Kansas City Times - October 22, 1980
Phillies crush Royals’ Series dream
McGraw brushes aside KC’s last-gasp bid, 4-1
By Mike Fish, A Member of the Sports Staff
PHILADELPHIA – The Royals’ dream of a World Series Championship died on the base paths of Veterans Stadium Tuesday night.
Once again, Philadelphia's Tug McGraw was the executioner. It was McGraw, the master of relief, who worked his way out of bases-loaded jams in the final two frantic innings.
With the crowd of 65,838 on its feet, McGraw flirted with danger on every pitch. He was the skilled escape artist plying his trade against the eager Royals’ bats.
In the nail-biting end, the Phillies held on for a 4-1 victory that clinched the franchise’s first World Series championship.
For the Royals, it was a case of falling behind too much, too early. They could not come back, not against starter Steve Carlton, not against McGraw. The night’s madness belonged to the Phillies.
The Royals made one last mad rush in the ninth. But it ended with McGraw striking out Willie Wilson, the 12th time in the Series that Wilson had fanned. Wilson thus ended an otherwise stellar season with the glum knowledge that he had set a record for moot strikeouts in a Series, breaking the old standard of 11 set in 1958 and 1973.
Jose Cardenal, who struck out and ended Game 5, lined sharp singles in both the eighth and ninth innings. But it was not enough.
“We were coming back coming back,” a dejected Cardenal said after the game. “We just came up short.”
“We fought back as hard as we could,” Manager Jim Frey said. “We just couldn’t get the base hit. All we needed was one hit."
McGraw made sure the Royals didn’t get it. “I got kind of concerned in the eighth when my arm felt a little tired,” McGraw said. “I just wanted to throw strikes and let my defense play.
"If I hadn't got Wilson out I was gonna call him (Manager Dallas Green) out there and tell him I had had enough."
George Brett summed up the game as "a little bit of frustration. The frustration of coming so close. Beating the Yankees in three straight was the greatest thing in my life. An all-time high, not only for myself, but for the other guys who were here with me. We get into our first Series and we didn’t get the hits when we needed them.”
Things did not start out well for the Royals. They had two base runners in the second inning when Amos Otis and Willie Aiken walked, but John Wathan grounded to shortstop Larry Bowa, who started an inning-ending double play.
The Royals’ dream started to crumble in the third, when the Phillies scored a pair of runs.
Bob Boone started the fire when he walked on four pitches. The Royals contributed the fuel when Frank White fielded Lonnie Smith's grounder and his toss to second pulled U.L. Washington off the bag.
The call by second-base umpire Bill Kunkel brought Pete Rose to the plate with runners on first and second. With Brett playing back at third, Rose bounced a perfect bunt to the third-base side of the mound, loading the bases for Mike Schmidt.
The All-Star third baseman — later tabbed the Series' Most Valuable Player — lined Rich Gale 's pitch into right, scoring Boone and Smith. The Royals might have had a shot at Smith, who stumbled rounding third, but Cardenal elected to throw to the cutoff man rather than home.
Gale, starting his second game of the Series, was replaced by Renie Martin after the Phillies scored those two runs. Martin prevented any more runs, stranding runners at first and third.
The Phillies, meanwhile, built their lead, scoring single runs to the fifth and sixth inning to move ahead 4-0.
Smith led off the Philadelphia fifth with a line drive to center that he stretched into a double. He advanced to third on a fly ball by Rose, and when Martin walked Schmidt, Paul Splittorff came on to pitch for the first time in the Series.
Smith scored on a broken-bat grounder to shortstop by Bake McBride, but Splittorff, who had complained about not being used in the first five games, got out of the inning when Luzinski grounded to short.
The Phillies scored on Splittorff in the sixth. Gary Maddox led off with a ground single, but Manny Trillo bounced into a double play. Bowa followed with a double to the left-field corner and Boone drove him home with a line single past the outstretched glove of Brett at third.
Carlton, meanwhile, turned to the strongest pitching performance of the 77th World Series. He held Kansas City’s offense scoreless through six innings, striking out seven, before he was taken out of the game to the eighth.
That was when the Royals' mounted their most serious threat. Wathan walked, opening the inning, and Cardenal followed with a single to left. The Phils brought to McGraw, the pitching star of Game 5, to relieve Carlton.
McGraw got Frank White on a pop fly but walked Wilson, loading the bases. With one out, U.L. Washington lofted a fly to center, scoring Wathan and making the score 4-1. Brett then beat out an infield hit, loading the bases again. Hal McRae, however, bounced a 3-2 pitch to second baseman Trillo, ending the inning.
Royals relief pitcher Dan Quisenberry retired the Phillies easily to their half of the eighth and the Royals came up for their last turn at bat.
Otis, leading off for Kansas City to the ninth, took a called third strike, though it was apparent he didn’t agree with home-plate umpire Nick Bremigan. Willie Aikens, who has been both hero and goat in the Series, drew a walk from McGraw, bringing a flicker of hope to the hearts of Kansas City fans.
Onix Concepcion was brought in to run for Aikens. Wathan lined a single to right, bringing up Cardenal, who singled to center, loading the bases.
Once again, Green stayed with McGraw, providing him with yet another chance to work himself out of deep trouble.
White once again popped up, and the ball drifted toward the Philly dugout. Boone raced over and got his glove on the ball, which fell out — right into Rose's waiting outstretched glove.
That brought up Wilson. McGraw struck him out to end the Series.
Fans take loss quietly
There was quiet in Kansas City as the Royals breathed their last, ending mid-America's World Series romance and consigning the wild dreams to the hope chest for at least another year.
Hushed were the streets and stilled were the places where fans had massed in mad merriment after the playoff clincher over the haughty New York Yankees. The city's people — having tasted the intoxicating brew of World Series fever — were sobering quickly, forgetting the glory that was yesterday and the frustration of today, thinking instead of tomorrow's promise.
“I’m not that upset," said Alice Herndon, a middle-aged woman in a trench coat who was picking up milk at a convenience store on Main. “It just gives me something to look forward to next year.”
Her sentiments were expressed at other places throughout the city.
"They got there by playing,” said Joe Millbrook, a valet at the Crown Center Hotel. He had listened to the last game of the year through his radio earplug and was unbowed in defeat.
“It might take us three times to make it,” he said, the earplug now removed. “But we will.”
At the end, the drinks were left untouched as 300 fans in the Crown Center hotel lobby dispersed quickly.
At 2904 Olive, the home of the parents of Frank White, Royals second baseman, their son was still their favorite. Frank White Sr. relaxed in his easy chair, shaking two twigs like a batter on deck. Daisie White divided her time between the television and her grandchildren.
At the last out ter bands went to her head. As the Philadelphia fans swarmed over Veterans Stadium far away, her husband leaned forward.
