CLASSIC NLWC - '74-LAD rallies from 4 runs down to defeat '75-CIN in extra innings

CLASSIC LEAGUE NLWC
Riverfront Stadium
74-LAD (20-20) @ 75-CIN (20-20)
Messersmith (5-4) vs Nolan (3-5)

On a 66 degree night in the Queen City two old rivals were set to square off in a NL Wild Card matchup.  Heading into this "one and done" game the 1974 Dodgers had to win 5 straight games just to qualify.  Their reward ?  They get to play the best of the Big Red Machine teams (1975) on the road knowing that they lost 5 of 6 to that team in the regular season.  Starting on the hiss was Andy Messersmith, who on paper was this team's ace, but during the regular season he peformed more like Kenta Maeda.  Cincy trotted out Gary Nolan, who met a similar fate during the regular season. 

For the first 2 1/2 innings the game remained scoreless until 1975 & 1976 NL MVP Joe Morgan hit a 2 run shot that electrified the Riverfront crowd.  With Nolan throwing up goose eggs those two runs loomed large.  LA felt the desperation and began making suspect baserunning mistakes like trying to score Jimmy Wynn all the way from first on a Willie Crawford double in the 4th with 2 outs.  It wasn't until the top of the 7th when the aforementioned Mr. Crawford, hit a one out solo blast, that the Dodgers final got on the board to cut the Reds lead to 2-1.  That ray of hope was gne just one half inning later when the Reds threw up a 3 spot off of Messersmith to make it 5-1 with 2 innings to play.  Fans back home in SoCal began turning their TV sets off and looking to make dinner plans. 

Desperate time call for desperate measures and at that point the Dodgers needed to try anything.  The first move was to get 32 year old, seldom used veteran, Ken McMullen to pinch hit for Messersmith.  "Mac" lined a single into right center and was promptly lifted for a pinch runner (Tom Paciorek).  Davey Lopes followed with a bullet to straight away center that got out of Riverfront quicker than a blink of an eye.  With the score now 5-3 the Reds might have been second guessing themselves for lifting Nolan for Eastwick, but they were now fully committed to their reliever.  Buckner kept the party going with a hump back liner to left center.  After 1974 NL MVP Steve Garvey flew out to Geronimo in center the "Toy Canon" Jimmy Wynn launched a 2 run shot to tie the game at 5 all.  The "Penguin", Ron Cey, followed wit a jack of his own to put the Dodgers up 6-5.  Mike Marshall, who won the 1974 Cy Young award was brought on to hold down the fort for the final 2 innings.  Like so many times before during this season, Marshall was not up to the task giving up a solo run in the bottom of the 8th on a Concepcion ground out.  With neither team scoring in the 9th the game headed toward extra innings. 

Willie Crawford (4-5, 2HR) led off the inning with his second homer of the day.  This one was off reliever Wil McEnaney.  Steve Yeager, who replaced Joe Ferguson behind the plate in the 8th doubled into the gap and moved to third on a slow roller by Bill Russell.  With one out Marshall was allowed to bat and he promptly lined a single to right to supply an insurance run to make the score 8-6.  LA then proceeded to load the bases and Cincy had to go to Pedro Borbon to prevent further carnage.  Borbon served up a meatball that Cey hit to the fence in deep right center that Ken Griffey had to leap for to catch and prevent a sure grand slam, which would have been the game breaker.  In the bottom of the 10th Johnny Bench led off the inning with a shot off the wall that manifested itself in the form of a stand up double.  Marshall was able to get both Griffey and Geronimo to roll over on screwballs for easy ground outs with the latter plating Bench to make it a one run game.  Davey Concepcion lined a single to center.  Surprisingly with 2 out Cincy allowed reliever Pedro Borbon to hit.  Their faith in Borbon was rewarded with a single to put runners on the corners. 

That was all for Marshall, who never made things look easy the whole season.  Veteran Jim Brewer,

who lost his closer's job to Marshall was called on to get the final out, which was no easy task considering the fact that he would be facing baseball's all time hit king Pete Rose.  Rose, who never gave up an AB in his entire career battled Brewer by fouling off pitches to get to a 3-2 count.  With the count full Brewer threw a change to Rose who hit a one hopper to Bill Russell at short.  Russell, who made his fair share of errors this season, fielded it cleanly and threw a dart to Garvey at first to end this classic wild card game.  Marshall (7-1) got the win, but for those of us who experienced him this season, we know that he created the win with another blow save.  McEnaney took the loss, but the real goat on the day was Eastwick, who game up 5 runs on 3 homers in the 8th while recording just one out in the process.  LA moves on to take on their Brooklyn (1953) ancestors in a best of 5 LDS series.  Special thanks to Bill Schneider for being able to play the game early in the am and challenging me to be on my "A" game with this classic chess match of a game.