The Press of Atlantic City - October 19, 1980
She’s bored by all the Phillies mania
By Mona Moore
I'm about to make a confession. If you shock easily, you'd better not read any further.
A serious defect in my character is about to be exposed for everyone to see. The fact is - oh, this is so embarrassing - I don't like baseball.
I never have.
I know it's the all-American pastime, but I just don't care. There are other things I'd rather do than watch a ball game. Things like ... well ... almost anything.
This defect in my character has gone unnoticed for years by all but my very closest friends, and it might have stayed unnoticed forever if the Philadelphia Phillies hadn't managed to have a good year for a change.
For years it's been socially acceptable when the Phillies come up in a conversation to kind of shrug your shoulders and change the subject.
But not this year.
I first realized the Phillies were having a good year one Saturday night about three weeks ago when everybody at work kept hollering over to the sports department to find out the score of a game in Montreal.
I didn't want to ask why people were so curious about the score, but later I found out the Phillies had won and it meant they made the play-offs. I thought that was nice.
The fact is, the last time I got excited about a baseball game was when the Pirates won the World Series in 1960. (Or was it 1961?)
I grew up in a town 40 miles south of Pittsburgh, and I was in high school at the time. We were allowed to get out of study hall and go to the auditorium to watch the games on a black-and-white TV, so I suppose that had something to do with my sudden spurt of interest. (That, and the fact that all the boys in school were always there in the auditorium.)
I remember being in my last-period algebra class when the principal turned on the intercom during the crucial last few minutes of the final game. Everybody in school was listening when someone (Roberto Clemente, I think) won the game, and the entire student body roared. It was a nice change of pace from algebra equations.
But World Series of 1960 (or '61) marked the beginning and the end of my interest in baseball.
Consequently, while the rest of the Delaware Valley watched the National League play-offs this year, I watched the three (or maybe it was four) part miniseries, "Beulah Land." If you didn't watch "Beulah Land" — and you probably didn't — let me just say that each night's segment started with slaves in a field picking cotton. The directors had the decency not to have the slaves sing while they picked cotton, but still, it was that sort of show.
While other people were watching Pete Rose steal bases, I was watching Leslie Anne Warren do the world's worst Scarlett O'Hara imitation in one of the worst dramatic shows ever put on television. It was a show in which no two actors spoke with the same Southern drawl and where, although the story spanned several generations, no one ever seemed age.
Every few minutes they'd flash a message on the screen that said: "Seven years later..." and there'd be Leslie Anne, in a hoop skirt, looking the same as she did seven years earlier.
I tell you all this in order to point out that a non-baseball-addict's life is not an easy one.
While I'd like to think we non-baseball-fans have those more dignity and intelligence than all those screaming, beer-swilling, neurotic baseball lovers, the fact is we're condemned to be forever set apart, like lepers or people who regularly watch "The Brady Bunch."
That Sunday night, when everyone else was watching the Phillies eke out a victory in the last couple of innings, I was home in bed. Oh, sure, I knew the Phillies had won the play-offs. A deliriously happy friend called right after, and invited me over to share a bottle of champagne she'd been saving since the last time the Phillies made the playoffs four years ago.
"We won! We the last won!" she chortled into the phone.
"That's ... nice," I replied.
So my baseball-addict friends popped the champagne cork in the street and drank it all and then headed to Philadelphia to stand cold in a line at the stadium all that frosty ticket night, clad only in lightweight jackets.
They stood there (they had to, there was no place to sit) hour after hour, shoulder to shoulder with 3,000 other rabid, weary, drunk-with-victory fans. They watched the sun come up, and and felt the sweet taste of champagne victory turn a little sour.
They narrowly missed being crushed to death the next morning when the crowd swelled to 10,000 and well-meaning policemen fought to keep control and well-meaning fans fought to keep from passing out.
The next day my baseball-addict friends had tired feet, sore muscles and bloodshot eyes. But, oh, they had stories to tell ... and tickets for the sixth game.
And me? I had a good night's sleep.
(Mona Moore is a staff writer for the Sunday Press).
Phillies Phizzle in K.C.
Kansas City 5, Philadelphia 3
By Pete Wickham, Press Sports Writer
KANSAS CITY — After giving the Kansas City Royals a glimmer of hope Friday night, Willie Mays Aikens gave his team the potential to take control of the World Series Saturday as his second two-home run performance in four games helped the Royals to a 5-3 win over the Philadelphia Phillies and evened the series at two games each.
Less than 18 hours before, Aikens had pulled the Royals into the win column with a 10th-inning RBI-single that beat the Phils 4-3.
Before 42,380 at Royals Stadium on Saturday, Kansas City turned this series into a best-of-three affair, with the first game in their friendly confines today.
Aikens' two-run blast in the first inning keyed a four-run outburst that banished Phils starter Larry Christenson after just one-third of an inning.
Aikens came back in the second with a solo shot off Dickie Noles to end the Royals: scoring for the day and put them even with the Phils at two games apiece in the best-of-seven series.
