August 26, 2020 • 38 mins
No one knew how MLB would return from the strike year of 1994. Well, it actually involved the most recently forfeited game in baseball history, the passing of the game's biggest legend, one player stepping up to bring the sport all the way back from the brink, something we hadn't seen in over 100 years, and a post-season we had NEVER seen. And it all culminates with the best single season team in baseball history who didn't win the World Series.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Special Teams, a production of I Heart Radio
Greetings and Welcome inside Special Teams, the weekly podcast where
(00:23):
we take a look back at a special year and
some special teams that achieved in the world of sports.
I'm Jason Smith alongside me Mike Harmon. Every week we
bring you this show and we're in a run now.
We'd like to call I Love the nineties. Last week
we look back at NFL seasons of the Lions and
the Browns, and today we're gonna take a look back
(00:44):
at the Major League Baseball season. This was the year
coming back from the strike. We had odd of these.
We had controversies, we lost legends, we had a crazy playoff,
we had tiebreakers. Uh, this season in Major League Baseball
really had it all because nobody knew what it was
gonna be. Like my coming back from the strike, we
(01:05):
didn't have baseball that canceled the World Series? What's baseball
is gonna be like? Are the same teams were good?
Nine four gonna be good? Nobody had any expectations to
what we're gonna see. Well, and and that's it because
the strike extended into the year too, right, I mean,
so when you when you look at the ninety four season,
like Southside Chicago and in me still raise a fist
(01:26):
and anger. I celebrate Frank Thomas's m v P. But
the questions of what could have been for the good
folks of Montreal, a question of what could have been
uh and all that. I still have a couple of
uh commemorative baseballs from that season that are still back
in the day. So it's just the oddity and the
(01:50):
anger and the just the handwringing of what was to come.
So return from the strike didn't happen opening day. The
strike carried well over into people forget they only played
four games that year instead of one sixty two, because
once they walked away from the bargaining table, they stayed
away for a long time. It only got solved when
(02:11):
the owners decided, we're gonna have replacement players play, so
all right, now, let's get this going. They finally agreed
and they started in late April. The strike lasted a
total of two hundred and thirty two days. When it
was all said and done, and everybody was happy to
have baseball back. I remember I was a production assistant
at ESPN. It was really weird just not seeing the
(02:32):
world series, not covering it, not having a champion, and
not having a season start that way. It was. It
was really devastating because was one of the best seasons
baseball was having in a long time. You had a
lot of interest, You had potentially the home run record
being broken. Tony Gwyn might have hit four hundred, and
now that got taken away, and so people's return to
(02:53):
baseball kind of came at arms length. You know, it's
one of the Okay, baseball's back, but we're still angry.
We're still a little bit We've we've gotten along without
it for a long time, and anytime you get along
without something coming back to it is never as easy.
This wasn't Hey, we're throwing our arms around the game.
In fact, I'll tell you it needed something that happened
in September to actually bring the game all the way back.
(03:14):
But I'm getting ahead of that a little bit. Yeah, no,
we'll leave that for I mean, because think about it
started with so much promise. Michael Jordan's signed his minor
league deal with the White Sox. You had tough ee
roads and three home runs against the Mets, of the
Mets still won the game, and you just go on
down and it's like all these oddities who were happening,
(03:35):
And as you said, and as we talked about, some
of these great individual performances go to the wayside of oh,
what could have been m So what was in store
for us in Well, let's start on August ten, which
turned out to be the most recently forfeited Major League
Baseball game. No game has been forfeited since August ten,
(03:58):
when the Dodgers lost a game to the Cardinals because
it was Baseball Night at Dodger Stadium and after some
bad calls, fans got upset and they started throwing baseballs
on the field, and the umpires finally said, forget it,
this is not safe. You guys forfeit And it was
(04:19):
it was groundbreaking. It was wait, but we had a
four actually had a forfeit, and we had a forfeit. Yeah,
and the umpires, I remember this vividly, saying everything was
fine until Tommy Lasorda came out of the dugout. One
of the umpires said, waving his fat little arms because
he wanted to argue a call and he knew that
if I come out and I do this or this
is what the umpires were insinuating if I knew, if
(04:41):
I come out and I do this, fans are gonna
throw baseballs on the field like that. You knew that
was And that's exactly what happened. They said everything was
fine until Losorda, you know, came out throwing his arms
up in the air. Everybody throws baseballs on the field
and the game gets forfeited. Madness, right, I mean, this
is disco demolition in the middle of a game. Yes,
she didn't blow anything up, but to think that many
(05:02):
baseballs are flying around and you know, tell me Losorda
one of the great ambassadors of the game, but a
man who could get salty with the language pretty fast
performance the guys perfornt a guy at three oh runs
office tonight. What do you mean is perform? So yeah,
and just think about how angry he was. Yeah, I mean,
you've never seen I remember because I did a feature
(05:22):
on that on Sports Center. There was some real crazy
things that happened in uh umpiring that weekend baseball and
I did this story and I was like, this is
just crazy, Like I remember coming. It was one of
those stories where you didn't know about it until the
next day because it happened late on the West coast.
Unless you watch Sports Center A two thirty in the morning,
you're like, wait, the Dodgers forfeited, forfeited again, how do
(05:43):
you forfeit a game didn't have enough players, players leave
to go home. Wait, they were throwing baseballs on the field.
And since then, baseball day at stadiums was always been
met with kind of a sideways glance of yeah, I
don't know throwing if having a baseball giveaway is the
smartest thing to do. Baseballs and bats are one of
those nights where I think teams go, oh, baseball bat day,
base when when I was a kid, I wish I
(06:06):
still had them because they were fantastic. Eventually my parents like,
you know, I'm not taking into my dorm room, so
as soon as I'm out of the house, all this
stuff's gone. But the White Sox used to give full
size bats and it would have a guy's you know,
name etched into it. You know whoever the slugger of
the year was with the socks little m and I look, man,
(06:29):
he know, every once in a while he couldn't find
the whiffle bat and the wooden bat would come out.
We had a couple of pretty gruesome injuries because of
those wooden bats back in the day. Sorry, little brother,
but you know he wanted to catch. What are you
gonna do? Uh? It's he's okay now, but nowadays you
can't get away with even the mini bats. I don't
(06:51):
see those for sale in the gift shop. Uh. So
that's what happened on August tent we had the Dodgers
forfeited game. Like a lot of it was home plate
balls and strikes calls that the Dodges very upset with
Role Mondescy. There was an at bat in the ninth
inning where it was just really I mean, balls are
(07:11):
like three ft off the plate and Mondescy strikes out.
This is when Losorta comes running out. Balls are being
thrown on the field. The umpires very insistently call everybody off,
and Losorda is trying to yell at the people stopped
throwing baseballs on the field. Brian Jordan's, who is playing
outfield for the Cardinals, is trying to get baseballs and
throw them back. It was just that kind of night.
(07:33):
Cardinals wind up winning the game. The final score is
two to one, and it was forfeited in the ninth inning.
The most recent forefeit before that game for the Dodgers
nineteen sixteen, they won a game by forfeits. So I
get a figure every eight five years or so, you're
gonna win or lose a game via forfeit, A chief
balance in the force. It was just three days after
(07:54):
that that we lost a legend. On August thirteen, Mickey
Mantel died due to liver failure. And it was a
well UH chronicled story. He had had years of drinking
and partying. I remember when it was first announced he
needed a liver. It was such a serious story, such
a blow because Mickey Mantle is a hero to so
many people who would watch baseball, grown up watching baseball.
