only Royal to Land All-Star Spot,” Omaha World-Herald, September 18, 1970: 35.

4 When Márquez began his professional career, he produced an ID with a birth year of 1946. His birth certificate has a birth year of 1940.

5 Knowles broke the thumb on his pitching hand when he fell while running to first base after batting on September 27. Williams considered replacing Knowles with another lefty, Don Shaw, but southpaw Vida Blue was shifted to the bullpen for the ALCS. Ken Holtzman and Dave Hamilton were his other lefty relievers. Shaw had an ERA of 14.04 in 11 relief appearances in 1972. He never pitched in the big leagues again. Herb Michelson, “Is It Tigers, Sox or Spitz for A’s?” Sacramento Bee, September 29, 1972: D-1.

6 United Press International, “Williams Backs Strategy,” Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner, October 8, 1972: D-1.

7 The four second basemen on the A’s roster were Dick Green, Ted Kubiak, Dal Maxvill, and Tim Cullen. Larry Brown played 46 games at second base early in the season; his last game was on June 18. He missed the rest of the season with a back injury. Oakland second basemen combined to hit .213 with no homers and 29 RBIs in 1972. Ron Bergman, “Brownie’s Treatment,” Oakland Tribune, August 30, 1972: 43.

8 A players strike delayed the start of the 1972 season by two weeks. Missed games were not rescheduled, so some teams played more games than others. Detroit trailed Boston by a half-game when the two teams opened the season-ending three-game series at Tiger Stadium. The Tigers won the first two games to clinch the division. Boston beat Detroit on the final day of the season to finish a half-game out of first place.

9 Tom Kane, “Gonzalo Fidgeted All the Way to Victory,” Sacramento Bee, October 8, 1972: F-3.

10 There were several reasons for the approximately 20,000 unsold seats. The game was televised locally and there were college football games being played nearby (USC at Stanford, Ohio State at University of California). Watson Spoelstra of the Detroit News wrote that the empty seats were “another smudge in the four-year attempt to sell the [new] playoff system.” All three World Series games in Oakland sold out. Karen Emerson, “It Was a Great Day for A’s Fans,” Oakland Tribune, October 8, 1972: 1; Watson Spoelstra, “Tiger Tracks,” Detroit News, October 8, 1972: D-6.

11 Watson Spoelstra, “A’s Beat Tigers on Kaline’s Error,” Detroit News, October 8, 1972: D-1.

12 The infield single was on a hard-hit ball by Reggie Jackson that ricocheted off Lolich. Spoelstra, “A’s Beat Tigers on Kaline’s Error.”

13 Alou, the National League batting champion in 1966, joined the A’s after an August 27 trade with the St. Louis Cardinals. Oakland traded Alou to the Yankees after winning the 1972 World Series. Hal Bock (Associated Press), “Gonzalo Marquez (?) Sparks A’s,” Shreveport Times, October 8, 1972: D-1.

14 Blue went from a 24-8 record and a league-leading 1.82 ERA in 1971 to 6-10 and a 2.80 ERA in 1972. His adjusted ERA (ERA+) was 102 in 1972 – 2 percent above league average after adjusting for park effects.

15 Brown came into the game with a league-record 84 career pinch hits. He ended his career in 1975 with 106 pinch hits. As of the end of the 2024, he still held the record for the most career pinch hits in the AL.

16 Jack Berry, “9th-Inning Flop Costly to Tigers,” Detroit News, October 8, 1972: D-1.

17 “We should have gone home in the ninth,” Martin barked after the game. “It was a suicide squeeze and the player didn’t bunt the ball [properly].” Berry, “9th-Inning Flop Costly to Tigers.”

18 Kaline led the Tigers with a .313 batting average in 1972. He hit 10 homers and drove in 32 runs in 278 at-bats.

19 The Tigers were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position in the game.

20 Most onlookers were expecting Epstein to put down a sacrifice bunt. Clif Keane, “A’s Sting Tigers,” Boston Globe, October 8, 1972: 61.

21 The 24-year-old Seelbach went 9-8 with a 2.89 ERA in 1972. He led the Tigers with 14 saves, although he shared closer duties with lefty Fred Scherman (12 saves).

22 McAuliffe tagged Tenace, but first-base umpire Nestor Chylak ruled that Tenace had already touched first base. Jim Hawkins, “Oops! Error Beats Tigers,” Detroit Free Press, October 8, 1972: E-1.

23 Maxvill was the third Oakland second baseman to be replaced by a pinch-hitter in the game. Kubiak took over at second after Green was removed for a pinch-hitter in the second inning. Maxvill took over at second after George Hendrick pinch-hit for Kubiak in the ninth.

24 Newspaper accounts differ on whether Márquez fouled off four or five consecutive pitches. According to the Detroit Tigers radio broadcast, he fouled off four consecutive pitches.

25 Tenace said the throw did not hit him and the television replay confirmed it. Seelbach was backing up at home, so no player was backing up the throw to third. Kaline was charged with an error despite the throw being “on the mark.” Kaline made only 1 error in 116 chances in right field during the regular season. He won 10 Gold Glove Awards in his career, all between 1957 and 1967. George Ross, “The Sad Analysis of Al Kaline’s Error,” Oakland Tribune, October 8, 1972: 37; Keane, “A’s Sting Tigers”; Joe Falls, “Seelbach ‘Made the Right Play’ on Throw − Billy Martin,” Detroit Free Press, October 8, 1972: E-5.

26 Bock, “Gonzalo Marquez (?) Sparks A’s.”

27 The three previous Venezuelans to drive in a run in an AL or NL postseason game were Luis Aparicio, César Tovar, and Dave Concepción. Carlos Ascanio drove in six runs for the New York Black Yankees of the Negro National League in 1946, but he did not appear in any playoff games.

28 Campaneris, a native of Cuba, translated for Márquez during postgame interviews. The pair had been teammates in the Venezuelan Winter League. United Press International, “Williams Backs Strategy.”

29 Odom got the start and held the Tigers to one unearned run in five innings. Blue picked up the save with four shutout innings as the A’s won 2-1. The AL did not name an ALCS MVP until 1980, but if one was awarded in 1972, Odom would have been an excellent choice. He went 2-0 and did not allow an earned run in 14 innings pitched. Odom limited the Tigers to just five hits and two walks in those 14 innings.

