- 4 hours ago
"I don't believe what I just saw! I don't believe what I just saw!"
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:03Welcome to ESPN Classics Battle Lines. I'm Rich Eisen. It might have been the most outrageously dramatic home run ever.
00:12It was hit in the bottom of the ninth and it was struck virtually one-handed by a player with
00:18two bum legs.
00:20Rarely does an entire World Series hinge on the first game, but this one did. When Kirk Gibson made his
00:26celebrated, fist-pumping, gimpy-legged tour of the bases on a tingling October night in 1988, he took the heart
00:33of the Oakland A's with him.
00:45It was a David and Goliath matchup between the Dodgers and the A's in 88, and the conclusion of the
00:53first game was just preposterous, implausible.
01:02You have to remember, the natural was still in the public's mind at the time. And there was Kirk Gibson,
01:09who was so hurt he couldn't play, couldn't run.
01:14It's not me being upset this time. It's just the way it is.
01:23It took your breath away. We always thought Roy Hobbs was a fictitious character, and this guy was going to
01:29prove he was for real.
01:31In the modern era, this may have been the most dramatic single swing in baseball because of all the things
01:35around it.
01:36All year long, they look to him to light the fire.
01:42The sign of a great athlete is you've got to come through when the pressure's on, and there was no
01:47greater pressure than that at that time that I've ever been around, and I've been around a long time.
01:55You knew this was instant American baseball folklore. There was no doubt about it. It was Redford without the lights
02:03sprinkling down onto the field.
02:05In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.
02:13The 1988 Oakland A's towered over baseball. Physically imposing, they cowed other teams.
02:21The A's had won 104 games. They were the overwhelming favorites. They were at the beginning of a run during
02:29which they were clearly the best team in baseball.
02:31The A's were the powerhouse. The A's had the people. The A's had had a miraculous, wonderful season.
02:36They had a football team. You're looking at Canseco, McGuire, Parker, Baylor.
02:42You know, Connie Lansford was a pretty big guy. Dave Henderson.
02:46They were a scary team, and just when they showed up, I think they won a lot of games just
02:53because they were the A's.
02:55You know, I see a lot of guys stretching right next to the cage when they come into town or
03:00whatever, and they're watching these guys hit these bombs.
03:03You know, it's like, ooh. So if you're a starting pitcher or something, you don't hang out watching us take
03:08BP.
03:08You hear about McGuire and Canseco. What you see on TV is really not a comparison to what you see
03:15when you actually see them walk onto the field.
03:17You know, the Bass Brothers was a perfect symbol for what the A's represented. To see these two huge guys,
03:25you know, bashing their forearms together, it sort of symbolized what the A's were. This team was all-powerful.
03:31I think we averaged between four or five guys, I think, 6'3", 230, 235 pounds, and that was unheard
03:37of. And basically, we were the team to beat.
03:40You know you might make a mistake or two throughout a game. You're going to as a pitcher. And you
03:44just hope you can minimize your damage because with Big Mac and Hosey, one of them are going to hit
03:49the ball a long way somewhere.
03:51To complement its oak-armed sluggers, Oakland fielded a fearsome pitching staff, spearheaded by its menacing ace, Dave Stewart.
04:00Every fifth day, Stewart stared down hitters from beneath his cap before blowing them away.
04:061988 represented Stewart's second year in a string of four consecutive 20-win seasons.
04:11Geez.
04:12The intimidation factor started when we walked out on the field, and then it continued when Dave Stewart grabbed the
04:17ball.
04:17He had that devilish stare. He'd look down on you and say, there's no way you're going to beat me.
04:23Dave Stewart will never be in the Hall of Fame because he didn't have a long career at his top.
04:30But for that four years that he was winning 20 games or more, he was as good as anybody I've
04:36seen.
04:37He was big and hard-muscled guy. I mean, I thought he was one of the scariest-looking guys on
04:42the mound that I'd ever seen.
04:44You talk about leaders on that team. There was no bigger leader than Dave Stewart.
04:47He was a guy that just exuded leadership, confidence. He was just a tremendous presence on that team.
04:54If the A's were the team everyone feared, the 1988 Dodgers were the team nobody knew.
05:00We were picked fourth in our division that year by the so-called baseball experts.
05:06These were not the Garvey, Say, Lopes, Baker, Dodgers that everybody remembered.
05:12In an effort to inject pizzazz and passion into the Dodger blue blood, Los Angeles signed Kirk Gibson as a
05:19free agent.
05:20Four years earlier, he won a World Series with Detroit.
05:23And Gibson, the one-time star receiver at Michigan State, brought a football mentality to the diamond.
05:30He played football on a baseball diamond because when Kurt hit the ball in the gaps, it was like he
05:37was running the pattern because he did it so quickly and aggressively.
05:40He's a rough, hard-core type of kid.
05:45If you give him a challenge, he's going to come and take that challenge and run with it.
