Although winter’s clutches enveloped the North, the fans’ excitement couldn’t be tempered by a blizzard twice as big. In the strike-interrupted 1981 season the team made its first postseason appearance, finishing first in the American League East Division despite inconsistent play from its regulars, then falling to the New York Yankees in the Division Series. Experts were picking the Brewers to fight for the American League East crown again in 1982 season.3 Fans flocked to the box office ahead of the season, and there were predictions that the Brewers could draw two million.4

Despite these high hopes, many question marks remained. How would Paul Molitor fare in his first season at third base?5 Could Cecil Cooper and Ben Oglivie bounce back after down seasons? Would Larry Hisle finally be healthy enough to make an impact for Milwaukee?6 Was Rollie Fingers’ preseason injury7 going to jeopardize the team’s playoff aspirations? Hindsight tells us many of these worries vanished, but at the time the questions added an element of uneasiness to the euphoria of a brand-new season.

In the days leading up to the new Opening Day, many Northern teams had to keep their players in playing shape in spite of the weather. Spring training helped to quell some of the concerns surrounding roster spots and injuries, but a few days off in the cold Wisconsin weather would likely be detrimental to the pennant hopefuls. The Brewers, with open-air Milwaukee County Stadium unprotected from the elements, attempted to find someplace else to train before traveling north of the border. The initial plan was to work out at either Carroll College, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, or the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, but the club opted to seek a bigger venue.8 Their first call was to Minnesota, asking to use the new Metrodome, but the White Sox and Blue Jays were already there.9 Then they tried to book the Superdome in New Orleans, but the employees who assist with booking the venue were out of the office, and general manager Harry Dalton said the woman who answered the phone “didn’t seem real interested in helping us out.”10

The team’s saviors wound up being the Houston Astros. “[Astros general manager] Al Rosen said, ‘Come on down, we’ll take care of you,’” Dalton reported.11 The Brewers took the first flight down to the Astrodome in Houston to play two intrasquad games in the indoor facility. They declined an offer to play the University of Houston so that manager Buck Rodgers could work out more players.12 When all was said and done, Milwaukee’s team had gotten a pair of extra spring-training days before finally getting to play their first regular-season game.

The delayed Opening Day game pitted Milwaukee ace Pete Vuckovich against Toronto hurler Mark Bomback. Fewer eyes were on the pitching matchup than on the Brewers’ batting order. With Robin Yount’s availability uncertain, Rodgers came up with two batting orders.13 Yount had injured his hamstring at the tail end of spring training, and with a 41-degree game-time temperature in Toronto, his status was up in the air. Yount ended up playing, but he batted seventh, the same spot his replacement, Ed Romero, would have filled had Yount been deemed unfit to play.14

As things turned out, Yount played a big part in the game, but he was hardly the headliner. The Brewers scorched Bomback right out of the gate, with leadoff singles by Molitor and Charlie Moore, followed by a two-run double by Cooper and a two-run homer by Oglivie. Bomback retired only one batter and was yanked after giving up an RBI single to Mark Brouhard. Dale Murray, who relieved him, allowed an inherited runner to score on a sacrifice fly by Molitor. The Brewers wound up batting around and tallying six runs before the Blue Jays had a chance to bat.

Toronto fans were immediately restless. Boos rained out from the crowd of 30,216, then chants of “We want beer!” rang through the concourse. That was in response to the fact that Exhibition Stadium was the only major-league ballpark that didn’t sell beer at concession stands. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writer Vic Feuerherd suggested that this was a good thing for this particular day. “It’s scary to think how the crowd might have reacted if they were liquored up,” he wrote in his game recap.15

Vuckovich wasn’t overly dominant, but he held the Blue Jays scoreless through three innings. He walked two, gave up two hits and struck out a pair in that span. The Brewers added another run in the fourth on a bases-loaded walk to Gorman Thomas. The Blue Jays finally struck back in the bottom of the inning. With two outs Vuckovich walked Jesse Barfield and Ernie Whitt hit a home run.

The Brewers turned things on again in the sixth inning. Jerry Garvin was pitching for Toronto, and after four straight hits and three runs, he was relieved by Jim Gott. With the score 10-2, the Brewers gave Yount and his balky hamstring a rest and lifted him for pinch-runner Romero after Yount’s two-run double. Gott proceeded to walk the bases loaded and allow four more runs to score on a pair of errors and another two-run double by Cooper. When the dust settled at the end of the Milwaukee sixth, the scoreboard read Brewers 14, Blue Jays 2.

The Blue Jays tallied a pair in the bottom of the inning on RBI singles by Whitt and Damaso Garcia, but that was the end of their offense for the day. Oglivie added an RBI single in the eighth inning to bring the final tally to 15-4. Vuckovich picked up the win with a six-inning effort, allowing four runs on seven hits and three walks while striking out three. Bomback was tagged with the loss. Despite the two teams racking up 19 runs, the game took just 3 hours and 5 minutes to play.

The auspicious start was a foretaste of the magical season that awaited the Brewers in 1982. As for the Blue Jays … well, there was always next season.16

Sources

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

Notes

1 Vic Feuerherd, “Mother Nature 1, Brewers 0 in Opener,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 6, 1982: Sports, 1.

2 Amy Diamond and Ernst-Ulrich Franzen, “Brewers Fly to Houston; Home Opener Is April 16,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 7, 1982: 1.

3 Feuerherd, “Brewers, A’s Likely to Meet for AL Title,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 6, 1982: Sports, 5; Carl Clark Jr., “Writers Call for Rematch in Pennant Picks,” The Sporting News, April 10, 1982: 16.

4 Bud Lea, “If Brewers Stay in Title Race, Attendance of 2 Million Likely,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 6, 1982: Sports, 6.

5 Tom Flaherty, “Hisle and McClure Add to New Look,” The Sporting News, April 10,1982: 38.

6 Ibid.

7 Flaherty, “Fingers’ Injury Gives Brewers a Scare,” The Sporting News, April 3, 1982: 36.

8 Feuerherd, “Mother Nature 1, Brewers 0 in Opener.”

9 Flaherty, “Snowed-Out Brewers Head for Houston,” The Sporting News, April 24, 1982: 28-29.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Feuerherd, “Brewers Whip Toronto, 15-4”, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 10, 1982: Sports, 1.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 The 1982 Blue Jays (78-84) finished tied for last in the AL East Division. “Next year” (1983), they had an 89-73 record and finished in fourth place, two games ahead of the Brewers.

“I’m not a home run hitter,” said the Milwaukee Brewers’ Paul Molitor after smashing three home runs.1 He wasn’t exaggerating either: Entering that historic game, the speedy line-drive hitter had cranked only 27 round-trippers in parts of five big-league seasons. Though he developed a stroke to belt a career high 22 in 1993 with the Toronto Blue Jays and finish with 234 homers in his 21-year career, he never had another game like this one. “I just happened to hit the ball where the wind was blowing,” he said. “I’ve never had three in a game – not in sandlot, high school, minor leagues, anywhere.”2

Skipper Buck Rodgers’ Brew Crew was reeling heading into the final game of a three-game set with the Kansas City Royals at Royals Stadium. After losing a heartbreaker, 3-2, on Amos Otis’s walk-off home run in the opener, the club was spanked 17-3 to drop to 16-12, third place in the AL East. Manager Dick Howser’s squad (16-13) was also in third place (AL West) and looking to get on track, coming off its first losing record in the strike-shortened 1981 season since 1974.

The 17,788 spectators in Royals Stadium on a Wednesday evening were treated to another slugfest, albeit not quite as prodigious as the previous night’s 32-hit, 20-run extravaganza.

