May 1, 1978: Rawly Eastwick, Sparky Lyle highlight Yankees’ comeback win over Royals

New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and manager Billy Martin in the late 1970s (SABR-Rucker Archive)

When major-league baseball added four franchises for the 1969 season – the Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres in the National League and the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots in the American League – it also expanded the postseason format for the first time.1

In the first seven years of the AL Championship Series to determine the pennant winner, the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics each won three times, and one or the other appeared in the series in every year from 1969 to 1975. But the competitive pendulum swung differently starting in 1976 with the New York Yankees dominating the AL East Division by 10½ games over the Orioles and the Kansas City Royals winning the AL West by 2½ games over the Athletics. The drama of ALCS Game Five was capped by Chris Chambliss’s game-winning homer in the ninth, giving the Yankees the American League pennant, their first since 1964.2

The Yankees were swept in four games by the Cincinnati Reds in the 1976 World Series, but won the pennant again in 1977, beating the Royals, 5-3, with three runs in the ninth inning of ALCS Game Five. This time they won the World Series for the first time since 1962, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers thanks to Reggie Jackson’s three home runs in Game Six.3

Not bad, two pennants and one World Series title in Billy Martin’s first two full seasons as the Yankees’ manager. But the drama and tension between Martin and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was never far from front and center during the 13 years in which Martin was in-again-out-again as field boss for the Yankees.4

Let’s take the 1978 season and the Yankees-Royals rivalry. Less than one month into the season, the Yankees were off to a slow start, not unlike their start to the 1977 season. As the Royals came to Yankee Stadium for their first matchup of the season, on May 1, the Bronx Bombers were 10-9 and in third place in the AL East.5 “I just hope the people in charge have patience,” said Martin, meaning Steinbrenner. “By panicking, you’re not gonna help the cause. I have confidence in this club.”6

Royals manager Whitey Herzog sent Paul Splittorff (4-1, 1.79 ERA), a 16-game winner in 1977, to the mound. Splittorff owned five victories over the Yankees since last being beaten by them, on April 30, 1976.7 The Yankees countered with 23-year-old Jim Beattie (1-0, 1.42 ERA), who made his major-league debut just six days earlier, yielding only one run in 6 1/3 innings to beat the Orioles and Jim Palmer.8

The Yankees scored early when Mickey Rivers opened the bottom of the first with an infield single and stole second. With two outs, Reggie Jackson singled to center, scoring Rivers. The Yankees’ lead didn’t last long. Royals catcher Darrell Porter tied the game with a homer to right off Beattie in the second inning.

Matters got worse for Beattie in the third thanks to some heads-up baserunning by Willie Wilson. Frank White opened the inning with a double and Wilson singled to left. When left fielder Lou Piniella threw to third, Wilson advanced to second. Tom Poquette looped a single to left and Wilson never stopped running, scoring just behind White for a 3-1 Royals lead.9

The Royals added another run in the fourth inning when Porter opened with a walk and advanced to third on rookie Clint Hurdle’s single to center. Hurdle advanced to second on Rivers’ throw-in after the hit. When Beattie walked Jerry Terrell to load the bases, Martin had seen enough and replaced him with seldom-used reliever Rawly Eastwick, who limited the damage to a run-scoring suicide squeeze by White.

Yankee fans had to be surprised to see Eastwick on the mound. After all, he had not pitched in 10 days and was making only his third appearance of the season. He had signed a five-year, $1.1 million contract as a long reliever in December 1977 thanks to Steinbrenner’s generosity.10

In the fifth inning through the seventh, Eastwick held the Royals in check, limiting them to just two singles. Given his lack of work, Eastwick’s performance as a middle-inning stopper was remarkable.11 There was enough time for a Yankees comeback thanks to some extra-base hitting as well as defensive missteps by the Royals.12

Cliff Johnson opened the fifth with a line-drive double off the left-field wall. When third baseman Terrell couldn’t field Bucky Dent’s dribbler, the Yankees had runners on first and third.13 Both scored when Rivers tripled to deep left-center. Willie Randolph subsequently tied the score, 4-4, with a sacrifice fly to right.

