Green way proves winning formula

By Hal Bodley, Sports Editor

DALLAS GREEN started yelling over a year ago. He snouted from Clearwater to New York, from Pittsburgh to California.

"But to tell you the truth," Dallas Green said softly, "I was afraid as recently as Sept 1 they just weren't going to listen. To me, that was the low point. That was when I wondered if it was going to work."

It did work.

Beginning on Labor Day, the historic afternoon Player Personnel Director Paul Owens mounted the clubhouse pulpit to deliver a meaningful message, the Phillies started listening in earnest. They won 23 of their last 34 games, including 12 of 14 one-run nail-biters. They ripped off a four-game "must" series against Chicago during their final homestand, then dazed the Expos to win their fourth National League Eastern Division title in five years.

With their backs against the wall in Houston, they made another best-of-three weekend a success, taking their first pennant since 1950, then numbed Kansas City to win the 1980 World Series.

You can talk about Mike Schmidt's brilliant year, you can talk about Steve Carlton's super pitching, you can talk about Tug McGraw's incredible relief, but the bottom line to the Phillies' first-ever world championship was George Dallas Green.

Even the players who fought his sometimes sophomorish approach to the bitter end agreed during last Tuesday night's champagne celebration that Dallas Green was the difference. He did what Danny Ozark failed to do when three consecutive division titles were won beginning in 1976. And when it appeared all the work that owner Ruly Carpenter and Owens had invested was going up in flames in 1979, Green quickly picked up the pieces and rebuilt the future in one short, tumultuous, memorable season.

He did it by plastering the spring-training clubhouse walls with large "We, Not I" billboards. He did it by throwing a million dollars of Carpenter's money away when he sent several players he regarded as dead wood packing. He did it by rebuilding the team's reserve corps, pouring the foundation with young, eager, unproven rookies.

He did it by backing down even the most experienced and talented veterans when they openly defied his philosophies. He did it by benching the likes of Garry Maddox, Greg Luzinski and Bob Boone at a time when he risked losing them for the drive to the wire.

And he did it by opening his heart – and his mouth – to the press, a calculated decision that added fuel to an already raging love-hate relationship in the clubhouse.

And after the Phillies finally landed in the Promised Land, the captain of their ship said he would be just as happy if somebody else ran the show next year. Green never wanted to be a manager, still doesn't, so what could he accomplish by hanging on another season or two?

Green relaxed in the living room of his rural West Grove, Pa., home the other day and talked openly about Me sensor At times, the 46-year-old former University of Delaware athlete comes across as a brash, uncomplicated person. On this particular afternoon, he was at peace with the world and his usual booming voice seemed almost muted.

"First of all," said Green, "Paul and I knew we had the talent. A lot of people didn't agree with us, but I knew we had talent to win the thing. In spring training, though, my main goal was to change the face of our bench. It was not a matter of there being too much dead wood there, but there were too many guys who were non-contributors – guys who didn't play and consequently guys Who did not contribute.

"We tried to make trades during the off-season, but were unsuccessful. So, when we went to spring training, I told the coaching staff that I was going to concentrate on building a strong bench even if it meant taking a few kids and gambling that, No. 1, they had enough talent and were ready to play in the big leagues and, No. 2, that they had innards. I think the Keith Morelands and the Lonnie Smiths and the Dickie Noleses and the George Vukoviches were those type guys. They're not back-off guys.

"I have to give Ruly Carpenter credit. When we made our final squad cuts (Rawly Eastwick, Buddy Harrelson, Doug Bird) we had to eat about a million dollars worth of dead-weight salary which, you know, hurt because it looked like a million-dollar gamble. But if we didn't have those kids, if we didn't change the face of the bench, I felt in my heart that we would have been back. in the same old hum-drum, laissez-faire bench situation that we were before."

Had it not been for contributions by the rookies, on and off the field, the Phils would not be champions today.

"OK, it's old school to hope you can put some juice into a 162-game schedule," said Green. "But somewhere along the line, emotion will help you and emotion will carry you through some rough times. The kids brought the freshness, they brought the 'I Don't Care About You, Veteran' type thing that we needed to crack that somber look in the dugout. We had to get some juice.