Molitor jacked Dennis Leonard’s second pitch into the left-field bleachers for a leadoff home run.3 That sound must have been reassuring to Rodgers, who counted on Molitor to rebound after a subpar 1981 campaign when injuries limited him to just 46 starts in the field (all in the outfield, where he played for the first time in his big-league career) and 16 at DH. There was pressure on Molitor, too. After batting .322 in 1979 and .304 in 1980 and earning his first All-Star berth, as a second baseman, the 25-year-old was converted to yet another new position, third base, and had to prove that he could resurrect his stroke. That wasn’t happening thus far in the ’82 season, as Molitor entered the game batting .268 with one home run.

The Royals tied the game in the second on consecutive triples by Frank White and Greg Pryor off Brewers starter Randy Lerch, a 27-year-old southpaw, whose 3-1 slate (and inflated 5.33 ERA) improved his career record to 45-51 A versatile utilityman, Pryor had been acquired in the offseason as an insurance policy for oft-injured third sacker George Brett, who missed his fifth straight game with laceration on his knee.

The initial innings were like early rounds of a heavyweight boxing match with each team trading jabs and picking up a point here and there. The Brewers took the lead in the third on Cecil Cooper’s two-out single, only to lose it in the bottom of the frame on Hal McRae’s run-scoring double to plate John Wathan, who moments earlier had been picked off second but was safe when Lerch’s throw sailed into center field. The Royals tacked on three more on in the fourth, keyed by Pryor’s two-run double and Wathan’s single to plate him.

The Royals’s starter, 31-year-old Dennis Leonard, was a grinding workhorse, an overlooked yet vital piece of the club’s success in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was a three-time 20-game winner and won more games (120) than any other right-hander in baseball from 1975 to 1981; however, if he had one bugaboo, it was the long ball. He yielded two solo shots to begin the fifth, by Marshall Edwards and Molitor, marking the first time that the latter had connected for two in a big-league game.

Shoddy defense and weak pitching by relievers Dwight Bernard and Jim Slaton led to the Brewers’ demise in the sixth as the Royals scored three times on just one hit to increase their lead to 8-4. Two walks, two stolen bases, and two throwing errors were the culprits; Willie Wilson’s deep fly ball and McRae’s two-out, two-run double were responsible for the tallies, all unearned.

The Brewers were made up of long-ball threats, like Gorman Thomas, who went on to capture his second AL home-run crown in ’82 (tied with the California Angels’ Reggie Jackson) and Ben Oglivie, the 1980 AL homer champ; however, their bats were quiet in this game, going a combined 1-for-8. Molitor did his best Gorman impression, minus the Fu Manchu, raking a single in the seventh to drive in a run and pulling the Brewers to within three, 8-5. Jim “Gumby” Ganter’s grounder off reliever Dan Quisenberry with bases loaded should have been the last out of the eighth; instead, it was the second and drove in an unearned run. [Two batters earlier, Pryor had committed a throwing error on Ted Simmons’s grounder.].

A day after Brewers starter Jerry Augustine was clobbered for 12 runs and 15 hits in just five innings, this game revealed the weakness of the club’s relieving corps. Not trusting his wobbly bullpen, Rodgers called on starter Moose Haas, who had thrown two-run ball over 7⅔ innings in the first game of the series. The decision backfired. Moose yielded a leadoff single to Pryor, who subsequently scored on Wilson’s single. The “shell-shocked Milwaukee pitching staff took it on the chin again,” lamented Brewers beat reporter Vic Feuerherd.4

A three-run deficit was rarely worrisome to the Brewers, who ultimately led the majors with 216 home runs in 1982; however, it was a different story facing the game’s best closer, the submarining Quisenberry, en route to leading the AL in saves for the second of five times in his career. Called to record an eight-out save, the Quiz was far from his best in this game, as Molitor connected for his third homer to make it 9-7. Quisenberry retired Yount, the eventual 1982 AL MVP, and Cooper to preserve the victory and end the game in 2 hours and 48 minutes.

Buck Rodgers was happy to see his squad get out of Kansas City. “The ballpark’s been a pain to us, this team’s been a pain to us,” he said after losing the fourth straight game to the team in powder-blue uniforms. “I’m ready to get the hell out of here.”5

As for Molitor, he had little to say after a 4-for-5, three-home-run performance with three runs and four RBIs in a loss. “The first one was a fastball up,” he told the press. “In the fifth, I hit a pretty good pitch, slider down. The last one was a knuckleball up.”6

The scrappy Molitor emerged as the Brew Crew’s offensive catalyst in 1982. He led the majors with 136 runs scored and collected 201 hits for a .302 batting average

Sources

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

Notes

1 Associated Press, “KC Overcomes Molitor’s Blasts,” Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), May 13, 1982: 17.

2 Ibid.

3 AP, “3 Molitor HRs Not Enough,” Stevens Point (Wisconsin) Journal, May 13, 1982: 19.

4 Vic Feuerherd, “Molitor’s 3 Homers Can’t Save Brewers,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 13, 1982: II, 1.

5 Ibid.

6 AP, “3 Molitor HRs Not Enough.”

The Milwaukee Brewers were hitting on all cylinders, erasing the memories of the club’s early-season funk that resulted in the firing of manager Buck Rodgers after 47 games. New skipper Harvey Kuenn took a losing club (23-24) and had guided them to 11 wins in their last 17 games (including a tie) to move into third place in the AL East. “There’s a big change of attitude on this club,” said Oglivie about the fresh start under Kuenn. “When that happens, I think you have a good chance to win some games. I think we’re on a roll now.”2 A player’s manager, Kuenn, himself a former 15-year big-leaguer, who led the AL in hits four times in the 1950s, kept his players relaxed and encouraged them to go for the fences. “We’re playing one at a time,” cautioned Kuenn.3 Harvey’s Wallbangers, so named for their long-ball ability, were born and teams were taking notice. The Brew Crew was looking to sweep a four-game series against the Detroit Tigers in the Motor City. Manager Sparky Anderson’s club (36-25) was in a free fall, having lost their last six games and seven of eight to fall out of first place in the AL East, and trailed the Baltimore Orioles by two games.

Tiger Stadium, the Old Gray Lady at the intersection of Trumbull and Michigan Avenues, drew a robust crowd of 31,696 for a 12:35 start time on a beautiful summer Sunday in southeastern Michigan. The partisan crowd had ample reason to cheer in the first inning when the hometown Bengals exploded for four runs off Brewers starter Jim Slaton. A 32-year-old right-hander and longtime workhorse on poor Brewers teams in the 1970s, Slaton (4-1 thus far in ’82 and 114-121 in his career) had been moved to bullpen and was making just his fourth start of the season. Kirk Gibson cranked his sixth home run of the season, a three-run blast with no outs, and Richie Hebner hit a two-out solo shot.

Two players with Detroit connections enjoyed their homecoming with productive afternoons. Ted Simmons, from suburban Southfield, who played college ball at the University of Michigan, doubled, and then was driven home when former Tiger Oglivie smacked a fastball from starter Jerry Ujdur over the wall. A 25-year-old right-hander, Ujdur was recalled at the beginning of the month and was making his third start of the season.

The long balls were far from over. Lance Parrish smacked a solo shot in the third to give the Tigers a 5-2 lead. With runners on the corners and two outs and the Tigers threatening to blow the game open, Kuenn pulled Slaton and called on Jerry Augustine to extinguish the fire.