(08:17):
And there was a big uproar that happened when he
got a liver, when he was put on the UH
the list of of needing a liver after just one day,
and there were groups that stood up and said, how
does Mickey Mantle get a liver just because he was
a baseball player. I don't understand, even though doctors had
to have a press conference and say no, but they
(08:38):
understood the favoritism that's gonna look like Mickey Mantle getting
a liver, but they said that look, a liver came
in that matched him, because obviously not all livers match
other people. So he gets a liver in June, and
it was it was kind of controversial at the time,
and it made it for a couple of months. But
he had cancer as well, and Nicky Mantle passed away
on August thirteen, and it was just a you know,
(08:59):
the the end of of such a tragic life for him,
even though it was filled with such incredible wonder on
the field, not taking care of his body and it
was I remember that week or so right there after
Mickey Mantle's death. A lot of people and you can
talk to your dad about it or you know, if
you're listening, you remember, you remember the emotional feeling boy
Mickey Mantle passed away and there was no more charismatic
(09:20):
ball player when they played than Mickey new Yeah, you know,
having family that in the medical field, extended family and
talking about this with their knowledge of transplantation, you know,
you go through the list you've got to be clean from,
you know, the the stuff in your system for a
(09:44):
period of time, and then there's categories based on how
sick you are. And he had been diagnosed and and
was given weeks to live without it, and so you
know that's top of the charts, and there's always going
to be the question of recipients. And know he was
very generous with his time there, made sure you know, here,
I'm gonna sign a ton of baseballs for the people
(10:06):
taking care of me. You know, it was you know,
courteous and kind. And yeah, it's that debate that happens
even today when you see someone seemingly jumped the line
doesn't mean it's necessarily so, but we we know the
court of public opinion is going to have their run
on it. Not to mention the fact that a guy
(10:26):
like Mickey Mantle what he meant to that generation. Right,
it's Willie Mickey and the Duke, the song we still
sing in. Uh, maybe with Homer Simpson lyrics messed around
with it, but the same idea of just that hero. Uh.
And I gotta say the Mickey Mantles story, there was
uh an adaptation of it when I was in grade
(10:47):
school that I must have done the book report every
six d eight weeks. Yeah, I know, I know. With
Sandy Kofax, I had a Sandy Kofax book. Then every
year I do a book report on Sandy Kofax. Yeah,
I cycled it through. There was some romanticism to it
of you know, a farm kid injuries that he overcame,
and and certainly we we know the lifestyle that he
(11:10):
lad brought him to that point, and his family set
up the foundation that the don a ton of good
in his name. Before he passed, he had done p
s A is about you know, hey, take care of yourself,
go to the doctor, listen to your doctor. All of
those kind of things, and and controversy that still comes up. Uh.
Survival rate Uh was negligible at that point, but you know,
(11:34):
it shows how fast technology and medical advances are that
you have a if it's caught early enough, you've got
a pretty good chance of reversing it. It's Major League
baseball season, and as we continue, we'll get to the
moment that officially brought baseball back from the strike, a
moment we had never seen before we all wanted to see.
(11:55):
And a playoff tie breaker for the ages. All that
and more on the way on special teams. Baseball season
(12:20):
kind of a lazy river of drama, except the river
went like a hundred and fifty trying to come back
from the strike. It was clear that this year, look,
people wanted baseball back. They were happy it was back,
but there was no moment that cemented that baseball was
back from the strike and we were ready to start
over the clean slate. Then on September six, when Cal
(12:43):
Ripken played in his two thousand, one thirty first consecutive game,
breaking Lou Garrig's record, I remember thinking that moment, you know,
he breaks the record, the game becomes official, and he
starts running around the outside of the stands high fiving
the fans. That was such an incredible and powerful moment.
All I could think of watching that at the time
(13:05):
was Baseball's back. Now. He single handedly brought baseball back
by showing up to work every day. And in a
sport where it's always about guys who at home runs
and and Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire, it was about
baseball not coming to work, which pissed everybody off, and
then it was about this guy coming to work every
day that brought baseball back. It was just one of
(13:26):
those moments where it just clicked in your head. Okay,
everything's forgiven. We gotta move on the old adage of
is just showing up. And for Cal Ripken, for a
country that's you know, blue collar I mean growing up
in Chicago, right, a lot of blue collar jobs, city workers,
everything else. I mean, that was that was the guy
(13:47):
because he came to play. That's why there's controversy about
you know, Harold Main's in outside of Chicago. But the
appreciation of all right, even though after he ripped up
his knees, you know what, he was in the lineup
every day and he shut up and he and he
went to work. And so you know, Cal Ripkins celebrated
with the giant milestones in addition to this one, and
(14:08):
a much needed shot in the arm as attendants dip
coming off the strikes. So anything that was going to
give them a boost of positivity in any way was
gonna be huge. So why not celebrate the everyman attitude
of one of your game's elite players. So Ripken brings
baseball back, and we steamed towards the playoffs with a
(14:29):
new lease on Baseball life. And then on September something
happened we hadn't seen since eighteen. Oh nice, you know
me a beer? We said at the same time. Uh,
I'm sorry, I thought you lobbed it up. Zion Williamson
coming in from we've been working you, Lonzo ball. How
(14:50):
you like that? We've been working together too long and
we both did well. Uh. And this is a story
that I was fascinated by because I remember when he
first came up, Greg Harris, Greg A. Harris, because there
were two pitchers named Greg Harris who played at the
same time. Right, he was Greg W. Harris. Right, this
is Greg A. Harris. Remember when he came up. He
(15:11):
was he was a player that he was amphibious. Right,
he could, he was amphibious. He could throw with both arms.
And he had a special glove that he could pitch
that he would wear that would we work on either
hand whatever he wanted to. And there was a lot
of talk that he was going to be the first
pitcher in a game to pitch in one game from
both sides and and pitch righty and lefty. Well, finally
(15:32):
happened on September first picture since eight to pitch with
both hands in the game. He faced four batters, two
from each side. They wound up losing to the Reds. Uh.
The expos did, and I just remember it was for
so long he'd do it, and I thought more pitchers
would come up and be able to do that, Like
for how many how many baseball parents did I think
(15:53):
they were gonna be saying, Okay, kid, this is what
you're gonna do. We're gonna come and you're gonna throw
a hundred pitches with your right arm and a hundred
pitches with your left arm, and you're gonna do it
every single day until you can make the major leagues.
I'm gonna turn you into this guy that can now pitch,
and you could be your own reliever, and you can
switch and go from right to left whenever you want to.
I'm really surprised there weren't some crazy dad's who tried
to do that more with their kids after the story
(16:14):
came out. I'm sure there were. They just didn't get
anywhere with it because a kid either got frustrated or
went back to saying, all right, the off arm doesn't
work so well, dad, I can't throw lefty. Come on, well,
it's like, how many times did you did you play around?
You know, when you were emulating your your favorite player,
not to go all batting stance guy, but you'd go
(16:35):
and you'd hit from the opposite way, and all of
you listening out there, you did it right. You You
went and you took the stance of your favorite guy
that batted from the opposite side to your normal and
maybe you found that there was something a little different
about the way you hit. When I started screwing around
with it, I found that I could hit a ball
a country mile if I batted lefty. The problem is
(16:56):
I didn't have control. I swung and miss far more frequently,
whereas batting righty, I had great back control and could
place at least at the little league level, and then
I became overmatched and that was the end of that.
But batting left, he's like, yeah, he crushes it when
he hits it. How often does he hit it? Don't
(17:17):
worry about it, I get the percentages. Just just enjoy
the prodigious blasts, like yeah, I mean, I'm not talking
like three, you know, you know, I get what you're saying,
a bunch of homers, but prodigious blasts when you're ten. Yeah, okay, yeah,
did I get it? I understand what it is. All
on the theory of relativity. Uh So that turned out
to be Harris's final year in Major League baseball. So
(17:38):
he finishes doing something that we hadn't seen it in
a hundred years, uh in the game, and now we
get set for the serious part of the season, the playoffs. However,
the Angels and the Mariners had to play a tiebreaker
game to the side the a l West. On August three,
Seattle was thirteen games back of the then California Angels. Right,
(17:59):
it was okay, what are you gonna do your thirteen
games back? You're playing out the string. However, California gave
up their lead with ten games left, so this wasn't
like all the way down to the final game Seattle
catches California and they got to play a playoff. No,
California gave away this lead with ten games left, and
there was no pins and needles. They were terrible. In fact,
(18:20):
California had to win the last five games just to
force a playoff against Seattle. And it was a tough
time in Seattle because it was this year that there
was a lot of rumors that Seattle was going to
move because look, Tampa wanted a team. There was a
long time rumor that Tampa was going to get a
team they were pushing for it, and Seattle was going
(18:40):
to be that team. It was a big not not
quite a make or break year, but maybe without this
year for the Seattle Mariners. They wind up moving to Tampa.
They play this playoff game and it's a close game
until Louise Soho doubles down the first baseline bases loaded,
everybody scores. Was a close game. Mark Langston, who's the
(19:01):
picture for the Angels, makes a bad throwing her He
cuts off the throw to the plate for an unknown reason.
