October 28, 1981: Guerrero, Dodgers claim World Series championship in strike-torn season

The unusual 1981 season, torn into halves by a players strike and lengthened by a specially added first round of playoffs, ended on a familiar note – a World Series featuring the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. The former New York City neighbors were facing off for the 11th time.

The Yankees had beaten the Dodgers in eight of their previous 10 World Series meetings, including in 1977 and 1978. But coming into a rain-delayed Game Six on October 28, 1981,1 Tommy Lasorda’s Dodgers had won three straight games and held a 3-games-to-2 advantage.

Game Six at Yankee Stadium came down to a battle of the bullpens, as Lasorda and Yankees manager Bob Lemon pulled their starters early. Dodgers reliever Steve Howe was implacable, but a series of Yankees pitchers buckled, surrendering eight runs in the final five innings to give Los Angeles a 9-2 victory and the franchise’s fifth World Series title. New York reliever George Frazier took his third loss of the Series, tying a record set by Claude “Lefty” Williams of the 1919 Chicago White Sox.2

With 56,513 fans on hand on a Wednesday night,3 Lasorda started righty Burt Hooton. Hooton had gone 11-6 with a 2.28 ERA in the regular season, earning his only career All-Star Game appearance. He continued to excel in the postseason, winning one start in the NL West Division Series and two more in the NL Championship Series and earning the NLCS Most Valuable Player Award. Hooton had started and lost Game Two of the World Series, yielding only one unearned run over six innings.

Hooton’s Game Two conqueror, Tommy John, returned to the mound for the Yankees. The 38-year-old John, a Dodger from 1972 to 1978,4 had gone 9-8 with a 2.63 ERA during the regular season. He’d lost Game Three of the AL East Division Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, then won Game One of the AL Championship Series against the Oakland Athletics.

So far, John’s performance in the ’81 Series had been mixed. He’d won Game Two with seven innings of three-hit shutout ball, then made an unusual relief appearance in Game Four in which he allowed two of three inherited runners to score – handing Frazier his second loss.5

The Dodgers wasted two-out singles by Steve Garvey and Ron Cey in the first inning, as Dusty Baker – 0-for-10 in the Series with runners on base6 – flied out to end the rally. Willie Randolph, restored to leadoff in the Yankees’ lineup,7 walked and stole second in the bottom half before Hooton retired Jerry Mumphrey, Dave Winfield, and Reggie Jackson.

A power failure in a bank of lights behind home plate delayed the game for about 10 minutes in the top of the third.8 No serious offensive threats ensued until the bottom of that inning. Randolph, who hit only two homers in the regular season, had won Game Three of the ALCS with a solo shot and had also homered in Game Four of the Series.9 He did it again with two out, parking a 1-and-0 Hooton pitch in the left-field stands to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. Mumphrey followed with a single and Winfield drew a walk. With two pitchers warming in the Los Angeles bullpen,10 Jackson – who had nursed a left calf injury earlier in the playoffs – flied to left field.

The Dodgers small-balled their way into a run in the top of the fourth. With one out, Baker singled to center. After Pedro Guerrero lined out, Rick Monday’s line single off first baseman Bob Watson’s glove moved Baker to second, and Steve Yeager’s single to left field scored Baker to tie the game, 1-1.11

In the bottom half, Lemon made a decision that fans and writers debated all winter.12 Graig Nettles doubled, and with two out, Hooton intentionally walked Larry Milbourne to get to the pitcher’s spot. (Although the game was being played in an AL park, major-league rules at the time allowed the designated hitter in the World Series only in even-numbered years.) Lemon sent Bobby Murcer to hit for John, who had allowed six hits but only one run in four innings.13 Murcer flied to right while TV cameras caught John shaking his head and exclaiming, “I can’t believe that.”14

The unfortunate Frazier, loser of Games Three and Four, took the mound for the fifth inning. Davey Lopes greeted him with a single, and Bill Russell bunted Lopes to second. Garvey flied out to left, but Cey drove in Lopes with a bad-bounce single under Randolph’s glove and into center.15 Baker’s flared single sent Cey to third, and Guerrero’s triple to left-center scored both runners for a 4-1 Los Angeles lead.16

Randolph tried to kindle a Yankee response in the bottom of the fifth with a leadoff double. Again, Mumphrey, Winfield, and Jackson went down in order.

Righty Ron Davis came on for the Yankees in the sixth. Working in his fourth game of the Series, he brought an 18.00 ERA into the game, and the Dodgers inflated it further. With one out, Hooton and Lopes drew back-to-back walks, and Russell’s single to left scored Hooton.

