Cincinnati Red and Dodger Blue by Tom Van Riper

Author:Tom Van Riper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Showdown

Entering the last day of June 1973, the Reds’ record sat at 39–36. A 12–15 mark during the month had left them 10 games behind the first-place Dodgers, who had won 20 of 28 during the same stretch. Last year, June was the month in which Cincinnati made its big move to roll past Los Angeles and take over first place. This year, that ship had sailed. It was still early, but with the season quickly approaching its halfway point, it wasn’t that early. Up next was a four-game head-to-head series at Riverfront Stadium, Saturday, June 30, through Monday, July 2, with a Sunday doubleheader in the middle. The Dodgers stormed into town as winners of six of their past seven since their loss to the Reds in the first game of the doubleheader a week earlier. Now they had a chance to bury their rivals just before the Fourth of July. If the Reds didn’t play well, they’d be ringing in Independence Day as the unofficial end of their season, set to just play out the string the rest of the way.

It would be a crazy series. It’s not hyperbolic to say that the 90,000 or so people who made it out to Riverfront saw some of the finest, most dramatic baseball they would ever see between two of the best teams ever assembled. All four games would be decided in the winning team’s final turn at bat. Two went to extra innings. Heroes of both the likely and unlikely variety would emerge.

In the Saturday night opener, both managers went with lefties. Hall, despite losing to L.A. in his first start of the year the previous week, got the ball for the Reds. Osteen, on a roll with seven straight wins, a run that had improved his record to 10–3 and lowered his ERA from 3.67 to 2.91, was up for the Dodgers. Both clubs tweaked their lineups to load up on right-handed hitting: Anderson gave Morgan a break ahead of the next day’s doubleheader in favor of the switch-hitting Chaney at second base. Alston sat Buckner and Crawford, playing Garvey at first, Mota in left, and Paciorek in right. Before this game ended, though, nearly everyone would be in on the action.

If Reds fans fearing the onset of a collapse were tense at the beginning, they didn’t have to wait long to exhale and let loose a cheer. After the Dodgers went down in order in the top of the first, Perez came up and drilled his 13th homer of the year off Osteen in the bottom half, a two-run shot to put Cincinnati ahead 2–0. Both pitchers then quickly settled into their grooves. Hall allowed the Dodgers just three hits over five shutout innings. Osteen matched him, coming back from the early Perez homer to allow just two hits over his next four innings to keep the score 2–0 entering the sixth. Hall opened that inning by walking Lopes. He quickly got the next two outs, but Cey got L.

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