"I guess the Royals will have to save the champagne for next year,” he said. “We’ll be back next year. We'll be back.”
¶ ¶ ¶
In another home, this one at 10 E. Concord, even character-building for girls couldn't get in the way of the game.
Kate Parsons was playing host to a meeting for 13 young Camp Fire girls in the kitchen. Upstairs in a daughter's bedroom, husband Jack was sprawled on a bed, watching the game on television, shouting the score downstairs.
Back in the kitchen, the girls were keeping track on a chalkboard. Not a play went unaccounted for.
“I really hope Kansas City doesn’t go away thinking of this as a loss,” Parsons said. “To me it's a big thing just being in the Series. And I really think, still, that talent-wise, the Royals have a better staff.”
Regardless of the box score
¶ ¶ ¶
At World Series’ end, the barmaids up down and across town answered one horrendous call for drinks.
When the Royals play good ball, it’s beautiful, said Joe Martin, watching the game at The Point, 917 W. 44th. “It’s the finest thing to watch in this world. But when they’re bad, they play bad. And I think the Phillies had them spooked.”
“It’s not really a fiasco because the Royals did great,” said Marty Gibbons, a patron at Kenny’s News Room, 3740 Broadway. “The breaks didn’t go their way and they didn’t win it. Overall, they made too many mental mistakes. About that I cuss and swear just like anybody else.”
¶ ¶ ¶
A radio echoed through the cavernous Main Post Office on Pershing Road. Except for a handful of workers loading mail onto trucks, the mighty building seemed empty.
Crouched on a loading dock, clerk Clayton Murphy took a break to contemplate the fortunes of the Kansas City Royals.
Was there any hope at game time that the Royals would go on to nab a World Series title?
“Nope,” he said, smiling sadly and pushing the cowboy hat back from his forehead. “Carlton’s pitching too good.”
¶ ¶ ¶
The streets of Westport were without the jubilant fans that filled bars and restaurants after the pennant victory and early Series wins.
“It could’ve been nicer,” one young man muttered over a beer at Kelly’s Westport Inn. Another agreed. “Some people say, ‘At least they beat the Yankees,'” said Stephen Clarkson. “You know what that means? Absolutely nothing unless you win the Series.”
Sitting nearby, Chuck Brandt said that the Royals failed to take the initiative to the Series and "just reacted” to the Phillies. “That's tot good enough," Brandt said.
But Ken Coones, a self-described Kelly’s regular, was more optimistic. “I was there when it was 39 degrees in the spring, and I'm here when it’s S9 degrees now,” he said.
“We brought the World Series to Kansas City. I don’t think we have anything to feel bad about. There's going to be another year.”
¶ ¶ ¶
After the last out, someone punched in Willie Nelson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” on the jukebox of the Club Royal, a country-western bar at 3732 Main. Someone else started playing on the pinball machine.
And then, after a few heavy minutes of near silence, the analysis began.
Frey was too conservative. Willie Wilson didn’t get on base. The Phillies' pitching was superior. Why didn’t Splittorff start? How could Aikens have made that mistake at first base?
“What’s really going to prove that this is a big-league town to how the fans react to this,” 44-year-old Stan Hickman said. “If they start picking at this and picking at that, I think it’s going to do more harm for morale than all the good we got out of having the Series in the first place.”
The reporters
This story was written with information provided by Richard A Serrano, Paul Vitello, Lewis W Diuguid and Colleen Cordes. All are members of the Kansas City Times staff.
Royals’ Philly-style rally falls short
Late surges are stopped by McGraw
By Mike Fish, A Member of the Sports Staff
PHILADELPHIA – It was baseball, Philadelphia-style.
Police dogs were stationed along the dugouts, helmeted officers were standing guard, cherry bombs were exploding in the night and the Royals were trying to come back. The Royals were staging the patented Philly comeback act in Veterans Stadium.
The Phillies had done it at the tail end of the season against the Expos. lt had been repeated against the Astros in the National League Playoffs and against the Royals in the World Series. Now the Royals, their backs against the wall in Game 6, were trying to create that same magic.
They tried in the eighth and again in the ninth. They loaded the bases, but each time Tug McGraw bent only so far. A sacrifice fly brought home the only run he surrendered as the Phillies hung on, defeating the Royals 4-1.
“It was very distracting out there, very distracting,” said Frank White. Twice in the late-inning surge, White, the Series defensive master, lofted innocent pop-ups.
“You had dogs all over the place," White said. “Cherry bombs were going off all over the place. It was just wild. It was like winter ball all over again. I thought I was back in Venezuela.’'
Faint signs of hope for the Royals began to surface in the eighth. Starter Steve Carlton finally tired, giving way to relief ace Tug McGraw. The Royals scored a run, chopping the lead to 4-1, but Hal McRae was retired on a grounder to second baseman Manny Trillo. That killed the threat.
“When I was up I thought I'd hit it out," said McRae. “Once the count got to 3-2 I was just looking to make contact. I was gonna be the guy to get them. I was gonna hit it out.
“He (McGraw) won, though. I had a chance to beat him two days and he won."
The initial comeback bid had failed, but the Royals regrouped and made one last effort. And again, McGraw flirted with danger.
Willie Aikens walked with one out, giving the first indication that the Royals might not be dead. John Wathan and Jose Cardenal, loth of whom played key roles in the eighth inning rally, singled to load the bases.
As it turned out, it was up to Willie Wilson. The Royals’ left fielder was in the same position in which Cardenal found himself in Game 5. It was Wilson against McGraw, the bases loaded, two out and the outcome still in the balance.
McGraw won the battle and the Series. For Wilson, it was a strikeout that may linger in his mind all winter.
"Nobody likes to get here and play bad," said Wilson, who struck out three times Tuesday. “I wanted to be up there. I wasn’t gonna go back and say, ‘Jim (Frey), put somebody else up there.’ At that time, I just didn’t have it."
Cardenal knew exactly how he felt.
“You’re only human and can just try," Cardenal said. "I know how he feels. When you try too hard, things go differently.
“It happened to me before. You try your best, you try too hard. It's like you have no control, no feeling for what will happen."
It was the Phillies who got tbe breaks in Game 6. The Royals couldn’t get the hits they needed in key situations. In the ninth, Bob Boone bobbled Frank White's foul pop and Pete Rose neatly picked the ball out of the air.
It was another piercing shot to the Royals comeback.
"It's typical of the way the Series went,” said U.L. Washington. "You got to have some luck to win this thing. I’m not saying it was all luck. But if a team is going good, some of it is luck."
The breaks went to the Phillies ,the comebacks went to the Phillies, and Tuesday night, at least, the Royals couldn’t quite match up.