Veteran Rick Reuschel, obtained from the Chicago Cubs in a June 1981 trade, relieved Davis. During the regular season, Reuschel had made only one relief appearance in 25 games. Lopes and Russell stole third and second, respectively, on a double steal, and Reuschel intentionally walked Garvey to load the bases. Derrel Thomas hit for Cey, who was woozy after a beaning by the Yankees’ Rich Gossage in Game Five.17

Thomas grounded to Nettles, who touched third for the force but couldn’t get Thomas at first with an off-balance throw; Lopes scored. Nettles, a two-time Gold Glover playing with a minor fracture of his left thumb,18 mishandled Baker’s grounder to reload the bases. Guerrero capped the rally by ripping a single to center, scoring Garvey and Thomas for an 8-1 Dodgers lead.19

Again the Yankees threatened in the bottom half. With one out, Nettles singled and Rick Cerone and Milbourne drew walks, filling the bases. Lasorda summoned Howe, the 1980 NL Rookie of the Year, to make his third appearance of the Series. The 23-year-old lefty had won Game Four, his previous appearance, with three innings of relief.

Pinch-hitter Lou Piniella delivered a single that scored a run and reloaded the bases, bringing the top of the Yankees’ order to the plate. Randolph and Mumphrey both lined to right, ending the rally and leaving the score 8-2.

Guerrero’s second homer of the Series, off Rudy May in the eighth inning, brought the score to 9-2 as Howe stifled the Yankees.20

The New Yorkers stirred briefly in the ninth. Randolph worked a leadoff walk. Mumphrey struck out and Winfield, ending a 1-for-22 performance (.045), flied to right.21 Jackson gave Yankees fans hope by reaching on a fielding error by Lopes, moving Randolph to second. Watson batted next; he’d collected seven hits in the Series, including two homers, and seven RBIs. Watson skied a moderately deep fly ball to center field, where Ken Landreaux gathered it in for the final out of the season.

As befitting an unusual season, three Dodgers – Cey, Guerrero, and Yeager – shared MVP honors. As of the end of the 2023 season, it was one of only two World Series with a shared MVP award, and the only time three players divided the honor.22 Cey hit .350, Guerrero .333, and Yeager .286 during the Series. They combined for five of the Dodgers’ six homers23 and 17 of the team’s 26 RBIs.

Lemon defended his decision to remove John: “I wanted to get some runs. I didn’t think it was a gamble. … I’d seen him better. I’d seen him worse. He’d given up six hits in four innings.”24 Yankees owner Steinbrenner, known in this period for shuffling managers, allowed Lemon to return for the start of the 1982 season, then fired him on April 25 after just 14 games.25

Frazier earned notice for answering reporters’ questions calmly and courteously. He said he “had good stuff and made good pitches,” and would not take the losses hard. “Five years ago, if this had happened, the pillars wouldn’t be standing in this room,” said Frazier. “But I changed. My wife showed me there was no sense getting upset.”26

The Dodgers celebrated joyously, having lost four World Series since their most recent win in 1965.27 The win gave Los Angeles’s long-running infield of Garvey, Lopes, Russell, and Cey their first championship; the quartet had started their first game together on June 13, 1973.28 Game Six was their last game together, as the Dodgers traded Lopes in the offseason.29

The Dodgers came back from deficits in all three of their postseason series, having trailed the Houston Astros two games to none in the NL West Division Series and the Montreal Expos two games to one in the NLCS. Amid the postgame celebration, a giddy Lasorda issued a challenge to that year’s Japan Series winners: “Let’s go beat the Tokyo Giants. I want to keep this thing going. We’ll even lose the first two games to the Tokyo Giants, too.”30

After their 11 World Series encounters in 41 seasons from 1941 through 1981, the Dodgers and Yankees went 43 years before facing each other again in October, when they met in the 2024 World Series.

Acknowledgments

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

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team and season data and the box scores for this game. The author also watched the ABC-TV network broadcast of the game, available on YouTube.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA198110280.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1981/B10280NYA1981.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwsQ043QS0w

Image of 1982 Fleer card #7 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Game Six had been scheduled for October 27. John Nelson (Associated Press), “World Series Game No. 6 Postponed by Rain,” Anderson (South Carolina) Independent-Mail, October 28, 1981: 1C.

2 Williams was one of the “Black Sox” who accepted money from gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series, so his poor performance that year was driven by ulterior motives. Frazier’s honesty and integrity were not questioned; he simply pitched ineffectively.

