They Called Me God by Doug Harvey & Peter Golenbock

Author:Doug Harvey & Peter Golenbock
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Gallery Books

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Red was managing in my first World Series in 1968 against the Detroit Tigers. With the Cardinals leading three games to one, game five pitted the Cards’ Nellie Briles against Mickey Lolich of Detroit. St. Louis needed to win only one more game to take the series. The game was played in Tiger Stadium. It was a day game, back when the World Series was still played during the day.

With the Cardinals ahead 3–0 in the fifth inning, the speedy Lou Brock doubled. Julian Javier then hit a single to left field. Brock rounded third as the left fielder, Willie Horton, came up throwing. He threw a pea to Tigers catcher Bill Freehan.

Brock didn’t slide. With Freehan in the way, Brock altered his line to the plate, and as he ran past it, Freehan tagged him. I had a perfect view. Brock never touched the plate. He didn’t miss by much, perhaps an inch, but I could see the space between the plate and Brock’s cleats, and I called him out.

When I called Brock out, it was the turning point in the series, because pictures showed that just before I made my call Tigers manager Mayo Smith was stepping onto the top step of the dugout to take Lolich out of the game. When I called Brock out, he left Lolich in, and Lolich went on to win the game 5–3. The Tigers then won the next two games to win the series four games to three.

I was criticized by National Leaguers for calling Brock out, but when Doug Harvey is umpiring, there is no such thing as a league. I could have called Brock safe just as easily and nobody would have argued. Nobody. But my heart wouldn’t let me do it. Had Brock slid, he would have been safe, and I’d have called him safe. But he didn’t, and it changed baseball history.

Red came charging out. With Red, whenever the call went against him, you were wrong. Like his star pitcher, there was nothing fair about him in any way.

Red Schoendienst’s biggest gripe was that he said I never gave his pitchers the high pitch. Well, you have to understand that whether a pitch is a ball or a strike is determined by where it’s located when it goes across the front of home plate. And I could never get people to understand that. Batters stand at the rear of the batter’s box because they need as much time as they can get to hit the ball. They have perhaps a hundredth of a second to hit it, so they stand as far back as they can. The ball would come downhill from the mound, would be shin-high at the front of the plate, and then as it crossed the plate it would be knee-high. That pitch is a ball, and as a result Red would be complaining, “Harvey never calls anything above the belt line.”

Well, that wasn’t true, but I couldn’t get Red to understand that.

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