He had an out at second base, but there was
a miscommunication. You didn't get an out earlier. It was.
It was just a bad time and a bad run
right there for Mark Lanson, who had been a really
good picture for the most part. And Rex Huddler, who
was one of his best friends on the team, you know,
(19:23):
says something to him to try to to ant him up,
and in the dugout you can see this. It's it's
it's incredible video. Is Huddler, you know, says something to
to Langston and then he's trying to get ready because
he's going to bat the editing and Langston goes and
sits right next to Huddler. And goes blank, you hud
and he just stands there staring at him like we're
gonna if you look at me, we're gonna fight. And
it was really uncomfortable and I was like, oh, this dude,
(19:46):
this looks like they're gonna be a fight. It just
looked like, Huddler, don't look up at him. Don't look
up at him. You know. They apologized after the game
that turned out to be a big Seattle win. They
go onto the playoffs in California, goes home. But that
moment is just you if you watch that, if you
could watch video of that, you see you go, oh,
this is scary. Man. Mark Lankson looks like the most
upset men you've ever seen in your life. So the
(20:08):
Angels lose and the Mariners go on to the playoffs,
and look, you know, we talk about dynasties that never
were in you know, dynastis that should have happened. This
Seattle Mariners team is absolutely loaded. However, they needed a
big win to save baseball in Seattle. We got that
coming up next, as well as how the World Series
(20:29):
goes down and a television baseball decision that I can't
believe was made back then, but yet it was that's
coming up next right here on special teams. If what
(20:57):
we've told you about hasn't been batmanan is crazy so
far with well, now we get to the playoffs and
some of the drama. They're unmatched in recent years in
Major League Baseball, this was the first year with the
wild card, and it was a big deal for Major
League Baseball to implement it. Nowadays, we add wild cards
(21:17):
all the time. NFL, We're gonna had a wild card.
Basically mess with the sanctity of my game, Jason, we're
gonna add a wild card. Let's add a wild card?
About a wild card? We had, well, but back then
it was a big deal because baseball had lived for
so long on division champions get in and that's it,
and and moving to three divisions. Yeah, you you could.
You could get away with that for a long time.
But that could never happen now because there's too much
(21:39):
more interest. People would unplug. Fans would unplug if a
team is eliminated by the middle of July. But going
to baseball games and watching baseball games was kind of
what you did. Now there's too much more to gain
your attention, and if teams fall out of the running. Well,
guess what, Baseball's business goes down the tubes. So now
they decide, hey, we're gonna have different divisions. We're gonna
have wild card teams and see how it goes. The
(22:01):
one thing baseball didn't figure out yet was putting games
on opposite each other, so playoff games were only televised regionally.
Who the hell said that was a good idea? You
know what, let's let's have the major League Baseball player.
We're gonna add games and that all kinds of interest.
What about the games? I'll just put them on regionally. Wait, wait,
every game is not gonna be nationally televised. Nah, you
(22:24):
think people are gonna want to watch all these Yeah,
it's okay, we'll just put them on regionally. You talk
about watching millions and millions and millions of dollars just
fly out the window. Some business decisions that I see
happen in the past. I I shake my head because
I I just go, uh, it's it's it's a fastball
down the middle to say let's put all the games
on Nashville. All the playoff games before on national TV
(22:46):
not gonna be on now? Why it's too tough, it's
too tough of a of a situation to get it.
So they're all gonna be on regionally only, and that's
what it was. Now it's one that's still just you
do the re search and go back to that time
and you just shake your head, you know, in terms
of the dollars and cents, and I got a one
(23:07):
for the PostScript on this year that'll blew your mind. Teams.
But uh, you know TVs right superstation, w g N superstation.
Uh No, Uh, TBS had obviously the Braves, but then
they did the All Star Games stuff from from from Cincinnati,
(23:30):
so they were there. The t N T bit on
the rights in those went to ESPN, and then eventually,
you know, you have the the big offer in of hey,
we'll give you forty five million dollars for rights to
be in. No. Uh, instead you have ABC and NBC
(23:51):
with this thing called the Baseball Network that was short
lived here. But they didn't they didn't pick up on
the fact that you know what, in the middle of
the day people find the game, stagger them by an hour.
Even give yourself a fighting chance and go national and
have partners and build this up because major League Baseball
(24:12):
was the leader and going in an embracing technology eventually.
I know it's always seen as stayed a whole other
thing because the rules have to be rewritten seemingly every
couple of minutes because of the pandemic. But you know,
back when it was audio first of broadcasts into then
streaming video, Baseball led the way. They might have gone
(24:35):
kicking and screaming, but the folks at BAM and and
everything realized there was a market to be had for
all the transplants, and they did it. It's it's amazing
how short of span it was from not doing the
national broadcast here to becoming the leaders and that technology
just in a matter of a couple of years. All Right,
(24:56):
we blew that one. Let's figure it out. So the
playoffs go on, whether you saw the games or not.
And uh we mentioned that big Yankees Mariner series, which
has been documented quite a few times, the the Edgar
Martinez game winning double in Game five to win the series,
the series that saved baseball in Seattle, because after that
there was no talk of, hey, we're gonna wind up
(25:18):
moving the team. And this is a team that was
Griffy and Martinez and Alex Rodrie and JB. How could
you try it? And you know certain teams you look
back in history and go, man, they should have won more,
and they should have won more. Yeah, clearly, Yeah, the
Mariners should have found a way to win the World
Series at least once. Randy Johnson, I mean, this team
had everything and and they they just couldn't find a way.
(25:41):
They couldn't find a way to get to the World Series.
They couldn't find a way to get all their talent
and have it all come through it once at a
tough time keeping Ken Griffey healthy. But boy, you look
at this lineup, you go, these are Hall of Fame players.
I mean, you got three guys in the middle of
the order that are all Hall of Fame players, and
you got a Hall of Fame Johnson on the mound, right.
I mean, because this continued, he goes all the way
(26:03):
to two thousand one, right where they went a hundred
and sixteen games and still never got over. Uh. It
also helped build the dynasty for the New York Yankees
because it was such a disappointing loss for the Yankees.
As good as they were, they were becoming a really
good team Buck show Walter got fired. You get all
the way. Hey, here they are in the in the playoffs,
they played well. The Yankees have been bad for so long.
(26:25):
Here they are in because people forget the Yankees were
terrible once they finished their dynasty in the eighties. They
loosed the Dodgers in the World Series in one. They
were bad. They were bad. They were backpage laughing stocks.
Don Mattingley was the best player the Yankees had, and
he came He came up the year after they went
to the playoffs, and he retired the year before they
won the World Series. Uh, Joe Tory comes in to
(26:48):
take over, and of course he wins the World Series
in Uh. You know Buck show Walter, who we talked
about him in the previous episode of Special Teams about
how Buck show left teams right before his teams won
the World Series. Set him out nicely. If he doesn't
get fired, maybe Buck Showalter has like eight rings. You know,
(27:08):
look at all these World series I'm winning. He can
have the pictures alongside the old ones. We see the
Joki Barrack. Here's all my rings. Look at it's right here.
So we get to the World Series. The Mariners fall
short and this is the Braves and the Cleveland Indians.
And I know we say this a lot about certain teams,
(27:31):
but for me, well, for this was the Cleveland Indians
return to prominence because you talk about the lovable losers
for so long, the Indians were just bad. But here
they are and you look at this team. That's the
first World Series and over forty years, this is probably
the best team to never win the World Series a
single year. Like you look at all the teams were
(27:52):
runners up. This is this is, without a doubt, the
best team that didn't win the World Series. They won
the Central by thirty bleeping games, all right, This is
when they only had a hundred forty four games. Remember
they they didn't play eight team more games. They won
a hundred games. They might have won more than a
hundred and ten if they played a full hundred sixty
two games. I mean to win by that many games.
(28:14):
They were loaded everywhere. This Cleveland Indians team had everything
and going into the World Series, you know, look, we
had seen Atlanta play before, but we've seen Atlanta falls short.
I didn't think this is gonna be the Braves year
because the Indians were just too good everywhere they would.
They were too. Their pitching was great, their hitting was
through the roof. This was a team and the Indians
(28:35):
were gonna do it, and they were gonna end the
run of of of no championships in Cleveland. This is
the team that was gonna do it. Thirty nine year
old Eddie Murray as the d H still with one
homers and two r by still doesn't look right in
the Cleveland Indians uniform. Played with the Mets too, Yeah,
I know, a young Manny Ramirez, Kenny Loft and stealing bases.