3 As a side note: Behind the plate for Game Six was Dick Stello, a National League umpire since 1968. The 1981 Series was Stello’s second and last World Series assignment in a 20-season career, and Game Six was his second and last time working the plate in a Series game. Stello had previously called balls and strikes in Game Four of the 1975 Series, a 5-4 Boston Red Sox win over the Cincinnati Reds.

4 John had started three times against the Yankees in the 1977 and 1978 Series, going 1-1.

5 John had not pitched in relief during the 1981 regular season, or in the playoffs up to that point. His last previous relief appearance took place in a May 1, 1979, game against the California Angels.

6 ABC-TV network broadcast.

7 Randolph struggled to a .232 average in the regular season and .200 in the AL East Division Series, and Lemon moved him from the leadoff spot in the lineup to the ninth spot during the Division Series. Randolph was still hitting in the ninth spot in Game Three of the ALCS, in which his solo home run provided all the runs the Yankees needed to win the game and eliminate the Oakland Athletics.

8 Phil Pepe, “A Lemon!” New York Daily News, October 29, 1981: 128.

9 Randolph’s homer in Game Three of the ALCS gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead in a game they went on to win 4-0 over the Oakland Athletics.

10 The ABC-TV network broadcast showed Dave Stewart and Terry Forster warming.

11 Murray Chass, “Dodgers Beat Yanks, 9-2, to Win the World Series,” New York Times, October 29, 1981: A1.

12 Some supporting evidence for Lemon’s decision: Chass reported that Yankees pitchers were 0-for-14 so far in the Series and had stranded 13 runners.

13 On the ABC-TV broadcast, Howard Cosell reported that Murcer had a lifetime .382 average (13-for-34) against Hooton. According to Retrosheet, Murcer’s career regular-season performance against Hooton was actually 13-for-33 (.394) with a home run and three RBIs.

14 Ross Newhan, “Tommy John Is Sour on Lemon’s Decision to Pull Him in Fourth,” Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1981: III: 1; ABC-TV broadcast.

15 Steve Marcus, “Midnight Strikes for Yanks,” Newsday (Long Island, New York), October 29, 1981: 176; ABC-TV broadcast.

16 Marcus.

17 Mark Heisler, “It’s Champagne With a Twist of Lemon,” Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1981: III: 1.

18 Marcus, “Midnight Strikes for Yanks”; Pepe, “A Lemon!” Nettles left the game after his sixth-inning single, giving way to Aurelio Rodríguez.

19 Guerrero took second on Mumphrey’s throw to third, and was credited with a single.

20 The Dodgers were playing a man short, as relief pitcher Alejandro Peña had been hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer and Commissioner Bowie Kuhn had rejected the team’s request to replace him on the roster. Whether that affected Lasorda’s decision to stick with Howe for 3⅔ innings is unclear; certainly, Howe’s performance gave Lasorda little reason to want to change pitchers. Bill Madden, “Righetti: I Was Lousy Because of Too Much Rest,” New York Daily News, October 29, 1981: 103.

21 In the New York Daily News, Pepe acknowledged that Winfield had hit the ball hard in some at-bats but had nothing to show for it. Pepe described Winfield’s first-inning out as a “vicious liner” to Baker in left field.

22 The World Series MVP Award has been given since 1955. As of 2023, the only other Series with a shared MVP was 2001, when the honor was given to Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling of the victorious Arizona Diamondbacks.

23 Jay Johnstone hit the only other Dodgers homer, a two-run pinch-hit shot off Ron Davis in Game Four.

24 Heisler, “It’s Champagne With a Twist of Lemon.”

25 Marty Noble, “Yankee Managers in Rotation,” Newsday, April 26, 1982: 72.

26 George Vecsey, “Frazier’s 3 Losses Set a Series Record,” New York Times, October 29, 1981: B17. Frazier finally reached the top of the baseball world in his final season, as a member of the 1987 World Series champion Minnesota Twins; he made one appearance in that year’s Series.

27 The Dodgers had lost the World Series in 1966 to the Baltimore Orioles; in 1974 to the Oakland Athletics; and in 1977 and 1978 to the Yankees.

28 Bill Schroeder, “The Durable Dodger Infield,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, 1980, accessed online December 2023.

29 On February 8, 1982, the Dodgers traded Lopes to the Oakland Athletics for minor-league infielder-outfielder Lance Hudson. In Lopes’ final at-bat as a Dodger, he struck out against Yankees pitcher Dave LaRoche’s eephus pitch, known as “La Lob,” to end the top of the ninth.

30 Joseph Durso, “A Joyous Lasorda Salutes His Team,” New York Times, October 29, 1981: B13.