They’d rather be in Philadelphia, now
Players think victory should put end to slurs
By Gib Twyman, A Member of the Sports Staff
PHILADELPHIA - “W.C. Fields is rolling over in his grave. He's down there wishing he could join the party. Benjamin Franklin is down there, too, wantin’ a little sip of this champagne."
The speaker was Tug McGraw. Moments after the Philadelphia Phillies had beaten the Kansas City Royals 4-1 to win the 77th World Series 4-2, the Phils’ ace reliever was sticking up for his city and his team and referring to the city's most famous residents.
“People have always had Philadelphia playing second fiddle to every other city," McGraw said, his voice rising. “But let me tell you something, we're second fiddle to nobody. Nobody in the world is as good as the Philadelphia Phillies now.”
McGraw had to work out of a bases-loaded situation in the ninth to preserve the victory. He got Frank White to pop out and threw a swinging third strike past Willie Wilson to end it.
“I don’t think," said Larry Bowa, the Phils' shortstop, "that we are capable of ending a game any other way. I think Tug does it on purpose. If we had a 12-run lead, Tug would still send them home with a thrill.”
McGraw said, "I didn’t have much out there. I struggled. But I wouldn’t give in. I made up my mind to just keep pumping fastballs at them. I refused to give up. And I think that is representative of the character of this whole ball club all season.
"This series was like a heavyweight knock-down drag-out. It was the Kid Gavilan show. They kept backing us into a corner and we kept taking punches on the jaw. But we kept giving it back to them and we kept battling beck to the center of the ring."
Mike Schmidt, a unanimous choice of a 9-person panel aa the Most Valuable Player in the Series, agreed with McGraw ’s analysis. "We may not be like the Big Red Machine or any of those other tremendous offensive teams people keep talking about. We couldn’t win four straight — there was no way a team as good as Kansas City was gonna let us do that.
“But we get the hits when it counts. We come from behind. We plug away. We grind it out. We wear the other team down. We find a way to win. We find a way to win a ballgame.
“I guess if you can continue to do all that on national TV before a whole country watching you, you've proved you’re a pretty good baseball team.
“As for the MVP thing, it could have gone to six or seven guys. It's hard to single a guy out on this team. I'm grateful for it happening to me. If I got a hit that gave it to me I'm grateful."
Schmidt drove in the winning runs with a 2-run single in the third inning. He wound up hitting .381 with six runs scored and 7 RBIs. He had eight hits in 21 at-bats.
“I don’t play the game to be an MVP or anything anyway. I don't think about what my image is. To tell the truth, I play the game to glorify God — that's the key to Mike Schmidt as a ballplayer and a person.”
Schmidt was asked if he was saying any prayers in the ninth with the bases loaded. “Any prayers?” he said. "That's the secret to me being able to survive out there in this game. I only had one regret — one prayer that wasn’t answered. My grandmother (Viola Schmidt) died Sept. 26 (in Dayton Ohio). She was the first person who ever played catch with me and got me to playing baseball.”
Pete Rose called the Phillies a great ball club, one which he couldn’t compare to two Series winners be played for in Cincinnati (1975 against Boston and 1976 against New York). But he said this was one of his most satisfying. “The other ones came when we were on the road," Rose said. "This is the first one I’ve got to be in at home. That’s why I was jumping up and down so much.”
When someone suggested the Phils were not as good as the Cincy teams, Pete countered, “This club has got the MVP (Schmidt regular-season leading contender), the Cy Young (Steve Carlton the leading contender), and the best bullpen guy (McGraw led the Phils with 20 saves). That's a pretty good nucleus for a dub right there.”
Dallas Green, the manager, said, "I think Bowa said it best. We have put some ghosts to sleep. All the people who said we couldn’t win. We’ve buried them. I’ve been a Phillie for 36 years and I know what a special feeling this is. We’ve waited a long time. It finally came down to the players getting together and grinding it out. They had to do it between the white lines.”
Rose steals Jackson’s spot as most hated
By Will Grimsley, The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — Pete Rose was relieved to be back in the friendly confines of Veterans Stadium Tuesday night. It's not that he felt the Philadelphia Phillies were a cinch to clinch this World Series on their home field — even though they did by defeating the Royals 4-1 in Game 6 — it was the simple fact he was glad to get out of Kansas City.
Rose, you see, was hit in the head with a plastic cup, taunted by hostile fans and needed a police escort in the weekend Series games at Royals Stadium.
“They were pretty rough,” said Rose, referring to Kansas City’s baseball fans. "I'm used to being booed and belted. If I were there in a white uniform, they would love me.
“I consider it a compliment to my aggressiveness.”
Pete's 10-year-old son, Petey, also was hooted and twice hit with debris by aroused Royals fans.
"I didn’t mind most of the signs, like the one that said, ‘The Aqua Velva Man Stinks,’” said Rose, 39, before the Phillies defeated the Royals on Tuesday night and clinched their first World Championship. "But some of the signs were really raw. They didn’t bother me but I thought about the John Doe sitting there with his 10-year-old daughter."
Royal fans hung effigies of Rose and exhibited signs which said: “Hey, Peter, we never promised you a Rose garden," "A Rose by any name is ugly,” "Pete Rose is a hot dog — let 's roast him.”
A Philadelphia newspaper polling the fans in Game 5 of the Series, won by the Phillies 4-3 Sunday, showed Rose has replaced the New York Yankees' Reggie Jackson as No. 1 on the Royal hate list.
"It's an honor to be compared with Reggie in any way considering I'm 3-for-19 and batting .158 in the Series," said Rose, the only man in baseball history to get 200 hits in 10 different seasons.
“I’ve never given anybody any season not to like me. People don’t like me just as they don't like Muhammad Ali and Jimmy Connors. It's because I am so aggressive and also, I think, because I make so much money.”
Rose said he was disliked by some fans when he was at Cincinnati because he often held out for more money.
“In St. Petersburg after I signed my big contract with the Phillies ($32 million for four years) some guy in the stands called my kid a spoiled bum,” he said. “That really burned me up. John Doe is not going to worry about who pays my electric bills.”
Kansas City fans became incensed when Rose charged from first base to challenge Manager Jim Frey of the Royals, who had stormed onto the field following the decking of George Brett Saturday on a brushback pitch by Philadelphia’s Dickie Noles.
"Frey was just trying to excite the kid," Rose said. "Dickie is mean. He can fight."
Rose also antagonized the enemy crowd by spiking the baseball — much in the fashion of a football player after a touchdown — on the final out.
“When I was with the Reds, I spiked the ball at third base and they loved it," he said. "Now that I am with the Phillies they boo me when I do it."
Rose appears to take more secret delight than feel resentment at being the black-hatted villain in enemy ballparks.
"They had to quit selling beer in the left-field pavilion at Dodger Stadium when I played left field for the Reds," he said. “The Dodgers once assigned 15 policemen to me.
