By Phil Ellenbecker
I don't recall seeing shortstop Fred Patek crying in the dugout after the Kansas City Royals dropped the fifth game of the 1977 American League Championship Series. Perhaps I was off crying some place away from the TV after the game.
I can certainly empathize with Freddie Joe's heartbreak, because I felt it myself. This was the Royals' year, 1977. There was a rough patch in the middle of summer, when the Chicago White Sox — the "Southside Hitmen" with their bloviating fans chanting "na na na na" — threatened K.C.'s AL West supremacy.
But the Royals restored their roar in August and September and won the division going away with a club record 102 wins. And when they won two of the first three games of the ALCS with the next two scheduled at Royals Stadium, it looked like they could be headed to the World Series in their ninth year of existence and second trip to the postseason.
But thanks in part to what I thought were a couple of questionable decisions by Royals manager Whitey Herzog, and in part to the Yankees just being the Yankees, it was the Yankees who moved on, giving Reggie Jackson a chance to permanently establish himself as Mr. October. But his October should have ended Oct. 8.
My first beef with Whitey came up Oct. 7 when he started a yet-unproven Larry Gura (8-5, 3.13 ERA that year) in Game 4 over Jim Colborn, who'd won 18 games and pitched a no-hitter in '77 for the Royals. But Herzog had a hang-up this series about starting right-handers against the Yankees' predominantly left-handed hitting lineup, and about using Colborn against the Yanks period. In fact Colborn didn't pitch at all against New York in 1977. Probably with merit — he went 4-11 with a 4.34 ERA in his career against the Yanks.
But I'd have taken my chances with Colborn. Gura gave up four runs, all earned, in two innings as the Yankees won 6-4.
But of course it wasn't Gura's fault or Herzog's fault. It was all John Mayberry's, just ask Whitey. Big John showed up late for the game, feeling the effects of a long night of partying with his family, and he admittedly had a poor game, striking out twice and committing two errors before Herzog got him out of there. (But why did Whitey start him if he was in such bad shape?)
Whitey had a case, but I'm not sure Mayberry cost the Royals the game as much as Gura's shaky outing did. And besides, Whitey is one of the biggest crybabies and excuse makers ever.
Herzog's next questionable call came with the Royals leading 3-2 entering the ninth inning of Game 5. Since the Royals skipper didn't have a closer he could trust after Doug Bird had been used (and even Bird couldn't be trusted), he called on ace starter Dennis Leonard (20-12, 3.04) to finish off the Yanks. But it wasn't long before Herzog had him out of there after Leonard surrendered a leadoff single to Paul Blair and walk to Roy White.
On came Larry Gura, and in came Blair on Mickey Rivers' single, bringing on Mark Littell. White scored on Willie Randolph's line-out sacrifice fly to center, putting the Yankees ahead. After Thurman Munson grounded out, Rivers scored on an error by George Brett that made it 5-3.
With a reliable closer on the mound in Sparky Lyle (second in the AL in '77 with 26 saves), the Yankees put the Royals away in the bottom of the ninth. Lyle coaxed a double-play ball by Patek to end the game, sucking the guts out of what had been looking to be a wondrous season for the Royals.
I remember feeling good at the time when Herzog called on Leonard. Close it all out with the big kahuna, even though he'd pitched in relief only one time all season and was known as a guy who usually took a couple of innings to hit his stride. I liked it.
In retrospect it looked like a grandstand move by the White Rat that failed miserably. Whitey was somewhat of a showboat who liked to make himself look good.
(By the way, regarding that conventional wisdom on Leonard as a slow starter? The facts don't really hold that up. According to baseballreference.com, Leonard's ERA by innings was fairly balanced throughout his career — 3.62 through the first three, 3.61 the next three and 3.96 innings seven through nine. In 1977, his ERA by innings, first through sixth, was 1.95, 4.14, 3.41, 1.75, 2.08 and 2.73, so he did get stronger as he went along that year.).
(And regarding the Royals' closer situation that year, despite not having a go-to guy they led the league in overall saves with 42. Bird led with 14, followed by 1976 closer Mark Littell with 12 and Gura with 10. Bird had his moments but was somewhat inconsistent, and Herzog had trouble figuring out whether to use him as a starter or reliever.)
The 1977 ALCS games were perhaps the most fiery of in a series of heated contests between the Royals and Yanks in the late '70s. Hal McRae set the tone in Game 2 when he went way out of the base path and took out second baseman Willie Randolph with a rolling block on a double-play attempt, allowing Patek to score from second (with McRae waving him around while tangled up with Randolph).
The fireworks were rekindled early in Game 5 when in the bottom of the first Brett tripled to center field and came up swinging at third baseman Graig Nettles after Nettles kicked him, thinking Brett was a bit overaggressive on his slide.The two were separated by third base coach Chuck Hiller and pitcher Ron Guidry as the benches emptied, before things settled down. No players were thrown out.
McRae scored on Brett's hit and Brett scored on Al Cowens' ground out, giving K.C. a 2-0 lead. Munson singled in Rivers off starter Paul Splittorff in the third. In the bottom of the inning a leadoff double by McRae and single by Cowens made it 3-1 Royals before Mike Torrez, in relief of Guidry, struck out Amos Otis and John Wathan to get out of the inning.
Torrez and Lyle blanked K.C. the rest of the way, while Splittorff held the Yanks in check until yielding a leadoff single in the eighth to Randolph and giving way to Bird. Lou Piniella and Jackson stroked consecutive singles to score Randolph and make it 3-2, and Bird needed Steve Mingori to get him out of the inning.
Then came the heartbreaking ninth. Damn. The Royals should have been in the 1977 World Series. And Reggie Jackson shouldn't have been.
Oh, and by the way, before the Los Angeles Dodgers made Reggie look so good in the '77 Series, Jackson went 2 for 16 against the Royals in the ALCS (.125) with no extra-base hits. His RBI single in Game 5 was the only run he drove in.
The White Rat
You might think by reading the above that I had no use for Whitey Herzog. Not entirely true. I think Whitey was great for the Royals and exactly what they needed to get over the hump and assume dominance of the AL West in the late 1970s. He was a great regular season manager who knew how to make full use of his roster.
But he was also full of himself and tended to overmanage, shortcomings that tend to show up in the postseason. Great managers don't necessarily have the most success in the postseason, Casey Stengel excepted. Let the record show that Whitey Herzog had as many World Series titles, and so did Earl Weaver, as Ned Yost has.
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