The Press of Atlantic City - October 21, 1980
Unser — His Time Has Come
By Pete Wickham, Press Sports Writer
PHILADELPHIA — He looks the part of a big league baseball player the same way Don Rickles could be a monk.
The only type of pinstripes you might expect Del Unser to fill are usually colored gray with a Brooks Brothers label and a tan raincoat. He doesn't belong in the middle of a World Series, but t on a platform waiting for the morning train to take him to a job selling insurance.
And in a way he is. After 13 years of waiting for a ride in the World Series, the 36-year-old Unser has given the Philadelphia Phillies a policy that Lloyd's of London couldn't match. A pair of off-the bench hits to help the Phils capture their first National League pennant in 30 years, then a pair of pinch doubles to help the Phils get within a game of their first-ever World Series championship. All without batting an eye, pardon the pun.
"I love to play regularly, like anyone in this game," said Unser. "It's just a matter of fact the last few years that I'm to play on a contending ball club I'm not going to be in the lineup every day. I have to fill a role, and do a certain job. And at this stage of my career, I'd rather do it for a contender than anything else."
His story of woe has been well chronicled. Unser, the son of a former major league catcher, he has the dubious distinction of being one of the last of the Washington Senators still active in the game.
From there things wandered nicely through Cleveland, the pre-title Phillies, the post-title New York Mets (who traded Tug McGraw, ironically, for Unser) and Montreal before he tried the free agent market in 1978. And failed.
"Five clubs drafted me, and two had talking rights, but nobody made an offer," he said. "I was thinking of packing it in, but in the end I made a couple of calls around to people who had expressed interest in the past. Paul Owens was one of them, and he invited me to camp so I could get a shot at making the team, or going to another club if anyone showed interest. He made it possible for me to stay in the game.”
He hit .300 until the final at bat of the year last year, and set a major league mark with three straight pinch-hit homers. However this season, he collected only 29 hits, batting .264. Unser was fast fading into oblivion until the final week of the season, when he played a respectable center field in place of the benched Garry Maddox.
And then the National League playoff, or rather the end of it.
In the fourth game, he came on as a leadoff pinch hitter in the 10th and struck out. The Phils rallied for two runs and a 4-3 victory, and in the fifth game Unser was ready, hitting a pinch single in the eighth to drive in a tying run, then scored the winning run after a 10th inning double.
And in the World Series, he has made Dan Quisenberry his personal sedan chair to immortality.
In game two, with Quisenberry trying to protect a 4-2 lead, Unser found one of his sinker balls for an opposite field RBI double, then scored the tying run on an error.
A starter in game four, he singled off Quis in a 5-3 losing cause. Then Sunday the Series was tied and the cards were on the table again.
"I kept thinking just try to get a good pitch to hit — that's Ted Williams philosophy. I'm not in his class, but it's a good way to approach it."
Unser approached another Quisenberry sinker and smashed it down the first base line, over Willie Aikens' glove for a two-bagger that drove home Mike Schmidt with the tying run. Moments later, Unser would score the run (on an infield single to the mound by Manny Trillo) that gave the Phils a 3-2 lead in the Series coming back to Philadelphia.
The happiest man in pinstripes was Schmidt.
"Del Unser is unreal right now," Schmidt has said repeatedly throughout the stretch. "There is no man in this room that has done his job better this year. There's nothing he can do about starting or not starting. But when they call him, it's 100 percent every time.
"If I should be named MVP, he comes up on the stand with me, whether he likes it or not. The man has worked too hard for too long not to have this moment."
Unser said that he did think about the moment, and how it might never have come, or may never come again.
"This is a special time for me, and for my wife (Dale) and family," said Unser. "My father (Al Unser, who caught for Detroit and Cincinnati in the 1940s) finished a half-game away from a pennant one year, so that may have some special significance.
"But the biggest thing I think is that this is at the end of a lot of hard work, and hard times for my wife," he added. "We've had to keep things in a perspective because my career has had a lot of stages, 1 not all of them highs. She's missed out on a lot, but I think this meant more to her than it did to me. After the final game in Houston, I embraced her at the hotel, and she told me God meant us to wait until now, because it would mean more."
It certainly has. Ask anybody in the pinstriped suits.
Phils Want Series Completed Tonight
By Pete Wickham, Press Sports Writer
PHILADELPHIA — They'd love to end it tonight, and maybe by a big score.
"But I'm not sure how we'd react if we got up 12-2," Philadelphia Phillies' shortstop Larry Bowa said. "We'd probably wind up winning 12-11. Whatever the score, though, I do not want to see this World Series last a seventh game. I'm not sure my gut could take it."
After a month of gutting it out, Team October stands on the verge of wiping away 97 years of bad jokes, and even worse memories if it can clinch the 1980 World Series title tonight with a win over the Kansas City Royals tonight in the sixth game, set for 8:30.
