Down to the Last Pitch: How the 1991 Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves Gave Us the Best World Series of All Time by Wendel Tim

Author:Wendel, Tim [Wendel, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780306822773
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2014-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Game Six

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1991

AT HUBERT H. HUMPHREY METRODOME

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

By the bottom of the eleventh inning things had gotten to the point at which Kirby Puckett believed he could predict the future. Leading off the inning, Puckett told teammate Chili Davis, who was in the on-deck circle, that his services would no longer be needed in this game, one that would be remembered as one for the ages. If Atlanta’s latest reliever, left-hander Charlie Leibrandt, got his changeup up in the strike zone, he told Davis he was going to end it right here and now.

Legend has it that Puckett said something like, “You listening, Dog? It’s going to be all over. We can’t have another game like we did down in Atlanta, where TK runs out of players and has to ask poor Aggie to bat. I’m going to take pitches, I tell ya, Dog. Take pitches until that changeup of Leibrandt’s rides up in the zone. It’s going to rise, I tell ya, Chili Dog, and when it does I plan to do something about it.”

With that, Kirby Puckett stepped up to the plate, with the score tied at 3–3. No matter that until this point in the 1991 World Series the Twins’ star had just five hits in twenty-one at-bats and hadn’t demonstrated much patience at the plate. He had struck out twice against Leibrandt back in Game One. Yet as Chili Davis and the rest of the baseball world looked on, Puckett did begin to wait Leibrandt out. Waiting for that changeup to rise in the zone.

Decades later Davis remembered that he and Puckett were indeed jawing with each other before this epic World Series at-bat. But it is funny how things can be played up, warped beyond recognition over the years, especially when something of real consequence takes place. Davis, who was as close to Puckett as anybody on the 1991 Twins, recalled their conversation quite differently from what was later chronicled, even by Puckett himself.

“We were barking at each other,” Davis agreed. “But we were barking at each other because at first Puck wanted to bunt.”

Bunt?

Davis and I were speaking across one of the tables in the Oakland Athletics’ clubhouse, where the ex-slugger now worked as the team’s hitting coach.

“You heard what I said,” Davis smiled. “Puck at first was all set to bunt his way on. Believe it or not, he came up to me and said, ‘Dog, I’ve got this game plan. Tell me what you think. I don’t hit these soft throwers like Leibrandt very well.’

“Now you have to remember that Puck could really bunt. He had a good chance of bunting for a hit. So he’s all excited and telling me, ‘I’ll get one down and then I’ll steal second. You hit these guys—better than me. Take it to the gap, and I’ll score the winner. That will be the ballgame.’”

With that Davis leaned back in his chair, remembering this moment from decades ago, and shook his head. How did

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