"We couldn't count on Tug McGraw slapping his leg and Pete Rose sliding on his belly to do it. That was about the only emotion this team had. Every now and then Larry Bowa got it going pretty good, but Bowa was part of that old clan to some degree, the group that became very staid in its ways."

Green looked across his room at a pennant with all the autographs of his players scribbled across it. He tried to hide a smile.

"There is no question in my mind that, had we gone with the same people that we had in 1979, we would not be champions," Green said. "And that's not a knock on their talent necessarily. It's a knock on the way the thing had been built up. Danny Ozark had allowed this to become a very distinct 'Class Society,' if you know what I mean.

"Eight starters. They were the starters. The bench was the bench. Period. Pitchers were the pitchers. Period. There was no team. It was a distinct class situation. Pitchers hated the players, the players hated the pitchers. The bench kept their mouths shut because they knew they couldn't help and weren't going to get an opportunity to help, so they kept, their mouth shut.

"And, consequently, when we were.one or two runs down that's why – when everybody looked down the bench, including me – you saw nothing. You saw a row of statues sitting up against the wall with no hope whatsoever of winning the game. And I really wanted to change that."

Green did change that, with help from the rookies, but he's not sure the old guard still believes it changed.

"Those guys will still tell you that's no big deal," he said. "But they are now climbing on that bandwagon and saying that even if we are runs down, that doesn't mean we're beaten. They now-say, 'Hey, we're the Cardiac Kids and we can come back and we don't play until we get a couple of runs down.' They're all the same guys who knew that was impossible in other years. The kids had to break that spell. I've never seen a bunch with more juice.

"There were guys on this team who turned their nose up when you would mention John Vukovich's name. Well, John Vukovich (utility infielder) was a spearhead. To me, he's what the guts of our bench was all about. He didn't play much, but he wasn't afraid to get up and scream and yell. He was not afraid to tell the Bull or Bowa or Schmidt or any of the other guys to get off their butts and start doing something."

Green was sent to the field on an interim basis on Aug. 31, 1979, the day Ozark was fired. He took the job for the last 30 days of the season to give the high-priced fraternity a taste of roughness, to see who gagged on it and who responded.

He stayed on for 1980 because he thought he was the man for the job, because he felt he owed something to the organization that had supported him for 25 years as a pitcher, a minor-league manager and minor-league executive.

Aside from the clubhouse billboards in spring training that caused Bowa to quip, "When are the pom-poms going to arrive?" Green preached a grind-it-out, hunt-and-peck brand of baseball.

"We cannot sit back and wait for Schmitty or the Bull to hit one out," he preached.

He was once described as a Don Quixote jousting with a roomful of fragile, but over-sized, egos.

August 10 will go down as Black Sunday in Green's diary. That was the day the Phils dropped a double-header in Pittsburgh to fall six games behind the Pirates and Expos with 55 to play. That was also the day Green blew his top between games, exploding into an emotional tirade. Then, as the Phils lost the second game, Green and relief pitcher Ron Reed had a shouting argument in the dugout in front of the team. Had players and coaches not jumped in, blows probably would have been landed.

"A lot of managers have yelled and shouted between games of a double-header," said Green, "but when I went jaw-tb-jaw with Ronnie, I wasn't very proud, but I was kind of anxious to see how the guys would handle it. There was a chance that could have really hurt, or I could have hurt the ball club. But we came out of it and I give the guys credit. They put the thing behind and went after the season."

The road home, though, was rough.

On Aug. 31, the Phils lost the second straight game at San Diego, The following day Owens held his firs$ team meeting in San Francisco. He singled out Bowa and Garry Maddox for not playing up to their potential. He said he would take any player on if they wanted to fight him and, in the end, he asked the players to put their personal goals aside and play the last month of the year for Paul Owens and Ruly Carpenter.

