Allentown Morning Call - April 23, 1980
Schmidt’s grand slam chills Mets, 14-8
By Jack McCallum, Call Sports Writer
PHILADELPHIA – Hope should always spring eternal, but it helps a lot if you're playing the New York Mets.
Down 8-3 after just four innings last night at frigid Veterans Stadium, the Philadelphia Phillies appeared to need a closed-circuit broadcast of the Flyers-Rangers game to keep 21,341 brave souls in the ballpark. But the Phils took the shortcut to perseverance – the long-ball – and came away with a 14-8 victory.
"The New York Mets may be a last-place ballclub but you've still got to score runs against them." said Mike Schmidt.
True. But it helps if you have two guys like Schmidt and Luzinski to score them. The Mets banged out 10 singles and four doubles laid end-to-end they did not nearly equal the length of two homers by Schmidt, one of them a grand slam, and a three-run blast by Luzinski.
Nearly lost in the muscle was the real game-winning hit by rookie Keith Moreland. With the score tied 8-8. Larry Bowa and Luis Aguayo singled and Moreland, pinch-hitting for Kevin Saucier, doubled over Steve Henderson's head in left field to score both.
"I wasn't cold or anything like that because I was too busy warming up pitchers in the said Moreland. "I'm not used to this pinch-hitting role. Maybe that's why I came through. I didn't have time to think about anything."
Four batters after Moreland, Schmidt played a little game of one upsmanship. John Pacella. who entered the game after Moreland doubled off Kevin Kobel, walked Pete Rose and Garry Maddox to load the bases. Schmidt then put a 2-1 pitch in never-never land just to the left of the clock in the middle level seats in left field. It was his fourth career grand slam (three of them against the Mets) and the 21st time he has hit two homers in the same game.
But Schmidt only wanted to talk about Luzinski.
"With Greg behind me this year. I'm not going to get many walks." said Schmidt who was 3-for-5 with six RBI. "The way he's playing I think he's going to be the key to the team this year."
Luzinski's big contribution was a game-tying three-run homer in the fifth. It went to dead center field, about 422 feet from the plate, easily one of the longer homers that will be hit all season at the Vet.
"You have to be a hitter yourself to realize how well Greg hit that ball." said Schmidt. "I got a pitch like that (down and over the plate) and I did nothing but pop it up. The things he does with the bat amaze me sometimes and I'm not kidding."
But Mets' starter Tom Hausman was. Hausman just couldn't stand the sight of a 6-2 lead in the second inning and departed with none out in the fifth, even before he was eligible for the victory had the Mets been able to hang on.
George Vukovich led off the fifth with a triple to center that was either wind-blown or misplayed or both. At any rate, it went off Elliott Maddox's glove out there and Vukovich made it to third with his first major league hit. Hausman then walked Pete Rose and gave up a run-scoring single to Bake McBride before Mets' manager Joe Torre went to Jeff Reardon.
Reardon got Garry Maddox and Schmidt easily but gave Luzinski a nice 1-1 fastball in his wheelhouse. "I crushed it," understated the Bull of his fourth homer this season.
The less said of Phillie starter Dick Ruthven's effort, however, the better. He took a 2-0 lead to the mound in the top of the second – the result of Schmidt's two-run homer to left in the first – and gave the Mets eight hits… which is no mean feat. Six of the eight hits were singles but that hardly made Ruthven feel any better as he trudged off the mound after 1⅔ innings with six earned runs in. In 13⅔ innings this season, Ruthven has give up 13 runs. Obviously, his return to health after off season elbow surgery is a question mark.
Scott Munninghoff went the next 2⅔ innings and the best thing that can be said about him is that he hit a triple in his first major league at-bat and scored the Phils' third run in the bottom of the third. On the mound, he gave up six hits and two runs as the Mets built their lead to 8-3 in the top of the fourth.
The Phils then got one back in the fourth on Bowa's sacrifice fly after a single by Luzinski and a double by Bob Boone before the Luzinski blast in the fifth tied the score.