A 29-year-old left-hander, Augustine had struggled mightily thus far in 1982 and was 0-2 with a 5.90 ERA, but he “looked like a different pitcher” in the game, gushed Brewers beat reporter Vic Feuerherd in the Milwaukee Sentinel.4 Augustine silenced the Tigers’ bats over the next 4⅓ innings, yielding just one hit and fanning three. He “kept working the inside corner with a varied assortment of fastballs and changeups,” wrote Feuerherd.5 Augustine’s performance was not lost on Kuenn, still figuring out his bullpen. “He did a super job to keep us in the game,” the skipper said.6

While Augustine was slinging zeroes, the Detroit connection was causing Sparky Anderson nightmares. It was a case of déjà vu in the fourth when Simmons singled and Oglivie sent Ujdur’s changeup over the fence to pull the Brewers to within one run, 5-4. Two innings later Simmons got into the home-run derby, cranking his ninth of the season to tie the score, 5-5. Oglivie took aim at what sportswriter Brian Bragg of the Detroit Free Press called a “lousy fastball from Ujdur and rocketed one that “bounced off the stadium roof and back into the ballpark,” according to Bragg.7 All 11 runs of the game at this point were courtesy of home runs.

Oglivie’s 15th blast of the season helped end Ujdur’s day. The 33-year-old Panamanian slugger had paid his dues in developing into an All-Star and home-run threat. After clubbing 21 round-trippers as a 28-year-old in 1977 in his first season as primarily a starter with the Tigers, he was shipped to the Brewers. Two years later, he whacked 29 and then 41 in 1980 to tie Reggie Jackson for the AL lead in home runs. He had also hit three home runs once before, on July 8, 1979, also against the Tigers in Detroit. This time, however, he came to the plate with a chance to join a select group of players with four home runs in a game. After Cecil Cooper led off the eighth with a double, Anderson had no intention of letting Oglivie even sniff a strike and called for an intentional walk from reliever Dave Tobik. “I wasn’t disappointed when they walked me,” said Oglivie, probably disingenuously, but added, [w]hen you look at your lineup I figure it’s an advantage to us for them to put another runner on.”8 Oglivie was right: Two batters later Roy Howell lined a single to drive in Cooper for the game’s final run.

Despite the Brewers’ inconsistent pitching thus far in ’82, Kuenn had the luxury of calling on the reigning AL MVP and Cy Young Award winner at the end of the ballgame. Rollie Fingers hurled the last two frames, striking out the side in the ninth to preserve the 7-5 victory for Augustine and end the game in 2 hours and 34 minutes.

Postgame discussion concentrated not just on Oglivie’s big day, but also on the Wallbangers’ impressive bats. “I don’t know how you’re going to hold Milwaukee down right now,” declared Anderson. “They are just swinging the bat so well.”9 Tigers catcher Lance Parrish described the Brew Crew’s offense as “awesome” and gushed, “They’ve got five guys right in the middle of the lineup who are capable of 25 homers a year. If everybody in that lineup hits like they’re capable of, they’ve got the best-hitting team in baseball.”10 Parrish wasn’t exaggerating. The Brewers ultimately led the majors with 216 home runs in 1982, and those “five guys” were the reason: Robin Yount, the eventual AL MVP, hit 29, Cooper spanked 32, Ted Simmons hit 23, Oglivie walloped 34, and the number-six hitter, the Fu-Machu-wearing Gorman Thomas, led the club with 39.

Oglivie hit 235 home runs in his 16-year-major-league career, including three on three occasions. The last time occurred On May 14, 1983, in the Brewers’ walk-off 8-7 victory over the Boston Red Sox at County Stadium.

Sources

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

Notes

1 Vic Feuerherd, “Oglivie Blasts Tigers with 3 Homers,” Milwaukee Sentinel, June 21, 1982: II, 1.

2 Ibid.

3 Associated Press, “Oglivie’s 3 HRs Key 5th Straight Win,” Stevens Point (Wisconsin) Journal, June 21, 1982: 13.

4 Feuerherd.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Brian Bragg, “4-Run Lead Is No Help; Tigers Lose 7th in Row,” Detroit Free Press, June 21, 1982: F1.

8 Feuerherd.

9 AP.

10 Bragg.

Skipper Harvey Kuenn’s Brewers were marching to their first division title in their 14-year existence as they prepared for the second game of a three-game series against the Tigers to complete a 15-game homestand in Beer City. [The Brewers were declared second-half winners in the strike-shortened 1981 season and went to the postseason for the first time in franchise history.] The Wallbangers, so named for the club’s slugging prowess, had the big leagues’ best record (81-56), though they led the Baltimore Orioles by just three games in the highly competitive AL East. Sparky Anderson, in his fifth season as Tigers’ pilot after nine immensely successful seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, had his club (71-65) in third place, nine games back in the division.

The Brewers pulled off one of the baseball’s biggest trade-deadline deals when they acquired Sutton from the Houston Astros on August 30 for cash and Kevin Bass, Frank DiPino, and Mike Madden.3 “I hadn’t seen him in person since the 1960s,” quipped Kuenn about Sutton.4 Kuenn played against Sutton when the right-hander was a rookie with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1966 and he himself was finishing his 15-year career. After 567 starts in the NL, Sutton went the distance in his first trip to the mound in the AL but lost, 4-2, to the Cleveland Indians in the second game of a twin bill on September 2. In his second start, he faced 14-game winner Petry, the Tigers’ second option after staff ace Jack Morris.

On a pleasant late summer Tuesday evening, County Stadium drew a disappointing crowd of 11,709 spectators given the hometown Brewers’ pennant ambitions. Because of a malfunctioning transformer, the large scoreboard in center field was not in use; however, for most of this game, the fans didn’t need one to keep score. Sutton and Petry, who had missed his last start with lower-back stiffness, kept the game scoreless through seven innings. “I’ve never seen him with better stuff,” raved Anderson about Petry, who yielded just three hits and a walk through seven.5 Sutton had surrendered six hits (two each to three September call-ups, Howard Johnson, Glenn Wilson, and Mike Laga) and hadn’t walked a batter. “I’m not that quick,” said Sutton. “To be effective I have to throw strikes and change speeds. Tonight, I was as good as I’ve been all year at putting the ball where I wanted to.”6

The Brewers caught a break in the eighth. With one out, Ed Romero hit a bounder to shortstop Alan Trammel, who dove for the ball, but missed it. “This concrete infield got (Petry) tonight,” complained Anderson. “Romero hits that same ball (at Tiger Stadium) and he’s out. Easy.”7 But they weren’t playing in the Old Gray Lady at the corner of Trumbull and Michigan Avenues. The Brewers then benefited from some Tigers inexperience. Starting in place of second baseman Lou Whitaker was regular third sacker Tom Brookens (Howard Johnson was at third), who admitted that he and Trammell should have discussed who’d be responsible for second base with the dangerous Paul Molitor at the plate. After fouling a pitch to right, Molitor hit what sportswriter Vic Feuerherd of the Milwaukee Sentinel described as a “dying quail,” a short blooper to right field.8 Kuenn had called for a hit-and-run; as soon Romero broke for second, so, too, did Brookens, who added, “I catch that ball easy if I’m playing normal.”9

With runners on the corners, Robin Yount strode to the plate. Just 26 years old but already in his ninth big-league season, Yount entered the game leading the AL in slugging (.571) and was second in batting average (.327). “Without a doubt,” declared Petry, “if the season ended today, he’d be the MVP. He has power. He hits for average.”10 Yount connected on a 1-and-2 count for his third hit of the game, sending a sharp grounder between third and short to drive in Romero with the first run of the evening. “It was a slider,” said Petry. “I was trying to strike him out or get him to pop up.”11 Yount, who went on to win the AL MVP in ’82, capturing 27 of 28 first-place votes, noted that the pitch was “up a little more than (Petry) wanted.”12

At this critical juncture, Cecil Cooper dug in in the batter’s box. Cooper had 100 RBIs, good for third in the AL, but was suffering from a severe cold and his eyes watered profusely. “His head felt as if it were trapped inside an elevator with eight loud-mouthed cigarette smokers,” wrote Brewers beat reporter Steve Aschburner in his best mind-reading impression.13 “I think the ball Paulie hit messed (Petry) up,” said Cooper. “And then Robin got a hit with two strikes. That starts him thinking about something else besides me.” Cooper parked Petry’s last pitch of the game in the right-field bleachers with his 28th home run of the season to give the Brewers a 4-0 lead. Ted Simmons greeted reliever Dave Rucker with a single and moved up a station on catcher Lance Parrish’s passed ball, but was left stranded.