"What the Pope's meeting did was back up everything I had said earlier," reasoned Green. "What gave me an edge was the fact Paul and Ruly gave me the hammer. And every player knew that. That helped a great deal. I had Paul's backing totally. They couldn't go running to Paul or Ruly as they had done in the past. Oh, they tried a couple of times, but I got that nipped, to some degree, in the beginning. There weren't as many visits to Ruly Carpenter's office as there had been in the past because I asked Ruly not to do it. And he went along with me. Oh, there were some, but it wasn't the old 'Chew 'em out down here, pat 'em on the butt up there' thing."

As the team prepared for the final homestand, Green benched Luzinski, Boone and Maddox. Bowa went on the radio to complain about the moves. Green shrugged them off, refusing to get into a hissing contest with Bowa.

But after being benched on Sept. 29-30, Luzinski and Boone returned to the lineup the following night and contributed in a 5-0 victory over the Cubs. Maddox was listed in the original line-up, but complained of a sore finger and was scratched.

Right there, it appeared Green might lose the center fielder for the rest of the season. Both the manager and Maddox were stubborn. Maddox would not go back into Green's office and Green ruf used to get on his knees and beg the center fielder to play.

"Garry Maddox was wrong in what he did and he knew it," said Green, rubbing a hand through his gray hair. "When I put his name up on the board as playing that day, he told Bobby Wine he could not play. He told the press something different. And that's OK. I accepted that because I say if that's what Garry Maddox said, then that's what he said. I'm not going to get into a hissing contest about what he said. He knows what he said and Bobby Wine knows what he said. That's between those two guys, not between me and Garry Maddox.

"But at the same time, if his finger was too bad to play one day, how did it miraculously get better enough to play the next day? So, I sat him the next day without asking him. And he never came to me, but he went to the doctor. But he didn't go to the doctor for his finger. It was something else. It was his way of saying, Hey, I'm OK.' And I understand that. And I started to play him after that, when I felt he could contribute."

After helping the Phils win the National League pennant in Houston, Maddox was carried off the field by his teammates and during the victory celebration sought out Green and hugged him.

"I think deep down a lot of guys . . . you know, it takes something special to say you're wrong," said Green. "That's one thing in baseball I've learned, and learned early. I have had to admit I was wrong at times. And if you don't do that, if you don't know how to look in the mirror and say, 'Hey, I'm wrong,' you're not going to go very far in this game."

Green thinks he learned how to handle people because of the many years he worked with minor leaguers. He learned how . not to handle people while pitching for the Phils under Manager Gene Mauch.

There is still some hurt inside this big man dating back to Saturday, July 25, 1964, when Green was demoted to the minors in the middle of a game. He worked two innings, allowing four runs on six hits in a 10-9 loss to St. Louis. When he was finally taken out, Mauch told him he was on his way to Little Rock.

"We were going for our first pennant in years and years, we had a pretty good lead and it looked like we were! going to wrap it up," Green recalled. "It really hurt me, being a career -Phillies' guy. Here we're going for our first pennant since 1950 and I wasn't going to be a part of it.

"I just felt crushed and, truthfully, in my mind that killed my dad. He had been hanging on with cancer and I think he'd have hung tough had that not happened. But after I was sent back down, he died in August.

"Then, I had decisions whether to stay in baseball or not and I rightfully stayed in baseball."

Green seemed to be in deep thought for a moment. "You .know," be finally said, "I'm really . not that tough. Guys won't agree with you, but it's the truth. I have compassion.

"What we did this year has put away some ghosts that were definitely haunting this team. The 1980 Phillies – had we not won – would have been remembered as a loser, no question about that. And all those guys would have had that hung around their necks, whether they were or they weren't.

"But they came through. There's not many adjectives that you can say other than incredible. What we've gone through mentally has been unbelievable. In fact, the whole year has been just that – unbelievable."

‘Cardiac kids’ finally bring home winner

By Ray Finocchiaro, Staff Correspondent

THIS WAS one World Series the Delaware Valley will never forget. Oh, it may not have rivalled the Cincinnati-Boston showdown in 1975 and there may not have been any singular achievements like Don Larsen's perfect game or Reggie Jackson's three-homer salvo, but the 1980 series will be a classic hereabouts for one major reason:

The Phillies finally won one.