(28:57):
Albert Bell was a fifty fifty guy bad three seventeen,
my guy, Mr incredible, Jim Tomay back when he could
play third base and seventy three was what he came
up with that year. But he did walk uh ninety
(29:18):
seven times and three fourteen so and Sandy Alamar was
the backup catcher, I mean, and to to go through
how deep it was because we know how well you
know he called the game and would have some clutch
you know, moments at the plate as well. But I
mean Oral hirshas her sixteen game winners, Charles Naggy sixteen
game winner, Denny Martinez with twelve wins and jule On
(29:42):
Tavares had ten wins as a reliever. I mean, you
had everybody he had, Paul Austin Mocker. I just wanted
to say, you had big years from Paul Sorrento at
first base. And don't forget Omar vis Kell, who had
a run as one of the top three shortstop in
baseball for a long time. You know, this team maybe
top to bottom, you know, paying you Sorrento, Carlos bay
(30:04):
Erga who drove in ninety runs, vis Kel, Tony bell Loft,
and Ramirez, Eddie Murray. This is there are no outs
in this lineup. Now there's there's zero outs. I can't
believe they made it out during the regular season. There
are no out home runs averaging nearly six runs per
game scored. HM, they had every They're starting pitching, even
(30:25):
though it was really good, not not as quite as
good as the hitting. Obviously, the hitting gets a lot
of attention, and rightfully so, because this is a team
that hit unlike so many teams in the history of baseball. Uh,
but you're still okay. You're you're anchored by a couple
of really good pitchers. You mentioned Oral Hersheiser, that's the
one thing you can say, all right, where are they
a tiny bit vulnerable? But it shouldn't have mattered. It
(30:46):
should be this team should have just done. It was
the great Atlanta Braves pitching Maddox and Smoltz and Glavin
and Steve Avery. People forget Avery and the fact that
when it came to a big game, Bobby Cox would
always put uh John Smoltz on the mound. He was
their best big game picture. I mean, it was strength
versus strength, and I realized, all right, well, the Indians
(31:07):
are gonna win this. Uh there was there was There
was not a second where I thought this is gonna
wind up going to the Atlanta Braves. Well in the
middle of the season. Also, you celebrate the three thousand
hit for Eddie Murray, so you know, big, big time milestone.
Will be curious to see how many if we ever
see those again, uh going forward. But yeah, this this
was a juggernaut team certainly, Uh looking up at them
(31:30):
all season, you know as a south side Chicago and
uh that that was just a runaway and hide. So
it's always the question though, and when you clinch that early,
how hungry are you? Can you flip it? Back on
all the questions we ask about NBA teams or NFL teams.
When you sit for the final two weeks of the
regular season, because everything's wrapped up, you always wonder how
(31:54):
much of that is still sitting in the background, no
matter how dominant you are at certain points, you know,
is it is it something that you can just get
that machine running once again. And when you look at
what's how some of the Indians hit in the World Series,
you see batting averages under two hundred. You know, he
said Bart hit one two. You know, Bell hit two
(32:14):
thirty five, Kenny Lofton at two hundred, Eddie Murray hit
one oh five, Tony Paint at one, sixties seven Sorrentoo many,
Ramirez to twenty two, Jim Tomy to eleven, Omar Vis
Kel won seventy four. It's it's they they were stopped
in their tracks by the Braves pitching and the final scores.
It wasn't like the Braves won a lot of blowout
(32:35):
games with a lot of runs. They win three, two,
they win four, three, they win five to, they win
one nothing. These were the Braves wins and and the
Indians just just it was a bad time. To stop pitting.
But you got to give the Braves a lot of
credit because it was their pitching that did it. And
the Braves win in six games, and they win Game
(32:56):
six one nothing Tom Glavin who gets all the credit,
and so does Dave Justice. Uh Justice at a home
running this game for the only run of the game.
And here's the weird part of it is that Justice,
at this time going into Game six was hated Braves.
Fans hated him because prior to this game he ripped
the fans for not being as loud and involved as
(33:18):
they were in seasons past when the Braves were an
up and coming fun team in the late eighties early nine.
The Braves have been bad for a long time. They
went from Bob Horner and Dale Murphy. They weren't very good,
but then they they beat the Pittsburgh Pirates and Francisco
Cabrera and said Breen slide and suddenly, hey, the Brazier
America's darlings. Well, after a while of excellence and not
(33:38):
winning the World Series, the excitedness of the fans, you know,
went down a little bit because well, they wanted to win.
They didn't win, and Dave Justice calls out the fans.
I was, I'm like, oh my god, there's one sure
way to find yourself out of town or to lose
an argument, and that is called out fans of a team.
You're never gonna win ourn with the fans. But Justice
(34:02):
hits the home run for the only run of the game,
and Glavin wins it. Mark Wohler's closed it out. He
saved all four games in the series for the Braves,
and so the Braves get their loan championship and that
great run. When you talk about teams that showed to
one more with that kind of pitching staff, they should
have won more, but they lost the Yankees. They couldn't
get over the hunt more than just this series against
the Indians, and the Indians go down. Has the best
(34:24):
team to make it to the World Series and never win.
They had one seventy nine in the World Series. This
after they led the American League in batting average and
e r A during the regular season. But it's the
greatness of the bizarro world. As we uh sit in
our talking about this, people will be listening to this
for years. But the year twenty twenty, I don't know
if you noticed, Jason is a little bit odd like,
(34:47):
where would you think that I just just calling it
what it is, uh, and everybody out there shaking their
fist and cursing some format. Uh. Something that happened in
this year. Each of you have, you know, the overriding
arch overarching themes that we have as a communal uh
kind of endeavor here, but certainly in your own lives.
(35:08):
Maybe you want to point to something specific. I'll give
you three. Two In coming back off the big strike year,
major League Baseball had a lot of twists and turns,
a late start to the season, and in the oddities
you mentioned it, the Braves actually win the World Series.
(35:28):
So that was the year that was coming back from
the strike. Lissorda, the forfeit greg A, Harris, cal Ripken,
Mickey Mantle, Seattle and the Yankees, the play in game
Game number one sixty three, the oddity of the World Series,
and the best team to make it to the World
(35:49):
Series and never win. Two last things for you though
you mentioned Seattle and saving baseball. There at the end
of the year, as a Christmas present to the people
of St. Louis, Anaheuser Busch sold the team. You want
to know how much they were selling it? For dollars
in a case of bud that sounds about right. One
(36:12):
hundred fifty million dollars to a group of investors that said,
we won't move the team, and you know what that
franchise is worth right now? Because everybody loves St. Louis
Cardinal baseball, oh, I would say. I would say, although, yeah,
because you know I'm not told that all the time.
You know, they're really really smart fans. Oh, I would say,
(36:32):
the Cardinals probably about two billion, two point two billion dollars.
Not bad, not a bad return off your hundred fifty
million dollar investments. That's you know, my neighbor next door
and she she's in her nineties now, wonderful, wonderful woman,
her and her husband. We've lived next order them for
the past ten years. And I remember having a conversation
with him saying, uh, hey, so what you pay for
(36:53):
this house? He goes, well, I bought the house when
it was built. When was it built? He was it
built ninety one? And said, oh my god. They so
they lived in the house since nineteen one. And I said,
I don't want to ask you. What'd you pay for
this house? He goes, oh, it was six thousand dollars,
and I said, oh, my god, really goes. Yeah, I said,
(37:14):
what was your mortgage payment? He goes, It was thirty
bucks a month, and there was sometimes had a tough
time May and it it would go for like one
and a half million dollars for six thousand dollars in
nineteen fifty one. Not huge, but land in southern California. Baby,
Oh my goodness. But yeah, there there is your That's
(37:35):
the capper to the year of in Major League Baseball.
Our I Love the Nineties run continues next week. We're
gonna jump ahead to the magical year of nineteen ninety nine.
You have an idea for a future episode of Special Teams,
hit us up on Twitter at how about a Fresca
Mike at Swollen Dome. You can listen to our radio
(37:56):
show every night Monday through Friday on Fox Sports Radio
tenpium to AM on the East coast, seven to eleven
on the West Coast. We'll talk to you next week
with some more special teams. Before you go, rate and
(38:16):
review the show. Whether you're listening on I Heart Radio,
I Heart Radio, apps, Apple, whatever it is, give us
a rate, tell us you like it. We will love
you Forever and Ever and Ever Special Teams is a
(38:40):
production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Special Teams, a production of I Heart Radio
Greetings and Welcome inside Special Teams, the weekly podcast where
(00:23):
we take a look back at a special year and
some special teams that achieved in the world of sports.
