October 20, 1985: 9th-inning rally gives Cardinals 2-0 lead in World Series

The 1985 World Series featured two franchises and teams that had each enjoyed a great deal of success, one over a very lengthy time span and the other over a relatively short one.

The St. Louis Cardinals were one of the flagship franchises of the National League. They’d just finished their 104th season with the best record in baseball, 101-61. They were the proud owners of nine World Series titles,1 the most in the National League and second-most in the major leagues behind the New York Yankees. Their most recent title was from three years earlier, when they defeated the Milwaukee Brewers in seven games in the 1982 World Series.

The Kansas City Royals, in contrast, were a much younger franchise. They had played only 17 seasons but had become competitive very quickly for an expansion team and had made the playoffs seven times. They had reached the World Series only once before, in 1980, but lost to the Philadelphia Phillies. Their team in 1985 won the American League West title by a single game over the California Angels, posting a 91-71 record that wouldn’t have been good enough to win any other division.

As for the 1985 Series: Behind John Tudor and Todd Worrell’s eight-hitter, the Cardinals won Game One, 3-1, on October 19 at Royals Stadium. Royals manager Dick Howser turned to 29-year-old Charlie Leibrandt, the oldest starter on his staff, in Sunday night’s Game Two. Leibrandt was not as well-rested as other members of the rotation, having pitched 5⅓ innings in relief of staff ace Bret Saberhagen in Game Seven of the ALCS just four days earlier, but Howser had elected to go with an eight-man staff for the World Series,2 and needed the reliability that came with the club’s leader in innings for the year.

Leibrandt started well, setting down the Cardinals in order in the first inning. His opponent, Danny Cox, surrendered a leadoff single to Lonnie Smith,—who had been traded from St. Louis to Kansas City five months earlier in May, after Vince Coleman’s arrival made the 29-year-old left fielder expendable—but also faced the minimum when he got Willie Wilson to ground into a double play and ALCS Most Valuable Player George Brett to ground out to first base.

The pitchers’ duel continued into the fourth inning. The Cardinals were still scoreless, having managed just two hits and a walk against Leibrandt while striking out four times. Cox was nearly as sharp, also allowing two hits and a walk while striking out three.

The trouble started for Cox in the bottom of the fourth, when Wilson led off with a single. Brett followed with a line-drive double down the right-field line, scoring Wilson with the game’s first run. Cox then got behind the next hitter, Frank White, like Brett a veteran of seven postseason teams in Kansas City. On a 3-and-1 pitch, White doubled into the gap in left-center field, and Brett scored to give the Royals a two-run lead.

For a while, that appeared to be all Leibrandt would need, as the frustrated Cardinals could do no damage against him. Their cleanup hitter, Jack Clark, said after the game that Leibrandt “breezed through us like we didn’t exist.”3 Leibrandt didn’t allow a single baserunner for the next four innings, reaching a perfect string of 13 in a row.

The Royals, however, were unable to extend their lead. After allowing the leadoff hitter to reach base in each of the first four innings, Cox retired the side in order in the fifth inning, then worked around another leadoff single by Wilson in the sixth.

In the seventh, Kansas City nearly scored again. After a one-out walk to Buddy Biancalana, Leibrandt sacrificed him to second, bringing up leadoff hitter Smith, who already had two hits in the Series. Smith lined a 1-and-1 pitch into left field for another single, and Royals third-base coach Mike Ferraro waved Biancalana home as Tito Landrum—filling in for the injured Coleman4 in left—came up throwing.

The throw was in front of home plate, forcing catcher Darrell Porter5 to field the ball and dive to tag Biancalana, who was ruled out by home-plate umpire Bill Williams.

It was the closest the Royals would come to scoring again, but the way Leibrandt was pitching, it appeared to be enough. He’d thrown 108 pitches by the time the ninth inning began,6 but Howser decided to stick with him.