The fateful seventh inning started innocently enough for the Yankees when Randolph singled to left. When Thurman Munson grounded to third, a routine double play turned otherwise when second baseman White’s throw sailed past Hurdle at first. Although he was not charged with an error, White – who went on to receive his second of eight career Gold Gloves in 1978 – later observed, “I kicked it away, I threw it away.”14

Splittorff walked Jackson on four pitches and Herzog replaced him with Doug Bird. The first pitch to Piniella was lined to the left-field corner for a run-scoring double that also advanced Jackson to third. Herzog immediately replaced Bird with lefty Steve Mingori to face left-handed-swinging Chris Chambliss with a drawn-in infield at the ready.

Chambliss was also first-pitch swinging, grounding a single up the middle that scored both runners. When the ball rolled past Wilson in center, Chambliss advanced all the way to third, from where he scored on Graig Nettles’ single. Four runs made it an 8-4 Yankees’ lead.

Eastwick opened the Royals’ eighth inning, but when Hurdle and Terrell each singled with one out, Martin didn’t hesitate to go to the bullpen for Sparky Lyle, winner of the 1977 Cy Young Award and the first American League relief pitcher to win it. After Freddie Patek singled to load the bases, Lyle escaped the threat by striking out Amos Otis, earning his third save of the season by retiring the Royals in the ninth. The Yankees had finally beaten Splittorff.

Eastwick earned the victory, pitching 4 1/3 innings without yielding any runs. But there was more to his story for the 1978 season. Much to the chagrin of Martin, Steinbrenner had signed Eastwick to a free-agent contract after being warned that he wasn’t throwing well through a terrible 1977 season.15 After all, the Yankees had already added to their relief corps by signing Rich “Goose” Gossage to a $2.748 million contract.

Eastwick was in Martin’s doghouse from the start because he was one of “George’s boys.”16 Doghouse? It was 18 days later when Eastwick made his next appearance in relief for the Yankees. In total, Eastwick pitched in only eight games for the Yankees before being traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for Bobby Brown and Jay Johnstone on June 14, 1978.

The reporting of the trade by the New York Daily News was straightforward. “The disposal of Eastwick is considered a peace offering by George Steinbrenner to manager Billy Martin, who had not been a member of the Eastwick fan club.”17 Martin had now been managing the Yankees for nearly three years and the battle of wills – Steinbrenner vs. Martin, owner vs. manager – went well beyond Martin’s use of Eastwick. In fact, Martin opposed the signing of Jackson and Gossage to free-agent contracts after the 1976 and 1977 seasons respectively.18

Author Richard Bradley put it well: “No one who ever played for Martin would have questioned his knowledge of baseball, his feel for strategy, his gift for anticipating the moves of other teams and making just the right calls in return – or, just as often, in advance.”19 But the physical and mental toll on Martin as the Yankees manager was immense. His disparaging remarks about both Steinbrenner and Jackson as the fourth-place Yankees made their way to Kansas City for their last regular-season series against the Royals seemed to be the last straw.20 He resigned as Yankees manager on July 24, 1978.

It took a tiebreaker victory over the Boston Red Sox for the Yankees to conclude the 1978 season atop the AL East Division.21 For the third consecutive season, the Yankees, now with Bob Lemon as their manager, beat the Royals in the ALCS before successfully defending their World Series title in six games against the Los Angeles Dodgers.22 The Royals would have to wait. They finally broke through in 1980, sweeping the Yankees out of the ALCS and into their very first World Series, subsequently losing to the Philadelphia Phillies in six games.23

Author’s note

Even for a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s, and by 1978, a fan of the New York Mets as well, a trip to Yankee Stadium in the 1970s for a game like this one was entertaining for both the baseball action and the melodrama surrounding the game’s main characters.

Acknowledgments

This essay was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

The author accessed Baseball-Reference.com for box scores/play-by-play information (baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA197805010.shtml) and other data, as well as Retrosheet.org (retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1978/B05010NYA1978.htm). The photograph of George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin was obtained from the SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes

1 In 1969 each league was divided into an East and West Division. In the postseason, each league’s divisional winners played a best-of-five-game series to determine the pennant winners for the World Series matchup.

