Well if I were to talk about the 40th Anniversary of something, then October 8th is also the 40th anniversary of the famous, or infamous bat throwing incident between Bert Camperneris of the A's and Lerrin Legrow of the Detroit Tigers in the 1972 ALCS. Long story made short, Game 2 ALCS: Campaneris had three hits, two runs scored and two stolen bases when he came up against the Detroit Tigers reliever Lerrin LeGrow to lead off the top of the 7th. On the first pitch LeGrow throws a fast ball inside and plunks Campaneris. Camperneris loses it, winds up and flings his bat toward the mound and at LeGrow. The bat made a couple of helicopter spins, before LeGrow manages to get out of the way. Naturally a fight breaks out. When all is said and done Campaneris and LeGrow are tossed from the game and Campaneris is suspended for the rest of the ALCS and the first 7 games of the 1973 season, but NOT the '72 World Series.
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| Campaneris winds up to hurl his bat at LeGrow |
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| LeGrow gets out of the way as the bat flies by |
I found a video of the play.
Click Here For Bob Costas video of the play
Here is a great baseball name from the past... winning pitcher game 2: John "Blue Moon" Odom of the A's.
But I digress, on to the '73 NLCS....
It was October 8th 1973 on a fall afternoon in New York. It was game 3 of a best of 5 series with the series tied at one game apiece. The Mets were playing in front of a sellout crowd of 54,000. The previous day Jon Matlack of the Mets shut down the Reds for a 2-0 victory in Cincinnati . Harrelson, the Mets light hitting shortstop made the comment.
"He made the Big Red Machine look like me hitting today."
This did not go over well with Joe Morgan and the rest of the Reds. Earlier in the day Morgan and Harrelson almost got into a fight about the comment while the Mets were taking batting practice. Rusty Staub intervened and cooler heads prevailed.
Pete Rose was the leader and spark plug of the Reds "Big Red Machine". He played hard and was all business when he went between the chalk lines. The Mets started Jerry Koosman, while the Reds countered with Ross Grimsley. The Mets jumped on Grimsley and by the 5th inning had built a very comfortable 9-2 lead thanks to two home runs by Rusty Staub and two hits by Koosman.
With one man out in the 5th inning Rose came up to the plate, and Jerry Koosman hits Rose with a pitch. At first glance it appeared that Rose took a couple of steps toward the mound, thought better of it and then finally went to first base. The next batter up was Joe Morgan. Morgan grounded the ball to John Milner at first base who threw to short and back to first for a 3-6-3 double play.
Rose who always played hard, tried to take out Harrelson and break up the double play. Harrelson thought that Rose was playing dirty (he may have been, or perhaps not, hard to tell). Harrelson didn't like it and let Rose know by exchanging some words (something having to do with suction on a male reproductive organ). Rose who was physically larger than Harrelson (out weighed him by 50 pounds), picked Harrelson up and threw him to the ground and then jumped on top of him.
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| Angle 1 of the fight |
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| Angle 2 |
Players from both dugouts rushed to the field to pair off. A few seconds later both bullpens, located in left and right field respectively also emptied. It took some time but when the dust cleared, the game continued and unbelievably, no one was thrown out of the game !
In the next inning, New Yorkers being who they are, started tossing beer and whiskey bottles at Rose in Left Field. Sparky Anderson, the manager of the Reds removed his players from the field for safety. It took a contingent of Yogi Berra (manager), Tom Seaver, Rusty Staub, Willie Mays to go over to the Left Field stands and talk to the fans to calm them down and pleaded for them to stop throwing things. An announcement was made over the PA system, that if anything else was thrown on the field, the Mets would forfeit the game. The game continued and there were no more incidents that day. The Mets won the game 9-2 and took a 2-1 series lead. They won the series in five games with Tom Seaver pitching for the series clincher.
As an epilogue, Buddy Harrelson had a sense of humor about the whole thing. The next day underneath his uniform he donned a Superman T-Shirt, showing he was not so "super". The fight was voted one of the top ten moments in Shea Stadium History by Mets fans.
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