"At Shea Stadium in New York, they didn’t sell tickets in the left-field section when I played there. Also, at Shea, because I was such a target of fans they quit letting buses stop outside. They went directly to the dugout area.
"In New York once they wouldn’t let me out of the hotel room. I had to get room service and they burned my steaks.”
Rose's most harrowing experiences have taken place in Chicago’s Wrigley Field and in New York’s Shea Stadium, he said.
"There were the Bleacher Bums in right field at Wrigley,’’ he said. “They were deadly. Once I tossed a loose ball to a fan underhand, just as a favor. I turned my back and he popped me with a B-B gun.
“Another time a guy hit me behind the ear with a paper clip shot with a rubber band. I bled for three innings. Once in Chicago when I was batting against Phil Regan I complained about spitballs.
“He thought he had me struck out when I swung at a spitball for a third strike. But the umpire, realizing it was a spitter, called it a ball. I blasted the next pitch for a hit.
“All heck broke loose. Leo Durocher (then Cubs manager), Ron Santo and Randy Hundley all were kicked out of the game. So was I. Special details were sent out to clear the garbage off the field.”
Rose said on another occasion at Wrigley Field he decided to try to placate the right field fans. So he took a dozen baseballs and tossed them to the crowd.
“They threw them right back," he said. "One guy decided he wanted to keep a ball for a souvenir. They beat him up.”
Rose 's problems at Shea Stadium reached their climax in the 1973 Reds-Mets playoffs, triggered by Rose's vicious slide into Bud Harrelson at second base to break up a double play.
Rose and Harrelson went after each other. The fans went wild. They sprayed the outfield with rubbish.
"For the rest of the series we were in fear of our lives. I remember Willie Mays, Tom Seaver and other Mets had to go out to the outfield and plead with the fans to cool it so the game wouldn’t be defaulted.
"In the last game, I remember I was on first and Joe Morgan was at bat. I have never been more uneasy. People were hanging over the edge of of the stands ready to spring. (Ed) Kranepool, playing first for the Mets, warned me that as soon as the last out was made he would help me run for shelter.
“It was scary. Morgan made the final out and I scooted into the dugout as fast as my legs would carry me."
Rose considers himself the favorite of the little guy.
“The average working man likes me,” he said. “They say I can't run and I can't throw and don’t have much ability. I get what I get on guts. The ordinary guy appreciates that."
Phils’ catcher Boone: a bit player who became a star
By Gib Twyman, A Member of the Sports Staff
PHILADELPHIA — Bob Boone was going to be a doctor. Then he was going to be a pitcher or a third baseman. The Royals must wish be became anything except what he did — the catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies.
In every World Series there are men who shed season-long mediocrity to pay key roles in the championship. In the Phillies' drive to their first National League pennant in 30 years, Boone was little more than a bit player. Oh, defensively, he had a fairly important role to play.
But when it came to the plate, Boone was like the child who got to play the tree in the grade-school play. His job was to stand there, not do anything and don’t clog up the wings when the stars are coming off.
Then came prime time. Opening night of the new play, “The Philadelphia Phillies Feel a Flag Coming On." Up went the lights, back went the curtains, the trumpets started blaring and who should come high-stepping across the stage but Bob Boone.
Boone hit only .229 in the I980 regular season, a full 42 points lower than any of his averages the last five years. Boone went into the year a .269 lifetime hitter in 7½ seasons with the Phillies. The last three yean he had hit .284, .283 and .286. In 1976, ‘77 and ’78, he was the National League's All-Star catcher.
This year, he struggled from the beginning of spring training — until the last week of the season rolled around. "I started getting a feel with the bat back,'' Boone said. “All my mechanics seemed messed up. But I started keeping my shoulder in, became more patient at the plate. Luckily, my stroke came back just in time for the playoffs."
It has come back so much that he was the Phillies' leading hitter in the World Series with a .412 average — seven hits in 17 at-bats. In the Phillies’ Series-clinching 4-1 victory Tuesday night, he went 1-for-2, scored once and drove in one run.
In the opening game of the Series, Boone went 3-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored. The Phils won 7-6. In Game 2, Boone, batting in the No. 9 position, led off the eighth inning with a walk. The Phils scored four runs, overcoming a 4-2 Kansas City lead and winning 6-4.
It is a continuation of the period just before the National League Championship Series with Houston. Boone had a key run-scoring single in the first game of the 3-game series against Montreal that decided Philly's fourth NL East title in the last five years. And, against the Astros, Boone had a 2-run single in the fifth game that tied the score 2-2. The Phils out-rallied Houston 8-7 to earn a berth in the Series.
“I’ve been kidding Boonie all week," said Manager Dallas Green, “that he waited 159 games to get his act together. But it doesn’t surprise me, really. We knew all along that Bob Boone was not a .220 hitter. He is showing the country right now what kind of hitter he really always has been for the Philadelphia Phillies.’’
Boone is a serious minded, intelligent young man who was born to play baseball as much as he learned it. His father, Ray Boone, was an All-Star American League infielder who played in the majors from 1948-60, primarily with the Cleveland Indians.
Bob Boone began playing when he was about 1 or 2. “It was just always something that was around me," he said. "My dad never made me into a baseball player or anything. He just wanted me to have fun. If I did well, well then take it as far as you can."
For a while, Boone thought professional baseball might end before it began. He carried a 3.0 average as an undergraduate at Stanford and had his sights set on medical school. “I passed the boards, early in my senior year. I don’t remember the score, but it was up there pretty good. But somehow, I knew all along that I was really going to sign for baseball.”
When he did, it was as the No. 6 selection in the June 1969 free-agent draft. But it was not as a catcher. “I never played an inning of catcher until I hit Triple-A ball," he said. “In high school and college I was a pitcher and third baseman. I signed as a third baseman."
The Philadelphia organization converted Boone to catcher in the instructional league in 1970. “It was Paul Owens (Phils' vice president and director of player personnel) who made the switch. But the guy who worked with me, gave me my fundamentals was Andy Seminick.’’
Seminick was a catcher the last time the Phils made it to the World Series, as a member of the Whiz Kids of 1950.
”I had a lot of mechanical weaknesses when I started out," Boone said. “But I always had a strong arm. Andy helped give me the ability to be a receiver.”
The training worked so well Boone won the Gold Glove in 1978 and ’79.
“Boone has definitely been a problem for us," said the Royals’ Hal McRae. “He was a guy looking like he wouldn't worry us much. You don't have to knock yourself out about how to pitch a .220 hitter. You just throw strikes and let him get himself out. But now he isn’t swinging .220. He’s swinging like his good years.”
Said Boone: “The Royals started out this Series pitching me away. It’s understandable. My strong point historically has been the inside pitch.”