Undoubtedly more relaxed with a four-run lead, Sutton took the mound in the ninth. He surrendered his seventh and final hit, a two-out single to Jerry Turner, then finished the game in 2 hours and 25 minutes by recording his ninth strikeout. Normally reserved on the mound, Sutton pumped his fists as batterymate Ted Simmons clenched the ball and did a little dance at home plate before racing to and embracing his hurler in a bear hug.

Sutton’s 255th victory was his first in the American League and his 56th shutout to tie Bob Gibson for ninth place all time. “I think I have the advantage over here because I have Ted as a catcher,” gushed Sutton after the game, directing all of the credit to Simmons, in his second season with the Brewers after 13 with the St. Louis Cardinals. “Ted has seen me in the National League a long time, and he knows how I pitch. I just followed Ted. He did a god job of leading. I didn’t change but one or two pitches. He does his homework.”14

Sutton proved to be an invaluable acquisition for the Brewers’ drive to their first postseason berth. On the last day of the season, Sutton pitched eight strong innings against the Orioles to notch the victory that gave the Brewers the division crown. After going 4-1 in seven starts with a 3.29 ERA in 54⅔ innings in September, Sutton won another start in the Brewers’ best-of-five victory over the California Angels in the ALCS. His magic subsided in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, who hit him hard in two starts, scoring 11 runs (nine earned) in 10⅓ innings and collaring him with one loss.

Sources

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

Notes

1 Brian Bragg, “Brewers Break Petry Spell, 4-0,” Detroit Free Press, September 8, 1982: D1.

2 Tom Flaherty, “Sutton, and Simmons, Shut Out Tigers,” Milwaukee Journal, September 8, 1982: Part 2, 9.

3 The three players sent to the Astros were initially classified as player-to-be-named-later on August 30, and were sent to the Astros on September 3.

4 Vic Feuerherd, “Sutton Is a Hit; So Are the Brewers,” Milwaukee Sentinel, September 8, 1982: II, 1.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Bragg.

8 Feuerherd.

9 Bragg.

10 George Sauerberg, “Losing Hurler Heaps Praise on Yount After Clutch RBI,” Milwaukee Sentinel, September 8, 1982: II, 1.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Steve Aschburner, “Cooper’s Hit Is Nothing to Sniff At,” Milwaukee Journal, September 8, 1982: II, 9.

14 Flaherty.

The Brewers conquered the team that defeated them in the playoffs after the strike-shortened 1981 season, but the Orioles continued to hang tough in the race with 15 games left in the regular season. They had won 24 of their last 29 games, despite a 5-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians that night. It was the first time in nine days that the Brewers picked up a game in the standings over Baltimore.

The Brewers — and the 20,144 spectators at Milwaukee County Stadium — were clearly watching the scoreboard throughout the game. They were well aware that the previous weekend the Brewers had lost three of four games to the Yankees in New York. And the Brewers had lost seven of their 15 games since closer Rollie Fingers suffered a forearm injury on September 2. “Everyone was kind of down,” said Brewers manager Harvey Kuenn after the Brewers routed the Yankees, “and I’m not talking about the players. I’m talking about other people.”

“Don’t worry about these guys,” Kuenn said. “They’ll come back.”1

Brewers starter Mike Caldwell, who had built a reputation as a Yankee killer since joining the Brewers in 1978, pitched a three-hit shutout for the victory. It was the left-hander’s 16th win in 1982, and his ninth in his last 10 decisions. He left the game with a 12-3 lifetime record against the Yankees.

Showers had fallen throughout the day, and along with a 62-degree temperature at game time, the weather kept the size of the crowd below expectations. The wet field caused a number of fielding miscues by the Yankees.

The game began poorly for the Yankees starter, Stefan Wever, making his first (and only) major-league appearance after a promotion from Double-A Nashville, where he had been named Pitcher of the Year in the Southern League. He had established himself as one of the top prospects in baseball in 1982 with a 16-6 record in 214 innings pitched, throwing 10 complete games and two shutouts with a 2.78 earned-run average.

In the first inning, Wever allowed a single to Paul Molitor followed by doubles by Robin Yount and Cecil Cooper. Ted Simmons then reached on an error by Yankees shortstop Andre Robertson before Wever was able to retire a batter — Ben Oglivie, who flied to left. Then Gorman Thomas powered a home run, giving the Brewers a 5-0 lead before the Yankees came to bat.

“I had thrown (Thomas) four straight fastballs and had gotten him to swing at one of them,” Wever said. “I tried to sneak another one by him. It started out low and away and then it rode into his power zone. You make a mistake in Double-A ball and you maybe are able to get away with it. Here Gorman Thomas can hit it 450 feet.”2

At some point in Thomas’s at-bat, Wever felt a twinge in his shoulder. Many years later the 6-foot-8-inch, 245-pound right-hander admitted he told no one. “There was no way I was coming out of that game,” he said in a 2005 interview. “I’m not going to say, “Hey, take me out of my major-league debut” because I had a little twinge in my arm. I needed to show them I was tough.”3

Wever’s troubles continued through the next two innings. Jim Gantner walked to open the second. He was forced at second by Paul Molitor, who moved to second on Robin Yount’s single and to third on a wild pitch. He scored on Cecil Cooper’s sacrifice fly.

Things got even worse for Wever in the third. After striking out Ben Oglivie, he walked Thomas, who was out at second as Roy Howell reached on a fielder’s choice. The powerful young pitcher then uncorked two wild pitches before Charlie Moore’s run-scoring single pushed the Brewers’ lead to 7-0. Wever’s evening ended after he walked Gantner,

Reliever George Frazier walked Molitor and gave up a two-run single to Yount. Wever’s line in 2⅔ innings pitched was six hits, nine runs (eight earned), three walks, two strikeouts, one home run, and three wild pitches. Yount had touched him for three hits and three RBIs over the first three innings of the game.

The Brewers added a 10th run in the sixth inning off Doyle Alexander as Molitor singled and scored on Simmons’s sacrifice fly. In the seventh Alexander gave up four more runs: Yount hit his 24th homer, Molitor bashed an RBI triple, and Alexander allowed two runs on balks.

Caldwell never allowed the Yankees a real scoring threat, just three hits and a walk on 108 pitches. After a walk to Dave Winfield and a lineout by Lou Piniella in the second, he allowed a single to Steve Balboni but retired Barry Evans on a fielder’s choice and Rick Cerone on a fly ball to left field. In the fourth Ken Griffey Sr. Singled but was erased when Winfield grounded into a double play. In the top of the eighth, with two outs and a 14-run Brewer lead, Cerone doubled but was stranded when Robertson grounded out to short.