And they threatened a few pacemakers in the process with their come-from-behind theatrics that caused Del Unser, among others, to dub these Phillies the "cardiac kids."

As in the three playoff victories against the Houston Astros, the Phillies had to get behind to get in the flow. In the first three victories over the Kansas City Royals for the world championship, the Phillies came from behind to win. In the clincher, they got ahead and stayed ahead – though, true to their form, they let the Royals load the bases in the ninth inning to make it a thriller.

"This team had heart, it had character," said Phillies Manager Dallas Green, who used those words all season until they finally sunk in. "We pulled together. Since Sept. 1, this has been a helluva team."

There were few doubters. And once the World Series began, the Phillies decided to show the world that the choke labels were misnomers, that the team that had fought its manager all season long was ready to listen, to do it "his way."

In the first two games at Veterans Stadium, the Phillies let the Royals get ahead, 4-0 behind Dennis Leonard in the first game and 4-2 for Larry Gura in the second. But the Phillies used some of their big-inning thunder to pull them out.

A five-run third-inning rally against Leonard, fueled by Bake McBride’s three-run homer, turned the Veterans Stadium fans into true believers in the first game, with Tug McGraw nailing down the victory for rookie Bob Walk, the first rookie to open a World Series in 28 years.

The Royals rocked Steve Carlton, the likely Cy Young winner, in Game Two. But the Phils went after Dan Quisenberry, the AL Fireman of the Year with 12 victories and 33 saves, to not only get Carlton off the hook but get him the victory, too.

Del Unser doubled home a run and scored on a McBride single. Then Mike Schmidt, the Most Valuable Player of a series he said would be best remembered for "comebacks and hemorrhoids", doubled home the winning run.

The comebacks belonged to the Phillies. The hemorrhoids were a painful subject to Kansas City third baseman George Brett, whose ailment got more publicity on the off-day before the Series resumed in Kansas City than did the Royals' chances of staying alive, which appeared very slim.

But Brett came out of the hospital and got the Royals started against Dick Ruthven in Game Three, homering in the first inning. By the time the Royals won the 10-inning game 4-3 on Willie Aikens' slicing drive past center fielder Garry Maddox, the Phillies had set a record in frustration, stranding 15 baserunners.

“If we lost that one," said Brett of the Royals, "I think everybody would've felt like they had hemorrhoids."

But now people figured the Phillies' psyche had been bruised by the evening of futility, that the lost opportunities in inning after inning had sapped their spirit. And Saturday's game seemed to prove them right, as the Royals jumped on Larry Christenson for four first-inning runs en route to a 5-3 victory that wasn't hardly as close as the score indicated.

Aikens had hit a pair of home runs for the second time in four games, a World Series first, and the momentum – which everybody took pains to say didn't exist in the World Series – seemed to have shifted Kansas City's way. The consensus was that one more victory in Royals Stadium would nail the lid on the Phillies' coffin again. Nobody but Dallas Green gave Phils' rookie right-hander Marty Bystrom a chance in Game Five against Gura.

But if there was one game that would be etched in the nation's memory from the 77th World Series, it would be Game Five, another example of how the cardiac kids never gave up.

Not that there weren't enough opportunities. Schmidt's two-run homer after an Aikens error staked Bystrom to a 2-0 lead, but the Royals scored the next three and took a 3-2 lead into the top of the ninth behind Quisenberry. The Phillies' season seemed three outs away from ending, even though it would take another Royals' victory at the Vet to make it official.

But the old saw about baseball being a game of inches never proved truer than in that fateful ninth inning. First Schmidt slapped a lull off George Brett's glove for an infield hit. Then Unser encored his pinch-hit magic, drilling a blistering hopper an inch over Aikens' glove at first base and down the right field line for a run-scoring double.

Then Manny Trillo, the NL playoff MVP who'd been having a quiet World Series, ripped a single off Quisenberry's glove to put the Phillies ahead 4-3.

