27 Outs
This past Friday afternoon I attended the Cubs game at Wrigley Field with my daughter. We watched the fans pour into the gates two hours before game time. Their goal was to snag a three-quarters length shirt, one of the many promotional items of 2019. You gotta have all the new stuff, right? Cubs hats, lunch bags, blankets, and oh those bobbleheads! Last year, there was one promotional item at Wrigley I found to be curious, a replica of the clock atop the manual scoreboard.
What’s my problem with the promotional replica clock? It was nice enough, even had the trademark dots instead of numerals on its face. But clocks don’t belong in a baseball park! Never!! Indeed, the actual clock at Wrigley was not a Cubs idea, but rather added in 1941 by George Halas of the Chicago Bears, the NFL team that made Wrigley Field its home from 1921-1970. The game of baseball is not measured by time. It’s measured by innings, nine to be precise. You need to get 27 outs to win a baseball game. And sometimes getting that final out is the toughest one to get.
A recent example is the 2018 College World Series, a best of three between the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Oregon State Beavers. Arkansas won the first game, and led 3-2 heading into the ninth inning of Game 2. With two outs a Beaver batter popped a fly in foul territory just beyond first base. Game over, correct? Indeed, ESPN was quick to declare Arkansas national champions on its website. Yet, something happened to embarrass ESPN in a Dewey-Truman moment. The Hogs right fielder, first baseman, and second baseman converged and each forgot to do one thing, catch the ball, as the ball dropped in foul territory. Given another chance, the batter knocked in the tying run and scored the winning run moments later on an OSU 2-run homer. The next night the Beavers won the NCAA baseball championship.
Has the MLB World Series had any 27th out failures? Oh yes. In the 2011 World Series Texas led the Series 3-2 heading back to St. Louis for Game 6. In both the ninth and tenth innings of Game 6, the Rangers were within one strike of winning its first world championship. Their closer, Neftali Feliz, faced David Freese, St. Louis third baseman, with a 7-6 lead and two outs in the ninth, when Freese lined a 1-2 pitch for a triple, knocking in the tying run. The Rangers tallied two runs in the top of the tenth, but again with two outs and a 2-2 count, Cards’ Lance Berkman tied the game with a 2-run single in the bottom of the inning. Freese finished the Game 6 drama in the 11th inning with a game-ending home run and the Cardinals went on to win the Series 4-3.
Baseball had earlier witnessed an historic comeback in the 2004 ALCS . The Red Sox came into the matchup against their archrival Yankees with the hope of reaching the World Series and ending Boston’s championship drought of 86 years. They had last won the Series in 1918 when they defeated the Cubs behind two wins by star pitcher Babe Ruth. Yet, three games into the ALCS, the Red Sox were on the verge of being swept, down 3-0. Miraculously, they won the next four and became the first team ever to win a best of seven series after losing the first three games. We all know what happened next, the Red Sox defeated the Cardinals in four games to become world champs, finally!
About three months ago Red Sox great Bill Buckner died, at age 69, after a long battle with dementia. Baseball writers celebrated his playing career, one that featured a wondrous batting stroke culminating in the 1980 batting title when with the Cubs. Buckner came into the big leagues as an outfielder for the Dodgers, but played first base most of his career due to several chronic injuries. He was manning that position in the bottom of the 10th inning of the sixth game of the 1986 World Series. His Boston team led the game 5-3 and the Series 3-2. The baseball world gasped as a slow roller off Mookie Wilson’s bat found its way between the legs of Buckner and completed the Mets’ comeback victory. The Mets took the Series in Game 7. This year we mourned the loss of a great, gritty player, whose memory is much more than that one play in Game 6.
Just one year earlier in the 1985 Series we witnessed another amazing World Series comeback, the Royals winning it all after being down three games to one against the Cardinals. The 1985 World Series featured a Missouri interstate affair between St. Louis and Kansas City. After failing to close out the Series in Game 5 at Busch Stadium, the Cardinals returned to KC ready to be crowned not only the Missouri champs but the world champions of baseball. Many will say, like me, that the Cardinals were indeed railroaded in Game 6 with a missed call by first base umpire Don Denkinger. The umpire’s mistake was pivotal as the Royals became the fifth team in history to come back from a 3-1 World Series game deficit, the others being the ’25 Pirates, ’58 Yankees, the ’68 Tigers, and the ’79 Pirates.
In 2016 the Cubs became the sixth such down 3-1 comeback team. Both Chicago and Cleveland entered the World Series with long suffering fans yearning for an end to droughts in world championships (Cubs, since 1908, and Indians, since 1948). The back and forth Game 7 will go down in history as one of the greatest games ever played (only matched perhaps by Game 6 of the 1975 Series when the Red Sox came back on Carlton Fisk’s homer to defeat the Reds after trailing 6-3 in the eighth inning). That same 6-3 score saw the Cubs on top in the bottom of the eighth with two out and no Indians on base. Cubs star reliever Aroldis Chapman could not hold onto the lead, and the teams went into extras tied 6-6 and momentum all Cleveland. The 17-minute rain delay before the tenth would turn the tide and result in a big celebration in Chicago!
This 2019 MLB season has been full of ninth inning comebacks, most particularly by a team out west in LA, the Dodgers. Last Saturday night at Chavez Ravine the Blue Jays were one out away from defeating the Dodgers when LA won their 12th walk-off game of the year (winning as home team in their last at bat). The even more crazy statistic is that the Dodgers have trailed 23 times going into the bottom of the ninth this season at Dodger Stadium and won 7 of those games, a .304 winning percentage. A suggestion for the other MLB teams this year in matchups with the Dodgers might be to get the last out! The Dodgers will be a tough 27th out in the October playoffs.
My favorite 27th out story I have shared previously, one that happened on June 1, 1967. My Dad took me to an early season Reds vs. Cubs game at Crosley Field to celebrate the end of my second grade school year. We left the ballpark early that night with the Cubs up 6-2 and heard the roar of the crowd in the parking lot as Vada Pinson tripled in two runs. We listened on the car radio as the Reds won in the bottom of the ninth, 7-6. I learned a lesson that night, always wait for the 27th out.
Until next Monday,
your Baseball Bench Coach