05:50Tommy fell in love with Kirk Gibson. I mean, he was Tommy's type of player.
05:56He was a competitive guy who was outwardly competitive.
06:00There was a ferocity about the way he approached the game.
06:06And some people may have thought that the Dodger clubhouse in that era needed that kind of jolt from somebody
06:12who not only gave it everything he had, but would get on teammates if they didn't.
06:17I knew when not to go near him.
06:19When he had that look on his face, he was going to break a batting cage or whatever he was
06:22going to do.
06:22When he came into camp, I know the first couple of weeks I tried to play a prank on him.
06:28There was some eye black put on the inside part of his hat by Jesse Orozco, and Kirk went out
06:33to do his wind sprints and took his hat off to do that.
06:35And everybody started laughing at him in those close confines in Vero Beach.
06:39Gibby being kind of stunned-faced and serious about everything, wondering what the heck's going on.
06:43And when he finally realized it, he stormed off the field.
06:47Went back in the clubhouse, told the story he was going to have to get somebody else to hit third
06:50and play left.
06:51The next day, Tommy says, look, Kirk wants to make a speech here.
06:54He wants to talk to you guys.
06:55Gibson has the floor.
06:57You could hear a leaf blow.
06:59And Gibson starts reaming him out again.
07:01You know, this is why you're in last place.
07:03I'm here to win.
07:04I'll be the best teammate you ever had.
07:06You know, you're a pitcher.
07:07You want to hit a guy, hit him.
07:09If there's a fight, run out to left field.
07:11I'll kick his ass.
07:12But let's get serious.
07:14People have to understand me.
07:17Yep, and he backed it up, everything he said.
07:21But he was already a champion, as they said.
07:24We've got a long year here.
07:26I'm here to become a world champion.
07:28I want them to be able to count on me.
07:30But I can't deal with their behavior right now.
07:33Your fundamentals are bad.
07:35It says we're going to lose again.
07:37And that really set the tone.
07:39Because he's a commanding presence that just overwhelmed the whole team.
07:43You know, that's our team leader, period.
07:46Gibson's tenacity won his teammates over.
07:48And perhaps led them to a pennant.
07:51Still, many felt they had no chance to win the 1988 World Series
07:55with the mighty A's standing in their way.
07:58I'm not being funny about this.
08:01But those two clubs don't belong in the same ballpark.
08:04I didn't want to go to New York.
08:06I said, boy, it would be a lot nicer just to go to L.A.
08:09This would be a nice World Series in just an hour.
08:12And you know what else I was thinking?
08:13To be honest with you, I was thinking, we'll kill them.
08:15We'll kill the Dodgers.
08:19The 1988 Dodgers warmed themselves over the fire
08:22lit by Kirk Gibson in spring training
08:24and came together as one of the whole is greater
08:26than the sum of its parts units.
08:28A close-knit team in every sense.
08:31Seeing the ninth inning was the moment for our team.
08:34When we were losing, everybody was there.
08:37And everybody had that feeling that,
08:39man, something's going to happen.
08:41It's just been happening to us all year.
08:43I got to pinch hit in the bottom of the 11th inning
08:45in August against the Giants.
08:47Bottom of the 11th, bases loaded, two outs.
08:50Ran to a 3-2 count.
08:52Got a base hit up the middle.
08:53We win the game.
08:54They won a lot of games 2-1.
08:56They won a lot of games 3-2.
08:57And they found ways to win.
09:01Kirk Gibson gave them an extraordinary look
09:05by his hustle and his grit and his determination to succeed.
09:11When you're playing the 88 Dodgers, there are no easy victories.
09:14You might have beat us, but we are pushing you.
09:16And if you had to play us the next day, we're going to be battling again.
09:21He was on second base.
09:24The knees were still good.
09:25He was on second base against Montreal.
09:28At Dodgers Stadium, there was a pass ball.
09:31And he came from second base, and that pass ball, he scored.
09:49Others in the game put up gaudier numbers than Gibson.
09:52For example, the Mets' Darryl Strawberry had 39 homers and 101 RBI.
09:57But clearly, numbers alone belied Gibson's worth.
10:01Amidst his mere 25 home runs,
10:04sportswriters saw enough energy, resolve, grit, and determination
10:07to see fit to vote Gibson the most valuable player of the National League.
10:12Should Darryl Strawberry have been the most valuable player that year?
10:16Yes, in terms of statistics.
10:18No, not in terms of emotion.
10:20Say a guy hit 27 home runs instead of 25 makes him an MVP,
10:23or a guy hits 310 instead of 300 makes him a better candidate for an MVP.
10:28I don't think that's the case.
10:29People didn't vote on numbers that year.
10:31They voted on a feeling.
10:33And that feeling was,
10:35this man was a human tow truck,
10:38carrying this team to the World Series.
10:41With Gibson filling...
10:42...approved him by 21 wins.
