You Can't Make This Up: Miracles, Memories, and the Perfect Marriage of Sports and Television by Al Michaels, L. Jon Wertheim
Authors: Al Michaels, L. Jon Wertheim
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minutes before the game, I could tell he was extremely nervous—in fact, he was sweating profusely. I looked over at him and asked what was wrong. With the clock ticking down, he explained, “I have to deliver this apology. I don’t have any idea what to say.”
I tried to get Joe to relax. I wanted to lighten the mood, so I said, “Look, Joe, it’s simple. Just say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very sorry I said ‘cocksucker.’ And it won’t happen again.’ ”
My attempt at humor was an abject failure. I thought Joe was ready to pop me. But then I was able to get him calmed down, and help him work out what to say. He got through it, and we moved on. And he’d keep his job with the Reds another three decades, until 2004— sixty years after his pitching debut.
IN MY THIRD SEASON in Cincinnati, the Reds won 99 games during the regular season and again finished atop the NL West, and faced the Mets, who had won only 82 games, in the National League Championship Series. In Game 1 at Riverfront, Tom Seaver took a 1–0 shutout into the eighth inning, but then Rose homered with one out to tie it, and in the ninth, with Seaver still on the mound, Bench won it with another homer. The Mets came back to even the series the next day on a Jon Matlack two-hit shutout. And then the series went back to New York, and Shea Stadium.
Bud Harrelson, the Mets’ light-hitting, five-foot-eleven, 160-pound shortstop, had been quoted as saying that against Matlack, the Reds “all looked like me.” Joe Morgan had some sharp words with Harrelson during batting practice before Game 3. Then, in the fifth inning, with New York on its way to a 9–2 win, Rose barreled into second base on a potential double-play grounder the only way he ever did—at full speed. Harrelson was in the bull’s-eye and in a flash, punches started flying. Both benches quickly emptied. There were no ejections. But then it got ugly.
When Rose went out to his position in left field, the fans pelted him with beer cans, batteries, and whatever else they had access to. In response, Sparky Anderson pulled his entire team off the field. The National League president, Chub Feeney, along with the umpires, prevailed upon the Mets to send a “peace party” out to left field to get the crowd calmed down. Simultaneously, the public address announcer was warning that the game could be forfeited to the Reds. So manager Yogi Berra, Seaver, Rusty Staub, and a forty-two-year old Willie Mays headed out to left field and were instrumental in restoring order. The game resumed and after the final out had been recorded, the Mets led the series, two games to one, and were one win away from the World Series.
We bused back to the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. Several cops would be brought in to stand guard outside, with extra security in the hallways. Pete Rose was a marked man and the number-one villain in Gotham City. Early that evening, everyone in the traveling party got a note slipped under their doors from the team’s traveling secretary instructing us to have our luggage in the lobby in the morning and be ready to leave town after Tuesday’s Game 4. The organization was trying to save a night’s worth of hotel bills in the event the Reds lost. Not exactly an inspirational message. But a couple of hours later the edict was reversed. Someone had figured out that that would have been a terrible signal to send to the players.
We all boarded the bus to Shea for Game 4 at around eleven o’clock the next morning. The bus ride was by far the quietest I’d witnessed in my three years with the Reds. With so many outsize personalities on the team, someone—even if the team was struggling a bit—was always talking. But on this day—near absolute silence. As we pulled into the Shea Stadium parking lot there were three or four hundred Mets fans at the gate, holding placards, chanting, screaming, cursing at Rose, throwing rocks, eggs, and whatever else they could get their hands
I tried to get Joe to relax. I wanted to lighten the mood, so I said, “Look, Joe, it’s simple. Just say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very sorry I said ‘cocksucker.’ And it won’t happen again.’ ”
My attempt at humor was an abject failure. I thought Joe was ready to pop me. But then I was able to get him calmed down, and help him work out what to say. He got through it, and we moved on. And he’d keep his job with the Reds another three decades, until 2004— sixty years after his pitching debut.
IN MY THIRD SEASON in Cincinnati, the Reds won 99 games during the regular season and again finished atop the NL West, and faced the Mets, who had won only 82 games, in the National League Championship Series. In Game 1 at Riverfront, Tom Seaver took a 1–0 shutout into the eighth inning, but then Rose homered with one out to tie it, and in the ninth, with Seaver still on the mound, Bench won it with another homer. The Mets came back to even the series the next day on a Jon Matlack two-hit shutout. And then the series went back to New York, and Shea Stadium.
Bud Harrelson, the Mets’ light-hitting, five-foot-eleven, 160-pound shortstop, had been quoted as saying that against Matlack, the Reds “all looked like me.” Joe Morgan had some sharp words with Harrelson during batting practice before Game 3. Then, in the fifth inning, with New York on its way to a 9–2 win, Rose barreled into second base on a potential double-play grounder the only way he ever did—at full speed. Harrelson was in the bull’s-eye and in a flash, punches started flying. Both benches quickly emptied. There were no ejections. But then it got ugly.
When Rose went out to his position in left field, the fans pelted him with beer cans, batteries, and whatever else they had access to. In response, Sparky Anderson pulled his entire team off the field. The National League president, Chub Feeney, along with the umpires, prevailed upon the Mets to send a “peace party” out to left field to get the crowd calmed down. Simultaneously, the public address announcer was warning that the game could be forfeited to the Reds. So manager Yogi Berra, Seaver, Rusty Staub, and a forty-two-year old Willie Mays headed out to left field and were instrumental in restoring order. The game resumed and after the final out had been recorded, the Mets led the series, two games to one, and were one win away from the World Series.
We bused back to the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. Several cops would be brought in to stand guard outside, with extra security in the hallways. Pete Rose was a marked man and the number-one villain in Gotham City. Early that evening, everyone in the traveling party got a note slipped under their doors from the team’s traveling secretary instructing us to have our luggage in the lobby in the morning and be ready to leave town after Tuesday’s Game 4. The organization was trying to save a night’s worth of hotel bills in the event the Reds lost. Not exactly an inspirational message. But a couple of hours later the edict was reversed. Someone had figured out that that would have been a terrible signal to send to the players.
We all boarded the bus to Shea for Game 4 at around eleven o’clock the next morning. The bus ride was by far the quietest I’d witnessed in my three years with the Reds. With so many outsize personalities on the team, someone—even if the team was struggling a bit—was always talking. But on this day—near absolute silence. As we pulled into the Shea Stadium parking lot there were three or four hundred Mets fans at the gate, holding placards, chanting, screaming, cursing at Rose, throwing rocks, eggs, and whatever else they could get their hands
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