I'm Jason Smith alongside me Mike Harmon. Every week we
bring you this show and we're in a run now.
We'd like to call I Love the nineties. Last week
we look back at NFL seasons of the Lions and
the Browns, and today we're gonna take a look back
(00:44):
at the Major League Baseball season. This was the year
coming back from the strike. We had odd of these.
We had controversies, we lost legends, we had a crazy playoff,
we had tiebreakers. Uh, this season in Major League Baseball
really had it all because nobody knew what it was
gonna be. Like my coming back from the strike, we
(01:05):
didn't have baseball that canceled the World Series? What's baseball
is gonna be like? Are the same teams were good?
Nine four gonna be good? Nobody had any expectations to
what we're gonna see. Well, and and that's it because
the strike extended into the year too, right, I mean,
so when you when you look at the ninety four season,
like Southside Chicago and in me still raise a fist
(01:26):
and anger. I celebrate Frank Thomas's m v P. But
the questions of what could have been for the good
folks of Montreal, a question of what could have been
uh and all that. I still have a couple of
uh commemorative baseballs from that season that are still back
in the day. So it's just the oddity and the
(01:50):
anger and the just the handwringing of what was to come.
So return from the strike didn't happen opening day. The
strike carried well over into people forget they only played
four games that year instead of one sixty two, because
once they walked away from the bargaining table, they stayed
away for a long time. It only got solved when
(02:11):
the owners decided, we're gonna have replacement players play, so
all right, now, let's get this going. They finally agreed
and they started in late April. The strike lasted a
total of two hundred and thirty two days. When it
was all said and done, and everybody was happy to
have baseball back. I remember I was a production assistant
at ESPN. It was really weird just not seeing the
(02:32):
world series, not covering it, not having a champion, and
not having a season start that way. It was. It
was really devastating because was one of the best seasons
baseball was having in a long time. You had a
lot of interest, You had potentially the home run record
being broken. Tony Gwyn might have hit four hundred, and
now that got taken away, and so people's return to
(02:53):
baseball kind of came at arms length. You know, it's
one of the Okay, baseball's back, but we're still angry.
We're still a little bit We've we've gotten along without
it for a long time, and anytime you get along
without something coming back to it is never as easy.
This wasn't Hey, we're throwing our arms around the game.
In fact, I'll tell you it needed something that happened
in September to actually bring the game all the way back.
(03:14):
But I'm getting ahead of that a little bit. Yeah, no,
we'll leave that for I mean, because think about it
started with so much promise. Michael Jordan's signed his minor
league deal with the White Sox. You had tough ee
roads and three home runs against the Mets, of the
Mets still won the game, and you just go on
down and it's like all these oddities who were happening,
(03:35):
And as you said, and as we talked about, some
of these great individual performances go to the wayside of oh,
what could have been m So what was in store
for us in Well, let's start on August ten, which
turned out to be the most recently forfeited Major League
Baseball game. No game has been forfeited since August ten,
(03:58):
when the Dodgers lost a game to the Cardinals because
it was Baseball Night at Dodger Stadium and after some
bad calls, fans got upset and they started throwing baseballs
on the field, and the umpires finally said, forget it,
this is not safe. You guys forfeit And it was
(04:19):
it was groundbreaking. It was wait, but we had a
four actually had a forfeit, and we had a forfeit. Yeah,
and the umpires, I remember this vividly, saying everything was
fine until Tommy Lasorda came out of the dugout. One
of the umpires said, waving his fat little arms because
he wanted to argue a call and he knew that
if I come out and I do this or this
is what the umpires were insinuating if I knew, if
(04:41):
I come out and I do this, fans are gonna
throw baseballs on the field like that. You knew that
was And that's exactly what happened. They said everything was
fine until Losorda, you know, came out throwing his arms
up in the air. Everybody throws baseballs on the field
and the game gets forfeited. Madness, right, I mean, this
is disco demolition in the middle of a game. Yes,
she didn't blow anything up, but to think that many
(05:02):
baseballs are flying around and you know, tell me Losorda
one of the great ambassadors of the game, but a
man who could get salty with the language pretty fast
performance the guys perfornt a guy at three oh runs
office tonight. What do you mean is perform? So yeah,
and just think about how angry he was. Yeah, I mean,
you've never seen I remember because I did a feature
(05:22):
on that on Sports Center. There was some real crazy
things that happened in uh umpiring that weekend baseball and
I did this story and I was like, this is
just crazy, Like I remember coming. It was one of
those stories where you didn't know about it until the
next day because it happened late on the West coast.
Unless you watch Sports Center A two thirty in the morning,
you're like, wait, the Dodgers forfeited, forfeited again, how do
(05:43):
you forfeit a game didn't have enough players, players leave
to go home. Wait, they were throwing baseballs on the field.
And since then, baseball day at stadiums was always been
met with kind of a sideways glance of yeah, I
don't know throwing if having a baseball giveaway is the
smartest thing to do. Baseballs and bats are one of
those nights where I think teams go, oh, baseball bat day,
base when when I was a kid, I wish I
(06:06):
still had them because they were fantastic. Eventually my parents like,
you know, I'm not taking into my dorm room, so
as soon as I'm out of the house, all this
stuff's gone. But the White Sox used to give full
size bats and it would have a guy's you know,
name etched into it. You know whoever the slugger of
the year was with the socks little m and I look, man,
(06:29):
he know, every once in a while he couldn't find
the whiffle bat and the wooden bat would come out.
We had a couple of pretty gruesome injuries because of
those wooden bats back in the day. Sorry, little brother,
but you know he wanted to catch. What are you
gonna do? Uh? It's he's okay now, but nowadays you
can't get away with even the mini bats. I don't
(06:51):
see those for sale in the gift shop. Uh. So
that's what happened on August tent we had the Dodgers
forfeited game. Like a lot of it was home plate
balls and strikes calls that the Dodges very upset with
Role Mondescy. There was an at bat in the ninth
inning where it was just really I mean, balls are
(07:11):
like three ft off the plate and Mondescy strikes out.
This is when Losorta comes running out. Balls are being
thrown on the field. The umpires very insistently call everybody off,
and Losorda is trying to yell at the people stopped
throwing baseballs on the field. Brian Jordan's, who is playing
outfield for the Cardinals, is trying to get baseballs and
throw them back. It was just that kind of night.
(07:33):
Cardinals wind up winning the game. The final score is
two to one, and it was forfeited in the ninth inning.
The most recent forefeit before that game for the Dodgers
nineteen sixteen, they won a game by forfeits. So I
get a figure every eight five years or so, you're
gonna win or lose a game via forfeit, A chief
balance in the force. It was just three days after
(07:54):
that that we lost a legend. On August thirteen, Mickey
Mantel died due to liver failure. And it was a
well UH chronicled story. He had had years of drinking
and partying. I remember when it was first announced he
needed a liver. It was such a serious story, such
a blow because Mickey Mantle is a hero to so
many people who would watch baseball, grown up watching baseball.
(08:17):
And there was a big uproar that happened when he
got a liver, when he was put on the UH
the list of of needing a liver after just one day,
and there were groups that stood up and said, how
does Mickey Mantle get a liver just because he was
a baseball player. I don't understand, even though doctors had
to have a press conference and say no, but they
(08:38):
understood the favoritism that's gonna look like Mickey Mantle getting
a liver, but they said that look, a liver came
in that matched him, because obviously not all livers match
other people. So he gets a liver in June, and
it was it was kind of controversial at the time,
and it made it for a couple of months. But
he had cancer as well, and Nicky Mantle passed away
on August thirteen, and it was just a you know,
(08:59):
the the end of of such a tragic life for him,
even though it was filled with such incredible wonder on
the field, not taking care of his body and it
was I remember that week or so right there after
Mickey Mantle's death. A lot of people and you can
talk to your dad about it or you know, if
you're listening, you remember, you remember the emotional feeling boy
Mickey Mantle passed away and there was no more charismatic
(09:20):
ball player when they played than Mickey new Yeah, you know,
having family that in the medical field, extended family and
talking about this with their knowledge of transplantation, you know,
you go through the list you've got to be clean from,
you know, the the stuff in your system for a
(09:44):
period of time, and then there's categories based on how
sick you are. And he had been diagnosed and and
was given weeks to live without it, and so you
know that's top of the charts, and there's always going
to be the question of recipients. And know he was
very generous with his time there, made sure you know, here,
I'm gonna sign a ton of baseballs for the people
(10:06):
taking care of me. You know, it was you know,
courteous and kind. And yeah, it's that debate that happens
even today when you see someone seemingly jumped the line
doesn't mean it's necessarily so, but we we know the
court of public opinion is going to have their run
on it. Not to mention the fact that a guy
(10:26):
like Mickey Mantle what he meant to that generation. Right,
it's Willie Mickey and the Duke, the song we still
sing in. Uh, maybe with Homer Simpson lyrics messed around
with it, but the same idea of just that hero. Uh.