2 Joseph Wancho, “October 14, 1976: Chris Chambliss’ home run delivers pennant to the Bronx,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Accessed August 2025.

3 Scott Ferkovich, “October 18, 1977: Reggie becomes ‘Mr. October’ with 3 home runs in World Series,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Accessed August 2025.

4 Billy Martin was hired five times by George Steinbrenner as the Yankees’ manager over the course of parts or all of the following seasons: 1975-1978, 1979, 1983, 1985, 1988. He was fired four times and “resigned” once, in 1978. Martin’s managerial career, all in the American League, spanned 19 years (1969-1988) with a record of 1,253-1,013. His AL pennant and World Series triumphs were all achieved at the helm of the Yankees.

5 Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary Third Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 919. Bronx Bombers – “Nickname for the New York Yankees that first became popular in the 1930s when heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis was known as the Brown Bomber. The term connotes a team that hits many home runs and is still in common use when referring to the Yankees.”

6 Dick Young, “Yankees Need Patience,” The Sporting News, May 6, 1978: 14.

7 Murray Chass, “Yankees’ 4 in 8th beat Royals, 8-4,” New York Times, May 2, 1978: 41. Splittorff started that fateful last game for the 1977 AL pennant, but Dennis Leonard was the losing pitcher.

8 Michael Strauss, “Yankees Set Back Orioles,” New York Times, April 26, 1978: B7.

9 Chass.

10 Joseph Durso, “Yanks Sign Eastwick to 5-Year Pact,” New York Times, December 10, 1977: 19.

11 Phil Pepe, “Yank Rally Beats KC, 8-4,” New York Daily News, May 2, 1978: 68.

12 Chass. “When Cliff Johnson stepped to the plate as the leadoff batter in the fifth, the Yankees had accumulated 68 hits in the previous 7½ games, and 61 of those hits had been singles.”

13 Terrell replaced the injured George Brett as the Royals’ third baseman. Two days earlier, Brett injured his shoulder breaking up a double play at second base. (Steve Richardson, “Brett Injured; Out 2 to 3 Weeks,” Kansas City Star, April 30, 1978: 203).

14 Sid Bordman, “Royals’ Charity Sweet,” Kansas City Star, May 2, 1978: 17.

15 Phil Pepe, “Yank Hunch Correct on Eastwick,” The Sporting News, May 20, 1978: 7. Eastwick was the NL save leader in 1975 (22) and the majors’ save leader in 1976 (26). His poor performance in 1977 prompted the Cincinnati Reds to trade him to the St. Louis Cardinals for pitcher Doug Capilla on June 15, 1977.

16 Richard Bradley, The Greatest Game: The Yankees, the Red Sox and the Playoff of ’78 (New York: Free Press, 2008), 78.

17 “Eastwick Traded to Phillies,” New York Daily News, June 15, 1978: 64.

18 Bradley 139.

19 Bradley, 138.

20 Murray Chass, “Martin Resigns; Bob Lemon to Manage Yankees,” New York Times, July 25, 1978: A1.

21 Joseph Wancho, “October 2, 1978: Bucky Dent’s home run spurs Yankees to division title in AL East tiebreaker,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Accessed August 2025.

22 SABR Games Project essays capture several 1978 World Series games – Alan Stowell, “October 11, 1978: In dramatic ninth inning, Bob Welch strikes out Reggie Jackson to secure Dodgers’ win in Game 2”; Steven C. Weiner, “October 13, 1978: Graig Nettles’ defense leads Yankees in Game Three win”; Gordon J. Gattie, “October 14, 1978: Yankees tie World Series with one extra-base hit and one excessive hip. Accessed August 2025.

23 Gordon J. Gattie, “October 10, 1980: Royals advance to first World Series after sweeping Yankees in ALCS,” SABR Baseball Games Project; Steve Ginader, “October 21, 1980: Phillies win their first World Series championship,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Accessed August 2025. Ironically, Rawly Eastwick pitched for the 1980 Royals after signing in June. He was released in August with an 0-1 record and a 5.32 ERA in 14 appearances.