19 to 21

No, that’s not the number of years Phillies fans have waited for this, it’s, Baseball... Then and Now

Volume 5, #38, October 1, 2007

News Item: September 30, 1964 – The Phillies lose to the Cardinals, 8-5, their 10th straight loss.

News Item: May 29, 1969 -- “Long Time Gone” is released on the Crosby, Stills & Nash album.

“It's been a long time comin'

It's goin' to be a Long Time Gone.

And it appears to be a long,

Appears to be a long,

Appears to be a long

Time, yes, a long, long, long, long time before the dawn.” – Crosby, Stills & Nash

Chico Ruiz was out by a mile. Morrie Steevens threw Willie Davis out at home. Fred Merkle went all the way to second base and Fred Snodgrass caught Clyde Engle’s fly ball. Bobby Thompson and Bucky Dent hit popups. Dennis Eckersley struck Kirk Gibson out looking. Hack Wilson caught Mule Haas’ line drive. The Athletics swept the Braves and the Orioles swept the Mets. Billy Martin couldn’t get to that infield fly of Jackie Robinson’s. Mickey Owen held on to Hugh Casey’s little wet slider. Stan Lopata (not Andy Seminick) dropped Richie Ashburn’s throw. Mitch Williams struck out Joe Carter. For that matter, Gabby Hartnett couldn’t see Mace Brown’s pitch in the dark of Wrigley Field and struck out as well. The Dodgers carved up Don Larsen’s unremarkable stuff and the Cubs did the same to Howard Ehmke’s pitches. Willie Mays didn’t catch up to Vic Wertz’ fly ball and Sandy Amoros couldn’t get to Yogi Berra’s slicing fly down the left field line.

That’s right. All of the wild and improbable things that have happened in pennant races, playoffs and the World Series never happened. They couldn’t have… at least not any more than the best team in the National League in 2007 could blow a seven game lead with 17 games to go. And that wasn’t the half of it. Although it can’t be said that the Mets handed the Phillies the National League East on a silver platter, it can be said that the team that benefited from the worst choke job in the history of baseball was owed one. Owed one from 43 years ago. It has indeed been a long time comin’. Every true blue Philadelphian, from Phillies PR man Larry “The Baron” Shenk, who along with senior advisor Dallas Green (who pitched for the ’64 Phils) is the only current Phillies employee who was there in 1964, to assistant GM Ruben Amaro, Jr., whose dad won a Gold Glove for the 1964 Phillies, to a little Dutchman from Pottstown, to another Dutchman – the only current Phillie player alive in 1964, to a distinguished senator from Kentucky, to one of the great natural talents to ever hit tape measure home runs, to every one of the screaming hordes who jammed Citizens Park Sunday, found redemption after 43 years of waiting. Even if you weren’t a 12 year-old Phillies fan in 1964, you’d heard the stories… from your father, your grandfather, an uncle, maybe a cousin or an older brother. (Because following the Fightin’ Phils runs in family bloodlines as clearly as any other genetic trait.) About how the Phillies blew a six-and-a-half game lead with 12 games to go. But now, justice has finally been served. Redemption has happened. A worse collapse has taken place, and, most fittingly of all, it was the Phillies who were there to pick up the pieces.

Some will tell you that losing a six-and-a-half game lead in 12 games is worse than losing a seven game lead in 17 games. Not true, because they don’t know history. First, only the 1934 Giants and the 1938 Pirates had previously managed to blow a seven game lead in September, and both of those teams had more than 17 games to work with. More importantly, David Wright isn’t the only person who thinks the Mets had the best team in the National League this year. The Best Team Money Could Buy (Flushing Meadow Division). A four-headed monster rotation with two old aces (300 game winner Tom Glavine and Orlando Hernandez) and two young aces (John Maine and Oliver Perez), plus the late-season addition of arguably the best pitcher in the league, and another future Hall of Famer, Pedro Martinez. A lights-out closer. A dynamic offense lead by three stars in the infield and two stars in the outfield. That’s a pretty good team to go 5-12 down the stretch. An historic collapse. By way of contrast, the 1964 Phillies were, in reality, about a fourth place team (which is where they finished in 1963), with a good defense, two offensive stars (Dick Allen and Johnny Callison), two aces (Jim Bunning and Chris Short) and two top relievers (Jack Baldschun and Ed Roebuck), a team that had played over its head all year long, thanks mainly to the additions of Rookie of the Year Allen and Bunning, and the inspired genius of one of the great managers in history – Gene Mauch.

