October 17, 1973: Mets tie World Series with Matlack’s pitching, Staub’s hitting

The Oakland Athletics and New York Mets traded wins to start the 1973 World Series, with Oakland’s bullpen making two unearned runs stand up in Game One and the Mets escaping Game Two with a wild 12-inning win.

When the Series moved to New York on October 16, Oakland went back ahead with an 11-inning win in Game Three, despite owner Charlie Finley’s morale-degrading interference.

First Finley had attempted to force second baseman Mike Andrews onto the injured list, after Andrews’ two errors had led to the Mets’ decisive runs in the second game.1 Then news broke on the travel day that manager Dick Williams – whose three seasons in Oakland had netted three division titles, two American League pennants, and one World Series championship – was leaving the team after the Series.2

On Wednesday night, October 17, a throng of 54,817 packed Shea Stadium to see if the Mets could bounce back from the previous night’s loss. The temperature was 48 degrees when Game Four started, “but winds gusting in from Flushing Bay made it feel more like Iceland than Queens,” reported the New York Daily News. “If it gets this cold in Puerto Rico,” Mets second baseman Felix Millan observed, “everybody dies.”3

Jon Matlack was back on the mound for New York. He had pitched well in the first game, going six innings and giving up two unearned runs in the Mets’ 2-1 loss.

Matlack had suffered a skull fracture when Marty Perez of the Atlanta Braves lined a shot off his forehead on May 8. The 23-year-old left-hander pitched again 11 days later but struggled until the final two months of the season. As the Mets surged to an improbable division title and underdog World Series berth, Matlack finished strong, posting a 1.77 ERA in his final five regular-season starts and blanking the Cincinnati Reds in Game Two of the NLCS.

Matlack held the A’s in check through the first three innings, allowing just one baserunner, Sal Bando (two-out walk in the first) while striking out four.

Oakland sent Ken Holtzman, the winner of the first game, to the mound. The southpaw, one of three 20-game winners on the A’s staff, had gone five innings in Game One, giving up only one run before turning the game over to relievers Rollie Fingers and Darold Knowles.4

The Mets fared better against Holtzman this time. Wayne Garrett and Millan led off with singles. That brought Rusty Staub to the plate. Staub had played injured for most of the year after he was hit on the left hand by a pitch on May 11 against the Pittsburgh Pirates.5 Then he injured his right shoulder by running into an outfield wall in Game Five of the National League Championship Series against the Cincinnati Reds.6

Staub, who led the Mets with 76 RBIs in 1973, didn’t take the field in Game One7 and got one hit in Game Two before being replaced by a pinch-runner in the ninth inning. After the game, Staub flew home ahead of the rest of the team and worked out by himself at Shea Stadium. “I can’t explain what I did, but I adjusted,” he said. “I studied what I would have to do to compensate for my shoulder.”8 Staub played all the way in Game Three and had two hits, including a double.

Now, in Game Four, Staub squared to bunt on Holtzman’s first two pitches but took them for balls. After watching a strike, Staub got the signal to swing away and hit the 2-and-1 pitch over the left-field wall. It was his first World Series home run. “He threw me a fast ball over the heart of the plate,” Staub said. “I didn’t know it would be a homer and wasn’t thinking homer when I swung at it.”9 The home run was Staub’s fourth of the postseason and it gave the Mets a 3-0 lead.

“He tried to bunt, but I got it up and in to him,” said Holtzman. “Then I was behind and I didn’t want to walk him. I tried to go away from him, but the ball went right down the center.”

“I was happy to see the first two guys get hits and get Rusty up there,” said Matlack. “He has a chance to get a run in. I always pitch better when I have a lead.”10

Three batters later, the Mets had two runners on with one out. Williams pulled the plug on Holtzman and called on Blue Moon Odom to take over. “I didn’t have it,” Holtzman said. “No control, no speed, no nothing.”11

Odom had started 24 games for the A’s in 1973 but he had been used in relief in the postseason. The right-hander pitched two scoreless innings in the second game and now was being called on for another multiple-inning effort. Odom closed out the Mets in the first inning, then contributed two more scoreless innings.

The A’s scored in the fourth. Bando reached first when Garrett could not handle his groundball with one out. Reggie Jackson followed with a single to center and moved to second when Don Hahn threw errantly to third in an attempt to get Bando out. Bando scored on Gene Tenace’s grounder to short, making it 3-1.

The Mets responded with three runs in the bottom of the inning. After Odom gave up a pair of singles to Hahn and Bud Harrelson, Knowles replaced him. Knowles struck out Matlack but hit Garrett to load the bases.

Millan hit a bouncing groundball. When second baseman Dick Green couldn’t handle it, Hahn crossed the plate with the fourth run.

Staub then singled through the hole on the right side of the infield. Two more runs scored for a 6-1 Mets’ lead.

“Damn Andrews,” Green told reporters after the game, in mock anger. “He fouled up that position so much I can’t play it.”12

The Mets got runners into scoring position twice more but failed to score. With Horacio Piña, Oakland’s fourth pitcher, on the mound, Grote led off the fifth with a single and moved to second when Harrelson walked. But the threat ended when the A’s turned a double play, giving them a World Series record-tying four twin killings in the game.

New York had another chance to add to its lead in the seventh. Grote singled for the third time and took second on a fielder’s choice. When Matlack hit a two-out single to left, Grote tried to score, but Joe Rudi threw him out at the plate.

But the runs weren’t needed. Matlack continued to shut down the A’s over the next four innings, allowing just four more Oakland batters to reach base.