30 Tenace went 1-for-17 (.059) with three walks, five strikeouts, and one RBI in the ALCS. His only hit was a single off starter Woody Fryman in the fourth inning of Game Five that knocked in what turned out to be the series-winning run.

31 Márquez became the fourth player with three pinch-hits in a World Series. The previous three were Bobby Brown of the New York Yankees (1947), Dusty Rhodes of the New York Giants (1954), and Carl Warwick of the St. Louis Cardinals (1964). Ken Boswell of the New York Mets became the fifth in 1973.

32 Herb Michelson, “A’s Bow to Bosox, 6-4, Trade Marquez,” Sacramento Bee, August 30, 1973: D-2.

33 The A’s recalled Márquez on August 8, but he had only two at-bats for Oakland in August – both as a pinch-hitter. He hit .240 in 25 at-bats with Oakland in 1973. Márquez hit .224 in 58 at-bats with the Cubs in 1973.

34 “Marquez Dealt for Cub Slugger,” Oakland Tribune, August 30, 1973: 37.

35 Márquez went 13-for-47 (.277) with 6 RBIs as a pinch-hitter in the regular season. In the 1972 postseason, he was 5-for-8 (.625) with 2 RBIs as a pinch-hitter.

The front office wasn’t ready to concede. First, All-Star — but twice suspended — Denny McLain and two others were traded to Washington for pitcher Joe Coleman, third baseman Aurelio Rodriguez, and shortstop Eddie Brinkman. Then, fiery Billy Martin was hired as manager, replacing Mayo Smith. The team rebounded to a second-place 91-71 record in 1971, behind Mickey Lolich’s 25 victories.

The high expectations for the 1972 season were delayed by a strike called during spring training. When the season finally began it was decided that the lost games would not be made up, resulting in an unbalanced schedule. The Tigers and the Orioles shared the AL East lead for the first half, with the Tigers leading by a game at the All-Star break. After a slow start in the second half, the Tigers claimed two players off waivers who played significant roles in the stretch drive. First, catcher Duke Sims was obtained from the Dodgers, where he’d hit .192 in 51 games. In the final two months of 1972, he hit .316 with 19 RBIs in 38 games for Detroit. The day after Sims was acquired, left-handed pitcher Woodie Fryman was claimed from the Phillies. Fryman, a former All-Star with Philadelphia, had been struggling at 4-10 with a 4.36 ERA. He went 10-3 for the Tigers the rest of the season, including the pennant-clinching victory over the Red Sox, giving Detroit a controversial half-game division win.

The Tigers’ opponent in the best-of-five ALCS was the Oakland A’s, winners of 93 games during the regular season. The series opened on the West Coast, with Lolich pitching against Jim “Catfish” Hunter. Game One went 11 innings, with the Tigers losing 3-2, despite a Kaline homer that gave them a lead in the top of the inning. The A’s rolled in Game Two, winning 5-0 behind John “Blue Moon” Odom. In the eighth inning a play occurred that changed the direction of the series. Lerrin LaGrow, a 6-foot-5 right-hander, threw his first offering to Bert Campaneris low and inside, striking the shortstop on the ankle. Campaneris, believing Billy Martin had ordered a knockdown, jumped up and flung his bat at LaGrow, the war club helicoptering just over his head. After a bench-clearing 15-minute delay, both pitcher and batter were ejected. The next day American League President Joe Cronin fined Campaneris $500 and suspended him for the remainder of the ALCS, as well as the first seven games of the 1973 season (although he was allowed to play in the 1972 World Series against Cincinnati).

The Tigers returned to Detroit needing to win the remaining three games to make the World Series, but felt good about their chances. Bill Freehan summed it up: “There are a lot of guys on this club who remember 1968 and we’ve been down a couple times this year and people were ready to count us out. I think we all felt ‘why quit now,’ that there was no use giving up.”1 When Martin was asked what he told the team in the pregame meeting, he replied, “I didn’t say anything earthshaking, just that our backs were to the wall, that we’d come a long way and there was no reason to quit.”2The Tigers’ Game Three starter was Joe Coleman, a 19-game winner. He was able to keep the A’s off-balance with a wicked forkball, striking out 14 batters in a complete-game victory.

Game Four was a repeat matchup of Lolich versus Hunter. The day was cool and overcast, with a threat of rain throughout the day. Neither team was able to take batting practice, as the field remained covered until just before game time. The A’s threatened in each of the first three innings, but were kept off the scoreboard by strong defensive plays by Kaline and Rodriguez. The Tigers also had runners in scoring position in the first and second but failed to cash in. In the bottom of the third, shortstop Dick McAuliffe opened by lifting a low, inside offering into the overhang in right, giving Detroit a 1-0 lead.

Over the middle innings, both pitchers found their grooves, with Lolich retiring 11 in a row at one point and Hunter surrendering only a Norm Cash single in the sixth. In the top of the seventh Mike Epstein ripped a one-out line drive off the facing of the second deck in right, tying the game at 1-1. Later in the frame, backup catcher Dave Duncan walked pinch-hitting for second baseman Dick Green but did not score.

During most of the season, Williams rotated many players at second while Green missed most of the year with back problems, at times playing three or more players at the position. The loss of Campaneris shortened Williams’s bench, especially since he had already pinch-hit for shortstop Dal Maxvill in the sixth. Williams decided to keep Duncan in the game as catcher and moved Gene Tenace to second, a position he had played only a few times. The Tigers went 1-2-3 in the seventh.

After Lolich quickly retired the A’s in the eighth, McAuliffe started the bottom of the inning with a walk. After a Kaline sacrifice, McAuliffe advanced to third on an infield single. Rollie Fingers was brought in to relieve Hunter. Martin attempted a suicide squeeze, but Freehan was unable to make contact and McAuliffe was caught in a rundown, ending the scoring opportunity.                     