10:45...the role of enforcer,
10:47manager Tommy Lasorda felt free to employ his sly and unsubtle guy.
10:52Tommy probably is at his best with that kind of a club,
10:56in that he can bring out all of his emotional weapons and motivational weapons.
11:04He always hear, oh, we're the greatest team in the world, we're the best player in the world.
11:08You're the best showstop.
11:09You get to a point that, you know, you listen to him, you believe him.
11:11You have to make him believe.
11:14You have to let him know what it's going to take for them to be successful.
11:18All I say to them is, hey, do you want to win?
11:20Do you want to be in the Fall Classic?
11:22Yeah.
11:23Well, then I'll tell you what it's going to take for us to be there.
11:25I don't think there's any question that that stuff worked, especially that year.
11:30And he could motivate his guys, and he could get them to buy into that,
11:35so that if they did maybe cut their arm, they'd be stunned if it wasn't Dodger Blue coming out.
11:39I felt like Tommy was my brother.
11:41He was my dad.
11:42He was everything.
11:44I mean, we were in the trench together, and he was the greatest at it.
11:49Lasorda is the guy who's credited with giving Oral the nickname Bulldog,
11:52and Oral definitely started to pitch like a bulldog at some point.
11:57Unlike the A's ace, the Dodgers' number one pitcher had an innocence about him.
12:02Slender, quiet, bespectacled, he decorated scoreboards with long strings of zeros.
12:08In 1988, Oral Hershiser had a season to die for.
12:13Hershiser's 88 is a pitching season to rank up there with Bob Gibson's 1968,
12:20with Walter Johnson's 1913.
12:22Really?
12:23He didn't look that overpowering either.
12:25He looked a little bit like the kid in the front of the classroom saying yes to the teacher,
12:29instead of like Rowley in the back who played good baseball.
12:32He was the leadership of that pitching staff, because when a losing streak was there,
12:37you knew Oral was going to start you on a winning streak.
12:40He just didn't give hitters a chance.
12:42He did not give hitters hittable pitches.
12:44So when they were swinging, they were hitting the top of the baseball primarily.
12:47His sinker, it was probably that year the toughest pitch to hit in baseball,
12:52because when he let it go, it was in the zone.
12:54When you swung at it, it was out of the zone.
12:56He was unhittable in September.
12:59That's when the shout-out struck.
13:00Look, if Tony Gwynn is saying you were hard to hit, you were hard to hit.
13:05He really started rolling, and every pitch in his repertoire, he could put wherever he wanted.
13:12I was pitching well throughout the season, but at the end of the season, with the streak,
13:16and everybody's saying that shouldn't happen at the end of the season, that should be when you're tired.
13:19On September 28th, when his tank could have easily run dry,
13:23Persshizer reached out and touched one of baseball's untouchable records.
13:27The 58 consecutive scoreless innings pitched by Dodger Don Drysdale 20 seasons before.
13:32We're in San Diego, playing the Padres, and at that point, Oral had 49 scoreless innings, consecutive.
13:41So, it wasn't probably on anyone's mind that it would happen that night.
13:47Well, of course, it goes extra innings, and he pitches 10 innings, scoreless, and breaks the record.
13:53A 1-2 pitch.
13:55Friveled the line in a semi-check swing.
13:58Gonzalez, the record.
14:01All-Hershizer, 59 consecutive innings, scoreless.
14:07Drysdale's was a great streak, but Hershizer's was even greater.
14:10And it was also greater because of the moment.
14:12I mean, he was riding this team to a pennant.
14:15It was a team that was down nine games at the All-Star break in Cincinnati,
14:18and they come back and they finish first.
14:21There are times when you get on the horses back and you're riding.
14:24And we rode him right into the postseason.
14:27Already in the 3-2 pitch, the Marvell wins.
14:31One on a fly ball to right field.
14:33Zach packing out and falling in.
14:36He's got it.
14:37Yes, sir.
14:41What about the New York Mets, Rick?
14:43You've got to face them now.
14:44Hey, it's okay, fall apart.
14:47On paper, everybody thinks the Mets are going to beat us.
14:49They might beat us.
14:51You know, but we're going to give them a hell of a goddamn series, I'll tell you that.
14:57Yes, sir.
15:23Tony La Russa came to Oakland only a year before,
15:27and brought with him the reputation he had established and encouraged
15:31while with the Chicago White Sox, manager as human computer.
15:36Tony La Russa is the un-Messorta.
15:40He's a meticulous planner.
15:45And to La Russa, counting on adrenaline is not good planning.
15:49When you sat down with Tony, he would go through some of the moves,
15:53and by the time he was done, I mean, he'd reinvented the wheel.
15:55It was the atomic bomb here.
15:57I've never seen anybody in my life, regardless of how he knows how to manage the game,
16:02just every day, just plugging.
16:07I mean, he never stops.