“I’m not going to make a change with a guy pitching that good and whose stuff is that good,” Howser said after the game. “He was in command.”7

McGee led off the ninth with a double but held second while Ozzie Smith grounded to third and Tom Herr flied out to right field. The Cardinals were down to their final out, but Leibrandt was now up to 121 pitches as Clark stepped to the plate. Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog gave Clark the green light to swing away on a 3-and-0 count, and the right-handed slugger lashed a single to left field to score McGee and cut the Royals’ lead in half. “I was really trying to hit a home run,” Clark said after the game.8

With AL saves leader Dan Quisenberry in the bullpen, the tying run on first base, and another right-handed hitter, Landrum, coming up to face the lefty Leibrandt, Howser still decided not to make a pitching change. As he explained later, “I talked to [pitching coach] Gary Blaylock on the bench before the ninth inning started, and we decided it was his game to win or lose.”9

After working the count to 2-and-2, Landrum reached for an outside pitch and dropped a bloop double into shallow right field, sending Clark to third. “With two strikes on him, he didn’t try to jack the ball,” Herzog said. “He just tried to reach out there.”10 With first base open, Howser ordered an intentional walk of César Cedeño, bringing up switch-hitting third baseman Terry Pendleton.

Leibrandt was now at 134 pitches, and Quisenberry was still ready to go in the bullpen, but Howser stuck with the decision he’d made before the inning started and left Leibrandt in the game.

It was not a decision that sat well with some members of the Royals. “Anybody who knows baseball should have known what to do in that situation,” Willie Wilson said later. “I don’t want to talk about it any further.”11

Pendleton already had one hit in the game, one of just two for the Cardinals before the inning began. On Leibrandt’s 138th pitch of the night, he lined a double down the left-field line, clearing the bases and giving St. Louis a 4-2 lead. It was the first time first time since 1939 that a team had come back from being two or more runs behind in the ninth inning of a World Series game.12

Howser finally replaced Leibrandt with Quisenberry at that point. After another intentional walk, Quisenberry ended the inning by getting Andy Van Slyke on a fly ball to center field. Reliever Jeff Lahti came in to pitch the bottom of the ninth for the Cardinals, and he retired the Royals on a fly ball, an infield single, and a double-play grounder to end the game.

The Cardinals grabbed a 2-0 lead in the World Series and returned to St. Louis with the knowledge that no team had ever lost the first two games of the World Series at home and come back to win the Series. The Royals would have to make history if they wanted the franchise’s first championship.

One week later, back on their home field in Kansas City, they did exactly that, after winning two of three games in St. Louis behind brilliant starts by Saberhagen and Danny Jackson, capitalizing on a controversial call to edge the Cardinals in Game Six, and routing St. Louis in Game Seven.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for any pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA198510200.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1985/B10200KCA1985.htm

Notes

1 Ten if we include their 1886 title as the St. Louis Browns of the American Association.

2 “The Match-Ups,” Kansas City Times, October 19, 1985: B-2.

3 Joe McGuff, “Decision by Howser Was Sound,” Kansas City Star, October 21, 1985: 1C.

4 Rick Hummel, “Coleman Sidelined for Series,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 22, 1985: C-1.

5 Porter had been both the starting catcher for the 1980 AL champion Royals, and the World Series MVP with the 1982 Cardinals.

6 McGuff, “Decision by Howser Was Sound.”

7 Tracy Ringolsby, “Cardinals’ Last Gasp Blows Royals Down,” Kansas City Times, October 21, 1985: B-1.

8 Rick Hummel, “Pendleton Has Moment in Sun,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 22, 1985: C-1.

9 Ringolsby, “Cardinals’ Last Gasp Blows Royals Down.”

10 Hummel, “Pendleton Has Moment in Sun.”

11 Ringolsby, “Cardinals’ Last Gasp Blows Royals Down.”

12 Tracy Ringolsby, “Royals Report,” Kansas City Star, October 21, 1985: 4C.