Caldwell relished his role as the Yankee Killer to the point of including the phrase on baseballs he signed for fans. After joining the Brewers in a June 1977 trade with Cincinnati, he revived his career with the help of manager George Bamberger, who taught him to throw the “Staten Island Sinker” that writers and opponents often claimed was a doctored pitch. He shut out the Yankees three times in 1978 and five times in his career.

After the game Caldwell had no explanation for his success against New York, which had ousted the Brewers in the 1981 playoffs. “I don’t know,” he said sarcastically. “Tonight, I guess it was 14 runs and those five runs in the first that did it.”4

“I kept the ball down and away from them,” Caldwell said. “My sinker was away from them tonight. And when I did come right over the plate on my changeup, I was actually jamming them because they were looking for the ball down and away.”5

The “little twinge” Wever felt in the first inning turned out, after two years of rehab and attempts to “pitch through it,” to be a torn rotator cuff. A visit to Dr. James Andrews resulted in surgery for a fully torn rotator cuff and torn labrum. After the operation he pitched in 19 games over three years in the minors and ended his playing career in June 1985 at age 27.

Despite the rout, the Brewers still had substantial cause to worry. Before the game Rollie Fingers had attempted to throw from the mound for the first time since tearing a muscle in his right forearm. Fingers abandoned the session after 20 pitches from the mound, because of continued tightness in his throwing arm.

Kuenn was pessimistic, commenting, “I would say we are more or less resigned to the fact that he may not be back this year.”6

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the following sources:

Baseball.Reference.com.

Retrosheet.org.

Okrent, Dan. Nine Innings (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985).

Flaherty, Tom. “Kuenn Sneaks a Peek During Brewers Romp,” Milwaukee Journal, September 18, 1982: 8.

Feuerherd, Vic. “Brewers Blast Yankees, 14-0,” Milwaukee Sentinel, September 18, 1982: part 2, 1.

Notes

1 Jane Gross, “Brewers Eliminate Yankees,” New York Times, September 18, 1982.

2 Michael V. Uschan, “Even Mike Caldwell Can’t Quite Figure Out His Mastery of the New York Yankees,” UPI Archives, September 18 1982.

3 Doug Miller, “A Dream Unfulfilled; Onetime Prospect Looks Back at Brief Major League Career,” MLB.com, September 9 2005. mlb.mlb.com/news/article_leftfield.jsp?ymd=20050912&content_id=1206578&vkey=leftfield&fext=.jsp

4 Uschan.

5 Vic Feuerherd, “Caldwell Peaking at Right Time,” Milwaukee Sentinel, September 18 1982: part 2, 1.

6 Gross.

Despite that remark, Thomas had deep respect for Vuckovich. “He’s the best,” Thomas said. “I call him the worst, but he’s the best. It’s getting to the time of the year where you have to win. Vukie is one of the best I’ve ever seen in baseball. He’s the kind every ballclub would like to have. Just give him the ball and he’ll do everything he can to beat you.” Thomas had just watched Vuckovich consistently pitch out of jams in the complete-game win over the Red Sox. The 6-foot-4 right-hander threw 162 pitches while allowing 11 hits, walking four and hitting a batter. But Vuckovich coaxed the Red Sox to hit into five double plays, tying a Brewers’ team record.

The victory was Vuckovich’s eighth consecutive win, which also tied a club record (held by Mike Caldwell and Vuckovich himself). It was the third time Vuckovich had won eight games in a row since he joined the Brewers for the 1981 season. The victory improved Vuckovich’s record to 18-4 for the season and 32-8 since joining the Brewers. According to the Milwaukee Journal, “Vuckovich is not an ordinary pitcher. His performances might not be tidy, but they’re usually successful.”

But it hadn’t been the easiest of wins. In fact, the Brewers were within one strike of a 3-2 loss before the heroics of two other consistent Brewers rescued them. Red Sox starter Dennis Eckersley took a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth and quickly retired Cecil Cooper and Ted Simmons. Eckersley then got two strikes on Ben Oglivie, but then Oglivie connected with his next pitch for a game-tying home run. It was Oglivie’s 31st home run of the season. “Before I got up at bat, after Teddy made the second out,” Oglivie said, “I’ll say, yes, I was trying to hit it out. … I know the percentages are very low in a situation like that. The chances are very slim. But with two outs, and no one on, I was thinking about a home run. Everyone in the park knew it.”

Eckersley, who had thrown just 85 pitches before Oglivie’s home run, didn’t second-guess himself. “He’s a low-ball hitter,” Eckersley said. “And I get him out throwing high balls. I just threw what I normally throw. You might second-guess me, but I’d do it again. That ball just wasn’t high enough.”

Vuckovich retired the Red Sox in the 10th and 11th innings to give Thomas the opportunity to do what he had done consistently all season — provide the big RBI.

Robin Yount led off the bottom of the 11th with an infield single off Bob Stanley, who had entered the game in the 10th inning. Cooper followed with a single. Simmons moved the runners up with a sacrifice to bring Oglivie to the plate. The Red Sox intentionally walked him to load the bases.

Thomas, who had hit a solo home run in the second inning (his 38th home run of the season), then hit a sacrifice fly to score Yount with the winning run. “I was just trying to stay away from hitting into a double play,” Thomas said. “You know what kind of pitcher Stanley is. He usually keeps the ball down.”

The victory, Milwaukee’s 90th of the season, was just the Brewers’ fifth in 18 extra-inning games in 1982. Coming off a three-game sweep of the New York Yankees, the Brewers into the game with a two-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles in the AL East Division. The Orioles defeated the Detroit Tigers, 3-1, that night and remained two games behind with 12 games left in the regular season.

The AL East title wouldn’t be decided until the final day of the regular season. The Brewers took a three-game lead over the Orioles into a season-ending four-game weekend series in Baltimore. But the Orioles swept a doubleheader (8-3 and 7-1) on Friday, October 1, then won 11-3 on Saturday to tie the Brewers for first place with one game remaining.

On Sunday, October 3, the Brewers won 10-2 to earn the AL East title with a 95-67 record.

This article appears in “From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee’s County Stadium” (SABR, 2016), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

1 All quotations in this article are from the Milwaukee Journal, September 21, 1982.

That day, on a sun-dappled field at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, the Brewers and Birds played what amounted to a one-game playoff for the American League East title. Three days earlier, this had seemed inconceivable. When the series began on Friday, the Brewers, whom the national media and even Milwaukee fans had left for dead after some early-season struggles, needed to win only one game to secure the division title and a berth in the American League Championship Series. But the Orioles took the first three games of the series, outscoring the Brewers 26 to 7.

By Sunday, when they took the field in front of 51,642 screaming Orioles fans, Harvey’s Wallbangers were tied with the Orioles, who seemed to have all the momentum. But the baseball adage of momentum being only as good as a team’s next starting pitcher ran against the home team that day.

Jim Palmer, a 15-game winner and the ace of the Baltimore staff since the mid-1960s, surrendered one run in each of the first three innings, including two home runs by Brewers shortstop Robin Yount. Yount would end up collecting one more hit (a triple in the eighth), scoring four times, coming within less than a point of winning the AL batting title, and putting a cap on a possible MVP season.

