- 7 weeks ago
1993 Blue Jays are not talked about nearly enough
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00:00Michigan can't take a timeout.
00:15Hi, I'm Brock. It takes a fresh look at sports personalities who were remembered largely for
00:19their mistakes, controversial moments, or questionable decisions. Down three games to
00:25two to the Blue Jays, the Phillies led 6-5 in the ninth inning of game six in the 1993
00:29World Series. They brought in their ace closer, Mitch Williams. He gave up a walk-off, and before
00:34the cheering died in Toronto, the man once affectionately called Wild Thing became public
00:39enemy number one in the city of brotherly love. We will, here on this program, give you the top
00:44five reasons you can't blame Mitch Williams for Philadelphia losing that World Series. First,
00:49let's examine the events that led to that fateful pitch in Toronto.
00:56They had a reputation of being a roughed-up group of guys.
01:08Crazy, insane, probably isn't going over the edge. They played the game right, but they
01:15were nuts. Just a bunch of animals. When the umpire said play ball, it was time to play,
01:24and it was time to kick butt, and that's what they did. After finishing 26 games out of first
01:29place in 1992, the Phillies charged to the top of the National League East the next season,
01:35winning 97 games and a reputation as a rowdy gang of nonconformists.
01:42You had these headlines in Atlanta, women and children off the streets, the Phillies are coming
01:47to town. The media hated us because we wouldn't give them anything. We just wanted to go back in
01:52the training room and drink beer. It was them against the world. In a lot of ways, that's how
01:56they fueled themselves to win, because most of those guys were not great stars. They had banded
02:01together for this one shot.
02:05At the center of Philadelphia's Irregulars was closer Mitch Williams. Affectionately known as
02:11Wild Thing, the left-hander saved 43 games while behaving in ways strangely close to Charlie Sheen's
02:18character in the film Major League.
02:21He likes to pitch with it like his hair is on fire. It's the long hair. He's got the wind
02:27-up where he's
02:27falling off the mound. I had a chance to face him when he was in Chicago, and it was one
02:32over the head, one out on the corner.
02:36Whoa! He threw it behind him!
02:39There was sometimes when it was manufactured, bad control, and sometimes when you go out
02:44there and I just didn't know where it was going.
02:46He was put on that team to drive Jim Fregosi absolutely nuts. After the 92 season, Fregosi
02:51quit smoking, and either the first time he saw Mitch or the first time he saw Mitch in the
02:55game, he started smoking again.
02:58He had four pitches. Mitch Williams was a pack for one-inning guy.
03:05One drive by 10! The game is time!
03:09The problem with Williams was you like your closer to be a guy that gives you a feeling
03:15like we're in the driver's seat here, not one that takes you on some kind of crazy thrill ride.
03:23After taking the East by three games, the Phillies faced the Braves, winners of 104 games in the
03:30NLCS. History stood squarely on Atlanta's side. Since the League Championship Series began
03:36in 1969, no team with that many victories had failed to make it to the World Series.
03:42Williams and his teammates defied those odds.
03:45Swing and a miss to give out! The Phillies are the 93 National League Champions!
03:53Mitchie Pooh saved two games and he won two games. He had to win four and he was a part
03:58of
03:59every one of those wins against Atlanta to get us to the World Series.
04:03Sounds exactly like he does on NFL Films.
04:08Although Williams picked up a save in game two of the World Series against Toronto, it
04:13was clear to some that after 71 appearances, Wild Thing was wearing down.
04:18And the World Series is even at one win apiece.
04:21As we got into October that year, the only thing dropping more than the temperature was
04:29the velocity on Mitch's fastball.
04:30Concern about Williams lately from the Phillies standpoint has been his velocity, it has been
04:35down.
04:35I heard numbers that his 94-mile-an-hour fastball was 83 miles an hour.
04:42He was out of bullets. He had thrown so much, so often, and he was just, he was on field.
04:48In the eighth inning of game four, after the Blue Jays scored one run and had two runners
04:53on base, Williams was handed the ball and a four-run lead. What followed was sheer madness.
04:59Mitch Williams needed to get five outs before he gave up five runs. Couldn't do it.
05:04Go on one. Line to center. Dykstra can't get it. Two-run score. It's 14-13.
05:12People think game six was the deciding game, and I honestly thought game four was. Because
05:18we had such a commanding lead. I come in, and everything they hit found a hole.
05:26Little looper. Long run for Dykstra. In right center. Can't get it.
05:31As Philadelphia fans looked on in horror, Toronto rocked Williams, scoring five more runs on three hits in a walk
05:38to win 15-14.
05:41Down three games to one, the Phillies again faced the cold specter of historical improbability.
05:47He stunk. There's no other way to put it. I didn't get him out when I had to get him
05:51out.
05:52Can the Phillies possibly get up off the mat?