The A’s could only work a two-out walk off Lolich in the ninth. Vida Blue, the previous year’s Cy Young Award winner, was brought in to pitch to the Tigers. After he struck out the first two batters, Tony Taylor hit his second double of the game into the right-field corner. After Rodriguez was intentionally walked, Martin lifted Lolich for pinch-hitter Willie Horton, who ended the inning with a fly to center. After nine, the score was 1-1.

In the 10th, pinch-hitter Gonzalo Marquez singled between first and second. Matty Alou then drove the first pitch to the base of the 365-foot sign in left-center. Jim Northrup retrieved the ball and made a strong relay to McAuliffe, who then fired a strike to Freehan at the plate ahead of Marquez. However, in the ensuing collision, Freehan was unable to hold onto the ball, allowing the runner to score and Alou to move to third. Ted Kubiak followed with a soft single to right, giving the A’s a 3-1 lead.

With the Tigers down to their last three outs, McAuliffe opened the bottom of the 10th with a line single to right off new pitcher Bob Locker. Kaline followed with a single to left. Right-hander Joe Horlen relieved Locker, and Gates Brown, the Tigers’ prolific left-handed-hitting pinch-hitter of the ’60s, hit for Stanley. After a wild pitch moved runners up a base, Brown received a four-pitch walk. Freehan then hit a groundball to third baseman Sal Bando, who elected to go for the double play instead of the lead runner at home. However, Tenace, playing out of position, dropped the throw at second and was unable to retrieve it before being taken out by Brown’s hard slide. McAuliffe scored and the bases remained loaded with no outs. Norm Cash now faced left-handed reliever Dave Hamilton. After quickly getting behind in the count, Cash fouled off a number of pitches before walking on a 3-and-2 pitch, forcing Kaline home with the tying run. Jim Northrup followed and, on the second pitch, lifted a long single to the fringe of the warning track in right over a drawn-in outfield, scoring Brown and completing the three-run comeback. The crowd of 37,615 erupted, storming the field as if the Tigers had won the pennant rather than forcing a fifth game.

The feeling in the Tigers’ clubhouse was one of destiny. Kaline reported, “These guys keep pumping each other on the bench. I don’t know what happened — it all came off so fast. But here we are right where we want to be.”3 Northrup followed: “The guys on this club don’t let themselves get down. This is where more experience pays off. We’ve been through it before.”4 However, the next day would end the season for the team. The Tigers lost 2-1 on two close plays at the plate, and Oakland went on to win the first of three consecutive World Series titles.

The Tigers’ front office maintained high hopes, but 1972 was the last hurrah for the aging ballclub. Lolich had a subpar year in 1973 and Fryman’s record flipped to 6-13. Martin and GM Jim Campbell fought throughout the year about the needs of the club before Martin was fired before season’s end. The Tigers fell to third in 1973 and sixth in 1974, bottoming out with 102 losses in 1975. But for one more game on October 11, 1972, the magic of the 1968 World Champions was felt at Tiger Stadium.

This article appeared in “Tigers By The Tale: Great Games at Michigan and Trumbull” (SABR, 2016), edited by Scott Ferkovich. To read more articles from this book, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, Retrosheet.org and Baseball-Reference.com were also accessed.  

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET197210110.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B10110DET1972.htm

Masters, Todd. The 1972 Detroit Tigers: Billy Martin and the Half-Game Champs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2010).

Pattison, Mark, and David Raglin. Sock It to ’Em Tigers: The Incredible Story of the 1968 Detroit Tigers (Hanover, Massachusetts: Maple Street Press, 2008).

Wendell, Tim. Summer of ’68: The Season That Changed Baseball and America, Forever (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2012).

Detroit Free Press.

Major League Broadcast, Game Four ACLS; announcers: Monte Moore, Ned Morton, Jimmy Piersall.

Notes

1Jack Berry, “Tigers’ Do-or-Die Effort Played to Many Empty Seats,” Detroit News, October 11, 1972.

2 Ibid.

3 Watson Spoelstra, “Northrup Finds Old Magic,” Detroit News, October 12, 1972.

4 Ibid.

The fifth and final game of the American League Championship Series saw Oakland right-hander John “Blue Moon” Odom and Detroit southpaw Woodie Fryman meet in a rematch of Game Two, won by Odom 5-0.

The victory had given the AL West champions a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series, but with sparkplug Oakland shortstop Bert “Campy” Campaneris suspended for the remainder of the series for whipping his bat at Detroit pitcher Lerrin LaGrow after being decked by a pitch at his ankles, the aging Tigers showed they still had some teeth when the action moved to Detroit. Joe Coleman blanked the A’s in Game Three, striking out 14, and the Tigers rallied for three runs in the 10th inning a day later to tie the series, 2-2.1

With a crowd of 50,276 cramming ancient Tiger Stadium for Game Five, Detroit did more in its first at-bat than it had done in nine innings in its previous encounter with Odom. Dick McAuliffe ignited the attack by grounding a single to right field and taking second when Duke Sims walked. Sims had started the first two games at catcher for the injured Bill Freehan, who was recovering from a fractured right thumb. With Freehan back behind the plate for Games Three, Four, and Five, Sims was moved to left field for Game Five so the Tigers could have another left-handed hitter in their lineup against the right-handed Odom.

Facing Freehan, Odom issued an inside pitch that got away from catcher Gene Tenace. The passed ball moved both runners along, and Freehan followed with a grounder to shortstop Dal Maxvill to plate McAuliffe for a 1-0 lead.2

The Athletics, wearing their trademark turn-of-the-century-style mustaches, long hair, and gaudy gold, green, and white uniforms, battled back in their second at-bat. Reggie Jackson drew a leadoff walk and stole second. Captain Sal Bando blasted a drive deep to right field, where Al Kaline made the catch as the 26-year-old Jackson tagged up and took third, sliding in headfirst. Fryman, appearing as wild as Odom had in the top of the first, followed by hitting Mike Epstein, then caught Tenace looking for the second out.