Of course, Yount, who had a reputation as the consummate team player, did not want to talk about his own performance that day or about any possible individual accolades because of his season-long exploits. “The batting title was the last thing on my mind, there were more important things to think about,” he said. Those important things were beating the Orioles and winning the division championship. The possibility of winning the MVP was not even in his purview: “If it were up to me, they wouldn’t even have that award.”1

While Yount was leading the offense, Don Sutton, whom Milwaukee had acquired late in the season to get a big-game pitcher, gave up just two runs and shut down the Orioles. As for how he managed to set the Brewers up for victory, Sutton gave credit to the fact that he had above-average control that day. “I’m not going to overpower anybody. I’m probably not going to be that over-impressive,” he said. “But if I can keep’em off stride, then that’s the key for me to pitch.”2

That did not mean that he sailed the whole day. Sutton gave up a home run to Glenn Gulliver in the third inning. In the fifth he worked out of a bases-loaded jam unscathed. Then, in the eighth, Sutton struggled and the O’s looked set for a big inning. With one run in and two Orioles on base, Sutton got some help from his defense; leftfielder Ben Oglivie made a sliding catch into the left-field sidewall. This killed the O’s rally, and it was 5-2 Brewers.

At that point, the Brewers offense, which had gained the nickname Harvey’s Wallbangers as the team got back into the pennant race, exploded. By the time the top of the ninth inning ended, the team had roughed up Dennis Martinez and former Cy Young Award winner Mike Flanagan for five runs to give the Brewers a 10-2 lead.

In the bottom of the ninth, fill-in closer Bob McClure (Rollie Fingers, the usual closer, was out with a shoulder injury) gave up two hits but got the final three outs, securing for the Brewers the division title and sending them on their way to victory over the California Angels in the ALCS.3

Sources

For this work, the author consulted various articles in the Milwaukee Journal and Sentinel as well as Nine Innings by Daniel Okrent and the 2007 documentary “Harvey’s Wallbangers,” along with Retrosheet.org.

Notes

The American League Championship Series between the American League East champion Milwaukee Brewers and the West champion Angels promised to be a slugfest. “These are probably the two best offensive clubs in the American League. At least that’s what everyone said coming out of spring training. It’s pretty much held true over the course of the year,” said Brewers Game One starter Mike Caldwell.3 The numbers back this up. The Brewers and Angels were the top two teams in many AL stats, including runs per game (MIL 5.47 CAL 5.02). Jackson and the Brewers’ Gorman Thomasled the American League with 39 home runs. AL MVP Robin Yount led the league in hits, doubles (tied with Hal McRae), and slugging. But these teams could pitch as well. The Angels were second in team ERA at 3.82, with the Brewers sixth at 3.98. Dale Hoffman of the Milwaukee Sentinel said “Call this the Snow White series. Two teams are looking into a mirror this week and wondering aloud who is the fairest in the American League.”4 The Chicago Tribune’s Jerome Holtzman called the series “The battle of Muscle Beach.”5

The Brewers could be excused for trying to catch their breath going into the series. Leading the second-place Orioles by three games with four to play in Baltimore, the Brew Crew lost the first three of the series by a combined 19 runs, only to win the season final and the division crown, 10-2. The Angels run-up was calm by comparison; they clinched the division with a 6-4 win over Texas on the next-to-last day of the season. The Angels started 39-year-old veteran Tommy John to face the Brewers. John, traded from the New York Yankees at the end of August went 4-2 in September to help the Angels win the division. With this start, John would be pitching in the playoffs for the fourth time in the last five seasons, for his third team.6 

The sinkerballer did as expected in the top of the first, retiring all three Brewer hitters on infield grounders. His left-handed counterpart, Caldwell, coming off two losses to end the regular season, was not as fortunate. Brian Downing led off the Angels’ first with a single to center, and went to second on Caldwell’s error. After a wild pitch and strikeout, Baylor hit a sacrifice fly to center field, and Downing had the Angels’ first tally.

But the Brewers were not known as Harvey’s Wallbangers because of their fondness for the cocktail.7 Catcher Ted Simmons led off the second with a single to center, and Thomas hit the first home run of the series to give the Brewers a 2-1 lead. “It was kind of a sinker,” Angels catcher Bob Boone said. Not the good kind.8 John retired the Brewers in order after that, but gave up another run after consecutive singles by Paul Molitor and Yount brought up Cecil Cooper,whose fielder’s-choice grounder plated Molitor in the third. But the veteran John knew how to call on experience. “It was a typical Tommy John performance,” wrote a Los Angeles writer. “He was hit early, three runs in the first three innings, and then he shut the Brewers down the rest of the way. It’s an old story, but he’s an old pitcher.”9

Brewers manager Harvey Kuenn was surprised by the Angels lineup. Angels skipper Gene Mauch bunched four right-handed hitters at the top of the order, followed by three left-handers. “It surprised me,” admitted Kuenn. “You can do that when you’ve got left-handed hitters who can hit left-handed pitching.”10 Staked to a two-run lead, Caldwell found the difficulties that he had in his last two starts. Downing reached base to lead off the third with a walk, and Doug DeCincessingled to center, bringing up Bobby Grich, whose single scored Downing. Baylor then crushed a 386-foot triple off the right-center-field wall11 that scored DeCinces and Grich, and when Jackson’s groundout scored Baylor, the Angels had turned a two-run deficit into a two-run lead. Baylor knew he had to adjust his approach against Caldwell. “I said to myself, ‘Tonight, if he pitches me outside, I’m going to the opposite field,’” said Baylor.12

Pitching again with the lead, John now settled in. “I’ll tell you, pitching against the Brewers is a chore — as you saw in the first few innings. But once we got up, it took a lot of pressure off me,’ John said after the game.13 The Brewers put two on in the top of the fourth with two out, but John induced a fielder’s-choice grounder from the ailing Jim Gantner, and the threat was ended. The Angels reduced the pressure on John further in the bottom of the fourth. A leadoff single by Boone ended Caldwell’s day, and Molitor’s error and a walk brought up Baylor again, this time with the bases loaded, facing Jim Slaton. Baylor stroked a single to left that scored Boone and DeCinces, and the lead increased to 7-3.

John was dominant the rest of the way, giving up only two-out hits in the fifth and eight innings, and hitting Charlie Moore with a pitch with two out in the ninth. “He pitched the same way tonight that he pitched six years ago,” said Simmons. As long as his bionic arm holds up, he’ll keep pitching that way.”14 John’s performance reminded Mauch of a Milwaukee legend, Hall of Famer Warren Spahn. “Once he got the humidity right and the wind right, he settled down and did the job,” Mauch said after the game15

Fred Lynn ended the scoring with a home run leading off the fifth inning. Baylor had a chance to set the record for RBIs in a game in the sixth when he came up with Grich on second after a double, but Slaton retired him when he snared a line drive at the mound before it could whiz into center field.16 “It was special for me to see Donny do well,” Grich said. We’ve played together for 14 of the past 15 years, and this might be our last week together.”17 Baylor’s contract was up at the end of the 1982 season. Baylor’s five RBIs tied the ALCS record set in 1969 by Paul Blair of the Orioles against the Minnesota Twins, and as of 2019 had been exceeded only once; by Johnny Damon of the Boston Red Sox in Game Seven of their 2004 ALCS series against the Yankees.

With the 8-3 loss, some may have wondered if the season-ending struggle the Brewers had with the Orioles may have been a contributing factor. The sentiment in the Brewers’ clubhouse was mixed, though there were some thoughts that maybe an emotional letdown was to be expected. “I think we were pretty much emotionally drained,” said Caldwell after the game. “I don’t think we were as keyed up as we could have been, but that’s no excuse” added Yount. We just didn’t play very good.18 With the ALCS a best-of-five series in 1982, the Brewers would have to play better quickly to reach their first World Series.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author accessed Retorsheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, SABR’s BioProject via SABR.org, The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record, the New York Times archives, and the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times via newspapers.com.