But, said Green, "When Boonie is hitting, he will hit to all fields and you can't defense him too well.”
Will it be celebration or another explosion?
Philadelphia prepares for worst after Phillies capture Series
By Mike McKenzie, A Member of the Sports Staff
PHILADELPHIA – It was a police reporter’s dream — straight from the City of Brotherly Riot Control.
Usually, police reporters chase after the fact — crime isn’t scheduled. Here, they prepared for it.
Long before the Philadelphia Phillies changed their name to World Champions, their home city was a human incendiary bomb, just waiting for the Phillies to light the fuse. The only thing that could be worse than losing this World Series is winning it.
Outside Veterans Stadium before the final game, a little snow would have provided the perfect setting for an episode of "Sgt Preston of the Yukon.” Police on horseback patrolled all parking lots and entrances. A truckload of sniffing, yelping German Shepherds was unloaded at security headquarters and then deployed around the stadium, inside and out.
In the middle of the first inning a battalion of helmeted policemen marched through the crowd down the right-field line — to stand on ready alert. When Willie Wilson struck out, ending the Phillies 4-1 victory, the alert was over. It was time to move out. Quickly, the policemen — horses, dogs and all — ringed the field, cutting off would-be revelers before they could get started.
“Every policeman in town who had a day off is on duty somewhere in the city,” policeman Jim Delaney said. “The town is jovial, the mood is terrific. But trouble will make it a shame. It got out of hand when the Flyers (Philadelphia’s National Hockey League team) won, and we’re expecting a little more with the Phillies."
The mayor, Bill Green, said police have been dispatched to 15 areas “with riot potential.’’
This city popped its buttons four years ago, priding itself on the Bicentennial celebration. But that was Franklin and Jefferson stuff — Happy Birthday magnified. The parades were tidy, the fireworks planned. People don’t romp and stomp over what "Our forefathers brought forth…"
Now we re talking baseball, 97 years of hunger pangs. This is something over which to become manic oppressive. These Phillies embodied nearly a century of trials and suffering in the city’s quest for a baseball winner.
This is riotous stuff.
Every time the Phillies won something in the past — National League pennants in 1915, ’50 and ’80; East Division titles in 1978, ’77, ’78 and ’80 — they clinched it out of town, in Boston, Brooklyn, Montreal, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Montreal again and Houston.
This time, they did it before the very eyes of Philadelphians.
“Looks like a riot coming to me,” said pitcher Dick Ruthven before the game. "Getting home will be a problem.”
And his prediction proved accurate. Long after the game, the area around Veterans Stadium was jammed with born-honking cars and cheering celebrants.
“I kept thinking that if the game ended on a pop fly,” Philly shortstop Larry Bowa said before the game, “they (fans) might not ever let it come down. How would we get off the field?”
There are no fond remembrances of 1973 when the Cincinnati Reds had to wave bats threateningly at the fans in order to get off the field in Shea Stadium after losing to the New York Mets.
Ruly Carpenter, owner of the Phillies, recalled a bloody night 10 years ago in the last game ever played at old Connie Mack Stadium when fans poured onto the field and squashed one another. “I almost wish we’d won it in Kansas City," said Carpenter. “You know mob psychology — if a few go they all go.”
One cab driver said no sane cabbie would be on the streets after the third inning. He said after the Flyers won the NHL title, his cab was overturned, and he escaped a mob by wielding a club.
All four city newspapers carried accounts of the mounting pre-game anticipation and its potential for neighborhood melees, and rushing the field after the game, and the claustrophobia of a day-after-victory parade.
Tom Seaver, a member of the riot-causing World Series champion Mets of 1969, here to serve the NBC-TV announcing crew, recalled, “The parade was scary. People grabbed at your cuff links, shoes, tried to tear off mine and my wife’s clothes, anything they could get hold of.”
Two columnists implored fans to keep their senses. The problem is that people to whom that was directed were deaf to any such plea, and dumb.
There was some power of suggestion to be drawn from the deluge of articles the past week, too. It was almost like saying, "Hey, Philly, you've never won this sort of thing, and when you do this is how you go goofy — knock people down, tear up the field, ignore police, reserve your spot in the pokey.”
All this celebration fever was predicated, naturally, on the Phillies doing in the Royals, the pawns in this drama.
Was there ever a doubt? Headlines screamed, “The Royals are Dead," and "ls Tonight the Night?" and “Just One More!” Groups in various parts of town were found chanting, "We believe,” and, “We’re just warming up," and, "You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Philadelphia was on what its resident baseball philosopher-fruitloop, Tug McGraw, called, “A magic carpet ride.”
“In the past," McGraw said, “they’ve had the rug pulled out from under them. Now everybody’s on board, the carpet is launched, and we’re all beading for the Land of Oz, and ooooh I’m freakin’ out!”
Notes: Phillies manager takes no ‘Bull’
Phillies leftfielder Greg Luzinski is upset about not playing in Games 3 and 4. The Phillies had indicated Luzinski was held out because of an intestinal virus, but the “Bull” said he expected to play.
“I was ready to play Games 3 and 4 and I told them that,” said Luzinski.
“I wanted to play Greg 162 games this year,” said Philly Manager Dallas Green, “and I intended to, but I’m not the one that hit .228. Production is the important thing, the thing I’m looking for. I’m tired of ballplayers popping off.”…
Sparky Anderson, who’s doing network radio commentary at the Series, got Willie Aikens a little upset with his comment that the Phillies had the edge over the Royals at first base.
Comparing the Phillies and Royals man for man, the Tigers manager said Pete Rose is a better hitter than Aikens, and when the Royals first baseman heard that, he said he thought he was the better hitter.
“Imagine that,” Anderson said. “Rose has played 18 years in the big leagues, has more than 3500 hits and a lifetime batting average of .310. OK, so he isn’t hitting too much in the Series.
“Aikens is hitting over .400, but be hasn't even been in the big leagues three full years and has a lifetime average of something like .270. Now I ask you, who would you say is the better hitter?”…
Royals centerfielder Amos Otis set a Series record for putouts (nine) by an outfielder in a game. Otis established the record in Game 5 Sunday afternoon. The former record of eight was shared by two Cincinnati players, Edd Roush (1919) and George Foster (1976)…
One of the workhorses of the Delaware River — a 1800-horsepower 93-foot tugboat — has been renamed “The Tug McGraw” in honor of the Phillies reliever…
The operator of the computerized scoreboard at Veterans Stadium apparently was not informed Tuesday night the Series is being played with the designated hitter.
The scoreboard, at least through the early innings listed the Phillies' Luzinski and the Royals' Hal McRae as pitchers. Luzinski, an outfielder, was listed as a pitcher with an 0-0 record.
The designated hitter is used in the American League and not in the National. In the World Series, the DH is used every other year.