16:09It was a team that gained confidence as the season went on,
16:12and to the point where, you know, in the second half,
16:16they really thought they were invincible.
16:18The A's established themselves early on, winning 14 straight,
16:22led by the appropriately named Bass brothers, Mark McGuire and Jose Canseco.
16:28They sort of jumped into first place and stayed there.
16:31I think that people were getting aware of Jose Canseco.
16:34I think on April 21st, he stole three bases in a game.
16:38I don't think there was any question that Jose Canseco was the stud of studs on that team.
16:42There was a lot of competition for that mantle,
16:45but he was early in his career, and there was just so much potential surrounding him.
16:49Even though Mark had hit 49 home runs as a rookie, which was a record,
16:53and a lot of people thought that would be his career year.
16:57Jose was the guy with the super talent.
17:00Jose was a guy that everybody thought could hit 300 and hit 50 home runs
17:04and do all the wonderful things.
17:06He fashioned himself as the 21st century ball player,
17:10a guy who almost kind of like the Terminator as a ball player.
17:16He took just this incredible swing.
17:18I mean, it was so hard.
17:19I mean, he put everything into it, and it wasn't a pretty swing.
17:22It was a savage swing.
17:24If Canseco hit a home run and that ball went 450 feet,
17:29he was going to watch every inch of it.
17:31He wasn't just a baseball player.
17:33He was almost like a rock star, the way he carried himself
17:35and the way the women followed him around.
17:38He's hitting his own back with the bat.
17:41That's what you call a hard swing.
17:46And the way people fawned over him.
17:48Earlier in the season, Canseco became the 11th player in history
17:52to produce 30 homers and 30 steals,
17:54and he kept right on slugging and swiping.
17:56As the season wound down,
17:59Canseco appeared poised to become the first 40-40 performer ever.
18:04I didn't want to be that type of power hitter that would go base to base.
18:07I wanted to be an aggressive type player.
18:09And I knew that if an opposing pitcher was going to walk me,
18:12I was going to create havoc at still 2nd and 3rd base.
18:34Canseco finished batting .307 with 42 homers, 40 steals, 124 RBI,
18:41and, like Gibson, an MVP award.
18:44Canseco also finished with accusations of steroid use.
18:48At the point in time, I was just a guy who was, you know, 6'4", 235 pounds,
18:54who would run a 4-3-40 and accomplish a 40-40,
18:56and people really couldn't understand that.
18:59In those days, a guy my size was not supposed to do that.
19:02Boston was an excellent team.
19:05Clemens, Hurst, Greenwell, Boggs at the top of his game.
19:10They had Lee Smith in the bullpen.
19:12But the A's just cruised right through them, and Jose led the way.
19:16In the American League Championship Series,
19:18the Red Sox managed to stay close in every game.
19:21However, when the 9th inning arrived and the Sox trailed, they were done.
19:25That's because the A's had the ultimate closer in Dennis Eckersley.
19:29Against the Eck, even Wade Boggs, the 1988 American League batting champion,
19:34offered little help.
19:36He struck out Boggs in Game 1 of the playoffs.
19:39I think he struck out Boggs twice in that series,
19:41and, you know, Wade Boggs did not strike out.
19:44The last at-bat of the game is Boggs against Eckersley,
19:47and Boggs swung and missed on the last pitch of the game.
19:50And let me tell you, Boggs swung and missed about 30 times the whole season that year
19:54when I struck out Boggs.
19:56That was big.
19:57Because that set the tone.
19:58It was Game 1.
19:59And I struck him out on three pitches.
20:01It was awesome, you know.
20:02I painted him, threw him over here.
20:03It was nice.
20:05Eckersley was, like, untouchable.
20:06He'd come in, and he retired his side in 11 pitches.
20:09And he was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, relief pitcher of all time.
20:15Whenever the A's had a 1, 2, or 3-run lead going to the 9th,
20:18you know Eckersley was going to come in.
20:21And 95 to 98% of the time, slammed the door.
20:26Four games in succession, Eckersley slammed the door.
20:29And the windows, and the gate, and the latch.
20:32Setting a championship series record for saves.
20:35He picked up the series MVP award, and the A's strutted into the World Series.
20:41Back goes Gallego, and the Oakland A's have won the American League medal.
20:57They were champions two years earlier.
21:03The veteran Mets, the Metterns.
21:0711 against L.A.
21:09We got rained out the 12th game, which we were happy.
21:12We just couldn't beat them at all.
21:14I mean, everything went wrong every time we played them.
21:18So when we played them in the playoffs, they were heavily favored.
21:22The Mets weren't just going to beat the Dodgers.
21:24They were going to destroy them.
21:26They were going to sweep them in four games.
21:27A lot of people thought the Dodgers would be four and out.
21:30The Mets just didn't think they could lose.
21:33In 87, there were a lot of injuries that prevented them from winning.
