Today is the 30th anniversary of Kirk Gibson’s memorable, no-legged home run in the first game of the 1988 World Series.
What seems forgotten in all of his heroics, however, is a very simple lesson, taught with extreme prejudice by the Baseball Gods that night: don’t EVER walk a .199 hitter with two outs, no one on in the 9th inning of a game you’re winning by one run.
Mike Davis never took many walks. Dennis Eckersley was pretty good about not walking guys at all. But that night, on that stage, he put a guy with a .530 OPS on base in front of Gibson, and the rest is “I don’t believe what I just saw!” magic.
Was watching that series live with my Dad when it happened. We both jumped up and started hollering lord only knows what. Amazing, amazing moment. I still remember the “oh man… that’s not good” look on Eckersley’s face as he watched the ball.
I grew up a Dodger fan in the 60’s and saw several games in LA. I saw Koufax pitch once. But in the 70s and 80’s for various reasons we had started going to several A’s games every year. I was almost at that point were I wasn’t sure which was my true favorite anymore, until Gibson hit that home run. My reaction proved to me who still had my allegiance and I have never questioned it since.
Between Roberto Osuna signing (man was it fun seeing him and the Astros get some karma payback just now) and now this, getting hard to like Houston very much any more:
LOL. I’m not sure who Joel Sherman is running coffee for, but he may wanna pull his nose out of Manfred’s ass, because this is looking life a very serious damned thing.
Man. If the Dodgers aren’t hitting them over the fence, they’re not scoring are they? Even when they’re getting guys on, it’s pop-ups, force outs and whiffs…not even moving the man up.
Let me be completely clear that Cleveland was outplayed at every point in that series. But still… that’s the kind of thing that eats at you and invites a lot of "what if"s.
On top of the Osuna shit sandwich and Boston being Boston: go NL?
Yea, you combine that play and his slides into second yesterday and even as a Dodger fan I have to say it is some of the dirtiest baseball I have ever seen.
“Handful” is a polite word for it. Christian Yelich was more direct (from the Chicago Tribune):
“He’s a player that has a history of those types of incidents,” Milwaukee slugger Christian Yelich said. “One time is an accident. Repeated over and over and over again, you’re just a dirty player. It’s a dirty play by a dirty player, and that’s what it is. I have a lot of respect for him as a player, but you can’t respect someone who plays the game like that.”