Royals left their hearts in playoffs
The Morning Line, By Mike McKenzie
PHILADELPHIA — It is known as the Fall Classic. When it is classic, there is no loser. One team prevails, one does not. Neither hangs its heads.
The World Series just concluded — which the Phillies won four games to two — was not a classic. The Phillies showed classic lines throughout. The Royals did not; only brief flashes.
From Kansas City's point of view, it always will be said of this first Royals World Series that beating the Yankees to get there was the satisfaction; that the heart went to sleep after a playoff celebration in New York, and the bats and feet and arms and heads followed.
Most certainly, it can be said this first World Series for the Royals did not feature Royals baseball.
Fitting, and symptomatic, was the ending Tuesday night:
• Philadelphia first baseman, Pete Rose extra effort and energy bubbling over himself, hustling to catcher Bob Boone’s side on a routine pop foul and catching the ball for the second out of the final inning after it squirted out of Boone's glove.
• Royals leadoff batter Willie Wilson striking out against Tug McGraw as the finality of it all.
Wilson striking out a record 12 times is not Royals baseball. The Royals bungling bunt plays, and not touching bases for outs, and botching base coverage, and running into rally-killing outs at home plate, and blowing lead after lead — that isn't the Royals baseball that carried them to a World Series.
Even so, that should not detract from the Phillies’ accomplishments — an uphill climb through the National League East, the West's best and the American League champion.
“Sometimes," said Royals Manager Jim Frey, “you just have to tip your hat to the other ballclub."
That is the same Frey who said before the World Series, and reiterated afterward, he believed be was managing the best team in baseball.
The end result rates second best, but apologists are not needed for the Royals' season. As Frey told the nation on TV from the quieted Royals clubhouse: "We’re as proud as we can be to be Kansas City Royals, because we had one great year.”
As they shed uniforms for the last time in 1980, the Royals reflected a general attitude of disappointment, but not heartache; satisfaction in reaching the event which the Yankees had prevented them from reaching three times previously, and self-assurance they had given their best shot.
Repeatedly throughout the Series, members of the Royals said they were aiming for fun against the Phillies, that the pressure valve was fully released by crossing the huge hump called Yankees. “All the pressure was there," said George Brett. “We finally beat them, in three straight games, and accomplished tbe biggest obstacle we ever faced.
“The playoffs were very, very exciting because the Yankees had given us so much heartache and disaster. The one thing I'll always remember is that home run off Goose Gossage (that won the third game). Sure I played in the World Series, but there hasn’t been that one special thing like that.”
The biggest Brett story of the World Series stemmed from his jokes about his case of hemorrhoids requiring surgery between Games 2 and 3. And other big success stories on the Royals were skimpy, too. Willie Aikens’ heroics and charm captured the press’s fancy a couple of days, and Frank White’s defense at second base was sensational. Dan Quisenberry’s quips became a daily menu for reporters.
Otherwise, pickings were slim. The Phillies had too many heroes stealing the hour and the glory, from Most Valuable Player Mike Schmidt to silent Steve Carlton, to the eight-nine batters, Larry "The Dueling Banjo" Bowa and Boone.
Wilson suffered. His teammates tried to cushion his dismal Series at bat with comments about his sensational regular season, and a bright-looking future.
Aikens commented, “Willie Wilson makes our team go and he had a bad Series. But we aren't disowning anybody. The satisfaction is that we got here, and 24 other teams didn’t make it. They have a good team, but I think we're better than the Phillies.
“It’s just that we didn’t play our type of baseball.”
“What is Royals baseball?" asked Brett when the observation was passed along to him. “In a World Series nobody wants te be the one to waste an opportunity, so I guess we were a little more cautious than if we were playing the Blue Jays in Toronto, the Rangers in Texas, the Angels in California. When there are 162 games and some breathing room, you can afford to be more reckless, gamble.
"Who wants to run us out of an inning? We don’t have anything to be ashamed of. They took advantage of more opportunities, and we always battled back."
Perhaps, after time clouds the immediate recollections, that is how the Royals' first World Series will be remembered.
For now, it rings of yanking the American League trophy from the Yankees and hugging it — then stepping aside in deference to the Phillies' long history of failure at the highest level of baseball.
“In my heart, I thought we’d win it,” said Frey. “But we’re a very good club, and I hope people realize we played as bard as we could. We'll get another chance.”
Royal outfielder glad to get second chance to atone for mistakes
By Mike Fish, A Member of the Sports Staff
PHILADELPHIA — Jose Cardenal called it a vote of confidence. Royals Manager Jim Frey was giving him a second chance, an opportunity to atone for his game-ending strikeout in World Series Game 5 Sunday.
And Cardenal did come through. He kept alive the Royals’ rallies with singles in both the eighth and ninth inning. But these key hits went for naught as Philadelphia clinched the Series with a 4-1 victory.
But in the nervous hours before Game 6 at Veterans Stadium, Frey said he was just playing the percentages. Cardenal was starting in right field because the Phillies were starting a left-hander, Steve Carlton, and baseball logic dictates you stack your lineup with right-handed bitters against lefties.
"I feel happy that Frey has the confidence in me," said Cardenal, 37. “I didn’t do it the other day, but that isn’t the reason we lost. What happened Sunday, striking out with men on, can happen to anybody.
"You can’t judge somebody on one play. It doesn't make sense for people to be surprised because I’m playing. I’m in a very tough situation and it didn’t work out.”
Cardenal, who started Game 2 and went 0-for-4 against Carlton, was hitless in six at-bats going into Game 6. His low point came Sunday at Royals Stadium when Tug McGraw retired him twice, killing Royals’ threats in both the seventh and ninth innings.
With runners on first and second in the seventh, Cardenal flied to center for the third out. And with the bases loaded in the last of the ninth, he struck out, ending the game.
"I guess it just comes out of our respect for Carlton," Frey said of his decision to start Cardenal. "He (Carlton) is a tough left-hander, probably one of the best in the game.
"I wouldn’t give him (Cardenal) another chance just so he could vindicate himself. That's not it at all. I just felt he had a better chance of getting on (base) than the left-hander (Clint Hurdle).”
The past couple of days have been tough on Cardenal. He was the bum, the guy who had a chance to win Game 5 and failed.
The critics can be harsh when you’ve failed in the World Series. It’s a situation where every hit, every miscue is magnified.
“I was hurt,” said Cardenal. “It bothered me yesterday (Monday) and then I got a good night's sleep. You try so hard and then things don’t work out.
"When fighting for your life you want to look good. So many people are watching. You want to look so good, but then you try too hard. You swing too hard.”