So what happened in 1964 and 2007? Is there any simple explanation, and how do they compare? Well, as noted previously, an historic moment like this doesn’t happen without at least two teams being involved. In 1964, the Phillies, their rotation in tatters, lost 10 straight while at virtually the same time the Cardinals were winning nine straight and the Reds were winning eight straight. From the Phillies’ point of view, Mauch was excoriated for starting his two aces repeatedly on short rest. In fact, that “fact” alone is typically cited as the reason the Phillies lost the 1964 pennant. However, that “fact” isn’t a fact, and there was far more to 1964 than Short and Bunning, and then go hunting. Here are the facts…

Mauch had pretty much used a four-man rotation all year – Bunning, Short, Dennis Bennett and Art Mahaffey, with Ray Culp making 19 starts as a fill-in when needed and 18 year-old Rick Wise starting a few second games of doubleheaders (including the game after Bunning’s perfect game). Together, they made 158 starts. However, by mid-September, before the Sept. 21 start of the losing streak, Mauch was basically down to Bunning and Short. Culp hadn’t started since August 15, and both Bennett and Mahaffey were hurting (although Art later denied that, claiming that Mauch had something personal against him). In fact, Bunning pitched once on short rest before the losing streak started. In all, Short and Bunning pitched on two days rest a total of five times, as Mauch went with a three-man rotation – Bunning, Short and either Bennett or Mahaffey, who started on six and five days rest to save their arms.

No, it didn’t work. Neither Short or Bunning pitched well down the stretch, but, maybe more significantly, it would have taken some really fine pitching to break the losing streak. Leave out the 14-8 loss to the Braves (the game where Callison hit three home runs), and the Phillies scored just 2.9 runs per game during the streak. Even in the low-scoring 60s, that wasn’t going to get it done.

Thus the Phillies’ offense, after relying on just Callison and Allen all year, collapsed. Even so, there were a few other pretty strange happenings that left Phillies fans talking to themselves. The first was on September 19, when they lost a 4-3 game in Los Angeles, when Willie Davis stole home on the immortal Morrie Steevens in the bottom of the 16th. Morrrie Steevens? His entire major league career consisted of 20 innings spread over 22 games in three years, and his presence in the September 19 points out another weakness, in the Phillies’ bullpen. Outside of Baldschun, Roebuck and late season pickup Bitsy Bobby Shantz, Mauch didn’t have a lot of relievers he could put much trust in.Still, it wasn’t a reliever, but Mahaffey, who was on the mound two days later, when Ruiz stole home with Frank Robinson at bat in the sixth for the only run in a 1-0 loss that started the losing streak. Then, on September 26, they blew a 4-3 lead in the top of the ninth when Shantz threw about his only bad pitch as a Phillie, which was turned into a three-run triple by Rico Carty. (Is it not fitting that another Dutchman, Jamie Moyer, won the 2007 pennant clincher?) The very next day Bunning, the future Hall of Famer (although he didn’t win 303 games) was torched early by the Braves (seven runs in three innings, as opposed to seven runs in a third of an inning), and even Callison’s three home runs couldn’t bring them back. In other words, in the one game in 10 where they could have outscored a loss, their ace was blitzed in a rout. Overall, during the losing streak, only the 1-0 game was a one-run game, and only the first game of the Braves series went extra innings. They just lost and lost, usually by a couple of runs (five of the 10 were two-run losses.)

So, maybe 1964 was, as catcher Gus Triandos put it, the Year of Blue Snow. At the very least, 2007 should be known as the Year of Blue and Orange Snow. Explaining the Mets’ collapse may even be harder, although the leading candidates under consideration are the Mets’ gloves, their bullpen, youngsters Jose Reyes and Lastings Milledge, manager Willie Randolph, and a mystery guest. Although a lot of people seem to be coming to the popular Randolph’s defense, and, like Gene Mauch, he probably shouldn’t be blamed for starting rookies Phil Humber and Mike Pelfrey down the stretch of a pennant race, there’s no denying that his public persona, at least on ESPN, looked very much like a man overwhelmed by his circumstances. Gene Mauch would have, at least, overturned a table of spare ribs if he saw a Milledge or a Reyes dogging it. Of more substance is the subject of the Met bullpen. While closer Billy Wagner having back problems was the headline-maker (maybe due to managerial overuse… he has had similar problems before) the rest of the Met pen was horrid. Except for Aaron Heilman (a 1.50 ERA) the Met pen posted the following numbers from September 14 to the season’s close.

