Beating the New York Jinx

By Tom Callahan

The artful Dodgers triumph

A bitter joke afterward: What better champion for the phoniest of baseball seasons than the Los Angeles Dodgers? Hooray for Hollywood. Former Dodger Pitcher Don Sutton used to keep a telegram (and his perspective) tacked on his locker, six MILLION BEST WISHES, it read; signed LEE AND FARRAH FAWCETT-MAJORS. Sutton loved to laugh and say: "Nice of their publicist to do it." One wall of the Dodger Stadium office of Tommy Lasorda, the manager who kisses and hugs his players like a game-show host, is a shrine to Frank Sinatra. What better place to hang this year's championship than in the publicists' town, right up there between the Captain and Tennille?

Bitter jokes played a closing theme for a bitter season. After the World Series' sixth and last game, New Yorkers were saying Yankee Manager Bob Lemon should be glad everyone thinks Owner George Steinbrenner calls all the shots. With two on but also two out in the fourth inning, Lemon pulled Starting Pitcher Tommy John from a 1 -1 game for Pinch Hitter Bobby Murcer. "I just wanted some runs," sighed Lemon, the bulb of his nose dimming out the way a third of the Yankee Stadium lights had for 9 min. in the third inning. Murcer flied out, and Reliever George Frazier came on. "Also, I thought Frazier's luck was due to change."

Frazier gave up three fifth-inning runs, and the Dodgers were off to a 9-2 clincher, their fourth straight victory after two opening losses and first world championship since 1965. Poor Frazier, 27, who began this split, struck, schizophrenic year as a minor league property of the St. Louis Cardinals, was the losing pitcher in three of the four. The only other three-time loser in a World Series was Claude Williams of the 1919 "Black Sox." The joke was that Frazier was the first to do it unintentionally.

Another joke: Steinbrenner issued a statement "to sincerely apologize to the people of New York and to fans of the New York Yankees everywhere for the performance of the Yankee team in the World Series." The players found this especially bitter. "Apologize?" Reggie Jackson muttered in dismay. "Apologize?"

Not since that mean Charles O. Finley upstaged those marvelous Oakland A's of the early '70s had a Series been so taken over by a proprietor without propriety. With Jackson out (strained calf muscle) and New York winning, the first two games in Yankee Stadium were artistic occasions for appreciating the resident third baseman, Graig Nettles. Before Game 3 in Los Angeles, however, Nettles' left thumb began swelling from a slight fracture, and he sat out the next three games. Other small earthquakes awaited the Yankees in L.A., including real ones. "What were you doing during the earthquakes?" Steinbrenner was asked. "I was stamping my foot," he said. Nothing earthshakingly wrong with losing to Fernando Valenzuela, you understand, but after that 5-4 loss, George started really stamping his feet.

In Game 4, a model of a sandlot game, everyone did something wonderful and horrible. Jackson hit his tenth World Series home run and reached base five times, but misplaced a fly ball in the sun. A bit of a mystery was the benching of New York Centerfielder Jerry Mumphrey, spotlighted when Substitute Bobby Brown botched a play. (The lineup card was dusted for Steinbrenner's prints.) When this outlandish, delightful, 31-hr., ten-pitcher, 8-7 game was through, there was only one untainted hero: Dodger Jay Johnstone. He slammed a pinch homer in the sixth, took a bow and sat down. The Series was even.

The next day, Jerry Reuss outdueled Ron Guidry, 2-1; the Dodgers led, three games to two. "Their catcher beat our catcher; their pitcher beat our pitcher," Steinbrenner carped. The Dodger catcher, Steve Yeager, hit the winning home run in the seventh inning, right after Pedro Guerrero had homered to tie. Meanwhile, Yankee Catcher Rick Cerone looked overeager to his boss. "Cerone took us out of two innings first-ball hitting," fumed George, "and everyone knows Guidry's ERA in the last three innings this season is over 10." Still, with Guidry steaming along on a two-hitter, would Steinbrenner honestly have yanked him after six? "I'm not the manager," George answered quickly.

"I want the Dodgers in New York." He turned menacing then. "That's where I want them." Even before the teams went back to the feared Bronx, where bottles sometimes outfly Frisbees, Steinbrenner struck. He came home with a cast on one mitt and a story of two New York-hating brigands in an elevator. George swore both fell to his flashing fists.

This time, the Dodgers were undaunted by scare stories of New York City or Yankee Stadium, where they had lost six straight games over three World Series. Comebacks against Houston, Montreal and now New York convinced them that they were "destined," as First Baseman Steve Garvey, who batted .417, kept saying. Garvey is the son of the Florida bus driver who hauled the "Boy of Summer," the old Brooklyn Dodgers, around spring camps When Garvey peeled off his Los Angeles uniform top, the undershirt said BROOKLYN DODGERS.

While the MVP award was divided like the season into three roughly equal slabs--Yeager, Guerrero (five RBIS in Game 6) and Ron Cey--the "Penguin's" part will be remembered longest. Cey made noise in all of the Dodger victories, hitting three-run homers or turning bunts into double plays, but the most resounding sound was his beaning by Rich Gossage in Game 5. "Sounded like a hollow log," Goose shuddered.

"I was in kind of a stupor, another world," Cey said two days later, grateful for a rainout and extra time to shake his dizziness. "I feel extremely fortunate to be standing here." On the first pitch, sporting a new earflap on his batting helmet, Cey lashed a single and later dribbled another before leaving with a light head and a .350 average.

There is an old baseball saying that champions must be strong up the middle. But the mean joke this year is that Bill Russell and Davey Lopes, the Dodger keystone combination, are Keystone Kops. Lopes is a dreadful blacksmith and juggler, and the second-to-the-last play of the Series was his sixth error. But then, another old baseball saying is that the best team shows itself over 162 games. This was not a good year for old baseball sayings.

This year was a "period of adjust ment," to borrow Dave Winfield's polite term for slump. Was it a bitter joke-- or really funny-- when the $23 million man stopped the fifth game and called for the baseball after what would be his only hit of the Series in 22 times at bat? Winfield is the one player Steinbrenner cannot afford to get rid of. Jackson's New York Octobers may have run out on a meek grounder off Steve Howe; Reggie's age (35) and fragile relationship with Steinbrenner suggest that he may be elsewhere next year. Guidry may go too. Reliever Ron Davis was a waiter during last summer's strike, and with a World Series ERA of 23.14, he is waiting again now. Knowing George, Lemon said: "I don't think any changes will be made -- before tomorrow." He wasn't joking.

With reporting by Jamie Murphy

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