And I gotta say the Mickey Mantles story, there was
uh an adaptation of it when I was in grade
(10:47):
school that I must have done the book report every
six d eight weeks. Yeah, I know, I know. With
Sandy Kofax, I had a Sandy Kofax book. Then every
year I do a book report on Sandy Kofax. Yeah,
I cycled it through. There was some romanticism to it
of you know, a farm kid injuries that he overcame,
and and certainly we we know the lifestyle that he
(11:10):
lad brought him to that point, and his family set
up the foundation that the don a ton of good
in his name. Before he passed, he had done p
s A is about you know, hey, take care of yourself,
go to the doctor, listen to your doctor. All of
those kind of things, and and controversy that still comes up. Uh.
Survival rate Uh was negligible at that point, but you know,
(11:34):
it shows how fast technology and medical advances are that
you have a if it's caught early enough, you've got
a pretty good chance of reversing it. It's Major League
baseball season, and as we continue, we'll get to the
moment that officially brought baseball back from the strike, a
moment we had never seen before we all wanted to see.
(11:55):
And a playoff tie breaker for the ages. All that
and more on the way on special teams. Baseball season
(12:20):
kind of a lazy river of drama, except the river
went like a hundred and fifty trying to come back
from the strike. It was clear that this year, look,
people wanted baseball back. They were happy it was back,
but there was no moment that cemented that baseball was
back from the strike and we were ready to start
over the clean slate. Then on September six, when Cal
(12:43):
Ripken played in his two thousand, one thirty first consecutive game,
breaking Lou Garrig's record, I remember thinking that moment, you know,
he breaks the record, the game becomes official, and he
starts running around the outside of the stands high fiving
the fans. That was such an incredible and powerful moment.
All I could think of watching that at the time
(13:05):
was Baseball's back. Now. He single handedly brought baseball back
by showing up to work every day. And in a
sport where it's always about guys who at home runs
and and Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire, it was about
baseball not coming to work, which pissed everybody off, and
then it was about this guy coming to work every
day that brought baseball back. It was just one of
(13:26):
those moments where it just clicked in your head. Okay,
everything's forgiven. We gotta move on the old adage of
is just showing up. And for Cal Ripken, for a
country that's you know, blue collar I mean growing up
in Chicago, right, a lot of blue collar jobs, city workers,
everything else. I mean, that was that was the guy
(13:47):
because he came to play. That's why there's controversy about
you know, Harold Main's in outside of Chicago. But the
appreciation of all right, even though after he ripped up
his knees, you know what, he was in the lineup
every day and he shut up and he and he
went to work. And so you know, Cal Ripkins celebrated
with the giant milestones in addition to this one, and
(14:08):
a much needed shot in the arm as attendants dip
coming off the strikes. So anything that was going to
give them a boost of positivity in any way was
gonna be huge. So why not celebrate the everyman attitude
of one of your game's elite players. So Ripken brings
baseball back, and we steamed towards the playoffs with a
(14:29):
new lease on Baseball life. And then on September something
happened we hadn't seen since eighteen. Oh nice, you know
me a beer? We said at the same time. Uh,
I'm sorry, I thought you lobbed it up. Zion Williamson
coming in from we've been working you, Lonzo ball. How
(14:50):
you like that? We've been working together too long and
we both did well. Uh. And this is a story
that I was fascinated by because I remember when he
first came up, Greg Harris, Greg A. Harris, because there
were two pitchers named Greg Harris who played at the
same time. Right, he was Greg W. Harris. Right, this
is Greg A. Harris. Remember when he came up. He
(15:11):
was he was a player that he was amphibious. Right,
he could, he was amphibious. He could throw with both arms.
And he had a special glove that he could pitch
that he would wear that would we work on either
hand whatever he wanted to. And there was a lot
of talk that he was going to be the first
pitcher in a game to pitch in one game from
both sides and and pitch righty and lefty. Well, finally
(15:32):
happened on September first picture since eight to pitch with
both hands in the game. He faced four batters, two
from each side. They wound up losing to the Reds. Uh.
The expos did, and I just remember it was for
so long he'd do it, and I thought more pitchers
would come up and be able to do that, Like
for how many how many baseball parents did I think
(15:53):
they were gonna be saying, Okay, kid, this is what
you're gonna do. We're gonna come and you're gonna throw
a hundred pitches with your right arm and a hundred
pitches with your left arm, and you're gonna do it
every single day until you can make the major leagues.
I'm gonna turn you into this guy that can now pitch,
and you could be your own reliever, and you can
switch and go from right to left whenever you want to.
I'm really surprised there weren't some crazy dad's who tried
to do that more with their kids after the story
(16:14):
came out. I'm sure there were. They just didn't get
anywhere with it because a kid either got frustrated or
went back to saying, all right, the off arm doesn't
work so well, dad, I can't throw lefty. Come on, well,
it's like, how many times did you did you play around?
You know, when you were emulating your your favorite player,
not to go all batting stance guy, but you'd go
(16:35):
and you'd hit from the opposite way, and all of
you listening out there, you did it right. You You
went and you took the stance of your favorite guy
that batted from the opposite side to your normal and
maybe you found that there was something a little different
about the way you hit. When I started screwing around
with it, I found that I could hit a ball
a country mile if I batted lefty. The problem is
(16:56):
I didn't have control. I swung and miss far more frequently,
whereas batting righty, I had great back control and could
place at least at the little league level, and then
I became overmatched and that was the end of that.
But batting left, he's like, yeah, he crushes it when
he hits it. How often does he hit it? Don't
(17:17):
worry about it, I get the percentages. Just just enjoy
the prodigious blasts, like yeah, I mean, I'm not talking
like three, you know, you know, I get what you're saying,
a bunch of homers, but prodigious blasts when you're ten. Yeah, okay, yeah,
did I get it? I understand what it is. All
on the theory of relativity. Uh So that turned out
to be Harris's final year in Major League baseball. So
(17:38):
he finishes doing something that we hadn't seen it in
a hundred years, uh in the game, and now we
get set for the serious part of the season, the playoffs. However,
the Angels and the Mariners had to play a tiebreaker
game to the side the a l West. On August three,
Seattle was thirteen games back of the then California Angels. Right,
(17:59):
it was okay, what are you gonna do your thirteen
games back? You're playing out the string. However, California gave
up their lead with ten games left, so this wasn't
like all the way down to the final game Seattle
catches California and they got to play a playoff. No,
California gave away this lead with ten games left, and
there was no pins and needles. They were terrible. In fact,
(18:20):
California had to win the last five games just to
force a playoff against Seattle. And it was a tough
time in Seattle because it was this year that there
was a lot of rumors that Seattle was going to
move because look, Tampa wanted a team. There was a
long time rumor that Tampa was going to get a
team they were pushing for it, and Seattle was going
(18:40):
to be that team. It was a big not not
quite a make or break year, but maybe without this
year for the Seattle Mariners. They wind up moving to Tampa.
They play this playoff game and it's a close game
until Louise Soho doubles down the first baseline bases loaded,
everybody scores. Was a close game. Mark Langston, who's the
(19:01):
picture for the Angels, makes a bad throwing her He
cuts off the throw to the plate for an unknown reason.
He had an out at second base, but there was
a miscommunication. You didn't get an out earlier. It was.