Scott Schoenweis 4.70

Pedro Feliciano 4.70

Billy Wagner 5.40 (in only five games)

Guillermo Mota 5.63

Joe Smith 6.35

Jorge Sosa 8.31

Add it up, and that’s a cumulative 5.27 ERA for the Mets’ pen after September 14. Combine that with 22 errors over the same period (including four in one game), and that spells 5-12.

The Mets may not have lost any games by steals of home, but they sure did blow a lot of games by a more prosaic method… bad pitching. They started off, and this is significant, by losing three straight to the Phillies. (Six of the Phillies 10 straight were against their two closest pursuers, the Cards and Reds.) After two more losses to the Nationals, they seemed to have pulled back together, winning four of five from the Nats and the Marlins. Then came the real crash – five consecutive losses to those same Washingtonians, the Cardinals and the Fish, the last of which dropped them out of first place on Friday night. Although three of these were one-run losses, they also gave up 13, 12, 10, 10, 9, 9, and 8 runs during this 4-11 stretch. That might not have been so bad if they were facing the highest-scoring team in the National League, but the Phillies only accounted for one of the 10-run games. The Nationals, generally a weak-hitting team, dropped the 13, the 12, the other 10 and both 9s on New York’s pitchers. In the 12 losses, the Mets gave up 97 runs… more than eight a game.

That’s a lot of bad pitching and although the Mets’ bullpen has taken a lot of grief for blown leads, the fact is the starters didn’t exactly scintillate, either. Of the 12 losses, nine of them came in games when Mets’ starters, as Lee Sinins would say, took a pounding (even if they didn’t get the loss.)

Starter Opponent Score

Perez Phillies 10-6

Lawrence Nats 12-4

Maine Nats 9-8

Glavine Marlins 8-7

Pelfrey Nats 13-4

Glavine Nats 10-9

Humber Nats 9-6

Perez Marlins 7-4

Glavine Marlins 8-1

And there you have your mystery candidate for a full share of the blame. 303-game winner, sure Hall of Famer, Tom Glavine, who was wretched down the stretch. In his four starts during the final 17 games Glavine pitched 18 innings, gave up 30 hits, walked six and was torched for 19 runs – a 9.50 ERA. And that’s without even mentioning hitting Dontrelle Wills with a pitch with the bases loaded.

Still, after all that, the Mets would have finished first if the Phillies had just gone 11-6 instead of 13-4. How did they go 13-4? The most surprising reason was their much-maligned (and often rightly so) pitching. After almost an entire season of dread whenever the gate opened to the bullpen, Charlie Manuel finally discovered, in the last month of the season, three relief pitchers he could trust… closer Brett Myers, former closer Tom Gordon, and Red Sox castoff J.C. Romero. With a little help from Geoff Geary and Clay Condrey, these three workhorses salvaged the Phillies’ season. Myers appeared 10 times in their final 14 games, running from September 16 to September 30, going 1-1 with four saves and giving up three runs. Gordon’s last 10 outings came from September 18 on (appearing in 10 out of 12 games), and accounted for five holds and two runs allowed. And Romero was a revelation… his last 10 games, also from September 18 on, saw him pick up a win and three holds while giving up two hits and no runs in nine innings.

And yet, they still might have fallen short, if not for the Most Valuable Player in the National League, little 5-8, 168 pound James Calvin Rollins. Having from the very beginning of the season pronounced the Phillies as the team to beat in the NL East, JRoll made good on his word under a ton of pressure. In the Phillies’ final 10 games he scored 10 runs, usually early on, sparking the best offense in the National League. He saved the best for last, singling and stealing second and third in the first inning of the pennant clincher, and scoring the run that put the Phillies ahead to stay, before later driving in a run with his 20th triple of the year. Even the late Johnny Callison, the real National League MVP of the 1964 season, couldn’t have conceived of such a year under such circumstances.

They were chanting “MVP” at Citizen’s Park yesterday. They were chanting it for JRoll, for the Year of Blue and Orange Snow, for the demons that have finally been exorcized. It’s been a long time comin’.

-- John Shiffert