Mike Andrews pinch-hit for Piña to lead off the eighth. The crowd gave him a standing ovation. “The ovation was at once an expression of sympathy for Andrews and a rebuke for Finley,” a sportswriter commented. “… Charlie O. tried [to smile] but his tightly drawn lips would not permit him to do that well.”13

Andrews grounded out to third base. As he trotted back to the dugout, the fans gave him a second ovation. “I never had a standing ovation before in my life,” said Andrews. “Chills went up and down my spine. It makes you feel good to think people are behind you, with what was going on.”14

The A’s managed a minor threat in the eighth when Matlack hit Bert Campaneris and Rudi singled. But Matlack got the next two outs to keep the A’s from scoring.

Matlack did not return when the Mets took the field in the top of the ninth. Manager Yogi Berra, perhaps thinking that he might need Matlack in a seventh game, went to his bullpen, calling for Ray Sadecki to pitch the ninth.

Tenace led off with a single, but Sadecki retired Jesús Alou and Ray Fosse. The southpaw then struggled to get the final out: Deron Johnson’s single and a walk to pinch-hitter Vic Davalillo loaded the bases. But Campaneris’s strikeout finally ended the game.

In two appearances in the series, Matlack had not allowed an earned run.

Afterward Matlack acknowledged that he had some stiffness in his arm. “My shoulder started getting stiff from the sixth inning on,” he said. “It was very cold there. It even took me longer than usual to warm up before the game.”15

Reporters asked if Matlack would be able to pitch again if the Series went to seven games. He expressed confidence that he would be ready. “I’ve got to make like we’re not going to win those two,” said Matlack. “I know that I dream of going out and not letting everybody down. I don’t want to go out and feel I let them all down.”16

Staub became the second player in the 1973 World Series – following Jackson in Game Two – with four hits in a game.17 “To have a night like this – to prove something which I never doubted – gives me a satisfaction that is hard to describe,” Staub said.18

“When you’ve been in the major leagues going on 11 years hoping to even get into the Series, it is unbelievably satisfying to have a night like this,” Staub said. “It’s the greatest feeling I’ve ever had.”19

The Mets’ win tied the Series at two games apiece. Both teams played one more game amid the cold and windy New York weather – the Mets winning that game, 2-0 – before returning to the milder climes of Oakland to finish the series.

Acknowledgments

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

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for box-score, player, team, and season pages, pitching and batting game logs, and other pertinent material. I also reviewed a partial recording of the game’s television broadcast, posted on YouTube by Phenia Films.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN197310170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1973/B10170NYN1973.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4jDK3oJjeo

Notes

1 Andrews entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the eighth. He stayed in the game, playing second base in place of Ted Kubiak. Andrews made two errors in the 12th inning that allowed the Mets to score two runs and eventually win the game, 10-7. Finley dropped Andrews from the Series roster after the game. He forced him to go on the disabled list with a fictitious shoulder injury. The Oakland players met and then hinted to reporters about “publicly embarrassing the owner during the Series or staging a mass holdout next spring.” Finley eventually gave in and reinstated Andrews, who agreed to return if he could tell the press his perspective of the incident. Ed Comerford, “Cheers for Mike’s Last Hurrah,” Newsday (Long Island, New York), October 18, 1973: 191.

2 Newspapers reported that the Williams had been signed as the Yankees manager. Williams reportedly told the players about his decision but said, “I’ll deny this if it ever gets out of this room.” Finley just told the press, “I won’t stand in his way if the Yankees approach me and ask permission to talk to Dick Williams.” Ron Bergman, “Williams’ Finale in Oakland,” Oakland Tribune, October 18, 1973: 37.

3 Dave Hirshey, “Baby It’s Cold Outside Replaces Let’s Go Mets,” New York Daily News, October 18, 1973: 121.

4 The A’s other 20-game winners were Vida Blue (20-9) and Catfish Hunter (21-5).

5 Staub injured his right hand the previous season and it continued to cause him pain throughout 1973. Staub had difficulty holding a bat and he took several cortisone shots to reduce the pain in his hands.

6 The Mets won the series in five games.

7 Staub was announced as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning of Game One, but was removed for pinch-hitter Jim Beauchamp when the Athletics replaced reliever Rollie Fingers with Darold Knowles.

8 Associated Press, “Staub – My Greatest Thrill,” San Francisco Examiner, October 18, 1973: 50.

9 George Ross, “Staub Takes Charge,” Oakland Tribune, October 18, 1973: 38.

10 Joe Donnelly, “Rusty’s Swing Pains the A’s,” Newsday, October 18, 1973: 190.

11 Joseph Durso, “Mets Even Series at 2-All With a 6-1 Conquest of A’s,” New York Times, October 18, 1973: 1.

12 Murray Chass, “A’s Miffed at Mets’ Ability to Get Jump,” New York Times, October 18, 1973: 58.

13 Prescott Sullivan, “Mike Andrews – Hero,” San Francisco Examiner, October 18, 1973: 50.

14 Ed Comerford, “Cheers for Mike’s Last Hurrah,” Newsday, October 18, 1973: 191.

15 Durso.

16 Steve Jacobsen, “Sunday May Be No Day of Rest for Matlack,” Newsday, October 18, 1973: 191. Matlack pitched in Game Seven and faced Holtzman for the third time in the World Series. He was not as successful, going only 2⅔ innings and surrendering four earned runs as the Mets lost the game 5-2, giving Oakland its second consecutive championship.

17 Jackson’s fourth hit came when he hit a triple in the 12th inning of that game.

18 Associated Press, “Staub – My Greatest Thrill.”

19 Ross, “Staub Takes Charge.”