Notes

1 Malcom Moran, “Baylor Is a Success Despite Distractions,” New York Times, October 6, 1982.

2 Ibid.

3 Tom Flaherty, “This Should Be a Hitter’s Series,” Milwaukee Journal, October 5, 1982.

4 Dale Hoffman, “AL Look-Alikes Face Off Tonight,” Milwaukee Sentinel, October 5, 1982.

5 Jerome Holtzman, “Don Baylor’s Five RBIs Rip Brewers,” Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1982: 69.

6 Mike Littwin, “John Is Still Up to His Old Tricks,” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1982: 52.

7 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Wallbanger.

8 Littwin.

9 Littwin.

10 Holtzman.

11 Holtzman.

12 Holtzman.

13 Vic Feuerherd, “Brewers Lose, 8-3, to Angels,” Milwaukee Sentinel, October 6, 1982.

14 Murray Chass, “Angels Capture Opener as Baylor Bats in 5 Runs,” New York Times, October 6, 1982.

15 Holtzman.

16 Chass.

17 Chass.

18 Feuerherd, “Did Orioles Drain Brewers?” Milwaukee Sentinel, October 6, 1982.

Skipper Harvey Kuenn’s Brewers (95-67), known as Harvey’s Wallbangers for their big-league-most 216 home runs in the regular season, were slumping and the timing couldn’t have been worse. They lost six of their last nine regular-season games, but beat the Baltimore Orioles in the season’s finale to capture their first AL East crown. The Angels (93-69), on the other hand, rolled into the ALCS having won 16 of 23 games, and took the first game, 8-3, behind a complete game by 39-year-old Tommy John, a September acquisition from the New York Yankees.

Scheduled to start the second game in Anaheim was Kison, a whip-like 6-foot-4, 175-pound right-hander, who might have seemed like a curious choice were it not for his noteworthy late-season success throughout his career. He had a 95-75 record in his 12-year big-league career, but was 28-10 in regular-season games in September and October. He also sported a 4-1 record with a 2.01 ERA in the playoffs, all with the Pirates. Since signing with the Angels before the 1980 season, Kison had been plagued by injuries, notched only four wins in his first two campaigns with the club, and underwent potentially career-threatening operations on his wrist and elbow. Kison started out strong in ’82, going 6-3 before suffering a bruised knee on a line drive back to the mound by the Texas Rangers’ Johnny Grubb on June 22. He returned a week later, but things got testy with his skipper, the notoriously hotheaded Gene Mauch, who claimed the hurler was still hurt. Whether that was the case or if Kison was in Mauch’s doghouse, the result was an “inexcusable 82-game residency in the bullpen,” opined Angels beat reporter Ross Newhan in the Los Angeles Times.4 “I would have liked to have had more innings,” quipped Kison, “but personal feelings are overrated.”5 With the Halos clawing for the crown, Kison moved back into the rotation on September 14, blanked the Chicago White Sox on seven hits, and sported an impressive 1.67 ERA in 32⅓ innings in his last four starts.

On the mound for the Brewers was their staff ace, Fu-Machu-wearing Pete Vuckovich, the ’82 Cy Young Award recipient with an 18-6 record. After hurling an 11-inning complete-game victory against the Boston Red Sox on September 20, big Vuck had been shelled in his last two starts, surrendering 10 earned runs in 11 innings. Rumors swirled that he had an injured right wing, but Kuenn cautioned everyone that it was just a “tired arm.”6 Vuckovich was 5-0 lifetime against the Angels, including 3-0 in ’82.

Anaheim Stadium, the Big A, was packed with 64,179 spectators on a gorgeous early fall Wednesday afternoon. The Brewers swung for the fences, but so too did the Angels, finishing with 186 round-trippers, second in the majors behind the Wallbangers; however, the Halos also employed small-ball tactics, and this game featured both strategies.

The Angels struck first when they loaded the bases in the second with one out. Fred Lynn led off with a bloop single and caught a break when center fielder Gorman Thomas “broke back,” noted Newhan, and had no play on the ball.7 Doug DeCinces doubled with one out and Bobby Grich was hit by a pitch. After Tim Foli, Kison’s teammate on the ’79 “We Are Family” Pirates, lined a single for the first run, Bob Boone surprised the Brewers by laying down a squeeze bunt for another run.

The defensive play of the game occurred in the third inning, though at the time its importance to the game’s outcome was not yet known. The Brewers’ Charlie Moore led off with a single and moved up a station on Jim Gantner’s grounder. Molitor singled up the middle, but shortstop Tim Foli made a spectacular diving stop to save a run. “There’s no question in my mind that [Moore] scores because he’s breaking with contact,” lamented Molitor. “That leaves us with the tying run on first with Robin and Cecil coming up.”8 Kison retired Robin Yount, the ’82 AL MVP, and Cecil Cooper to end the threat.

In the bottom of the frame, Reggie Jackson made his presence felt by smashing a home run well over the 404-foot marker in center field. It “caromed off the canvas batter’s eye,” reported Newhan, to give the Angels a 3-0 lead. The blast was Mr. October’s 18th in the postseason, tying him with Mickey Mantle for the most in baseball history, though Mantle’s home runs were all in the World Series. “Reggie’s hit came on a fastball right down the chute,” said Vuckovich. “I know he was looking for it and I got it up a little more than I wanted.”9

It was back to small ball in the fourth for the Halos. After DeCinces and Grich led off the frame with a walk and single, respectively, Foli’s bunt moved them into scoring position. Boone followed with a sacrifice fly to plate the Angels’ fourth and final run of the game. Sportswriter Pat Donovan called Boone’s 0-for-1 game with two RBIs the “most misleading hitless game in the history” of the postseason.10 “It’s the kind of thing you obviously take a lot of pride in,” noted Boone about his two run-scoring sacrifices. “We enjoy playing that kind of ball, bat control. It’s my strong suit offensively.”11

The Angels were leading 4-0 with two out in the fifth and Moore on first when Molitor came to bat. A dangerous offensive catalyst who led the majors with 136 runs scored, Molitor was a speedy, slappy hitter, who also swiped 41 bags. He sent a sinking liner to center field. Instead of playing it safe and taking the ball on the hop, four-time Gold Glove winner Fred Lynn made an ill-advised dive for the ball. He missed it and the ball rolled to the wall, enabling Molitor to circle the bases for a two-run inside-the-park home run and give the Brewers a new lease on life. “I can’t compromise the way I play,” said Lynn, who also noted that the outfield grass was chewed up from a Los Angeles Rams football game. “If I have a chance to dive and make a catch or run into a wall, I’ll do it and think about the consequences later.”12

Molitor’s hit proved to be the last one of the game as both pitchers showed their mettle. While Vuckovich yielded three walks, Kison set down 13 straight batters and ended the pitching duel in 2 hours and 6 minutes.

Kison’s five-hit gem with eight strikeouts and no walks gave the Angels what appeared to be an insurmountable two-games-to-none lead in the best-of-five ALCS. No team at the time had ever come back to win an LCS after losing the first two games. “If people don’t believe in us by now,” said scheduled Game Three starter Geoff Zahn, who led the Angels with 18 wins, “they won’t believe in us no matter what happens.”13 Fred Lynn, coming off his eighth of nine consecutive All-Star berths, harbored no doubts who’d emerge victorious: “When you look at the super pitching we’ve been getting and the way we’ve been playing for the last month, I think it is a tall order for any team to win three games in a row from us.”14

The ace in the hole for the Brewers was two graybeards. One was Harvey Kuenn, who kept his players loose; the other was 37-year-old Don Sutton, a September acquisition from the Houston Astros, tabbed to start Game Three when the series moved to Milwaukee. The Brewers were in a do-or-die position in the last game of the season and it was Sutton who tossed eight strong innings to clinch the AL East crown. “We’ve lost six of our last seven games,” stated Molitor unequivocally, “but on a positive note we’re still only three games from the World Series.”15 And then the future Hall of Famer laid it all on the table: “I really feel confident we can come back and win three straight.”16

Sources

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

Notes

1 Mark Littwin, “Kison Realized It’s Serious When Leaves Start to Turn,” Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1982: III, 1.

