World Series ‘What Might’ve Beens’: When Player Injuries Have Most Affected the Outcome

Speculating on ultimately unanswerable questions remains one of most fascinating aspects for those of us who study baseball history. For example, how might many of the all-time records differ if Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, and all of the other great Negro League stars had been eligible to play in white Organized Ball? How about if Willie Mays had been able to break Babe Ruth’s’ home run record if hadn’t played the latter two-thirds of his career in windy Candlestick Park? Especially in the World Series does speculation run freely. What if Earl McNeely’s ground ball had not struck a pebble in the bottom of the 12th inning of the 1924 World Series, thus ensuring Walter Johnson’s only win of the classic and the only world championship for the Washington Senators? Or what if, in 1962, Willie McCovey had hit Ralph Terry’s last pitch two feet higher? (Thank you, Charlie Brown!)

But when a player who’d made crucial contributions to his team all year is not eligible for the World Series, ah, that’s when the speculative wheels really begin to spin! The prevailing wisdom among many current analysts and baseball professionals is that “anything can happen in a short series” (just ask the 1969 Baltimore Orioles)! No doubt about it—despite the importance of depth on any team, if a star pitcher or everyday player is missing when two fairly evenly matched teams are trying to win four of seven games, the outcome can be huge. There have been several occasions where that’s happened, and in this brief study we’ll try to determine when injured players have made the biggest difference in the outcome of a World Series.

First, a few ground rules of what we will not be considering in this study for the purpose of comparison:

1. NO MILITARY SERVICE: We’ll deal only with actual physical injuries that caused a player to miss the entire World Series. During WWII so many players wore the uniform of their country, it becomes impossible to make meaningful comparisons. Would the Cardinals have beaten the Yankees in 1943 if they’d had Enos Slaughter, Terry Moore, and Johnny Beazley?

(Of course, the Yankees were missing Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Heinrich, and Phil Rizzuto). No doubt that the Cardinal string of three consecutive pennants (1942-44) was helped by the fact that Stan Musial did not begin his service commitment until 1945, while their strong “brothers battery” of Mort and Walker Cooper was never drafted. (In 1944, the St. Louis Browns won their only pennant helped because the draft had created what we would now call “parity” in the American League.)

2. NO LATE-SEASON INELIGIBLES: Perhaps the strongest example here is Pedro Ramos of the 1964 Yankees, who was traded to the Yankees shortly after the September 1 deadline, and over the last month of the season made 13 relief appearances, picking up one victory and eight saves with a 1.25 ERA while compiling 21 strikeouts and zero walks in 22 innings. Nevertheless, in our research there have been relatively few examples of such late-season ineligible players, so the Ramos example remains a unique occurrence. (For example, in 1970 Mudcat Grant was traded from the Oakland Athletics to the Pittsburgh Pirates too late to help the Bucs in their NLCS bout with the Cincinnati Reds. Despite his 2.25 ERA in 12 appearances, Grant had no saves and it is doubtful he would have been able to help his team prevent the three-game sweep by Sparky Anderson’s “Big Red Machine.”)

3. NO PARTIAL INJURIES: There have been several cases where, despite their injuries, players have participated in a few games of the World Series. In the same 1964 series against the Cards, because of circulatory problems in his left arm, Whitey Ford was unable to appear after pitching and losing Game One. In other Yankee World Series, due to various injuries, Mickey Mantle had been able to start only two games in 1955 and five in 1957 (perhaps not coincidentally, the Dodgers and Braves beat the Yankees in each of those seven-game series). Also with the Yankees, in 1921 Babe Ruth missed the final three games with an infected arm and knee injury (Ruth did pinch-hit in the final and eighth game and grounded out, making the final out of the series).

So what criteria should we use in determining which players’ injuries were the most crucial for their teams in series play?

1. PLAYERS MUST HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THEIR TEAMS FOR A FULL SEASON: Yes, Tommy Davis would have undoubtedly helped the 1965 Los Angeles Dodgers to their series victory over the Minnesota Twins, but Davis played in only 17 games at the beginning of the year and the Dodgers did manage to win the pennant (and series) without him. Also outside this category is Lou Gehrig of the 1939 Yankees. As all serious baseball fans know, Gehrig’s consecutive-game streak of 2,130 was halted that year when he succumbed to the debilitating illness that would claim his life two years later. He played only eight games, leaving the lineup on May 2, 1939. Yet the Yankees steamrolled to a pennant and swept the Cincinnati Reds in October.