With runners at the corners and defensive specialist Dick Green at the plate, A’s skipper Dick Williams called for a delayed double steal.3

As listeners around the Bay Area tuned in to KEEN 1370 AM, A’s radio announcer Monte Moore made the call:

“Here goes the runner from first, the pitch is taken, throw down to second, he’s safe! Here comes Jackson toward the plate, here comes the throw. … He is safe! Reggie Jackson steals home!”4

Jackson’s game-tying dash featured numerous moving parts. The bulky Freehan blocked home plate as the muscular Jackson, less than a decade removed from being a coveted college football recruit, slid in spikes first. Reggie’s left knee crumpled as it collided with Freehan’s shin protector, prompting Jackson’s face to contort in pain as he reached for his left hamstring. Freehan looked up to see home-plate umpire Nestor Chylak spreading his arms wide in a safe sign. Fiery Tigers manager Billy Martin argued that Jackson was out, but NBC-TV replays proved Chylak’s call was the right one.5

With his left hamstring now torn, Jackson was sidelined for the remainder of the postseason. He said later that he had initially felt the tear when he was 30 feet from home plate. Williams believed Jackson’s strong desire to score showed that the swaggering Mustache Gang played to win.6

Another hotly disputed call led to the A’s assuming a 2-1 advantage in the fourth. George Hendrick, replacing the injured Jackson, began the inning by bouncing a pitch to deep short. McAuliffe’s throw was low and first baseman Norm Cash, aware of the 22-year-old Hendrick’s speed, leaned forward to glove the throw. First-base umpire John Rice called Hendrick safe, and Cash kicked the dirt in frustration.7

NBC cameras caught Cash still toeing the bag as Hendrick’s left foot landed. The Detroit News’s front-page photo showed the same.

The A’s capitalized on the blown call. Bando sacrificed Hendrick to second, and Tenace lined a single to left. Sims fielded it on one hop and rifled a tremendous throw that Freehan snared just as Hendrick arrived at home plate. Freehan applied the tag but dropped the ball in his collision with Hendrick. Freehan’s drop wasn’t costly, as Chylak called Hendrick safe before the ball fell free.8

It was Tenace’s first hit in the playoffs and hinted at the heroics he would provide in the World Series against Cincinnati, when he would earn Most Valuable Player honors by belting four home runs, driving in nine runs, batting .348, and boasting a slugging percentage of .913.

Odom kept the Tigers to one hit through the fifth inning. But at the end of the fifth, Blue Moon headed for the tunnel; he was hyperventilating.9

“Skip, I can’t go anymore,” he told Williams. “I’m sick.” Rowdy A’s players roared in riotous laughter. “Those weren’t the dry heaves,” one teammate yelled. “They were the dry chokes!”

With Odom out, Williams called on Vida Blue to make his third relief appearance in as many days. High drama ensued as baseball’s best pitcher in 1971 battled the veterans of baseball’s best team in ’68.

The 1971 American League Cy Young winner, who had struggled in 1972 after a preseason holdout, held sway from the sixth inning through the ninth as Detroit hit just three balls out of the infield. It was evident that the Tigers couldn’t get their bats around fast enough to deal with Vida’s blue darter, as the 23-year-old left-hander preserved Oakland’s one-run lead.10

The Tiger Stadium crowd grew restless. Seeking to stay warm in the late-afternoon shadows, they were made angry and anxious by the cold, by the possibility of their season ending, and by the sight of the roguish A’s in their California gold jerseys. California was one of the centers of the Vietnam War protests and Oakland, a rebel city housing rebellious teams in the shaggy A’s and bad-boy Raiders, was associated with the counterculture.11

Tigers fans hurled a smoke bomb at Oakland pitcher Ken Holtzman and hit Hendrick in the head with a bottle. The game was stopped several times as fans littered the field with smoke bombs and firecrackers. Frustrated Tigers faithful knew the A’s were approaching their prime years and that their future was in front of them; indeed, the Mustache Gang would go on to win three straight World Series. The Tigers had peaked four years earlier when they beat the Cardinals in the World Series. While the series seemed at first a generational mismatch, it was still going down to the final pitch.

With Tony Taylor at the plate and two out in the Tigers’ ninth, Moore made Game Five’s final call:

“Vida kicks high, he throws. … There’s a drive into center field, back goes Hendrick. … He is under it. … The Swingin’ A’s have won the American League championship!”12

In a series stacked with surprise performances on both sides, Blue’s was one of the more notable, Vida having gone 6-10 during a disappointing regular season.

The 1972 playoffs were the first in either league to be extended to the full five games and, with the Cincinnati Reds’ ninth-inning rally to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in Game Five of the National League Championship Series a day earlier, the only time in major-league history (through 2021) that both deciding games were decided by a single run. They set a tone for equally dramatic and emotionally draining five-game LCS encounters the remainder of the decade: Mets-Reds and A’s-Orioles the following October; Yankees-Royals in ’76 and again in ’77.

With the win, the Mustache Gang was ready to take on the Big Red Machine in a celebrated fall classic. The A’s won in seven games for what turned out to be their first of three consecutive World Series championships. A’s versus Reds in ’72 remains the most competitive World Series ever, six of the seven games being decided by one run.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Russ Walsh and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent material and the box scores noted below.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET197210120.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B10120DET1972.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4epiViR-4Ig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k0buT-fulw

Notes

1 Ralph Ray, “Swinging A’s Put Tigers Down for Two Count,” The Sporting News, October 21, 1972.

2 Ralph Ray, “Blue Puts A’s Colors on A.L. Pennant, The Sporting News, October 28, 1972.

3 NBC radio broadcast, October 12, 1972.

4 Oakland A’s radio broadcast, October 12, 1972.

5 NBC TV broadcast, October 12, 1972.

6 Dick Williams and Bill Plaschke, No More Mr. Nice Guy (San Diego: Harcourt, 1990), 137-138

7 NBC TV broadcast, October 12, 1972.

8 NBC radio broadcast, October 12, 1972.

9 Ralph Ray, “Blue Puts A’s Colors on A.L. Pennant.”

10 NBC radio broadcast, October 12, 1972.

11 Michael Ybarra, “California’s Vietnam War,” Los Angeles Times, September 3, 2004

12 NBC radio broadcast, October 12, 1972.

Finley, an insurance magnate who’d bought the Athletics three years earlier from the estate of Arnold Johnson, said it was easy for him — and presumably other fans — to lose the ball while tracking it, a problem he also suggested players had, using a key play in the fourth and final game of the 1963 World Series as an example. “Joe Pepitone might not have lost sight of that throw in that final World Series game if the ball had been orange,” he said.1

Finley was ill-regarded among other owners, and that idea, like many others he came up with (he also suggested green bats at the 1963 owners meetings2), was ignored. But a decade later, change was in the air — and Finley finally had the juice to make it happen.

