Two Out, Bottom of the Ninth...

Baseball's regular season ends with the closest races in years

The last week of the baseball season is often about as exciting as watching the artificial turf grow. Usually, division titles are sewed up by then, the winning teams are regrouping for the playoffs, and the losers are waiting till next year. Usually. This year produced some of the most hair-raising races since the grass and the hot dogs were real. In three of baseball's four divisions, the final week opened with no certain winner. And in both National League divisions, the top two contenders ended the year by facing each other in a decisive, three-game series--a miracle of serendipitous scheduling.

Only in the American League West was the race something less than a heart stopper. The Kansas City Royals moved into first place back in May, stretched their lead to 20 games by August and loafed to their fourth division title in five years. In the American League East, the season belonged to another perennial winner. New York's Yankees jumped into first in May and never gave it up, though they did not clinch their fourth division title in five years until the day before the season ended.

The biggest surprises of the year came from a couple of upstart expansion teams that had never won much of anything. In the National League West, the unsung Astros finally managed to give Houstonians something to talk about besides oil and the Oilers. After a fast start, the Astros slumped at midseason when a stroke disabled their best pitcher, J. R. Richard. Fireballer Nolan Ryan faltered in Richard's slot, but Veteran Joe Niekro and a spot starter named Vern Ruhle, 29, rose to the occasion. The man who really sparked Houston's comeback was Joe Morgan, the team's feisty second baseman. Morgan delivered a stirring locker-room lecture to his demoralized teammates one losing Thursday. They went out and won ten games in a row.

The only thing that stood between the Astros and their first division title in the team's 18 years was Los Angeles. The Dodgers had won the pennant two of the previous three years. This time, though they were devastated by injuries, they swept the climactic three-game series with Houston to end the season with both teams in a dead tie for first, forcing a one-game playoff.

The closest race for most of the season was in the National League East between the aging Philadelphia Phillies and the Montreal Expos. The Expos have become Canada's equivalent of the amazin' 1969 Mets. Until last year, when they finished second to Pittsburgh, the Montrealers were a team of nobodies that came out of nowhere to capture hearts far beyond city limits. Indeed, les Expos have given an entire nation la fievre de baseball. Led by Gerant (Manager) Dick Williams, and sparked by the hot bat of Receveur (Catcher) Gary Carter, the Expos have overcome a blizzard of injuries, able to field their starting lineup only a couple of dozen times during the entire season.

The Philadelphia Phillies managed to spoil the Expos' miracle, however, and earned a shot at erasing their own reputation as a team that always ends up the bridesmaid in the playoffs. The Phillies' new pennant hopes rest with the solid pitching of Steve Carlton, a favorite to win the Cy Young Award for the third time, and the hitting of Manny Trillo, Bake McBride and major league Home Run Leader Mike Schmidt.

All in all, it was a week of welcomed, but unremitting agony. "It's probably a heck of a lot more nerve-racking for the fans than it is for the players," says Dick Williams. "When you're in a game, you can do something about what's happening. But the fans just have to sit there and watch." And wonder how they are going to survive the playoffs--and the World Series. sb

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