It was just a bad time and a bad run
right there for Mark Lanson, who had been a really
good picture for the most part. And Rex Huddler, who
was one of his best friends on the team, you know,
(19:23):
says something to him to try to to ant him up,
and in the dugout you can see this. It's it's
it's incredible video. Is Huddler, you know, says something to
to Langston and then he's trying to get ready because
he's going to bat the editing and Langston goes and
sits right next to Huddler. And goes blank, you hud
and he just stands there staring at him like we're
gonna if you look at me, we're gonna fight. And
it was really uncomfortable and I was like, oh, this dude,
(19:46):
this looks like they're gonna be a fight. It just
looked like, Huddler, don't look up at him. Don't look
up at him. You know. They apologized after the game
that turned out to be a big Seattle win. They
go onto the playoffs in California, goes home. But that
moment is just you if you watch that, if you
could watch video of that, you see you go, oh,
this is scary. Man. Mark Lankson looks like the most
upset men you've ever seen in your life. So the
(20:08):
Angels lose and the Mariners go on to the playoffs,
and look, you know, we talk about dynasties that never
were in you know, dynastis that should have happened. This
Seattle Mariners team is absolutely loaded. However, they needed a
big win to save baseball in Seattle. We got that
coming up next, as well as how the World Series
(20:29):
goes down and a television baseball decision that I can't
believe was made back then, but yet it was that's
coming up next right here on special teams. If what
(20:57):
we've told you about hasn't been batmanan is crazy so
far with well, now we get to the playoffs and
some of the drama. They're unmatched in recent years in
Major League Baseball, this was the first year with the
wild card, and it was a big deal for Major
League Baseball to implement it. Nowadays, we add wild cards
(21:17):
all the time. NFL, We're gonna had a wild card.
Basically mess with the sanctity of my game, Jason, we're
gonna add a wild card. Let's add a wild card?
About a wild card? We had, well, but back then
it was a big deal because baseball had lived for
so long on division champions get in and that's it,
and and moving to three divisions. Yeah, you you could.
You could get away with that for a long time.
But that could never happen now because there's too much
(21:39):
more interest. People would unplug. Fans would unplug if a
team is eliminated by the middle of July. But going
to baseball games and watching baseball games was kind of
what you did. Now there's too much more to gain
your attention, and if teams fall out of the running. Well,
guess what, Baseball's business goes down the tubes. So now
they decide, hey, we're gonna have different divisions. We're gonna
have wild card teams and see how it goes. The
(22:01):
one thing baseball didn't figure out yet was putting games
on opposite each other, so playoff games were only televised regionally.
Who the hell said that was a good idea? You
know what, let's let's have the major League Baseball player.
We're gonna add games and that all kinds of interest.
What about the games? I'll just put them on regionally. Wait, wait,
every game is not gonna be nationally televised. Nah, you
(22:24):
think people are gonna want to watch all these Yeah,
it's okay, we'll just put them on regionally. You talk
about watching millions and millions and millions of dollars just
fly out the window. Some business decisions that I see
happen in the past. I I shake my head because
I I just go, uh, it's it's it's a fastball
down the middle to say let's put all the games
on Nashville. All the playoff games before on national TV
(22:46):
not gonna be on now? Why it's too tough, it's
too tough of a of a situation to get it.
So they're all gonna be on regionally only, and that's
what it was. Now it's one that's still just you
do the re search and go back to that time
and you just shake your head, you know, in terms
of the dollars and cents, and I got a one
(23:07):
for the PostScript on this year that'll blew your mind. Teams.
But uh, you know TVs right superstation, w g N superstation.
Uh No, Uh, TBS had obviously the Braves, but then
they did the All Star Games stuff from from from Cincinnati,
(23:30):
so they were there. The t N T bit on
the rights in those went to ESPN, and then eventually,
you know, you have the the big offer in of hey,
we'll give you forty five million dollars for rights to
be in. No. Uh, instead you have ABC and NBC
(23:51):
with this thing called the Baseball Network that was short
lived here. But they didn't they didn't pick up on
the fact that you know what, in the middle of
the day people find the game, stagger them by an hour.
Even give yourself a fighting chance and go national and
have partners and build this up because major League Baseball
(24:12):
was the leader and going in an embracing technology eventually.
I know it's always seen as stayed a whole other
thing because the rules have to be rewritten seemingly every
couple of minutes because of the pandemic. But you know,
back when it was audio first of broadcasts into then
streaming video, Baseball led the way. They might have gone
(24:35):
kicking and screaming, but the folks at BAM and and
everything realized there was a market to be had for
all the transplants, and they did it. It's it's amazing
how short of span it was from not doing the
national broadcast here to becoming the leaders and that technology
just in a matter of a couple of years. All Right,
(24:56):
we blew that one. Let's figure it out. So the
playoffs go on, whether you saw the games or not.
And uh we mentioned that big Yankees Mariner series, which
has been documented quite a few times, the the Edgar
Martinez game winning double in Game five to win the series,
the series that saved baseball in Seattle, because after that
there was no talk of, hey, we're gonna wind up
(25:18):
moving the team. And this is a team that was
Griffy and Martinez and Alex Rodrie and JB. How could
you try it? And you know certain teams you look
back in history and go, man, they should have won more,
and they should have won more. Yeah, clearly, Yeah, the
Mariners should have found a way to win the World
Series at least once. Randy Johnson, I mean, this team
had everything and and they they just couldn't find a way.
(25:41):
They couldn't find a way to get to the World Series.
They couldn't find a way to get all their talent
and have it all come through it once at a
tough time keeping Ken Griffey healthy. But boy, you look
at this lineup, you go, these are Hall of Fame players.
I mean, you got three guys in the middle of
the order that are all Hall of Fame players, and
you got a Hall of Fame Johnson on the mound, right.
I mean, because this continued, he goes all the way
(26:03):
to two thousand one, right where they went a hundred
and sixteen games and still never got over. Uh. It
also helped build the dynasty for the New York Yankees
because it was such a disappointing loss for the Yankees.
As good as they were, they were becoming a really
good team Buck show Walter got fired. You get all
the way. Hey, here they are in the in the playoffs,
they played well. The Yankees have been bad for so long.
(26:25):
Here they are in because people forget the Yankees were
terrible once they finished their dynasty in the eighties. They
loosed the Dodgers in the World Series in one. They
were bad. They were bad. They were backpage laughing stocks.
Don Mattingley was the best player the Yankees had, and
he came He came up the year after they went
to the playoffs, and he retired the year before they
won the World Series. Uh, Joe Tory comes in to
(26:48):
take over, and of course he wins the World Series
in Uh. You know Buck show Walter, who we talked
about him in the previous episode of Special Teams about
how Buck show left teams right before his teams won
the World Series. Set him out nicely. If he doesn't
get fired, maybe Buck Showalter has like eight rings. You know,
(27:08):
look at all these World series I'm winning. He can
have the pictures alongside the old ones. We see the
Joki Barrack. Here's all my rings. Look at it's right here.
So we get to the World Series. The Mariners fall
short and this is the Braves and the Cleveland Indians.
And I know we say this a lot about certain teams,
(27:31):
but for me, well, for this was the Cleveland Indians
return to prominence because you talk about the lovable losers
for so long, the Indians were just bad. But here
they are and you look at this team. That's the
first World Series and over forty years, this is probably
the best team to never win the World Series a
single year. Like you look at all the teams were
(27:52):
runners up. This is this is, without a doubt, the
best team that didn't win the World Series. They won
the Central by thirty bleeping games, all right, This is
when they only had a hundred forty four games. Remember
they they didn't play eight team more games. They won
a hundred games. They might have won more than a
hundred and ten if they played a full hundred sixty
two games. I mean to win by that many games.
(28:14):
They were loaded everywhere. This Cleveland Indians team had everything
and going into the World Series, you know, look, we
had seen Atlanta play before, but we've seen Atlanta falls short.
I didn't think this is gonna be the Braves year
because the Indians were just too good everywhere they would.
They were too. Their pitching was great, their hitting was
through the roof. This was a team and the Indians
(28:35):
were gonna do it, and they were gonna end the
run of of of no championships in Cleveland. This is
the team that was gonna do it. Thirty nine year
old Eddie Murray as the d H still with one
homers and two r by still doesn't look right in
the Cleveland Indians uniform. Played with the Mets too, Yeah,
I know, a young Manny Ramirez, Kenny Loft and stealing bases.