2. THE TEAMS IN QUESTION LOST THE WORLD SERIES WITHOUT THESE KEY PLAYERS: This eliminates such examples as Reggie Jackson, who pulled a hamstring muscle in the 1972 ALCS against the Detroit Tigers. His Oakland Athletics won the series anyway in seven games over the Reds (albeit with a very close 3-2 victory in Game Seven). Others like Jackson who were key players for their teams over the course of a season, then missed the series (or most of it) but their teams won anyway are:

A. Dodgers outfielder and 1988 National League MVP Kirk Gibson, whose multiple injuries limited him to one memorable walk-off home run at-bat in Game One of the 1988 series against Oakland. The Dodgers went on to defeat Oakland in five games without any further appearances by Gibson.

B. Willie Randolph, who was replaced by the immortal Brian Doyle at second base in the 1978 Yankees six-game series win over the Dodgers.

C. Pitcher Steve Barber, whose sore arm was hardly missed by the 1966 Baltimore Orioles rotation, when the Birds limited the Dodgers to two runs in a four-game sweep.

D. Ernie Lombardi, who because of a severely sprained ankle appeared in but two games of the series for the 1940 Reds (one was as a pinch-hitter), saw his team defeat the Tigers in another close Game Seven, 2-1.

Which brings us to our last criterion:

3. THE SERIES HAD TO GO SEVEN GAMES IN ORDER TO BE CONSIDERED: The reasoning here is simple. If the two teams were fairly evenly matched, then logically the teams would battle to the wire, going to a final single game. In such Game Sevens, undoubtedly a key player who’d been missing could have made a crucial difference. This eliminates such instances as:

A. Boston Braves outfielder Jeff Heath, whose broken ankle caused him to miss the 1948 fall classic against the Cleveland Indians (the Tribe won in six).

B. Don Mueller, of the 1951 New York Giants, who pulled a tendon sliding into third in the ninth inning of Game Three of the infamous playoff against Brooklyn, and watched his teammates succumb to the Yankees in the series, also four games to two.

C. Little-remembered Cincinnati Reds pitcher Wayne Simpson, whose shoulder injury ruined a strong season (he was 14-3 with a 3.02 ERA) and prevented him from starting in the 1970 series, which his team lost in five games to the Baltimore Orioles. (In that same year Reds 20-game winner Jim Merritt also suffered a late-season elbow injury, but was given a desperation start by manager Sparky Anderson in the final game. Unfortunately, Merritt lasted only 1 2/3 innings and yielded three runs.)

But none of the above examples contain a series that went to seven games without a single key player available to the losing team. Now, of course, one may argue with opposite logic that maybe a really key player’s absence would perhaps contribute to his team losing in less than seven games. Perhaps the most famous example here is the 1905 series, when the Giants defeated the Philadelphia Athletics in four games to one. Rube Waddell, Connie Mack’s star left hander, was unable to appear in any of the five games. John McGraw’s Christy Mathewson shut out the Giants three times (Iron Man Joe McGinnity and Chief Bender also pitched shutouts for the other Giant victory and the lone A’s win respectively, so each of the five games was a shutout!) Still, it is hard to accept that one pitcher could have made the difference from one victory to four. And Waddell’s arm certainly wouldn’t have helped the A’s puny .161 series batting or their inability to score against Mathewson in 27 innings.

So we come back to our original question: Which seven-game World Series have been most impacted by the losing team having an injury to a key player out for the entire series, moreover, a player who’d made a great contribution over a full season? Surprisingly, all of answers to the above question are within the last 30 years of series play, three are in one decade, and two are for the same team! Here they are chronologically:

1. 1975 – Jim Rice, Red Sox vs. Reds
2. 1982 – Rollie Fingers, Brewers vs. Cardinals
3. 1985 – Vince Coleman, Cardinals vs. Royals
4. 1987 – Jack Clark, Cardinals vs. Twins

1. 1975 – JIM RICE, RED SOX VS. REDS

Jim Rice had an astounding rookie season in 1975, helping the Red Sox to the American League pennant by appearing in 144 games, with a .309 batting average, 22 homers, 109 RBI, and an OPS (combined slugging and batting averages) of .841. Rice, however, was overshadowed by his teammate Fred Lynn, who that season became the only player to win both the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player Awards.

Nevertheless, the Red Sox series hopes suffered a severe blow when Rice broke his wrist on September 21 and was out for rest of the season and post-season. Rice had been alternating between left field and the designated hitter that year, with Carl Yastrzemski playing mostly first base. For the series against the Reds, which at the time did not allow the use of the DH, manager Darrell Johnson shifted Yaz to left field for four of the seven games, (he also played three games at first base) and used a combination of Cecil Cooper at first, and Juan Beniquez, Rick Miller, and Bernie Carbo in left, in effect to replace the missing Rice. Cooper, Beniquez, and Miller combined to go 2 for 29 for a bat- ting average of .069 with an OPS of .267.