Yes, it’s all over, but it was great while it lasted
By Jeffrey R. Copion, A Member of the Staff
PHILADELPHIA – At the end, the Royals came out second best. In the sixth game of the 1980 World Series they ran into a withering left-hander named Carlton, a calm hopper named Schmidt and a pumped-up, pent-up collection of fans who had lived with a century of frustration.
The Royals lost that game 4-1, ending a grand opera of a season on a melancholy chord.
The fireworks blew. The Philadelphia police horses and dogs came out to keep 66,000 throbbing bipeds off the green turf. The organist lit into a jaunty rendition of "Anchors Aweigh.” Outside Veterans Stadium, Philly went wild with fans pouring into the streets, swigging beer and champagne, honking horns and shouting ‘‘We’re No 1."
In the eye of this delirious hurricane were the Royals, until they sidled quietly into the right and their separate off-seasons.
They were lonely but they weren't alone; well before the ultimate inning, they had strapped almost all of Kansas City into tneir dizzying ride — and finally, the numbing chute 1,000 miles away.
The Royals made kids cry and strong men fight back tears. Novices who barely grasped the game last week now knew what it meant to lose.
That’s the inescapable facts haunting everyone in the organization today, from Ewing Kauffman to the ball boys to those countless, unpaid employees called fans.
But there are times when facts obscure the truth. They say close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, but they are wrong.
Close also counts in major-league baseball, especially when a team reaches the World Series.
With time, and with the soft veil it brings to memory, Royals fans will dwell less and less on Tuesday night. They will remember more a sweet season of 102 official victories, of counties enchanted evenings when a team of promise gained the maturity of champions.
They’ll recall a team that swept through its division like a brushfire among parched oaks.
They’ll savor their three-game playoff sweep over their two biggest enemies – the New York Yankees and the private jinx that struck from 1976 to 1978.
They'll take pride to the knowledge that the Royals were the first expansion team to become American League champs — and at the tender age of 12, at that.
They’ll flash hack to the flowering of Willie Wilson, who showed the world he was more than a blur of lean legs; to the unorthodox splendor of reliever Dan Quisenberry; to a second baseman named Frank White, both steady and spectacular; and finally, to the one who played in a league of his own, who battled the laws of probability and won — George Brett.
Brett failed to hit .400; the Royals failed to win the Series. But while it may seem heresy to say so to these United States, there can be a rough-edged glory to certain failures, to the striving and risking that make failure possible.
Even as the Philly fans chanted the index-fingered chant of Series winners, the Royals and their city had won as well.
They had battled hard and long, and gone further than they ever had before. And with a team still spry and vital, it's more than partisan fancy to suggest they may go further yet.
The Royals can afford to wait till next year, after all. The fans can wait as well, without regret or second guesses.
That is the luxury born of true success.
¶ ¶ ¶
The end may have come with a ninth-inning rally that wasn’t, but it seemed in the air from the start Tuesday night in Philadelphia.
If ever a visiting team deserved to feel far from home, it was the Kansas City Royals.
You could sense that Eastern difference even outside Veterans Stadium a half-hour before the game. Unlike the orderly lines that file into Royals Stadium, here was a surging melee, as if this ballpark were an asylum that the inmates were trying to break into.
Helicopters circled ominously above, and mounted policemen patrolled the winding entrance ramps, leaving piles of dung amid the litter. Guards armed with walkie-talkies were everywhere, 100 more than the usual contingent.
But the crowd seemed equal to the challenge. By Tuesday afternoon, everyone was predicting that the fans would blow this city open if the Phillies won — and now that didn’t seem hard to imagine. Sure enough they did, 4-1.
There was a wild scent to the air before the game, one part anxiety, two parts billowing joy, and several parts simple mob intoxication.
John Anderson volunteers passed out small red stickers proclaiming "Tonight's the Night,” as if to capture a bit of this energy for their flagging campaign. A large cluster of fans waited by the bronze statues of players in front of the park apparently to need of tickets. One daring soul scaled a mesh fence to reach the inner ramp.
The smart guys were telling you that the Phillies weren't yet out of the woods, that if the Royals were to beat Lefty Carlton, the home team would probably choke once again to the seventh game. But these fans clearly aimed to do everything possible to avert that development. Inside the stadium the contrast was even sharper. Veterans Stadium is larger by half than its Kansas City counterpart. It is also an enclosed bowl, to which the sound swirls about to echo-chamber fashion.
And Phillies fans are true to their reputation. They are loud — and Tuesday night they were loyal as well, offering only a few token boos for shortstop Larry Bowa, who recently called them the worst fans to baseball.
The ovation for the starting lineup was huge enough, but the real cheers began about three-quarters of the way through the national anthem. It rose to a deafening, ear-crackling roar and culminated to a spectacular fireworks display above the stadium.
And the noise was sustained as Carlton opened the game by striking out Willie Wilson and U.L. Washington, and proceeded to mow down the Kansas City order through the sixth inning.
It was an atmosphere most inhibiting to any opposition, like the Royals' wives seated behind the third-base line. They were not entirely quiet; Sue Gale, the spouse of the Royals' starter, was especially outspoken. But they carried no shakers or pennants, as the Phillies’ wives had in Kansas City.
“We’ve been told to be kind of low-key, because we didn’t know how the fans here would treat us,” said Deanne Gaulter, Darrell Porter’s fiancée.
Four policemen were stationed to protect the wives, two at the end of the rows and two more in the aisle below.
“I don’t think anyone knows who they are,” officer William Higgins said. “With all the drunks out here, they don’t know the difference.”
Just to the left of home plate, Kansas City Mayor Richard L Berkley and his wife, Sandy, perched nervously on their seats, one row to front of Joan Frey, the manager's wife.
“Oh, no!” cried Berkley, riling to shoot his fist to the air as a strike was called on Frank White.
“Did you see that ball?” Mrs. Berkley asked indignantly.
As George Brett came to the plate the next inning, Mrs. Frey began a steady patter: "C’mon George, baby. Let’s go, Brett. Stay with it, hit a gapper. Let’s go, George.”
Brett grounded into a double play.
Meanwhile, the Philly fans were on fire as their team loaded the bases with none out in the third and slugger Mike Schmidt at the plate.
“C'mon, Michael!” shouted Nancy Amoroso, a saleswoman to a men’s retail shop.
“We live and die for this,” she confided to a neighbor. “This whole town has gone crazy over baseball.” She pointed to Cindy Stein on her left, a friend who owns a fish market and now admits to becoming “a total freak" over the Phillies.
"Before the playoffs,” Ms. Stein said, “I couldn’t stand baseball. Even my kids are crazy about it. My daughter's 3 years old, and before I left, she said to pinch her bottom for luck.”
Schmidt ripped a stogie to center to score two runs, and both women jumped to their feet to join the general delirium. The Phillies Phanatic, a large green refugee from Sesame Street, danced a jig on the Phillies dugout, flicking its lizard tongue naughtily all the while.