05:54Well, Chris, I think it's very difficult to come back and win three games against this club in a row.
06:00In game five, Kurt Schilling staved off elimination by throwing a 2-0 shutout.
06:05Then down 5-1 in game six, the Phillies rallied in the seventh inning.
06:10A three-run homer by Lenny Dykstra and an RBI single by Dave Hollins tied the score.
06:16And Incaviglia drives one to center. Hollins comes to the plate to make it 6-5, Phillies.
06:22After surviving a bases-loaded scare in the eighth inning, manager Jim Fragosi again called on Williams to protect that
06:29one-run lead in the ninth.
06:31I think that the feeling that almost everybody had was, oh no.
06:36Ball four. Williams walks Henderson on four pitches to open the ninth.
06:42After retiring Devon White, Williams faced Paul Molitor, who was hitting 4-35 in the postseason.
06:49Blind and a center, falling fast, a hit. Third of the night for Molitor. Henderson stops at second.
06:57Next up was more potential trouble.
06:59But Joe Carter, with 33 home runs and 121 RBIs in 1993, had yet to figure out Williams, against whom
07:07he was 0 for 4.
07:08Now the 2-2. Well hit down the left field line. Way back in. Goal!
07:16I can remember thinking, when he hit it, that my first thought was, oh my god, I just saw one
07:20of the greatest moments in the history of the game.
07:22And then my second thought is, holy crap, our season's over.
07:25The winners and still world champions, the Toronto Blowjays!
07:30I've always said I made the mistake.
07:33Everyone's season's over after you play the World Series. Their season's also over.
07:39And it was a mistake, a blatant mistake.
07:42He was one of the few down-and-in right-handed hitters in baseball. Terrible pitch.
07:50I'm not going to sit here and make excuses for nobody. I just didn't get it done.
07:54If I suck, there isn't anyone that's going to tell me I suck. Worse than I believe it myself.
07:58I know when I stink.
08:00There was a couple games in that series where if he would have done his job, so to speak, that
08:05the outcome of the series would have been reversed.
08:08He's the last guy out there on the mound.
08:11Mitch is going to be blamed for as long as there's baseball.
08:15It's pretty simple in this town.
08:18Forever, forever in his life, Mitch Williams will be remembered for losing the World Series.
08:26That's the conventional wisdom behind Philadelphia's vilification of Mitch Williams.
08:30Rabid to their core, Philly fans still may not be willing to let the wild thing off the hook.
08:35In a few minutes, we'll make our case by counting down the top five reasons you can't blame Mitch Williams.
08:40But first, consider some points in Williams' favor that did not make the short list.
08:44We call them the best of the rest.
08:49Failed starts.
08:49Other than Schilling's shutout, the Phillies' starters were less than effective.
08:54In five other games, they gave up 25 earned runs and 35 hits in 24 in the third innings.
09:01Not one made it through the seventh inning.
09:04That's silly to blame Mitch Williams because I didn't pitch well.
09:09Tommy Green didn't pitch well.
09:11You just got to have that mentality to pitch in a World Series.
09:14And I think a few of those guys were a little scared.
09:19Another best of the rest, Dave Hollins.
09:22Up 14-9 with two on and one out in the eighth inning of game four,
09:27the Phillies' third baseman failed to handle Molitor's grounder,
09:30allowing the first of six runs to cross the plate that inning.
09:34I should have knocked that ball down, and it led to more runs.
09:38So, it's part of the 15-14 game that we all got to live with.
09:47Bud Seelig.
09:48And the owner of the Brewers, he failed to re-sign free agent and future Hall of Famer Paul Molitor,
09:54who became a Blue Jay for the 1993 season.
09:57It's all Bud Seelig's fault.
09:59If Bud Seelig does the right thing and keeps Paul Molitor in Milwaukee,
10:05then Philadelphia has a chance to win that series.
10:07In all of the things that Bud has done in his career,
10:10nothing is a bigger disgrace than lowballing his favorite player.
10:14When Seelig offered him $5.2 million over two years,
10:18Molitor signed with the Blue Jays for $13 million over three years.
10:23In 1993, he hit a career-high 22 home runs,
10:27and his .332 batting average was second highest in the league.
10:31More to the point, Molitor hit .500 against Philadelphia
10:35and set a World Series record by scoring 10 runs.
10:39Line and a center, falling fast, a hit.
10:41Third of the night for Molitor.
10:43As I headed into that postseason in 1993,
10:46it was one of those periods of my career where,
10:49as a hitter, things really slowed down.
10:51You didn't chase bad pitches.
10:53Your swing was short.
10:54You're physically strong.
10:55Oh, it's tattooed.
10:57Forget this one.
10:58Deep left field and gone.
11:01You let a good hitter like Paul Molitor get away
11:04in its economics,
11:05and it looks bad.