The Phils took the upper hand in characteristic fashion Sunday in Kansas City - a two-run rally in the ninth, and a bases-loaded strikeout thrown by Tug McGraw to preserve a 4-3 fifth-game win. It was their sixth triumph in post-season play, and all six have been won coming off the pace.
Tonight they try to throw their trump card, Steve Carlton, in an effort to grab the pot.
Ever since firing a two-hit shutout against Chicago on October 1, Carlton has had less than outstanding stuff (for him).
In the opener of the National League playoffs, Carlton worked his fast ball and curve into a 3-1 victory over Houston.
The Astros, up 2-1 and looking to close out the playoffs, forced Carlton's earliest exit of the season, after just 5⅓ innings in game four. McGraw and the Phils rallied to tie the playoff, and win it the next day in overtime.
And in the second game of the Series, he was tapped for 10 hits and four runs (three earned) in eight innings only the Phils rallied for four in the bottom of the eighth and a 6-4 victory to give him the win.
Manager Dallas Green gave Carlton an extra two days rest by pitching rookie Marty Bystrom Sunday.
"He (Carlton) pitched over 300 innings this season," Green said, during a 90-minute workout Monday. "I felt he needed the extra time between starts. All those innings take their toll on a pitcher. It affects arm speed; he doesn't get that extra pop like he did on every pitch early in the year.
"He's still got enough to crack it when he has to, and that's all I care about. Look at his stats this year and most of his wins have come after we've lost games the day before. He really is our stopper. Look at his last start. Everyone says he doesn't have it, but he strikes out 10. He's kept us in every game but one."
The Royals, meanwhile, will be dipping down into their rotation and starting speedball specialist Rich Gale, whom the Phils tapped for seven hits and two runs in Friday night's third game, which the Royals won in a rally, 4-3 in 10.
“I was was a little too strong the last time because of the long layoff," said Gale, as the Royals arrived in town late yesterday. "You can be too pumped up in a situation like that.
"But I've said it before, we would have to beat Steve Carlton to win this thing. Now we're at this point, we beat Carlton or we lose in six. There's more pressure because of that."
There is additional pressure on the Royals, some Phils believe, because they have now tapped relief ace Dan Quisenberry for two of their three defeats.
"His style of pitching makes you hit the ball on the ground. Most of the time it goes to one of his infielders," said Mike Schmidt, whose rifle single off George Brett's glove started the two-run rally Sunday. "But in a short series like this, you can catch a couple of breaks. He still has to keep pitching ground balls because that's his style. To me, it would seem that style is more suited to a one-inning situation rather than having him go two or three (as Royals' Manager Jim Frey has done).”
And even if the Royals do force a seventh game Wednesday, the Phils seem to have an edge. The Royals either pitch Dennis Leonard for a third time in this Series, or go with lefty Paul Splittorff. The Phils are set on Dick Ruthven, who won the finale against Houston in relief, and pitched nine strong innings last Friday before being lifted for McGraw.
"Right now, we have to be aggressive. We can't think we have their backs to the wall, because if we lose, whose back is to the wall then," Bowa said. "I like it that Carlton is pitching for us tomorrow and we have Dick Ruthven for Wednesday. But the thing I like best is the fact we hit last right now."
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For all the talk about pitching, the hitters on both clubs own this Series so far.
After five games the Royals are hitting .301 (53-for-176), the Phils .298 (50-for-168) and the race for Series MVP honors is as crowded as a pizza stand in July.
The bottom of the Phils' order has been scalding with Manny Trillo (.263 with two doubles and a game-winning RBI single Sunday), Bowa (.400 with eight hits and the club's three stolen bases) and Bob Boone (.400 with two doubles, three RBI). Schmidt is hitting .389 with two homers and 1 five RBI, Del Unser has those two pinch doubles and McBride is hitting .368 with a double and the three-run homer that won the opener.
Some superlative defensive work by Bowa, Trillo, McBride and Boone could get shortchanged, and if McGraw clinches the Series the hitters will be forgotten.
The heart of the Royals' order has even more impressive numbers. Amos Otis (11-for-20 with three homers and seven RBI) could win the thing if it goes either way. He is one hit short of the six-game Series hit record and two short of the mark for a seven-game set.
Hal McRae (9-for-20 with three doubles) is right behind and Willie Aikens could be considered with is .417 average, four homers and eight RBI if his bat and glove don't betray him like they did Sunday. George Brett is at .350, but has looked bad since getting knocked down by a Dickie Noles pitch Saturday.
The Royals have also gotten strong defensive work from their double play combination of Frank White and U.L. Washington, but their speed, and that of Willie Wilson has been negated so far by Philadelphia (five games, six stolen bases).
KC will make two lineup changes for Carlton. John Wathan will catch instead of Darrell Porter and Jose Cardenal will play right instead of Clint Hurdle.