The Athletics had moved from Kansas City to Oakland, and thanks to home-grown talent like Vida Blue, Jim “Catfish” Hunter, and Reggie Jackson, had become a powerhouse, winning the American League West in 1971 and winning the World Series the following year, and Finley had become a force to be reckoned with among major-league owners. His Athletics’ green and gold uniforms — started in Kansas City — had spawned an outbreak of color among other teams. His vision of night World Series games had come to fruition in 1971. And American League owners approved his idea of a designated hitter for the 1973 season. (It would take another two decades, but another Finley idea was later adopted as well: interleague play.)

The Indians, on the other hand, were a moribund squad. They hadn’t been in a real pennant race since 1959, the year before Finley bought the Athletics, and were playing in a decrepit ballpark in a city that at that point was most famous for its river catching fire. In sum, they were the perfect guinea pigs for Finley’s latest stunt.

Finley was able to persuade American League and Indians officials to use the balls in a spring-training game on March 29, 1973.

“After a lengthy discussion with Mr. Finley, (owner) Nick Mileti and (manager) Ken Aspromonte, we concluded the idea at least merits further consideration,” Indians general manager Phil Seghi said. “The results could be interesting.”3

The A’s had wanted to use orange balls a week earlier in a nationally televised game against their Bay Area rivals the San Francisco Giants, but National League President Chub Feeney squashed the idea.4

“Hitters will love the shade,” Finley said when he was given permission. “But pitchers will not like it — for obvious reasons.”5

On March 29, at the Athletics’ home field in Mesa, Finley’s baseball was used for the first time in front of a crowd that included Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. (Ironically, Finley himself wasn’t there for his idea’s debut. He was in Chicago, but listened to the game via long-distance telephone.)6

Catfish Hunter took the hill against Indians ace Gaylord Perry, but anyone looking for a pitcher’s duel was almost instantly disappointed, as the offensive explosion Finley foretold did, in fact, come to pass, with 27 hits and 16 runs. Six home runs were hit, three by George Hendrick, who’d come to Cleveland just five days earlier with catcher Dave Duncan in a deal that sent Ray Fosse and Jack Heidemann to Oakland.

“I couldn’t pick up the spin of the ball,” Hendrick said. “Maybe I was just lucky.”7

Hendrick couldn’t pick up the spin of the ball because the balls were dyed orange — including the stitches, so batters couldn’t use them to follow the ball’s rotation. Because it was an exhibition, and only a relatively few of the balls were used, Spalding, the manufacturer, dyed the balls, and didn’t tan the hides orange and use the familiar red stitches.

“All I can say is what my players told me, and I don’t think any of them liked it,” Aspromonte said.8

Well, John Lowenstein had no real objection to the ball. “I’m color-blind,” he said.9

Perry said the ball was too slippery for him and Hunter, both of whom were forced to rely on breaking balls — to little effect.

“It’s not near as slippery as most of the pitches (Perry) throws with the regular ball,” Finley said, alluding to Perry’s noted history doctoring the ball.10

The orange balls did do one thing Finley promised. They were easier to see. “The orange ball looks like a balloon to me,” said Yankees scout Roy Hamey, who was at the game. Bill Rigney, in the broadcast booth for the A’s, also said it looked bigger.11

“It’s much too early to say anything conclusively,” Kuhn said. “The only thing I know for sure is that it’s more difficult to autograph.”12

The balls were used once more, in an exhibition on April 2 in Palm Springs, California, against the Angels, won 8-3 by the Athletics. It was just as poorly regarded as it was the previous week. “It reminded me of an Easter egg,” Angels starter Clyde Wright said. “I wanted to hide it.”13

The idea never had any further traction, but it became an intrinsic part of Finley’s legend. When he was profiled as “Baseball’s Super Showman” in Time magazine in 1975, the cover featured a backdrop of white and orange baseballs.

“There’s probably a carton or two of them stored in the barn on Finley’s farm,” Los Angeles Times sportswriter Mike Penner wrote upon Finley’s death in 1996.14

Notes

1 Clifford Kachline, “A’s Boss Finley Strikes Out with Orange Baseball,” The Sporting News, December 21, 1963: 18. In the fourth and final game of the 1963 World Series, the Dodgers scored what ultimately was the winning run when Pepitone lost sight of third baseman Clete Boyer’s throw in the sea of white shirts in the crowd and it bounced into the grandstand. The batter, Junior Gilliam, went to third and then scored on a sacrifice fly.

2 Ibid.

3 Russell Schneider, “Schneider Around,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 4, 1973: 2C.

4 “More Color Installed by Athletics,” Santa Cruz (California) Sentinel, March 29, 1973: 20. Accessed online at ucr.edu.  

5 “Alert Orange for Finley,” Desert Sun (Palm Springs, California), March 3, 1973: A10. Accessed online at ucr.edu.

6 Russell Schneider, “Schneider Around,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 30, 1973: 4D.

7 Bob Sudyk, “Orange Balls Get the Raspberry,” Cleveland Press, March 30, 1973: D2.

8 Russell Schneider, “Orange Ball Makes Indians See Red,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 30, 1973: 2D.

9 Ibid.

10 Russell Schneider, “Schneider Around,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 31, 1973: 2D.

11 Schneider, “Schneider Around,” March 30.

12 Ibid.

13 Braven Dyer, Associated Press, “A’s Baseballs Fail Color Test,” Desert Sun, April 3, 1973: A8. Accessed online at ucr.edu.

14 Mike Penner, “Finley Had a Ball, but Not Orange,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1996. Accessed online at latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-02-20-sp-37923-story.html.