11:07It looks foolish.
11:09Yeah, we can blame Bud Silly.
11:11If I wouldn't have been in Toronto,
11:13I'm not going to be the person to say
11:15that Philadelphia would have won that series, that's for sure.
11:17But, hey, commissioner always gets blamed for something, right?
11:22One reason down, four to go.
11:24Here's reason number four.
11:28Death threats.
11:29In the aftermath of Williams' collapse in game four,
11:32some fans responded with a deluge of hatred,
11:36while a few others resorted with behavior punishable by jail time.
11:41This was beyond nasty.
11:43That's why you've got to blame the Philadelphia fans for that loss.
11:47That's got to affect you.
11:48I don't care who you are.
11:50Williams didn't learn of the threats until after game five,
11:53while he was loading his truck for a trip to his ranch in Texas
11:56when the season ended.
11:58Well, I walk out to my driveway at 2 o'clock in the morning.
12:01I had a 9mm gun in my hand that I was packing to take home.
12:06Well, a flashlight comes on at the end of my driveway.
12:09I said, it's the police.
12:11They said, they didn't tell you.
12:12You had two death threats phoned into the stadium.
12:16He went back out and then brought the gun back in.
12:20And that night, he just f***ed the floor.
12:23I mean, the whole night.
12:24We didn't sleep the whole night.
12:26I laid there with it right underneath my pillow.
12:28Every little noise I heard, I was up exploring.
12:32It was very scary.
12:33I think it definitely added to the pressure.
12:36But, you know, he would never admit that.
12:38He would never say, that's why I couldn't come through that night.
12:43The guy didn't sleep the whole night.
12:45He missed the workout yesterday.
12:47That's just not right.
12:49I'm not really quite sure there's any way that any pro athlete can go out into a field,
12:54particularly in the World Series, and be able to sort of segregate that concern
12:58and somehow block it out of their head.
13:01All four!
13:03No.
13:04It's one thing to get death threats when your season's already over.
13:08It's another thing to get death threats and still have to go back out there.
13:14I've really never heard of that before.
13:18It didn't have a thing to do with my performance.
13:21I walked out in Game 6, I felt fine.
13:23It just didn't work out.
13:25If you're going to talk about all the other things that led up to the home run by Joe Carr,
13:31you can't discount the fact that the guy had to deal with this.
13:35But it definitely has to be factored in.
13:41One of the more curious stories to come out of the 1993 World Series
13:45was Curt Schilling's habit of hiding his face under a towel when Williams took the mound.
13:50That's probably one of the worst things I've ever seen in baseball.
13:53I'm not alone.
13:54I think it bothered everybody.
13:57It bothered Mitch.
13:58And the towel is back over the eyes of Curt Schilling.
14:01I did it for the same reason everybody thought I did.
14:04I was nervous.
14:05I never had an inkling that it was a disrespectful thing.
14:08I figure if you don't want to watch, drag your ass up in the clubhouse and watch something else.
14:12I lost all respect for the man over that.
14:16Curt Schilling knew exactly what he was doing.
14:18He wanted to get more cameras on himself, and that's all it was about.
14:21It's a bunch of crap.
14:24To me, it explains to people who he is.
14:28Wow.
14:31Did our first two reasons grab you?
14:32If not, here's reason number three.
14:37Joe Carter.
14:38He was no ordinary Joe.
14:41Unlike such walk-off artists as Bobby Thompson and Bill Mazeroski,
14:45Carter was one of the most feared hitters of his day.
14:47You gotta blame Joe Carter.
14:50He could have swung and missed.
14:52The bastard.
14:55He didn't.
14:56Joe Carter was an RBI machine.
14:59When man were in scoring position, he became a great hitter.
15:05Over 16 seasons, Carter hit 30 or more home runs six times and drove in more than 100 runs 10
15:13times.
15:13Down 6-5 with two on and one out in the ninth, the Blue Jays' top power hitter stepped in
15:19against the wild thing.
15:20The run that would win the World Series is at first, and Joe Carter is the batter.
15:25It's a pitch that's a fastball till an end.
15:2899,100 times you throw me that pitch.
15:30I'm gonna hook it foul in the dugout or hit it off my foot.
15:33Here's the pitch on the way.
15:34A swing and a belt.
15:35A steal.
15:36Way back.
15:37Blue Jays win it.
15:39The Blue Jays are World Series champions.
15:42Touch them all, Joe.
15:43You'll never hit a bigger home run in your life.
15:46It wasn't like I gave it up to a piss-hitting second baseman that never hit any home runs.
15:50I gave it up to a class act that spent a long time in the big leagues hitting home runs
15:55off better pitches than me.
15:59Have we begun to change your mind yet?
16:01If not, take a look at reason number two.
16:06The rest of the bullpen.