However, Wathan is 0-for-4 in the Series, and Cardenal is 0-for-6, including a game-ending strikeout Sunday.
Fans Can’t Stop Singin’
The new number one hit song in Philadelphia is "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now," updated with new lyrics to cheer the Phillies through the World Series. Radio stations can't play it often enough and Phillies' fans are expected to buy more than 20,000 records.
The Philadelphia Eagles recorded the song last December during the playoffs but the team missed the championship. Last week, TV reporter Ron Hunter decided the Phillies needed their own lyrics. He contacted singers McFadden and Whitehead, who recorded the baseball anthem with Hunter.
Eagles Want Veterans Stadium To Be Home Sweet Home Again
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The scene of the battle, Veterans Stadium, had been changed into a baseball diamond Monday, leaving no physical trace of the Philadelphia Eagles' biggest victory of the season.
Sunday, the Eagles downed the Dallas Cowboys 17-10 to take over sole possession of the National Football Conference's Eastern Division with a 6-1 record to Dallas' 5-2 mark. Within hours, however, the hash marks were replaced with base paths as the Vet was readied for the sixth game of the World Series Tuesday between the Phillies and the Kansas City Royals.
“After the Phillies win, we'll get our field back," said Eagles coach Dick Vermeil, whose glowing countenance Monday recalled his team's victory, even if the stadium didn't.
Vermeil was so happy after the win, in which a game ball was given to every Eagle player who dressed, that he gave the team the day off Monday.
"Now I'm mad as heck because I wanted to show them some of the offensive mistakes we made," said the coach, a perfectionist of the first order.
"But that's the best defensive team we've played against. I'd like to believe we can play a little better offensively," Vermeil said.
"Yesterday (Sunday) was not a fluke win. We beat a very fine Dallas team. I think we are of that caliber now," said Vermeil, who during the past week had said that his team's number one goal of the season was to beat the Cowboys in Philadelphia. "Like I said before, if you want to be the champion, you have to beat the old champion. And that's what we did Sunday.
"But I wouldn't want to play them in the best of seven (like the World Series)," he said with a laugh.
The Eagles and the Phillies seem on the edge of turning around Philadelphia's entrenched reputation as a city of losers. But while Vermeil is optimistic, he is also a realist.
"I don't see this win as anything but good for us," said the coach. "But we were also 6-1 last year at this point, but we lost three straight. We can't assume anything.
"I'd say it's a great win for the Eagles," said Vermeil. "We start talking about this game (Dallas at home) the first night the team reported to camp."
"I'd like to believe the defense played as well as they can," said Vermeil, citing defensive end Carl Hairston, middle guard Charlie Johnson, linebacker Bill Bergey and cornerback Herman Edwards especially.
"They are my crutch as a coach," Vermeil said of his defense. "When things are not going well, I lean on those guys.
"They played a heck of a football game against a team that scored 59 points (against San Francisco) the week before,' Vermeil added.
"Now we cannot allow what happened last year when we lost three straight." Vermeil said, noting this week's opponent, the Chicago Bears, had a "super game" Sunday in upsetting the Detroit Lions 24-7.
"They (Chicago) have a great defense and they'll be coming in with a vengeance because we beat them last year in the playoffs," Vermeil said of the 27-17 victory last December that was the Eagles' first post-season win since 1960.
"We saw that the offense was having trouble getting started," said Philadelphia linebacker Frank LeMaster. "So we (the defense) got together at halftime and decided that we would win it ourselves. And I think that's what happened out there today (Sunday). Then the offense finally started moving and they put that extra touchdown on the scoreboard for us.”
Shooting Stars: Say Hey To Willie (excerpts)
By David J. Spatz, Press Entertainment Writer
ATLANTIC CITY — When Kansas City Royals first baseman Willie Mays Aikens dives into his fan mail (after the Phillies beat the Royals in 1 the World Series), he'll find himself one step closer to fulfilling a life-long dream - meeting Willie Mays.
Buried somewhere in Aikens mail bag is a telegram from Billy Weinberger, president of Bally's Park Place Casino-Hotel, inviting the 26-yearold slugger to the casino sometime next month for lunch and a long awaited chat with the Say Hey kid, who's on the Park Place payroll as a goodwill ambassador.
Weinberger fired off the invitation after learning that Aikens had visited Park Place the weekend before the series specifically to meet Mays but came away disappointed because Mays was out of town.
Incidentally, Aikens let it be known to broadcasters covering the series that he'd prefer to be introduced simply as Willie Aikens, hold the Mays. Aikens was named for an uncle; the Mays was added by the doctor who delivered him during the 1954 World Series. That was the year when the Willie Mays outran Vic Wertz's shot to center field and made his famous over-the-shoulder circus catch.
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And finally, this very personal note to the entire Phillies team ... GO GET 'EM!. Thank you.