21:35And by 88, they figured that they were back on top.
21:39It was basically the same nucleus of players.
21:41In game four, the Mets and Dwight Gooden were one inning away from a 4-2 win
21:45and a 3-1 hammerlock on the series.
21:48The Dodgers had a runner on first and Mike Socha at bat.
21:53I got a great pitch to handle.
21:54I put a swing on it and I got under it a little bit and happened to get the ball
21:58airborne.
21:59Socha had to play.
22:00Hernandez playing.
22:02Back of the runner at first.
22:03And it's ripped to right field.
22:04And deep.
22:05Strawberry goes back.
22:07She's gone.
22:07I was, I'm sure, the most surprised person in the stadium.
22:12And 55,000 New York fans were real quiet at that moment.
22:16The home run came out of nowhere.
22:18And, you know, to this day, Gooden admits that it still eats at him.
22:22That was the turning point of the series.
22:24With the score tied at four and the top of the 12th,
22:27Kirk Gibson limped to the plate.
22:33Gibson hits a high drive, a towering drive,
22:36at the deep right center field.
22:37And that one is gone.
22:40In the bottom of the 12th,
22:42the Mets loaded the bases with two outs.
22:45Kevin McReynolds stepped to the plate.
22:47Out in the Dodgers' bullpen, a surprise.
22:51Between the time Socha gets his home run and Gibson gets his home run,
22:53I am lobbying for the ball through Paranowski.
22:56And I go down to the bullpen.
22:57I tell Mark Cressy, the bullpen coach,
22:59that Tommy sent me down to warm up.
23:01Cressy gets on the phone and says,
23:02Bulldog's down here and says you want him to warm up.
23:04Tommy goes, if he's there, warm him up.
23:07Paranowski said to me,
23:08Tommy, you're sticking your head into a guillotine.
23:12If they tie the game, what's going to happen?
23:14What are we going to do?
23:16I said, I don't care.
23:17I'm putting a whole ball of wax on the Bulldog.
23:19Go get him.
23:29The Dodgers won game five, but the battered Gibson re-injured his knee,
23:34stealing second base in the ninth inning.
23:36The Mets took game six, but that only meant they would have to face Hirschhiser again.
23:41It seemed like we saw him every day.
23:43Every day he was in there pitching.
23:45I don't know how he did it, but he single-handedly beat us.
23:50He stopped in relief, or when he started, he stopped everything that we had going.
23:55And he looks in now to make what he hopes will be his last pitch.
24:00Fastball, got him looking.
24:01That's it.
24:04Everybody thought the dream was over.
24:06You know, great season for the Dodgers, played their hearts out.
24:08You know, bye-bye.
24:10Now you're playing the Oakland A's.
24:11Everybody wanted to see the New York Mets and the Oakland A's because they were the two powerhouses
24:18of the American League and the National League.
24:20And somehow, it seemed like we were interfering.
24:23It stirred us up.
24:25Like, here we go again, okay?
24:27Let's get ready to go.
24:28We're going to be in a fight.
24:30The Dodgers started rookie Tim Belcher, while the A's countered with their ace, Dave Stewart,
24:35a 21-game winner.
24:37But the Dodgers' soul was on ice.
24:40Literally.
24:41That day, I got up about 5.30 in the morning.
24:45I kind of said, yeah, it's okay.
24:47I can deal with that.
24:48I can deal with that.
24:49And then I started jogging across my living room floor, and it grabbed me.
24:52I went, oh, my goodness.
24:54Our understanding coming into Game 1 was that Gibson not only would not play, obviously
24:59he wasn't in the lineup, but that he was not available for pinch-hitting duties.
25:04Perhaps succumbing to nerves, Belcher hit Jose Canseco in the first inning.
25:09Stewart retaliated immediately, plunking Steve Sachs on the first pitch in the bottom
25:13of the inning.
25:14Oh.
25:15In the first game, it turned out to be a turning point, because then Hatcher hits the
25:19home run in the first inning.
25:23Fastball, and on field, and deep.
25:26And goes Parker, way back.
25:28It is gone.
25:30When I got to home plate, he was right behind me.
25:33He was like, damn.
25:34Mickey, slow down, man.
25:36He was like sprinting around the bases.
25:37I don't know if his feet actually touched the ground.
25:40That was just pure, unadulterated, just happy.
25:44Just a 12-year-old kid type happy.
25:47Even with a 2-0 lead, Belcher struggled with his control.
25:51He loaded the bases in the second.
25:53His outfielders began to retreat uneasily.
25:57Canseco, you see, was up.
25:59It was a 1-0 slider down and away, and he just hit a shot.
26:04Yellowstone Park wasn't going to hold that one.
26:06I mean, it just, it was a rocket.
26:08And it's a drive to center.
26:10Back for Shelby to the wall.
26:11It is gone.
26:14Grand slam home run for Jose Canseco.
26:17And look where he hit it.