By the start of June, the A’s were still in fifth place, but only six games behind the division-leading Chicago White Sox. The A’s 7-1 win over the White Sox in Chicago on June 22 put them in a tie for third place with Kansas City, one game behind the White Sox. Minnesota held second place, a half-game behind the White Sox. It could be argued that the Athletics’ trouncing of the White Sox on June 23, which put them in a virtual tie for first place (for the first time in the season), was the turning point in their quest for a third consecutive West Division title.

A crowd of 15,984 showed up on the 23rd in Comiskey Park. It turned out to be a rainy day that incurred two brief interruptions during the game.

With third baseman Bill Melton and center fielder Ken Henderson out with injuries, the White Sox fielded a makeshift lineup that had rookie Bill Sharp in center and utility infielder Hank Allen playing third base in his first start of the season. Jorge Orta was returning to the lineup even though he was still hobbling.

White Sox first baseman Dick Allen, Hank’s brother, had been the American League MVP in 1972. In 1973 he picked up where he left off, blistering the ball until a 12-game stretch without a home run beginning on June 9. Yet he still had an impressive slash line of .329/.409/.658 with 16 homers and 41 RBIs going into the game.

Veteran knuckleball pitcher Eddie Fisher got the start for White Sox manager Chuck Tanner. Catfish Hunter, with nine wins already to his credit, drew the starting assignment for the A’s. Their offense was headlined by Reggie Jackson, who was batting .298 with 13 home runs and 56 RBIs.

The A’s wasted no time in attacking Fisher in the top of the first. He faced only five batters, retiring just one, as Oakland scored three runs on two singles, a walk, a hit batsman, two stolen bases, and a passed ball. Steve Kealey replaced Fisher and stopped the bleeding temporarily.

The White Sox’ attempt to get back into the game yielded a run in the bottom of the inning on Pat Kelly’s leadoff triple, followed by Orta’s sacrifice fly.

But Kealey wasn’t any more effective than Fisher in containing the A’s offense in the second inning. After leadoff singles by Dick Green and Bert Campaneris, a sacrifice bunt by Bill North and a sacrifice fly by Sal Bando plated Green. Jackson’s single scored Campaneris. After Jackson got his second stolen base of the game and Deron Johnson walked, Gene Tenace’s double tallied both, making the score 7-1.

The A’s relied on “small ball” again in the third inning, when they scored three more runs on two hits, two walks, a sacrifice fly, and a fielder’s choice. Denny O’Toole replaced Kealey after the first run of the frame, but all three runs were charged to Kealey.

Orta tagged Hunter with a double, the White Sox’ third extra-base hit of the game, in the bottom of the third, scoring Kelly, who had walked.

O’Toole held the A’s scoreless in the fourth, but with two outs in the fifth inning, Bando singled and Jackson and Johnson hit back-to-back doubles for two more runs.

With the outcome of the game seemingly in hand with a 12-2 lead, the A’s began making substitutions in the bottom of the fifth inning, replacing Tenace, Bando, and Jackson.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Rick Reichardt’s double was followed by an RBI single by Tony Muser for the third White Sox run.

The A’s added runs in the eighth inning on Green’s single and in the ninth on North’s solo home run for a final score of 14-3. Six of the White Sox’ eight hits off Hunter went for extra bases, including Hank Allen’s first hit (a double) of the season. Hunter’s explanation: His back had stiffened from the time he warmed up before the game to when he first took the mound after the long first inning. “I couldn’t get my pitches down,” he said.2

Every A’s starter got at least one hit in the team’s 19-hit barrage. Ninth-place hitter Green, who had collected three hits the day before, had another outburst with three singles and a double against the battered White Sox staff. Green’s two productive games came after he had been benched for 13 days. He was sarcastic about his recent performance: “I’ve always hit well in spring training, which might prove I might need a rest every now and then. Heck, play me one week and rest me three.”3

The heart of the A’s lineup accounted for 10 RBIs, with Johnson and Jackson each driving in three and Bando and Tenace each having two.

The teams combined for 10 doubles and a triple. The only home run of the game was hit by North, who was not normally regarded as a power hitter. It was his second of the season, and apparently he wasn’t expecting this one either. A recent convert to switch-hitting, North knocked the homer into the right-field seats as he batted left-handed. “When I hit it, I had no idea it was going out,” he said. “I thought maybe it would be a triple or something. I was running so hard I lost my batting helmet.”4

At the end of the day, the White Sox, A’s, and Royals were in a virtual tie for first place, separated by only .005 percentage points, and the Twins and Angels were only a half-game out of first.

As a sidelight to the game, a White Sox security guard added injury to insult for the local team when he accidentally shot himself after the game while removing his revolver from its holster in the locker room.5

The A’s took sole possession of first place six days later. In a close division race with Kansas City, they wound up holding first place for the almost all of the rest of the season. The A’s took the division title and ultimately claimed their second consecutive World Series championship. They would accomplish a rare “three-peat” in 1974.

Hunter won 21 games for the third consecutive season. The future Hall of Famer was one of three A’s hurlers with 20 or more wins in 1973. (Vida Blue won 20 and Ken Holtzman won 21).

Jackson, another future Hall of Fame inductee, was voted the American League’s Most Valuable Player for 1973, on the strength of his league-leading stats for runs (99), home runs (32), RBIs (117), and slugging (.531).

Dick Allen went on the injured list after June 28 with a hairline fracture in his right leg and missed most of the rest of the season. His absence severely hindered the White Sox’ ability to remain in contention. They finished 17 games behind the A’s.

Postscript

The 1973 National SABR Convention was held in Chicago June 22-24, 1973. Attendance at the A’s-White Sox game was one of the activities. The convention took place at the Sheraton-Chicago Hotel with 23 or, depending on the source, 26 attendees. The cost was $15 for a single room and $20 for a double. Negro Leaguer Dave Malarcher was the guest speaker.6

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Dozer, Richard. “Oakland Pummels Sox pitching 14-3,” Chicago Tribune, June 24, 1973: 3, 1.

Notes

1 The A’s were in fifth place with a 9-11 record at the end of April, scoring a meager total of 73 runs.

2 Ron Bergman, “Thundering A’s .004 Out,” Oakland Tribune, June 24, 1973: 21.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 “Sox Lose; Park Guard Shoots Self,” Chicago Tribune, June 24, 1973: 3, 10.

