Willie Mays Final Curtain Call

Musings of Game 2 of the 1973 World Series



1974 Topps Baseball Card of Game 2 of the 1973 World Series.  Willie Mays At the Plate.

Sunday (October 14th) marks the 39th anniversary of Game 2 of the 1973 World Series between the New York Mets and the Oakland Athletics.  The New York Mets had a spectacular finish to the 1973 regular season, jumping from last place [6th place] on August 30th to first place in the NL East by the end of the season.  Although they finished only 3 games above 500 (82-79) they won the division by 1.5 games over the Cardinals.  Dominated by strong pitching, the Mets won the best of 5 playoff series with the Cincinnati Reds, 3 games to 2, and with it the National League pennant, and the right to face the Oakland A's in the 1973 World Series.

The A's were the premiere team of the American League loaded with star players.    They had Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, Sal Bando, Ken Holtzman, Vida Blue, John "Blue Moon" Odom, Gene Tenace, Bert Campaneris, Ray Fosse and Joe Rudi.  Many of these players left for other teams when free agency first appeared in the mid 70's, breaking up the A's dynasty.  In 1973 however, they were the American Leagues version of "The Big Red Machine".

The Series would follow the 2-3-2 format, with the first two games in Oakland, the next 3 in New York at Shea Stadium and the final two if necessary back in Oakland.  Game 1 of the series as expected was dominated by pitching as the A's won a pitchers duel by a 2-1 score (Knowels vs Matlack).

With the Mets down one game to none, they were in need of a win so that the series might be knotted for the return trip to NY, but it wasn't going to be easy and it wasn't going to be fast.

It was an absolutely gorgeous early Autumn day in Oakland.  Warm temperatures, cloudless sky and a sun drenched baseball diamond.  Once Bob Hope and Jack Benny had thrown out the first pitches, the real game was ready to begin.  It was a 1:05 pm west coast start time, which mean that in New York it was a little past 4 pm.  I remember watching this game in glorious color on our family's "massive" 25 inch television set with my the entire family.  This was actually quite an event in my household, since I was the only real sports fan of the house and certainly the only baseball fan.  I was glad that I wasn't relegated to a 12" Black and White set in my room.

Willie Mays was 42 and in the final days of his hall of fame career.  He was facing a tougher opponent than a Catfish Hunter or "Blue Moon" Odom, an opponent that all athlete (and us normal folks) fear and eventually lose to,  Father Time.  During the season Mays as a player was a shell of his former self, though he was still my favorite player on the '73 Mets.   Due to age and injuries, Mays appeared in only 66 games that year and batted an anemic .211 with 6 home runs and 25 RBI's.   Like some of the baseball greats, the Mets were letting him retire on his "own terms", and by the end of the season Mays knew it was the end of the road for him.



Willie Mays In his hey day - 1966 Topps Card.  Mays hit 52 home runs in 1965 and was the NL MVP.

Rusty Staub was the MVP of the 1973 National League playoffs, however in game 4 vs the Reds he ran into the outfield wall an hurt his shoulder.  He had to sit out game 5 because of the injury.  In game 1 & 2 of the World Series he was forced to throw under handed or flip the ball to another outfielder to make long throws.

In game 2 with the Mets up by two runs going into the 9th inning Staub re injured his shoulder and Mays replaced him in the lineup.  In the bottom of the 9th inning Mays lost a fly ball in the cloudless sky and the ball dropped in for an official scorer double to lead off the inning (but the ball really should have been caught).  This allowed the A's to score 2 runs and tie the game in the bottom of the ninth.

In the 10th inning Harrelson lead off with a single.  With one out and Harrelson on third, Felix Millan hit a fly ball to short left field.  Buddy Harrelson tried to score on a sacrifice fly.  It was a bang bang play and the umpire called Harrelson out at the plate.  The video below shows the play and the still photo captures the drama of the moment, frozen in time.  I vividly remember watching that play live and that image of Mays and the umpire !  [the replay shows that Harrelson was safe].  Durring the commercial break between innings on our local NYC TV station [WNBC-TV Channel 4] the on air news reporter remarked about the play "He looked safe to me".





A moment frozen in time:  Mays pleads his case to the umpire in the top of the 10th inning
Like the moment Mays' helmet is frozen in mid-air.

The game moved into the 12th inning and with 2 on and 2 out Mays hits a Baltimore Chop off home plate and beat it out for a single, driving in Buddy Harrelson from 3rd for go ahead and game winning run.  It would prove to be the last hit and last RBI in his 22 year hall of fame major league career.  Mays would have one more at bat in the '73 series but would fail to get a hit.  However, for the one final day on a sun drenched Sunday afternoon in Oakland under the white hot lights of the World Series, Willie Mays gave his fans, old and new, one final memory that for some, would last a lifetime.

Epiloge 1:

This was the famous (infamous) Mike Andrews game in which Andrews would commit 2 errors in the game possibly costing the A's the win.  Charley Finley (the owner) had Mike Andrews declared injured after this game and forced the manager to put him on the Disable List.  Baseball Commisioner Bowie Kuhn vetoed the move and reinstated Adrews on the Oakland roster (and fined Finley).

Mike Andrews would never play another inning of ball in the major leagues.


Epiloge 2:

The Mets won game 2 by a score of  10 -7.  Tug McGraw the Mets bull pen ace and closer pitched an amazing 6 innings for the win.  That type of outing would never happen in todays game.

Epiloge 3:

Why didn't the Mets pitch George Stone (12-3 regular season record, an .800 percentage) in Game 7 ? ! ?  Stone was red hot down the stretch and in the playoffs.  In hind sight pitching Seaver on 3 days rest for Game 6 and John Matlack for Game 7 proved to be the wrong decision as they lost both games.  The Mets lost the '73 World Series 4 games to 3 to the A's.

Epiloge 4:

In 1973 this ranked as the longest World Series game in length of time at 4 hours and 20 minutes in the history of the World Series.  Present day, it now ranks 3rd behind game 3 of the 2005 WS (5 hours 41 minutes), and the Game 1 of the 2000 WS (4 hours 51 minutes).   The '73 series also marked one of the last times a World Series games would be played durring the day.