While Carbo did slam a crucial pinch-hit three-run homer in the renowned Game Six, he had only seven other plate appearances (four of them in Game Seven, when Johnson finally decided to let him start a game). It’s hard to believe that Rice couldn’t have helped turn the tide in this famously close series. It’s at least likely that he would have done better than .069, especially with the right-handed- hitting Rice facing such Cincy left handers as Don Gullet, who started three games, Fred Norman, who started one, and Will McEnaney, who relieved in five of the seven games (Rice hit .340 against lefties that season with an OPS of .930).

Furthermore, at Fenway, where four of the seven games were played, Rice hit .313 with an OPS of .877. When Rice finally got his chance in the 1986 series against the Mets, he hit .333, although none of his nine hits were home runs (he did manage one double and one triple).

2. 1982 – ROLLIE FINGERS, BREWERS VS. CARDINALS

It seemed to be as commonly held opinion as there possibly can be in baseball that the Milwaukee Brewers of the late 1970s and early 1980s lacked only a reliable bullpen to put them over the top. The “Brew Crew” had tremendous hitting and strong defense with players such as Robin Yount, Sal Bando, Paul Molitor, Gorman Thomas, Jim Gantner, and Ben Oglivie. The starting pitching, led by Mike Caldwell and Moose Haas, while certainly not spectacular, was adequate. The 1978, ’79, and ’80 Brewers won 92, 95, and 86 games respectively and had yet to appear in the post-season.

Then in 1981, in a blockbuster trade with the St. Louis Cardinals, the Brewers received Rollie Fingers, Ted Simmons, and Pete Vuckovich in exchange for David Green, Sixto Lezcano, and Lary Sorensen. In the 1981 strike-shortened season, Fingers saved 28 games and posted a 1.04 ERA. He not only won the Cy Young Award, he became the first American League pitcher to cop the MVP simultaneously (a feat since duplicated by Dennis Eckersley in 1992). Although the Brewers were eliminated by the Yankees in a close five-game Divisional Series, Fingers had a win and a save in the two Milwaukee victories.

In 1982, Fingers saved another 29 games, but he tore an arm muscle in September and the Brewers had to stave off the Baltimore Orioles’ furious stretch drive without him. Right hander rookie Pete Ladd had some success in substituting for Fingers in the Brew pen, especially in the ALCS against the California Angels. Milwaukee won the five-game series with three consecutive wins after losing the first two when Ladd and Jim Slaton combined for three saves.

But in the World Series against the Cardinals, Ladd himself was also injured and appeared in only one game, pitching two-thirds of an inning. Manager Harvey Kuenn relied heavily on lefty Bob McClure, who relieved five times in the seven-game series. McClure recorded the only two saves for the team in the series, but he compiled a 4.15 ERA, and he also lost two contests, including Game Seven.

In the sixth inning of the series finale, McClure relieved starter Vuckovich with one out and runners at second and third, attempting to protect a 3-1 Brewer advantage. He walked right-handed batter Gene Tenace (pinch-hitting for left-handed batting third baseman Ken Oberkfell), then allowed run-scoring singles to lefty-swinging Keith Hernandez and righty George Hendrick, allowing the Redbirds to go ahead 4-3, a lead they would never relinquish.

Many fans and writers second-guessed Kuenn’s decision to leave southpaw McClure in the game to face Hendrick with the series on the line, and right-hander Haas ready in the bullpen. But Haas was ineffective in the October classic, posting a 7.36 ERA (in fact, Haas yielded two important insurance runs to the Cards in the eighth inning). Harvey Kuenn would have not had to choose the lesser of two evils in this critical situation if Rollie Fingers had been available. Since the bullpen allowed 15 hits and nine walks in ten innings for an ERA of 7.20, noting that the Milwaukee Brewers missed Rollie Fingers in the 1982 World Series is a bit like saying that drummer Pete Best got a little unlucky when he was fired by the Beatles.

3. 1985 – VINCE COLEMAN, CARDINALS VS. ROYALS

Former manager Whitey Herzog knows something about how injuries affect championship games. In his book, You’re Missin’ A Great Game, Herzog states:

All my life, I’ve been good enough to get my teams close . . . . But the strangest things would happen once I got there. You’d have made money betting on Herzog teams over the long haul. But if you’d put your money on some horrible break happening at the last minute, you could have retired early In 1985, not only did The Call stomp all over us [Herzog is referring to umpire Don Denkinger calling the Royals’ Jorge Orta safe at first when he was clearly out leading off the bottom of the ninth inning in Game Six, which led to a two-run game winning rally when the Cards were three outs from the world championship], but the fastest ballplayer in history—our offensive catalyst that year, the base thief Vince Coleman—got run over by a two-mile-an- hour mechanical tarp before the Series began. Two years later we played the Twins in the Series. Two guys, Jack Clark, and Terry Pendleton, accounted for most of our offensive production that year, but both went down with late season injuries. We lost.

