My Minnesota Twins had "their turn" winning the flag in '65. The '66 story had the Baltimore Orioles with newly acquired superstar Frank Robinson prevailing. Robinson came from Cincinnati and he won the triple crown. The trade for him went down in baseball annals as pretty one-sided.
The '67 story could drive yours truly to drink as my Twins were denied by the Red Sox in the last series. Maybe I acquired a permanent defeatist attitude. The passing years have calmed my feelings and I look with some affection and respect at the '67 Red Sox.
OK, now we're into 1968, unfortunately at the height of the Vietnam war tragedy, and for escapism we had big league ball in its "year of the pitcher." Boring? In hindsight we might well judge it as such. In our current times with an ever-shorter attention span and expectation of gratification, such a season might spell disaster. Or more precisely, apathy. A kitchen employee character in the movie "Bobby" about the assassination of RFK, covets his ticket to see Don Drysdale try to extend his unscored-upon streak.
If pitching is going to dominate, well then let's celebrate pitchers. We did our best with this fixation as we watched the zeros get rolled out on the scoreboard. I remember a headline from my simulation game hobbyist magazine: "Goose Egg Deluge!" The headline was not intended as a dig at MLB of the time.
So when we watched Denny McLain of Detroit seize the situation with his pitching arm, we were fascinated and not bored. Time after time Mr. McLain went out to the mound and wowed fans. His wins became like the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. He won 31.
A different stance toward pitchers
It was the age before pitch counts, when a starting pitcher who was "in the groove" got the green light to finish such games and rack up a "complete game" victory (CG). Today a pitcher might get removed after the seventh inning even if he has a no-hitter going. The preferred system? It's the latter as it facilitates pitchers having a longer career.
McLain and Mickey Lolich were the pitching cogs with the world champion Detroit Tigers of 1968. Detroit was marked by riots in summer. The counterculture was brewing among the youth. Skepticism about the war was going to reach a fever pitch. Our summer of 2020 has had its own incendiary nature. So history rhymes?
Lyndon Johnson was still president through the '68 baseball season. The election of '68 would have Richard Nixon making his big comeback. You'll probably recall that Nixon said to the press in '62: "You won't have Nixon to kick around any more." Volatile is the nature of politics.
I was 13 years old for the '68 summer. A boy's baseball memories from that age remain uniquely placed in his mind. A boy age 13 has so few sources of real self-esteem, that gravitating to the world of big league ball is an understandable urge, an escape. Oh my. It was such for me.
My Minnesota Twins were hurt in '68 by a void at shortstop, caused by the departure of original Twin, the once beloved Zoilo Versalles. Versalles got hurt some but basically struggled with managing his body and health. Ballplayers can be felled before their time in any number of ways. The Twins had a combo of players tested at shortstop: not a solution. So we acquired Leo Cardenas for the '69 season and beyond. I have written that Cardenas was the most underrated Twin ever. He played the most important position on the diamond outside of pitcher.
In '69 the Orioles flourished again with Frank Robinson doing boffo. They beat my Twins in the first-ever divisional playoffs (three games, ugh).
The '68 Tigers with Joe Sparma
Who did Detroit have on the mound beyond McLain and Lolich? Well, they had Joe Sparma for one, an interesting story. It's interesting because this guy was a multi-sport star who was attached to football for a long time. He was Big 10-caliber at the quarterback position. Not only that, he played under the famous and notorious Woody Hayes.
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| Woody Hayes |
Hayes recruited Sparma after the latter's terrific career with the Masillon OH Tigers. Hayes had a bias toward running the ball. Speaking of cliches, there's the one about how three things can happen when you pass, two of them bad. I remember Bud Grant subscribing to that. You couldn't argue with success, and Hayes had his heyday before crashing and burning with the "punching" incident. I was watching live when the crusty old coach punched a Clemson player who intercepted a pass - there's one of the "bad things" that can happen.
Woody liked "three yards and a cloud of dust." A lot of us young fans did not. So along with baseball's "year of the pitcher" in '68, we got a diet of big-time football too strongly oriented to the run. Odd.
Hayes turned on his salesmanship skills with Sparma and got the lad to commit to OSU. But, was Hayes' resolve only because he didn't want Sparma playing against him? Passing against him? Quite the theory and likely valid. Is this why Sparma and Hayes ultimately did not "click?" It really didn't take long. Sparma was off the reservation by his sophomore year. But the relentless Hayes turned on the salesmanship again: Sparma stayed a Buckeye in his junior year.
But there was no patching up the matter. Sparma's baseball talent was such, he had a way to escape to the diamond. He inked his contract with the Tigers in '63. By '65 he was in the starting rotation and fashioned a 13-8 record while striking out 127! His fastball got up to 98 MPH! He got a start for "Mickey Mantle Day" in New York. He introduced himself to the man of honor when the latter was coming to bat. He mentioned to Mickey what an admirer he was. Then he struck out the legend.
High point in pennant year
The highlight of Sparma's career was probably in the pennant campaign of '68: he pitched a complete game win vs. the Yankees to wrap up the flag. His career wound down in 1970. He was traded to the new Montreal Expos and lasted just a short time.
Sparma could not match the steadiness of McLain and Lolich. He could be effective but was also wild with his deliveries and had problems getting focused properly. Many are called, few are chosen for the superstar circle of big league ball. He couldn't quite make the grade for that. But at his best he could be boffo.
Woody Hayes? By the time of the infamous "throwing a punch" game, college football had taken on more of a personality of throwing the football. Rules changes/tweaks? Probably, so old man Hayes had to take notice and adjust. Maybe he had assistants who took the lead with that, 'cause it was hard to imagine Woody mapping out a true passing game. But in the "throwing the punch" year, the Buckeyes had Art Schlichter slinging the football, who was not to be denied with the aerial game.
So it was a Schlichter pass that got picked off by the Clemson player and set the stage for Woody delivering that pathetic punch, what I noticed instantly. My father and I were watching TV. It appeared the announcers in the booth were reluctant to say anything about it. But I said to my dad: "Hey, he punched the guy." It was visible but it was in the "scrum" of humanity along the sideline.
Hayes had become an outsized coach at OSU. Then we saw Bobby Knight in a like role with Indiana basketball. And then, elderly Joe Paterno at Penn State, probably the most depressing exhibit of them all. Paterno probably fought to keep his job because he was afraid of what would be discovered if he left.
Proper standards of behavior are upheld in our contemporary times, for the better to be sure. Schlichter ended up a celebrated wreck but he was likely also a victim of the game: 18 diagnosed concussions. These athletes get drawn into the game when young, before they develop prudent judgment. They succeed, they draw waves of cheers, and how can they turn back? Last I checked, Schlichter was in prison and nursing dementia and Parkinson's.
And, Sparma's judgment?
We can only wonder how good a quarterback Sparma could have been, had he not caved to Woody's intense recruiting. We may have seen the young man in the NFL. But then, someone else would have had to pitch the pennant-clinching game for the Detroit Tigers in 1968.
Sparma left this life way too soon, in 1986 at age 44 after a heart attack and heart bypass surgery. He is in the Massillon OH Wall of Champions. Joe Sparma, RIP. You kept your nose clean, unlike Denny McLain.
As a supplement to this post, I invite you to click on the link below for a podcast episode that shares further about the Tigers' 1968 success. I recite from the Roger Angell book "The Summer Game."
https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/Detroit-Tigers-year-of-triumph-1968-eg3h6p
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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