6 SABR National Conventions. sabr.org/about/history/5. Accessed July 29, 2019.

The game marked 40 years since the first midsummer classic in 1933. Lefty Gomez and Bill Hallahan, starting pitchers in the inaugural All-Star Game, were on hand to throw out ceremonial first pitches.3

Another old-timer made headlines in the runup to the game, though his on-field contribution was minimal. Willie Mays of the New York Mets, struggling through his final season at age 42, hadn’t been chosen by the fans or by NL manager Sparky Anderson.4 But Commissioner Bowie Kuhn allowed each team to add an extra player, a move intended to clear the way for Mays’ inclusion. NL President Chub Feeney announced that Mays would not only join the team but serve as honorary captain.5 In his 24th All-Star Game, tying Stan Musial’s major-league record, Mays struck out against Sparky Lyle in an eighth-inning pinch-hitting appearance. The extra spot on the AL roster went to California’s Nolan Ryan, also not selected despite pitching two no-hitters in the first half of the season.6

The Oakland Athletics’ Dick Williams and the Cincinnati Reds’ Anderson, World Series antagonists the previous fall, led the AL and NL teams. (Williams fulfilled his duty despite undergoing an emergency appendectomy four days earlier.7) They managed with the fans in mind, rotating 54 players into the game, a record at the time. Only four eligible All-Stars never got off the bench.8

Future Hall of Famer Nestor Chylak umpired behind the plate. It was the fifth of Chylak’s six All-Star Games and his second time calling balls and strikes. Kansas City had hosted one previous All-Star Game, the second of two games played in 1960, at old Municipal Stadium. Chylak had worked that one as well, umping at second base.9 The six-man 1973 crew also included the AL’s Ron Luciano, working in left field. It was the only All-Star assignment for the flamboyant Luciano, who later became a best-selling author.

With a ballpark-record 40,849 fans on hand,10 Oakland’s Hunter faced off against Rick Wise of the NL East division-leading St. Louis Cardinals.11 Making his third All-Star appearance, Hunter had established himself as one of the AL’s marquee right-handers. With a 15-3 record and a 3.32 ERA at the All-Star break, he was well on his way to racking up his third of five straight 20-win seasons. He’d also won two games in the previous fall’s World Series.

Wise had never won 20 – and never would – but entered the game with an 11-5 record and a 3.10 ERA. According to pregame coverage, Anderson chose Wise over Tom Seaver, Don Sutton, and NL wins co-leader Jack Billingham because Wise was better rested.12

After a quiet first inning, the Chicago Cubs’ Billy Williams smacked a one-hopper off Hunter’s pitching hand with one out in the top of the second, forcing Hunter out of the game with a hairline fracture of his right thumb. He wouldn’t pitch again until August 19.

Hunter’s Oakland teammate Ken Holtzman got out of the inning, allowing only a two-out single to Ron Santo, and was rewarded with a 1-0 lead in the bottom half. Reggie Jackson, another member of the A’s juggernaut, pounded a leadoff double to deep center field over a leaping César Cedeño. Jackson came home on a ground single past second base by hometown favorite Amos Otis, one of three Royals on the AL team along with John Mayberry and Cookie Rojas.

The lead didn’t last. Minnesota’s Bert Blyleven came on to pitch the third inning and walked Atlanta’s Darrell Evans, hitting for Wise. Pete Rose forced Evans with a grounder; Joe Morgan drew another walk to put Cincinnati Reds on first and second. Houston’s Cedeño scored Rose with a slapped single into center field, and Atlanta’s Henry Aaron scored Morgan with a single between shortstop and third base for a 2-1 NL advantage. It was Aaron’s eighth and final RBI in an All-Star Game. Like Mays and Musial, Aaron appeared in 24 All-Star contests; this was his 22nd.

In the bottom of the third, Buddy Bell led off with a triple off new NL hurler Claude Osteen, and Mayberry later worked a walk. The AL couldn’t capitalize on the opportunities.

Another Cincinnati Red, Johnny Bench, made himself heard from in the top of the fourth. Bench led off with a booming home run to left field off California’s Bill Singer for a 3-1 lead. The NL moved another runner to third on a walk, a sacrifice, and a passed ball by AL catcher Carlton Fisk, but Rose’s grounder stranded the runner. Otis enlivened the bottom half with a single off Osteen and a stolen base, to no avail.

The NL kept pulling away in the fifth. Morgan led off with a double to left off Singer. Wholesale substitutions had already begun, and two outs later, one of the NL’s subs came to the plate. San Francisco’s Bobby Bonds had spelled Billy Williams in right field in the previous inning. Bonds, making his second All-Star Game appearance, took Singer deep to left-center field, expanding the NL’s lead to 5-1.

No-hit hero Ryan came in to work the sixth inning for the AL, making the first of what turned out to be five All-Star appearances.13 NL batters found him easier to hit than his AL colleagues. Santo drew a leadoff walk and, one out later, pinch-hitter Willie Davis – a Los Angeles Dodger wearing Aaron’s Atlanta Braves batting helmet – hit the NL’s third round-tripper of the game for a 7-1 lead.14 In his 14th major-league season, it was only Davis’s second All-Star at-bat.15

Bonds added a double in the top of the seventh but didn’t score. Hitting for Ryan in the bottom half, Jim Spencer made a tiny piece of history, becoming the first Texas Ranger to play in an All-Star Game. Toby Harrah was chosen to represent the Rangers in 1972, the team’s first season in Texas after moving from Washington. But Harrah suffered a shoulder injury shortly before that year’s game and did not play.16 Spencer flied to left field against Pittsburgh’s Dave Giusti to end the inning. Spencer’s teammate Dave Nelson was inserted at third base in the top of the eighth, and the Rangers were also represented in the coaching boxes as Texas manager Whitey Herzog served on the AL staff.

The remainder of the game passed quietly. Another first-timer, Dodgers screwballer Jim Brewer, took the mound for the NL in the bottom of the ninth. Brewer got Dave May – also a Brewer, of the Milwaukee variety – to pop to second. Brewer walked Bobby Murcer, then struck out Thurman Munson. Pinch-hitter Willie Horton of Detroit represented the AL’s last hope. Brewer whiffed him swinging on a pitch that briefly eluded catcher Ted Simmons; Simmons gathered up the ball, fired to first, and the 44th All-Star Game was over.