"I had trouble hitting homers in this park earlier this year because it is so big," said the soft-spoken Aikens, who came here via a trade with the California Angels. "I thought about that after hitting the two homers in Philadelphia (during the Series opener Tuesday night) and I went out there trying to see the fast ball as good as I could and meet it as solid as I could.”
One writer asked Philadelphia Manager Dallas Green if perhaps his pitchers weren't following the book on Aikens.
He replied: "If you've got a book that works I'd love to see it. We may have made a couple of mistakes on him, but the kid's on a roll now."
From there Dennis Leonard and Dan Quisenberry, the winning pitcher on Friday, kept the lid on Philadelphia the rest of the way.
The Royals will try to get the upper hand with lefty Larry Gura this afternoon at 4:30 Eastern time. Marty Bystrom will go for the Phils, who plan to rest ace Steve Carlton until the sixth game of the series Tuesday night at Veterans Stadium.
Philadelphia came up one rally short Friday, stranding a series record tying 15 men in the extra inning defeat.
The comeback-prone Phils dug themselves into another dandy challenge right off the bat yesterday. Wilson, only two for 13 for the first three games, punched a single to left and went to third on a wild pickoff throw by Christenson.
Frank White hit a short fly to right field and Bake McBride's throw held Wilson on third. But then George Brett smoked a grounder down the right field line into the tricky corners of the fence and took third while McBride tried to guess the bounce.
Aikens then put a shot into the waterfall over the right-centerfield fence to make it 3-0. Back-to-back doubles by Hal McRae and Amos Otis made it 4-0 as Christenson got the hook.
Green's bullpen, especially Noles and Warren Brusstar, did what Christenson could not. Only Aikens fourth homer of the series, a two-out shot to the right field bullpen in the second dented the performance.
A 1-2 pitch from Noles almost dented Brett's skull and almost started some real fireworks.
Noles, saying he wanted to set up Brett for an outside pitch, almost rearranged the K.C. third baseman's face with a pitch that immediately brought Royals' Manager Jim Frey out of the dugout in a lather.
"When you're getting hit pretty hard (10 of the Royals hits were for extra bases), the temptation is there for the brushback. I know I saw a knockdown pitch," Frey said.
According to Noles: "I was trying to set up an outside pitch and Brett was standing up tight, so yes I'm trying to go inside. My fastball also sails in on lefties, but no I was not aiming for the 8 guy's head."
Brett, who was the center of attention in an earlier brawl this season after a brushback war with Detroit's Milt Wilcox, played it cool on purpose.
"I go to the mound and I'm out of the game," Brett said. "I certainly don't want that here, True, I'm concerned; that ball was close. If he did it again however..."
By the way, Noles struck out Brett and Aikens to end the inning.
Aikens Leaves Phillies Achin’
By Pete Wickham, Press Sports Writer
KANSAS CITY — The story of Willie Mays Aikens was a good one to begin with. But as the 1980 World Series unfolds, he makes it better with each telling.
Last Tuesday, 26 years to the day after his mother named him Willie and her New York Giants fan of a doctor suggested Mays two weeks after the Hall of Famer ripped up the World Series, Aikens became only the third player in history to hit two home runs in his first World Series start.
Friday, and he tripled to the opposite field scored one run, then singled home the winning tally to help get the Royals back in the Series.
Saturday, with his mother watching him for the first time ever as a pro player, he crunched two more home runs to help the Royals even the series up with the Philadelphia Phillies in a 5-3 victory.
"Really I haven't felt like I've been playing in the World Series," said the Royals first baseman, who is one short of the Series record of five home runs set by Reggie Jackson in 1977. My mother is here and that's exciting, but really the feeling I've had is just like going out to play another baseball game. It's just a little more fun right now."
Don't talk to the Philadelphia Phillies about fun. They don't know where the Royals terror is going to strike next.
"The home runs he has hit to right field like we expected," said Phils centerfielder Garry Maddox. "But the triple was down the leftfield line, and single was to left-center while I'm the playing right-center. He's killing us all over the park right now."
He got a standing ovation Friday night after the game, and was brought back for bows after both homers Saturday.
But, believe it or not, he was in the doghouse until just after the All-Star break.
Coming off a mid-winter trade from California for Kansas City favorite Al Cowens, and surgery on his left knee, Aikens got off to a poor start and quickly found out the friendly folks in Kansas City can get unfriendly.
"I came here for one of thier favorite players. And I replaced another favorite, Pete LaCock, at first," said Aikens. "I had trouble hitting in this park at first, and when the home runs didn't come, the fans were on me.
"I really didn't start breaking my slumps until I got on the road. As time went by though I began to feel more comfortable and the fans saw that I could produce."
Since the All-Star break, Aikens hit 13 of his 20 home runs and 68 of his 98 RBI. In post-season play he's been 11 for 27 with the four homers and 10 RBI.