26:18Over the center field fence and line drive.
26:21It didn't get up.
26:22It didn't get down.
26:23It just got out.
26:23There was a definite sense when Canseco hit his grand slam that, okay, you know, the Dodgers had their little
26:30moment.
26:32Now we're back to series business.
26:33The A's are going to take control of this thing.
26:39Oakland's bats did the damage early in game one of the 1988 World Series.
26:43But after Jose Canseco's grand slam gave Oakland a 4-2 lead, a ceasefire seemed to settle over the game.
26:52There was a lot of missed opportunities on both sides, really.
26:54It just wasn't happening for us.
26:56And on the other hand, for the Dodgers, it wasn't happening for them.
26:59You know, so it was kind of like a pitching move from the, I guess, third inning on inning.
27:03The Dodgers managed to cobble together a run in the sixth, but still trailed in the bottom of the ninth,
27:094-3.
27:10I let off the inning, and I let off popping out, and I come back to the dugout, and I
27:14sit down, and Jeff Hamilton's up next, and he makes an out.
27:19And then all of a sudden, Mike Davis goes up to pinch hit and ends up drawing a walk.
27:24Dennis Eckersley walked Mike Davis, and it stunned me in center field, because I've watched this guy almost get 50
27:30saves through the course of the year.
27:32And, like they say, he could hit a gnat's ass with a pitch.
27:35I had played with him the year before, and seen him, you know, for several years play.
27:39And so I knew he had power.
27:41I just tried to nip the outside corner too many times.
27:44I think that was a major, major mistake at that point.
27:47He walked him, seeing Dave Anderson standing on the on-deck circle.
27:52He walked him, thinking, it's okay, I can get this guy.
27:55Anderson hit only .249 during the season.
27:58But he wasn't going to get even one swing.
28:00In the Dodgers' clubhouse, there was a stirring that no one could believe.
28:05And there is Mark Gibson, the man who was the spearhead of the Dodger offense throughout the year.
28:11Will not see any action tonight, for sure.
28:14At one point, he was watching the game on TV.
28:17He heard Vin Scully tell millions of viewers, still no Gibson.
28:22Gibson will not swing a bat tonight.
28:24Gibson heard that, and he said, my ass.
28:26I was there when Gibson was sitting on the training table with two ice packs.
28:31I did not have his uniform on.
28:34Gibby, at that time, tore those things right off.
28:37I mean, the ice pack went right off, went and got dressed.
28:39And nobody's more stuck or more convinced that he can do something than Kirk Gibson.
28:46Bob Costas and I co-hosted the World Series pre-game show.
28:50And for the post-game interview, we would always flip a coin as to whether I would get the Dodgers
28:58or whether I would get the athletics to bomb through the Dodgers.
29:01Well, I'm standing in the corner of the Dodger dugout, waiting to interview Lasorda, maybe, about what his plans are
29:08for game two.
29:09And standing where I'm standing, near the tunnel leading back into the clubhouse, I can hear Gibson.
29:17I can't see him, but I can hear him hitting balls off a tee into a net.
29:22I'm the one who's putting the ball in the tee for him in the tunnel to get him ready, because
29:25I didn't want him to have to do any extra work because of his legs.
29:27And you can hear the grunts of exertion and or pain as he does it.
29:33Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
29:35You know?
29:35And Ben Hines, the Dodger batting coach, goes back to check on Gibson and then walks back into the dugout.
29:42He walks past me and I hear him say to Lasorda, he thinks he can give it one good swing.
29:47Just like, you know, a line out of a bad B movie.
29:50A more timid manager would have said, no, Kirk, sit down.
29:54I mean, I know you want to do it, but don't embarrass yourself.
29:57But he knew what type of player Kirk Gibson was.
29:59He'd go up there bleeding and try to help the team.
30:04As long as he could walk up to that play, I was going to put him in.
30:07If you're in a foxhole and you're in the heat of the battle, Kirk Gibson is the guy you want
30:14in there with you.
30:16All of a sudden I see a guy kind of like just brush past me and go up the steps
30:22and I was taken back and all of a sudden I remember seeing number 23.
30:25I go, what?
30:26I said, where's he going?
30:27He puts a helmet on and goes on deck.
30:29I just told myself, when I walk out of that dugout, 50,000 fans are going to go nuts and
30:35I won't hurt.
30:44I just heard the crowd get really loud and it's like, I like to hit and go.
30:49It's like, oh no, we've got a long time here for somebody, some limping act to get up here.
30:56It's something about athletes that play sports that start with a B wearing number 23.
31:06I'm not trying to rhyme.
31:08It's something about those athletes.
31:11You already saw Bobby Thompson, you know, it's Jordan, James.
31:16Oh, oh, oh, all similar, you know.
31:25In the back of my mind, Eckersley has dominated right-handed and left-handed the whole year.
31:30And this guy's hobbling, looks like he can't even stand up there.