(28:57):
Albert Bell was a fifty fifty guy bad three seventeen,
my guy, Mr incredible, Jim Tomay back when he could
play third base and seventy three was what he came
up with that year. But he did walk uh ninety
(29:18):
seven times and three fourteen so and Sandy Alamar was
the backup catcher, I mean, and to to go through
how deep it was because we know how well you
know he called the game and would have some clutch
you know, moments at the plate as well. But I
mean Oral hirshas her sixteen game winners, Charles Naggy sixteen
game winner, Denny Martinez with twelve wins and jule On
(29:42):
Tavares had ten wins as a reliever. I mean, you
had everybody he had, Paul Austin Mocker. I just wanted
to say, you had big years from Paul Sorrento at
first base. And don't forget Omar vis Kell, who had
a run as one of the top three shortstop in
baseball for a long time. You know, this team maybe
top to bottom, you know, paying you Sorrento, Carlos bay
(30:04):
Erga who drove in ninety runs, vis Kel, Tony bell Loft,
and Ramirez, Eddie Murray. This is there are no outs
in this lineup. Now there's there's zero outs. I can't
believe they made it out during the regular season. There
are no out home runs averaging nearly six runs per
game scored. HM, they had every They're starting pitching, even
(30:25):
though it was really good, not not as quite as
good as the hitting. Obviously, the hitting gets a lot
of attention, and rightfully so, because this is a team
that hit unlike so many teams in the history of baseball. Uh,
but you're still okay. You're you're anchored by a couple
of really good pitchers. You mentioned Oral Hersheiser, that's the
one thing you can say, all right, where are they
a tiny bit vulnerable? But it shouldn't have mattered. It
(30:46):
should be this team should have just done. It was
the great Atlanta Braves pitching Maddox and Smoltz and Glavin
and Steve Avery. People forget Avery and the fact that
when it came to a big game, Bobby Cox would
always put uh John Smoltz on the mound. He was
their best big game picture. I mean, it was strength
versus strength, and I realized, all right, well, the Indians
(31:07):
are gonna win this. Uh there was there was There
was not a second where I thought this is gonna
wind up going to the Atlanta Braves. Well in the
middle of the season. Also, you celebrate the three thousand
hit for Eddie Murray, so you know, big, big time milestone.
Will be curious to see how many if we ever
see those again, uh going forward. But yeah, this this
was a juggernaut team certainly, Uh looking up at them
(31:30):
all season, you know as a south side Chicago and
uh that that was just a runaway and hide. So
it's always the question though, and when you clinch that early,
how hungry are you? Can you flip it? Back on
all the questions we ask about NBA teams or NFL teams.
When you sit for the final two weeks of the
regular season, because everything's wrapped up, you always wonder how
(31:54):
much of that is still sitting in the background, no
matter how dominant you are at certain points, you know,
is it is it something that you can just get
that machine running once again. And when you look at
what's how some of the Indians hit in the World Series,
you see batting averages under two hundred. You know, he
said Bart hit one two. You know, Bell hit two
(32:14):
thirty five, Kenny Lofton at two hundred, Eddie Murray hit
one oh five, Tony Paint at one, sixties seven Sorrentoo many,
Ramirez to twenty two, Jim Tomy to eleven, Omar Vis
Kel won seventy four. It's it's they they were stopped
in their tracks by the Braves pitching and the final scores.
It wasn't like the Braves won a lot of blowout
(32:35):
games with a lot of runs. They win three, two,
they win four, three, they win five to, they win
one nothing. These were the Braves wins and and the
Indians just just it was a bad time. To stop pitting.
But you got to give the Braves a lot of
credit because it was their pitching that did it. And
the Braves win in six games, and they win Game
(32:56):
six one nothing Tom Glavin who gets all the credit,
and so does Dave Justice. Uh Justice at a home
running this game for the only run of the game.
And here's the weird part of it is that Justice,
at this time going into Game six was hated Braves.
Fans hated him because prior to this game he ripped
the fans for not being as loud and involved as
(33:18):
they were in seasons past when the Braves were an
up and coming fun team in the late eighties early nine.
The Braves have been bad for a long time. They
went from Bob Horner and Dale Murphy. They weren't very good,
but then they they beat the Pittsburgh Pirates and Francisco
Cabrera and said Breen slide and suddenly, hey, the Brazier
America's darlings. Well, after a while of excellence and not
(33:38):
winning the World Series, the excitedness of the fans, you know,
went down a little bit because well, they wanted to win.
They didn't win, and Dave Justice calls out the fans.
I was, I'm like, oh my god, there's one sure
way to find yourself out of town or to lose
an argument, and that is called out fans of a team.
You're never gonna win ourn with the fans. But Justice
(34:02):
hits the home run for the only run of the game,
and Glavin wins it. Mark Wohler's closed it out. He
saved all four games in the series for the Braves,
and so the Braves get their loan championship and that
great run. When you talk about teams that showed to
one more with that kind of pitching staff, they should
have won more, but they lost the Yankees. They couldn't
get over the hunt more than just this series against
the Indians, and the Indians go down. Has the best
(34:24):
team to make it to the World Series and never win.
They had one seventy nine in the World Series. This
after they led the American League in batting average and
e r A during the regular season. But it's the
greatness of the bizarro world. As we uh sit in
our talking about this, people will be listening to this
for years. But the year twenty twenty, I don't know
if you noticed, Jason is a little bit odd like,
(34:47):
where would you think that I just just calling it
what it is, uh, and everybody out there shaking their
fist and cursing some format. Uh. Something that happened in
this year. Each of you have, you know, the overriding
arch overarching themes that we have as a communal uh
kind of endeavor here, but certainly in your own lives.
(35:08):
Maybe you want to point to something specific. I'll give
you three. Two In coming back off the big strike year,
major League Baseball had a lot of twists and turns,
a late start to the season, and in the oddities
you mentioned it, the Braves actually win the World Series.
(35:28):
So that was the year that was coming back from
the strike. Lissorda, the forfeit greg A, Harris, cal Ripken,
Mickey Mantle, Seattle and the Yankees, the play in game
Game number one sixty three, the oddity of the World Series,
and the best team to make it to the World
(35:49):
Series and never win. Two last things for you though
you mentioned Seattle and saving baseball. There at the end
of the year, as a Christmas present to the people
of St. Louis, Anaheuser Busch sold the team. You want
to know how much they were selling it? For dollars
in a case of bud that sounds about right. One
(36:12):
hundred fifty million dollars to a group of investors that said,
we won't move the team, and you know what that
franchise is worth right now? Because everybody loves St. Louis
Cardinal baseball, oh, I would say. I would say, although, yeah,
because you know I'm not told that all the time.
You know, they're really really smart fans. Oh, I would say,
(36:32):
the Cardinals probably about two billion, two point two billion dollars.
Not bad, not a bad return off your hundred fifty
million dollar investments. That's you know, my neighbor next door
and she she's in her nineties now, wonderful, wonderful woman,
her and her husband. We've lived next order them for
the past ten years. And I remember having a conversation
with him saying, uh, hey, so what you pay for
(36:53):
this house? He goes, well, I bought the house when
it was built. When was it built? He was it
built ninety one? And said, oh my god. They so
they lived in the house since nineteen one. And I said,
I don't want to ask you. What'd you pay for
this house? He goes, oh, it was six thousand dollars,
and I said, oh, my god, really goes. Yeah, I said,
(37:14):
what was your mortgage payment? He goes, It was thirty
bucks a month, and there was sometimes had a tough
time May and it it would go for like one
and a half million dollars for six thousand dollars in
nineteen fifty one. Not huge, but land in southern California. Baby,
Oh my goodness. But yeah, there there is your That's
(37:35):
the capper to the year of in Major League Baseball.
Our I Love the Nineties run continues next week. We're
gonna jump ahead to the magical year of nineteen ninety nine.
You have an idea for a future episode of Special Teams,
hit us up on Twitter at how about a Fresca
Mike at Swollen Dome. You can listen to our radio
(37:56):
show every night Monday through Friday on Fox Sports Radio
tenpium to AM on the East coast, seven to eleven
on the West Coast. We'll talk to you next week
with some more special teams. Before you go, rate and
(38:16):
review the show. Whether you're listening on I Heart Radio,
I Heart Radio, apps, Apple, whatever it is, give us
a rate, tell us you like it. We will love
you Forever and Ever and Ever Special Teams is a
(38:40):
production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.