Wise received the win despite allowing the AL’s only run in two innings of work, while Brewer was awarded the save. It was the only All-Star appearance for both players.17 Blyleven took the loss; he did not play in another All-Star Game until 1985. The AL managed only five hits against seven NL pitchers – Wise, Osteen, Sutton, the Phillies’ Wayne Twitchell, Giusti, Seaver, and Brewer.

Bonds was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.18 Anderson told reporters he wanted to showcase Bonds even though fans hadn’t chosen him as a starter. The manager called Bonds “the finest player in either league at this point.”19 Jackson echoed the praise, saying: “He’s fantastic. What other word could you use for him? He’s got to be the best ballplayer in the National League.”20

One observer, Ray Fitzgerald of the Boston Globe, rated the game highly for glamour and sentiment, but low for excitement. “There were no flashy plays, no mind-thumping rallies, no bases-loaded crowd-on-its-feet situations,” he wrote.21

Even Kansas City sportswriters admitted that the game was “dull,” “a bore,” and “less than memorable.”22 They added, though, that the night had been a great showcase for the city’s new ballpark. “A game is not all there is to see at an All-Star Game,” Gib Twyman of the Kansas City Star wrote. “Baseball’s showpiece is just as much an event – and on that count the Royals scored a victory, bringing the new multi-taxpayer stadium to a peak of sleek and streamlined swankness for the night. The game itself, in fact, often seemed the only detractor.”23

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team and season data and the box scores for this game. The author also consulted a highlight film produced by Major League Baseball and available on YouTube as of June 2023.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/allstar/1973-allstar-game.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1973/B07240ALS1973.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAZigqxG164

Photo of 1973 Kellogg’s card #8 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Of the 20 All-Star Games from 1958 through 1973, the National League won 15, the American League won 4, and the leagues tied 1-1 in the second of two games in 1961. (The AL and NL played two All-Star Games each season from 1959 through 1962.)

2 “Catfish Hunter Out of Action,” Kansas City Times, July 26, 1973: 1D.

3 Ewing Kauffman, founding owner of the Royals, joined Gomez and Hallahan in ceremonial first-pitch duty. United Press International, “First Ball Thrown Out,” Rushville (Indiana) Daily Republican, July 25, 1973: 3.

4 Entering the All-Star break, Mays was hitting .214 with 4 home runs.

5 Feeney had been general manager of the New York and San Francisco Giants from 1947 through 1969. Mays played for the Giants for much of that period.

6 Fred Down (United Press International), “Kuhn Allows Roster Change, Mays, Ryan Are All-Stars,” Bennington (Vermont) Banner, July 20, 1973: 10; Associated Press, “Willie Mays With N.L. Stars,” Kansas City Star, July 20, 1973: 17.

7 United Press International, “Dick Williams Glad He Made Trip, Worried Over Hunter,” Portland (Maine) Evening Express, July 25, 1973: 30.

8 The four eligible players who did not appear were pitchers Jack Billingham (NL-Cincinnati), Bill Lee (AL-Boston), and Jim Colborn (AL-Milwaukee) and catcher Bill Freehan (AL-Detroit). Billingham, Lee, and Colborn were never again selected for an All-Star team; Freehan had played in the previous eight All-Star Games. Three other players chosen for the 1973 game, Dave Concepción (NL-Cincinnati), Dick Allen (AL-Chicago), and Carl Yastrzemski (AL-Boston), were unavailable due to injury – a broken ankle for Concepción, a broken leg for Allen, and a nagging wrist injury for Yastrzemski.

9 In 1960, Municipal Stadium was the home of the Kansas City Athletics. The A’s left Kansas City for Oakland after the 1967 season. Municipal Stadium was then occupied by the expansion Royals from 1969 through 1972.

10 MLB highlight film of the 1973 All-Star Game, viewed on YouTube June 14, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAZigqxG164

11 The Cardinals’ record of 51-45 placed them a scant half-game ahead of the Chicago Cubs at the All-Star break. The eventual division-winning New York Mets were in last place at 42-51, 7½ games out. Other division leaders at the 1973 All-Star break included the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West; the New York Yankees in the AL East; and the Oakland Athletics in the AL West.

12 Associated Press, “Mood Intensive for All-Star Clash,” Abilene (Texas) Reporter-News, July 24, 1973: 1C. Billingham and San Francisco’s Ron Bryant both entered the All-Star break with 14 wins; Bryant was not chosen for the team.

13 Ryan subsequently appeared in midsummer classics in 1979, 1981, 1985, and 1989. The 1979 game was his only start.

14 Davis later told reporters he forgot his own batting helmet. “I’m going to steal the helmet for a souvenir,” he said. “I don’t think Henry will mind.” United Press International, “Bonds Pays NL Dividend,” Moline (Illinois) Daily Dispatch, July 25, 1973: 45.

15 Davis had singled in the 1971 game.

16 Frederick C. Bush, “Toby Harrah,” SABR Biography Project, accessed June 14, 2023. Harrah got to play in a single All-Star Game, in 1976.

17 Wise had been selected for the 1971 All-Star Game but did not appear.

18 Bonds’s son Barry was a seven-time NL Most Valuable Player and a 14-time All-Star, but he never won the All-Star Game MVP honor.

19 United Press International, “Nationals Do It Again – Clout Americans 7-1,” Boston Globe, July 25, 1973: 53.

20 United Press International, “MVP Bonds Dazzles National League,” Boston Globe, July 25, 1973: 56.

21 Ray Fitzgerald, “44th All-Star Game Dull, But Bowie’s Speech Duller,” Boston Globe, July 25, 1973: 53.

22 Gib Twyman, “N.L. Had Bench … and Not Just Johnny,” Kansas City Star, July 25, 1973: 1C; Joe McGuff, “Sporting Comment,” Kansas City Star, July 25, 1973: 1C.

23 Twyman, “N.L. Had Bench … and Not Just Johnny.”