Clearly, it was never like this in Kansas City.
Brett denies knocking Aikens; writer admits he was in error
By Mike DeArmond and John Smith, Members of the Sports Staff
The Royals’ George Brett has denied making remarks attributed to him concerning teammate Willie Aikens' defensive ability.
It was a denial which stood up. The columnist who wrote the story, which ran in Tuesday morning's editions of The Kansas City Times, admitted he was in error.
Before Tuesday night's Game 6 of the World Series, Chicago Sun-Times columnist John Schulian said he misinterpreted quotes given him by Sun-Times co-worker Phil Hersh — quotes Hersh obtained from Brett.
“The blame is mine,” Schulian said, referring to the story which quoted Brett as criticizing Aikens for not being able to field low throws from Brett in Game 5.
In the story, Schulian had Brett saying: “He’s (Aikens) the reason we get errors. You have to make those plays."
Earlier Tuesday, Brett said, “If a story like that came out, I’m never talking to a reporter again. I never even answered a question about that.
“Someone tried to get me to rap him (Aikens) about not digging balls out of the dirt. I said ‘It's our fault. He shouldn't have to pick ’em out of the dirt.’
“I didn’t say one bad thing about him. If it wasn’t for him, we’d be at home rigid now. I don't know why — when someone asks you a question anyways — you never see what you said in the paper."
The responsibility for the misunderstanding of what Brett did or did not say waa taken by both Schulian and Hersh.
“Hersh gave me the quotes over my shoulder,” Schulian explained. "I didn’t write down the entire quote. I'm very embarrassed. That’s all I can say. I shouldn’t have done it.”
Hersh said his notebook with the Brett quotes were back at his hotel. He did say, however, that Brett said something on the order of: “We gotta get the ball to him (Aikens) or we get errors. If we throw the ball in the dirt, and we make it hard for him, we get errors."
Series visitors get ‘quick sell’ from KC
Philadelphia mayor glad he came
By Mark Fraser, A Member of the Staff
It took a World Series to bring Philadelphia Mayor Bill Green to Kansas City, but despite the outcome of Games 3 and 4, he’s glad he made the trip.
“Now this isn’t just a lot of sportsmanlike conduct,” Green said. "I really came away with an extremely favorable impression. It could not have been more pleasant.”
With the Series back in Philadelphia Tuesday night — and thousands of fans, journalists and notables gone — Kansas City leaders here could only hope that their other guests left with the same impression.
“You’ve only got about 100 hours to do something” said Bill Johnson, director of special projects for Hallmark Cards Inc. and a member of Prime Time, which works with the Chamber of Commerce to promote Kansas City.
In short, it was the selling of Kansas City in four quick days. And though the figures aren’t yet in on what the Series games will mean to the city's financial prosperity and reputation, the feeling seems to be the job went well.
"Win or lose, this has been a real boost to Kansas City,” said Jim Monroe, executive director of the Kansas City Area Economic Development Council.
To leave a lasting impression on visitors’ minds, Prime Time distributed about 2,500 copies of its coffee-table book, Kansas City, to prominent city guests during the home stand. Packed with glossy pictures, the 126-page book’s retail cost is about $15. But for the select recipients, it was free.
The Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Kansas City ran off 4-page pamphlets informing Series guests of what the area has to offer besides baseball.
And then, there were the parties. The Royals spent more than $100,000 entertaining Series guests, according to Dean Vogelaar, the team's director of public relations. Parties abounded — for everyone from the wives of the Phillies players to NBC broadcasters.
Having never before had the chance to capitalize on the publicity that attends the World Series, the city tried a little of everything.
“You can never be sure what’s working,” Johnson said. “You call your shots with some common sense, and you take a little bit of a risk.”
The city had other factors working in its favor. NBC, the television network that broadcast the games, said that about 33 percent of the nation’s sets were tuned into the first three games of the Series. If the viewership holds up, it will represent a record for World Series.
Adding to the importance of those figures is the 3-minute pre-game special NBC did on the two cities involved in the Series. The program was more of a postcard tour than an in-depth look at either city, but in reaching millions of viewers it carried the Kansas City message across the land.
"Any time television shows our city as something other than flat, hot and dusty, it’s a victory,” Johnson said.
And Joe Kramer, marketing director for the Convention and Visitors Bureau, added: “We only got 90 seconds, but to buy that time would have cost a couple of hundred grand.”
Convention and tourism officials said it will be difficult to distinguish between money spent by the baseball fans and the thousands of regular conventioneers who were here last week.
“Basically, they were on their own to eat and drink and spend money — and they did it in a big way,” said Tim Lindgren, manager of the Hyatt Regency, which was host to the Phillies and about 500 National League officials, fans and members of the media.
Bill Rauschelbach, manager of the Golden Ox restaurant, said the presence of Tug McGraw and other Phillies' players helped pack the restaurant Thursday and Saturday nights. A television crew from Philadelphia even turned to the restaurant one night for a story.
“They wanted to know the history of steak and all that,” Rauschelbach said.
Parade will recall joy of the season
Win or lose, everybody loves a parade.
And today's planned Royals Appreciation Day parade — a gigantic city-wide outpouring of thanks from the hometown fans to their baseball heroes — was long scheduled to go regardless of the outcome of Game 6 of the World Series in Philadelphia.
So despite the loss away from home, city officials say the marching extravaganza will begin shortly after noon, keyed to the time of arrival of the team back in Kansas City, on the corner of Fifth and Grand.
Those to be appreciated include the team players, Manager Jim Frey and Mr. and Mrs. Ewing Kauffman, owners of the first Kansas City team to play in the World Series. Also in attendance will be city and county officials.
The parade will wind through the downtown area and end at Pershing and Grand.
City employees will distribute free confetti for the spectators at 11th and Walnut starting at 11 a.m.
At 1 p.m. a recognition ceremony begins at the Liberty Memorial. The Winnetonka High School band is to play at 12:30, followed by a performance by the 23rd Street Marching Cobras at 12:45.
Regular bus routes will be changed through the parade area and will return to normal after the celebration.
Carter plays it cool, calls Phils and Royals
By The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA – President Jimmy Carter telephoned congratulations to Philadelphia Manager Dallas Green shortly after the Phils won the World Series Tuesday night.
But Carter, touching all political bases in this election year, also telephoned Royals Manager Jim Frey to congratulate him on fine play by his club.
According to baseball statisticians, the president should be pleased with the Philadelphia victory. In each presidential race since 1952, the winners representing the National and American Leagues have “signaled an accurate prophecy" on the presidential race.
The record has shown that if a National League team wins the World Series in an election year, the Democratic candidate will win the presidency. Likewise, if an American League club wins, the Republican candidate has been victorious.