2 Dale Hofmann, “Kison May Be Angels New Mr. October,” Milwaukee Sentinel, October 7, 1982: II, 1.

3 Vic Feuerherd, “Angels Grab 2-0 Series Lead,” Milwaukee Sentinel, October 7, 1982: II, 1.

4 Ross Newhan, “Kison and Angels Have Right Stuff, 2-0 Playoff Lead,” Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1982: II, 1.

5 Littwin.

6 Feuerherd.

7 Newhan.

8 Feuerherd.

9 Ibid.

10 Pete Donovan, “Angels’ Second Bananas Are Stealing Playoff Show,” Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1982: III, 8.

11 Ibid.

12 Newhan. The Los Angeles Rams played their home games in Anaheim Stadium from 1980 to 1994. They played a home game on September 19, 1982, after which the NFL players went on strike.

13 Newhan.

14 Ibid.

15 Feuerherd.

16 Joe Karius, “Needed: Another Miracle,” Milwaukee Sentinel,” October 7, 1982: II, 1.

Sutton had been acquired from the Houston Astros in a pennant-drive trade on the August 30 trade deadline in exchange for highly regarded Brewers prospects Kevin Bass, Frank DiPino, and Mike Madden. Sutton posted a 4-1, 3.29 record for the Brewers in September, with one of the wins a closing day, 10-2 win at Baltimore that clinched the American League East Division championship.

The Angels starter was lefty Geoff Zahn, who had also had a great 1982 season, posting an 18-8 record with a 3.73 ERA. His performance earned him a spot on The Sporting News AL All-Star Team.

After 3½ scoreless innings, the Brewers took the lead in the bottom of the fourth. Robin Yount, who would later be voted the American League’s Most Valuable Player, led off the inning with a walk and scored on a double by Cecil Cooper. Ted Simmons followed with a single up the middle, moving Cooper to third base. Cooper scored on a sacrifice fly by Gorman Thomas. Smart baserunning by Simmons helped the Brewers score the third run of the inning.  Ben Oglivie grounded a single through the infield to right field, but Simmons didn’t stop at second and with a head-first slide, he beat Reggie Jackson’s throw to third base. Don Money’s sacrifice fly to left scored Simmons, giving the Brewers a 3-0 lead. This rally sent Zahn to the showers and he was replaced by Bobby Witt.

Simmons, no speedster on the bases, said of his gutsy base-running decision, “There’s no question I’m going to third on that play. When you have a left-handed pull hitter up and the right fielder has to play him deep, it doesn’t matter who’s out there. You have to take the gamble. When someone hits it on the ground like Benji did, the right fielder has to run a long way to get the ball. Eight of 10 times make the gamble or at least take it.”1

Angels third baseman Doug DeCinces suffered a broken nose in the top of the seventh after fouling off a pitch that bounced and hit him in the face. He dropped to his knees and slammed down his batting helmet. “Nobody had to tell me. This is the sixth time I’ve broken it, starting with a high school basketball game,” DeCinces said. “I knew right away and I had to vent my frustration because this is no time to get hurt.”2 In spite of the injury, DeCinces played the remainder of the game, grounding out to third base to end the eighth inning. He also played in Games Four and Five, going 3-for-4 in Game Five.

The Brewers stretched their lead to 5-0 in the bottom of the seventh with a two-out, two-run home run by Paul Molitor off Witt. After the home run, Yount walked and Angels manager Gene Mauch replaced Witt with Andy Hassler, who ended the inning by striking out Cecil Cooper.

After the game Molitor said of his round-tripper, “I was just looking to make contact. I think (Witt) got it up higher than he wanted. It was right over the middle of the plate. I knew I made good contact, but I wasn’t sure it was out with the wind blowing in. It wasn’t until I was at second that I realized it was out.”3

Bob Boone led off the top of the eighth inning with a fly ball to deep left field. Ogilvie had the ball played perfectly. He reached the fence, jumped to make the catch, and had the ball taken away by a spectator who reached over the fence and caught the ball. Umpire Larry Barnett signaled a home run. (After the game Barnett said, “For me, the fan was behind the fence and touched the ball.”4) Ben Ogilvie disagreed with Barnett’s home-run call, saying, “I think the ball was playable, and I think I would have caught it if I had the opportunity. It should have been an automatic out. The fan had his hand extended over the fence. Without a doubt, I would have caught it. It was already arcing into my glove.”5

Sutton was showing signs of tiring. After Brian Downing made the first out of the eighth, Rod Carew singled. Reggie Jackson struck out, but back-to-back doubles by by Fred Lynn and Don Baylor made the score 5-3. Pete Ladd, who was the Brewers closer after a season-ending injury to Rollie Fingers, came in and retired Doug DeCinces on a groundout to end the inning. After the Brewers went down quickly in the eighth, Ladd retired the Angels in order in the ninth inning, striking out the last two batters he faced.

Sutton pitched 7⅔ innings and scattered eight hits while striking out nine. Angels manager Mauch praised Sutton’s performance, calling him “one of the cleverest pitchers of the last 15 years,” and adding, “He’s capable of taking the straight out of the ball without defacing it. Our players didn’t say a word about it. They know what the man is capable of doing with finger dexterity.”6 Reggie Jackson agreed with his manager. “I’ve never seen him better,” he said of Sutton. “He had control of four pitches. He beat me fair and square. I didn’t have one good swing.”7

The Angels had been so confident of wrapping up the series in this game that they asked their traveling secretary, Frank Sims, to get a charter flight ready for after the game Friday rather than wait until the next day. He made the arrangement, but the Brewers changed things.

Ladd was happy to extend the Brewers’ postseason run as it would delay his reporting to his offseason job as a prison guard in Tucson, Arizona.

Sutton obviously was pleased with the outcome. “I’m logical enough to know if we don’t win today, we don’t get to play tomorrow,” he said. “That didn’t change my approach to it. As I’ve said before, it’s fun to play when it’s on the line. It was on the line, and I was going to go out and enjoy myself. It didn’t mean that I was going to do well or do poorly. It just meant I would much rather be someplace playing than some place watching.”8

Sources

https://baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIL/MIL198210080.shtml

https://retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1982/B10080MIL1982.htm

Paper of Record

Notes

1 Vic Feuerherd, “Stayin’ Alive: AL Playoff Moves to Game 4 Thanks to Two Brewers Hurlers,” Milwaukee Sentinel, October 9, 1982: pt. 2, 1.

2 Ross Newhan, “DeCinces Knows All About Broken Noses; It’s His 6th,” Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1982: pt. 1, 1.

3  Feuerherd.

4 Ross Newhan, “Sutton Utilizes Twilight Zone to Stall Angels,” Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1982: pt. 3, 1.

5 Murray Chass, “Brewers Set Back Angels and Trail by 2 Games to 1,” New York Times, October 9, 1982: 19.

6 Newhan, “Sutton Utilizes Twilight Zone to Stall Angels.”

7 Ibid.

8 Tom Flaherty, “Like a Good Neighbor … Sutton Is There,” Milwaukee Journal, October 9, 1982: pt. 2, 10.