16:08Although Williams was exhausted in the postseason, manager Jim Dragozi had little alternative.
16:13Ben Rivera had a tendency to get wild.
16:16Bobby Thigpen had better years before he got to Philadelphia.
16:20And David West is flat out couldn't pitch.
16:21We saw Jim Dragozi the other night go all the way with Curt Schilling.
16:26146 pitches.
16:27Obviously he wanted to stay away from the bullpen.
16:30We got 80 games out of David West in the bullpen.
16:33Larry Anderson was towards the end of his career.
16:36And as it turned out, Mitch Williams at the end of his career.
16:41In game three, Phillies relievers Ben Rivera and Larry Anderson combined to surrender six runs on seven hits.
16:49In game four, David West gave up two runs on three hits and a hit batter.
16:53In the eighth inning of game six with two outs and one on, Anderson was one pitch away from ending
16:59the inning.
17:00Anderson's two-two to Fernandez.
17:02Hit him!
17:03I hit Tony Fernandez.
17:06And I walked Sprague to load the bases.
17:09Then I get out of it, but I turned the lineup over.
17:11So now Mitch is going out facing Ricky Henderson.
17:14He won!
17:15He won!
17:16When Williams came on in the ninth, he did so to face the top of the lineup,
17:21starting with the greatest leadoff hitter in the history of man.
17:27A byproduct of walking the all-time base stealer was that Williams had altered his delivery
17:32in an effort to hold him close to the bag.
17:35I had never thrown out of a slide step in my entire life.
17:37Some of our coaching staff, they thought it would help slow him and Alomar down if I tried that.
17:44Kind of a neat thing to start experimenting, isn't it?
17:47Williams is falling behind Carter, two and all.
17:49The slide step did nothing but straighten this ball out a little bit
17:54and take a couple of miles an hour off of it.
18:06Mitch is getting all this blame.
18:07I said, I'm just as much to blame, if not more, for what I did.
18:10I didn't do my job as well as I should have.
18:13Toronto wanted nothing more than to get into Philly's bullpen,
18:16and Williams just happened to be the last guy standing.
18:22The Blue Jays were better.
18:25The defending world champion sported seven All-Stars in 1993,
18:30and one of the most fearsome lineups no one seems to remember.
18:33It's criminal how forgotten the Blue Jays are.
18:36This is one of the most underappreciated great teams of all time.
18:39They were an unbelievable team.
18:41They were a powerhouse from top to bottom.
18:43They had speed, they had power, they had defense, they had everything.
18:46I just think their lineup was better than ours.
18:49Their offense, one through eight, was more consistent and better equipped to win a championship.
18:58Before the 1993 season, Toronto signed veteran pitcher Dave Stewart as well as Molitor.
19:04And then on July...
19:06Roberto Alomar, Hall of Famer.
19:09That's four Hall of Famers with a bat in their hands.
19:13Out of one, two, three, three, three, four, out of nine.
19:17On the 31st, the Blue Jays traded for Ricky Henderson.
19:21Ricky was a key to that ball club down the stretch.
19:24Whenever he got on base, he created some havoc and made pitchers really work and concentrate on him rather than
19:29the hitter.
19:33With a lineup that included the league's top three hitters in batting average,
19:37Toronto's superb offense was most evident when Williams entered the ninth inning crucible of game six.
19:44We had no easy outs, and so mentally, you become fatigued because you're thinking every single pitch,
19:51this could be the pitch that I lose the ball game on.
19:54Look at the people that Mitch had to face in that inning.
19:58Ricky Henderson, Hall of Famer.
20:00Paul Molitor, Hall of Famer.
20:02Joe Carter, possible Hall of Famer.
20:04The Blue Jays were just better.
20:09Removed from the media's glare, the Blue Jays were in many ways an overlooked team.
20:14With the strike of 1994 and the rise of the evil empire in the Bronx,
20:19the repeat world champions quickly became yesterday's news.
20:23They won back-to-back World Series, but it'll never get talked about
20:26because soon thereafter, the Yankees were so dominant.
20:30I think if you broke down the team player-to-player, position-to-position,
20:33pitcher-to-pitcher, I don't think it's surprising that the Jays won that series.
20:38It's unfair to blame Mitch Williams for the 93 World Series
20:41because he was facing the best team in baseball, the Toronto Blue Jays.
20:46Simple as that.
20:51Between the other Yankees dynasty with Ricky Jackson, Reggie Jackson, sorry, Reggie Jackson,
20:58and then the latest Yankees dynasty with Jeter, they were the only repeat champions.
21:06It's a 20-year stretch.
21:07They were the only repeat champions.
21:14Well, there you have it.
21:15The top five reasons you can't blame Mitch Williams for the Phillies losing the 1993 World Series.
21:20Maybe now the city of...
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