Let’s deal with Whitey’s bad luck in 1985 first. Vince Coleman had an incredible rookie season, stealing 110 bases while being thrown out a mere 25 times, a success rate of 81%. Further, the Cardinal teams of the ’80s will forever be remembered for playing “Whiteyball,” a high-octane running attack that in 1985 featured, besides Coleman, such speedsters as Ozzie Smith, Tommy Herr, Andy Van Slyke, and Willie McGee, each of whom stole more than 30 bases. As a team, the Cards stole 314 bases, the fourth best total in baseball history (in contrast, they hit a league low 87 home runs). Yet in the Series, the Redbirds managed two stolen bases.

Even more astounding, they attempted only five steals in the entire series! Royals catcher Jim Sundberg caught all seven games. True, over his career he was an excellent defensive catcher with a powerful and accurate arm. But during the regular season, Sundberg nailed 25 of 85 runners, for a 29% average. Yet, in the Coleman-less series, he nailed three of the paltry five Cardinal base thieves, for an average of 60%!

Coleman did get another chance, two years later, against the Twins in the 1987 classic. Despite a poor series at bat, hitting only .143 with a .200 OBA, he stole six bases and was not caught once. Although utility outfielder Tito Landrum played left field in his absence in the ’85 series against the Royals (which did not allow the designated hitter) and batted a team-high .360, it seems a safe bet that without Vince Coleman, the St. Louis Cardinals never were able to even begin to play their style of winning baseball in the 1985 World Series.

4. 1987 – JACK CLARK, CARDINALS VS. TWINS

As we have seen, two years later Vince Coleman played in another World Series. This time it was the absence of a slugger, Jack Clark, and not a base-stealing threat that may have prevented Herzog’s Redbirds from becoming champions. Clark was the only legitimate power threat in the Cards’ speedster lineup.

In 1987 he smacked 35 of the team total of 94 homers and drove in 106 runs in only 419 official at-bats. In addition, Clark led the National League with a .597 slugging average, a .459 OBA, and 136 walks. But on September 7, Clark severely sprained his ankle and was done for the season. Although he made one pinch-hitting appearance in St. Louis’s seven-game NLCS victory over the San Francisco Giants, he missed the entire World Series against the Twins, which the Cards lost in seven games.

This time the designated hitter was allowed in the four home games played in the Metrodome, and Herzog replaced first baseman Clark with a tandem of Curt Ford, Dan Driessen, and Jim Lindeman at both DH and first. None of them played particularly poorly (Lindeman hit .308), but it is quite likely the Redbirds missed Clark’s powerful bat in the middle of the lineup. As a team, they hit only two home runs in the entire series.

Clark would have faced left hander Frank Viola in his three starts, and southpaw Dan Schatzeder also appeared three times in the series. Oddly, in 1987 Clark reversed his career-long practice of hitting lefties better than righties, but he still posted a .543 slugging average that year against left handers. It’s also possible that the third-place Cardinals hitter missed cleanup man Clark hitting behind him (Herr batted .250 in the series with one RBI). In the 1985 season, with Clark following him in the batting order, Herr hit .302 and drove in 110 runs! In 1987, Herr came down to earth a bit, hitting .263, but he still had 83 RBI.

Perhaps, as Herzog said, it was the combination of injuries to both Clark and third baseman Terry Pendleton that doomed the Cardinals in the 1987 World Series. But unlike Clark, Pendleton did manage to appear in the fall classic, playing three of the seven games.

CONCLUSION

Of course, ultimately no one can predict with 100% certainty “what might have been” in any situation, much less the unpredictability of baseball in a short series. Still, these four examples stand out because these injured players made major contributions to their teams all season long, and when they missed the entire World Series, each of their teams lost in the seventh game.

Isn’t it reasonable to think they had they been able to contribute, they might have swung the pendulum from defeat to victory in just one game? Now imagine the consequences of these four “what might’ve beens.”

The Milwaukee Brewers would have won their only world championship, the St. Louis Cardinals may have cracked the lineup of Neyer and Epstein’s “Greatest Baseball Dynasties” with three series victories in six years in the 1980s, and the Boston Red Sox would have broken the “Curse of the Bambino” over 25 years ago!