The only effective pitcher for the Phils was Kevin Saucier who pitched the sixth, seventh and eighth in relief of Munninghoff. He gave the Mets only one hit and was his usual just-wild-enough self to keep them from digging in. Dickie Noles finished up in the ninth without allowing a hit.
NOTES: Bowa had words with Hausman in the second after Hausman sent him sprawling with a fastball. Bowa did not make it clear why he thought a struggling pitcher with a 6-2 lead would throw at him but he said he was certain.
"I don't care." said Bowa, "because all it did was wake us up."
Ozzie could turn Dallas green
By John Kunda, Executive Sports Editor
Ozzie Virgil was impressive on this particular sunny morning in Clearwater. He was taking his licks in the batting cage, and three straight times he powered balls over a waist-high fence some 380 feet from the cage.
Billy DeMars grinned each time. "The kid's got power, there's no question about that," said DeMars.
That was in early March at the Phillies spring training camp. Virgil was there with the big guys, knowing very well that he was invited for, at best, a good look-see. He had no chance of making the parent roster, not with catchers like Bob Boone and Keith Moreland ahead of him.
Besides, Virgil's statistics at Reading last year, were hardly a major league calling card.
"Ozzie started out (last year) decently," said Manager Dallas Green, "but wound up with a tough year. Although his stats weren't great, it was a good learning year for him."
When the assignments were made, Virgil found himself back in Reading for another season. Reading Owner Joe Buzas is happy to have Virgil with him because, as Buzas says, "He's gonna find himself one of these days."
Virgil "found himself" all right the other night when the Reading Phils played up in Lynn, Mass. The sturdy, 6-1, 195-pound Virgil, used by Reading as the designated hitter, had the best day ever by a Reading player.
All he did was hit two home runs, a double and a single; drove in seven runs and scored a record five runs as Reading won easily 19-1.
"You don't see a kid do that too often." said Buzas. "It was a great night for him."
Buzas says part of Virgil's problems a year ago were mental. "He had a funny attitude," Buzas said. "He came to us with a lot of press clippings. He had a great year with Peninsula, and I guess, he thought it would be automatic. The press wrote him up like he was the next superstar. It just worked on him all year and he wasn't able to do a thing.
"I had a talk with him this year, and I think it did him some good. I just told him that press clippings don't mean a darn thing. You gotta go out and do the job."
The two home runs Virgil hit against Lynn were both close to the 400-foot mark. The two homers gave him four in six games, and that's a good start in any league.
The five runs that Virgil scored were the most ever by a Reading Phil and the seven RBIs he had tied a club record held by John Vukovich, another familiar name.
"Ozzie's gonna be an exciting player for us this year," said Buzas, one of baseball's top minor league operators. "Even with the troubles he had last year, he was very popular among the fans. He's a good kid… a likable kid who has a family background in baseball."
Young Virgil (he's 23 is the son of Ozzie Virgil, a former major league infielder who is now coaching with the Montreal Expos.
Virgil attracted the attention of the Phillies as a schoolboy star in Phoenix. He was the Phils No. 6 draft choice in June of 1976.
He was superb at Peninsula during the summer of 1978 when he hit .303. He hit 29 home runs that summer and drove in 98 runs, both of which were tops in the league. With it, he won the league's MVP award.
"They (the Phillies) got pretty excited about him after that season," said Buzas.
Virgil will see some of his old friends tomorrow night when the Reading Phils play the Big Phillies in an exhibition at Reading Municipal Stadium. The two teams didn't play last year in Reading, but the year before, the game drew close to 6,000.
"We've had a big advance sale for Thursday's game," said Buzas. "The stadium holds 8,500 and I think we can come close to filling it.
It should be a popular game if for no other reason than 12 former Reading Phillies are on the Philadelphia active roster, including Green and two of his coaches, Lee Elia and Ruben Amaro.
For all the Reading Phils, the game's important in the sense that it'll give them a chance to perform for the people who make the decisions.
For Virgil, personally, it's a good chance to show them that 1979 was just an off year. The powers to be know that the kid's got the potential – he showed flashes of that in spring training.
Now, if he only could have a night like he had against Lynn…