By Phil Ellenbecker
In Philip Roth's "The Great American Novel," Angela Whittling Trust asks Luke Gofannon what he loves most in the world, even more than her.
"Triples," he says.
Yes, triples in baseball are a lot of fun, more so than the endless homer highlights we see every night during the summer on "SportsCenter." And the Kansas City Royals gave their fans an eyeful of triples in the late 1970s, leading the league in that category from 1975 to 1980.
Yet probably more fun than triples are inside-the-park homers, and Royals fans were treated to their share at this time thanks to one man, Willie Wilson.
I remember thinking every time Wilson hit a ball into the gap that he could possible circle the bases. Noted baseball analyst Bill James said Wilson may have been the fastest man ever to play major league baseball.
The excitement of seeing Willie heading out of the batter's box, pumping his legs around the base paths and heading for home reached a fever pitch on the afternoon of Saturday, June 9, 1979, with the Royals and New York Yankees at Royals Stadium featured on NBC's "Game of the Week." (Remember that?)
With the game in extra innings, Wilson led off the bottom of the 13th with an inside-the-parker to left-center field, giving K.C. a 9-8 victory before a crowd of 38,025. (See it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaK1lF1G8iI).
Wilson punched a high, inside fastball from Ken Clay to the opposite field and reached the turf between left fielder Roy White and center fielder Mickey Rivers. The ball rolled to the wall, and when White overthrew cutoff man Mickey Stanley in short left, Wilson was home free and crossed the plate standing up.
"Was he flying?" NBC color man Tony Kubek said to Joe Garagiola.
"He just might have set a record, Joe, going from home to home," Kubek added, also noting that Wilson didn't get a good break coming out of the box because he thought the ball was going to be caught. And he also noted that Wilson could go from first to third in 10.2 seconds.
It was a wild finish to a wild game, typical of the contests the two teams staged throughout the late '70s. The lead changed hands three times, and twice the teams were tied before Willie decided it.
The Yankees took a 5-0 lead after three innings off Larry Gura. Chris Chambliss hit a two-run homer in the second. Three runs scored on a Lou Piniella single in the third, the third when Amos Otis' throw from center went into the dugout after third baseman Todd Cruz failed to cover third. (George Brett, normally the Royals third sacker, was playing first this day).
The Royals surged into a 6-5 lead after six. They broke through with three runs in the fourth off Tommy John on Al Cowens' single and Darrell Porter's two-run homer. The Royals tied the game in the sixth on John Wathan's two-run triple off Ray Burris, who'd just relieved John. Fred Patek followed with an RBI single that put the Royals ahead.
Piniella, who went 3-for-7 on the day with four RBIs, tied the game at 6 in the seventh when his single off Renie Martin, who'd just replaced Gura, drove in Mickey Rivers. Brett's double off Jim Kaat put K.C. back ahead in its half of the seventh.
Graig Nettle's two-out double off Al Hrabosky scored Willie Randolph and regained the lead at 8-7 for New York in the top of the ninth.
The Royals pushed the game into extra innings by manufacturing a run in the bottom of the ninth. Wilson drew a leadoff walk, advanced to second on U.L. Washington's sacrifice bunt and went to third on Otis' fly out off Ron Davis, who'd come in for Kaat. Brett's single drove in the tying run.
After Hrabosky set the Yanks down in the 10th, Marty Pattin came on and blanked the Yankees the next three innings. New York got runners to second in both the 11th and 12th on sacrifice bunts, but Pattin squeezed out of the inning with strikeouts both times.
Facing the Yankees' 3-4-5 hitters, the Duck got Munson, Piniella and Nettles on a pair of fly outs and a pop-up in the 13th, setting the stage for Wilson's finishing theatrics.
Pattin improved to 3-0 in a season in which he went 5-2. He went 4-0 the next year, his final in the big leagues, giving him a 43-39 record in a seven-year stint with K.C. that closed his 13-year career.
Brett led the Royals' 17-hit attack on the day, going 4-for-5 with a double, triple and two RBIs. Wathan was 3-for-6 with a double, triple and two RBIs. Wilson was 3-for-6 with three runs scored and Washington 2-for-5.
Other big hitters for the Yankees besides Piniella were Chambliss (3-for-5, two RBIs), Randolph (2- for-5, three runs) and Rivers (2-for-6, two runs).
With the win the Royals were in second place in the American League West, three games out of first behind California. The Yanks were fourth in the AL East, five games behind Baltimore.
And that's where the two teams stayed, as each finished out of first for the first time in four years. The Angels won the West by three games over the Royals, while the Orioles finished 13 games ahead of the fourth-place Yanks.
And after 1979 Whitey Herzog was out as Royals manager, fired after 4 1/2 years. Herzog didn't get along with owner Ewing Kauffman, Whitey and Ewing's wife Muriel more or less despised each other, and things came to a head that year.
The Royals and Yankees, both under new management, resumed their accustomed spots atop the divisions next season in one final hurrah for their great rivalry of the era.
Wondrous Willie
It was 1979 when Wilson truly burst upon the scene as a Royals force. Wilson batted only .217 in his first full season of 1978, although he finished fifth in the league in stolen bases with 46 in only 198 at-bats. As he began to take Herzog's advice and slap at the ball to take advantage of his speed, he broke through with a .315 average next year and led the AL in stolen bases with 83.He also began to establish himself as a terror on balls hit into the gaps, with five of six homers in '79 contained inside the park. He finished his career with 12 or 13 career inside-the-park homers, depending on the source.
Wilson hit better than .300 all but one season during 1979-84, led by a league-leading .332 in 1982. He finished his 17-year career with a .286 average and 668 stolen bases, 12th best all time. Five times he led the AL triples.
Wilson's 12 inside-the-park homers (or 13) were the most of anybody who played from 1950 on.
(Editor's note: Info on Wilson's 12 career inside-the-park homers comes from an article by Derek Bain at seamhead.com. Info on his '79 inside-the-parkers, and on inside-the-parkers hit after 1950, came from an article by Mil Chipp at sabr.org.)
The Royals are lucky some NCAA I school didn't snap Wilson up for football. At Summit, New Jersey, High, Wilson rushed for 3,639 yards his junior and senior seasons and "had been one of the greatest schoolboy athletes in New Jersey history and had become a larger-than-life legend," according to a New York Times article by Dave Kaplan.
To read about and see what a legend Willie was in high school, check out http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/watch-willie-wilsons-high-school-football-highlights-are-just-epic/. As Dayn Perry put it in the article, "You could not tackle Willie Wilson at any point from 1971-73."
And chances are you could not throw Wilson out on the bases if he hit the ball into the gap from about 1979 on.
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