31:33If you want to be melodramatic about it, you think what's going to happen is that Dennis Ackermann is going
31:38to throw it by him three times
31:39and Gibson will limp back to the dugout.
31:44And Lasorda will say, well, it was worth a shot.
31:47I was 02 and then I used to have a stance I called my emergency stance.
31:51Everybody knew about it, I just spread out and, you know, I wasn't going down.
31:55You weren't going to strike me out.
31:57As that at-bat unfolded and he dribbled one foul and took a couple of weak swings,
32:03you said to yourself, the only chance they have is if somehow he gets a piece of one and bloops
32:09it over the infield,
32:11especially after Davis stole second base.
32:13Mike Davis stole the base and now I'm thinking, all's I got to do is just serve a ball over
32:19the shortstop's head.
32:20And Davis scores, tie game and we're in the ball game.
32:24The way Kurt Gibson was swinging when he fouled those pitches off,
32:27I was hoping for a base hit and hope they didn't throw him out at first base.
32:32Gibson shaking his left leg, making it quiver like a horse trying to get rid of it, troublesome fly.
32:39I really think that Ack eventually out-thought himself here.
32:43He began to think, I'm throwing fastball, fastball, fastball.
32:46He just expects me to challenge him and put him away.
32:49I guess it's just kind of a matter of, let's try something else.
32:53You know, this guy's just flicking his stuff, flicking his stuff.
32:55If I can just sneak one breaking ball by him,
32:59the guy's rusty, he's not as balanced to play, how's he going to hit it?
33:02And yet what he wound up doing was throwing the only pitch that Kurt Gibson can hit.
33:08The game right now is at the plate.
33:12Instead of another fastball, his best pitch, he threw a slider.
33:16And Gibson was ready for it.
33:18And he hit a gapper.
33:22I got it, it's a fly ball to me.
33:25All of a sudden, I stopped and I realized that it's going over my head.
33:37And then, it's poetic that he hit it past Canseco, of all people.
33:46The big bad Jose Canseco, the big bad Bash Brother.
33:53Never knew that.
33:56And it's gone.
34:06Took a two-step to right-center, and then my third step was to the dugout.
34:09Because I knew it was gone.
34:10She is gone!
34:15She is gone!
34:26Everybody's jumping and looking at each other like,
34:28you've got to be kidding me.
34:30You've got to be kidding me.
34:31And then when we got to home and play, it was crazy.
34:35And Kurt's like, you know, hey, I'm hurting, guys.
34:37Don't be jumping on my back here.
34:39I jumped up.
34:40I hit my head on the cement dugout of Dodger Stadium there because we're just going nuts.
34:44Jumping up and down, coming down the third baseline.
34:46Well, everybody was going crazy.
34:47And in my head, it was quiet.
34:49It was like quiet.
34:51It took a long time for it to set in.
34:54And walking off the field, the people were going crazy.
34:58And looking in the dugout at my teammates, it was like slow motion.
35:02And then he went down a little much later, and someone had already, I think one of his teammates
35:06or something had already put over Gibson's locker, Roy Hobbs, which was perfect.
35:10We really scouted the A's extremely well.
35:13I had our scouts, Mel Didier, Steve Boros, Jerry Stevenson, and Phil Reben.
35:20Mel Didier went through all this litany of Eckersley, and then he mentioned you left-handed hitters,
35:27Sosha, Gibson, Shelby, Davis.
35:30You can bet your bottom dollar, and when he has a 3-2 count on, he's going to try and
35:34backdoor the slider.
35:35He stepped in the box with 3-2, and he called time, and he stepped back.
35:42And there was a smile on his face, and he said, Mel, I can hear you.
35:46Pardon?
35:47You better watch, because it's going to be a backdoor slide of 3-2 with the winning run on 2nd
35:53and 3rd.
35:54Which was a great scouting report.
35:55There's only one problem.
35:56Elias looked it up.
35:57Eckersley was never 3-2 on the left-handed hitter that year.
36:00So the scouting report was a bogus scouting report, but it turned out to be right.
36:06Some Los Angeles fans like to beat the crowd in every sport.
36:10And if you watch the replay of that home run, and as the ball is disappearing over the right-field
36:15fence,
36:16you can see the lights of the cars in the parking lot.
36:20The people who had left even a World Series game, a one-run World Series game early, they're pulling out.
36:26They're listening to the radio.
36:28I was at the game as a fan, and this is very difficult to admit, particularly on national television.
36:35I left the game early.
36:38A friend of mine had to make it to the airport.
36:40Eckersley had come in, and we figured, you know something?
36:42We better get out of here, because it can be a nightmare sometimes, getting out of Chavez Ravine, onto the
36:47highways.
36:48So we were flipping it on the thing, and we went to the end of the dial, and you could
36:51get Channel 4, KNBC.
36:54And Vin Scully was breathless by the time we picked him up.
36:59And recapping what had just gone on, and we both looked at each other.
37:05What idiots.
37:06We've just left history.
37:12Gibson's heroically defiant home run in Game 1, the Dodgers rode that momentum, and the bulldog pitching of Oral Hershiser,
37:20who won Game 2 and the clinch in Game 5, and was voted Series MVP.
37:30They've done it.
37:31I think we were just outplayed at that point in time.
37:34I'm sure if we played the Dodgers 20-game series, we'd win 15 at it.
37:38But at that point in time, they just had everything going for themselves.
37:42They had momentum.
37:43Every little thing they did, they did it perfectly.
37:45It's not always the strongest man who wins the fight, or the fastest man who'll win a race,
37:52or the best team who'll win a game.
37:54In most cases, it's the one who wants it more than the other.
37:59This guy never went to bat again.
38:05What the...
38:09And in the World Series.
38:11That was his own...
38:13Never went to bat again in the World Series.
38:15Never.
38:16That was his only appearance in the World Series.
38:19And by golly, he just shocked the world with that home run.
38:25And you know something?
38:26And then it paralyzed that other team so bad that they weren't able to recover.
38:30We beat them in five games.
38:32That Dodger team might be the worst world champions that I've seen in 30 years of covering the World Series.
38:38And yet, they really deserve to win.
38:41The A's kept returning to the World Series, appearing in three straight,
38:45but won only once over the Giants in the 1989 earthquake epic.
38:49After being swept by the Reds in 1990, the A's didn't seem quite the dynasty that had been expected.
38:56Everybody thought that they were going to win this thing, and that they had a lot of years in front
38:59of them,
39:00and that we were going to see the Oakland A's dominating baseball again.
39:04They didn't get the full measure of acclaim that they deserved because they stubbed their toe in two World Series
39:12out of three.
39:13They should have won all three.
39:15But I think if they'd won all three, people would have understood how good they really were.
39:20One flick of the bat by a man who could barely stand, let alone walk,
39:25was the pivot on which the 1988 World Series swung.
39:28And his one and only at-bat of the World Series,
39:31Kurt Gibson made good on his spring training promise to the other Dodgers.
39:35I'll be the best teammate you ever had.
39:39All the way back to the day that I stood in front of that team and had that team meeting
39:42and challenged them to give their heart and soul to become world champions.
39:48That's why I went up there.
39:49I remember those words, and that was my duty to go up there.
39:53This man played with every ounce of energy and determination every second he was out there.
40:01And it ended up costing him some games in future years because I think he had 12 cortisone shots that
40:06year.
40:07And they said, well, he's not a Hall of Famer.
40:08I said, I wouldn't disagree with you.
40:11But I'll tell you this, every baseball player that ever played this game wished they wanted to win as much
40:18as he did.
40:20Gibson slings and a fly ball to deep right field.
40:23This is going to be a home run.
40:25Unbelievable!
40:26A home run for Gibson.
40:28And the Dodgers have won the game 5-4.
40:32I don't believe what I just saw.
40:36The great thing about Jack's call is it's a combination of the perfect professionalism
40:43and the great voice of a Hall of Fame announcer,
40:45but also the surprise and enthusiasm of a fan.
40:49I was working with Bill White, and that's when I said I don't believe what I just saw
40:55because I still, still couldn't believe it.
40:58It was one of the most dramatic hits in the history of baseball.
41:02As you watch that swing today, almost flat-footed, almost one-handed, just a flick of the bat,
41:10it just doesn't look like a ball can go that far on a swing like that with someone as compromised
41:16as Gibson was.
41:18Man.
41:19Forget about how much they make, forget about strikes, forget about holdouts.
41:24That was baseball.
41:26Hollywood would have said, no, this script will never work.
41:29For everything to be on the line and 3-2 pitch, the best reliever in the game against the MVP,
41:35and, and, uh, God, it's a, it's a phony script.
41:49It's the natural in real life.
41:51It's better than the natural.
41:52You know, Redford wouldn't have dared make that movie that corny,
41:56you know, to have this guy limping around, uh, the bases at Dodger Stadium,
42:02you know, pumping his fists, having done what no one thought could be done.
42:07I can still see disappearing into the crowd,
42:11and I can still see Can't Seiko out there, never looks,
42:14and I can still see Ed just throwing that head out there and scouting,
42:19and I, it seems to me like Gibson's trot has never ended.
42:34On the day of the game, in his living room,
42:37Gibson tried to jog in place, tried to swing a bat,
42:40hoping there might be a way he could play,
42:42all the while muffling howls of pain.
42:44Yet somehow, evoking memories of the mythical Roy Hobbs,
42:48Gibson dragged himself to the plate.
42:50It would be his only at-bat of the series.
42:53It would turn out to be more than enough.
42:55For ESPN Classics Battle Arms, I'm Rich Eisen.
Comments