Not that the Phillies and Tug McGraw were home free. The Royals loaded the bases on three walks and, with two out, McGraw threw a third strike by Jose Cardenal to win it.

"I had a chance to be a hero or a bum," said ex-Phillie Cardenal. "Today I be a bum."

But the Phillies had new life – and Carlton ready for Game Six at home. The Royals, needing a sweep from a revitalized team and in front of 65,000 raving fans, really had little chance. Carlton was sharper than he'd been in Game Two and the Phils gave him a 4-0 lead before he left in the eighth.

The Royals went after McGraw one more time in the ninth, loading the bases as the Philadelphia constabulary, bolstered by mounted troops and snarling police dogs, lined the field before the final out, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

The Phillies got the hint that Somebody Up There had finally moved to Philadelphia when Frank White's one-out foul popup plopped out of catcher Bob Boone's mitt... and into Pete Rose's glove for the second out.

And then Willie Wilson, labeled the Royal goat for his .154 batting average and inability to get on base, swung and missed a McGraw fastball to set a World Series strikeout record of 12 and start the corks popping in the Phillies' clubhouse and in every bar throughout the Delaware Valley.

All in the family

Carpenter-Owens team dates back to Phils’ farms

By Hal Bodley, Sports Editor

JUST FOR kicks, Ruly Carpenter would gather several of his friends for some wintertime sport. They'd sit by the hour on ice-covered dumps and shoot rats.

When he was a two-way end on Yale's undefeated football team in 1960, Ruly Carpenter would go one-on-one with anybody and loved it. As captain of the baseball team, his idea of fun was to crash into the catcher and send him sprawling back to the dugout or campus infirmary.

But when Ruly Carpenter started going one-on-one with his mentor, he met his match.

Paul Owens doesn't remember the first time he met the son of Phillies' owner Bob Carpenter.

"I think it was 1963," Owens said, "but I really didn't get to know him until he came to Florida in the spring of' 1964."

The origins of the Ruly Carpenter-Paul Owens relationship was never more meaningful than last Tuesday night when the Phillies beat Kansas City 4-1 to win the World Series.

Ruly Carpenter, who was on a shakedown cruise that would end in the Phillies' presidency in November of 1972, was dispatched by his father to learn first-hand what was going on at the team's lowest level. At Leesburg, Fla., in 1964, Ruly was installed as camp administrator, working under Owens, who was camp coordinator.

"He was in charge of all the business operations and I took care of all on-the-field matters," Owens remembers. "It didn't take him very long to get involved with everything we were doing. He always pictured himself as hard and tough for a 23-year-old, but we still talk about one night in camp when it was decided to release a pitcher from Panama.

"It was almost dark outside and I was in the shower. I heard Ruly knocking on my door and saying something about us not giving the boy a fair shake. Ruly was supposed to be so tough, but the kid had backed him down.

"I said, 'Ruly, everybody gets a fair chance; we don't release these guys unless they've washed out.'

"'Sure, Pope,' Ruly argued with me, 'but the kid says he still can throw and wasn't treated right. Will you come with me back to the park?'

"I'll never forget that night," Owens said. "I had hardly dried off. I got Dick Teed, a young manager, and we went to the park. We get the kid cranked up and he throws to Teed and Ruly's watching from behind home plate. Finally, Ruly says, 'Aw, you guys are right.'

"Now, the kid is so irate, he says he is going to burn down the hotel. Well, this hotel was so old and decrepit it would have gone up like a matchbox. Ruly was so worried he stayed up all night watching the place. The kid had blown his travel money – over a hundred dollars – on clothes, so the next morning we took him to the airport in a police car – in handcuffs!"

Not-so-strangely, Owens looks back to that Florida night as the precise time he realized there was something special about Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter III.

"His dedication and intensity were so great," said Owens, "that I was certain once he got experience, he would make a fine baseball executive. It was never said, but I figured Bob Carpenter sooner or later would turn the Phillies over to him and wanted him to gain experience in all areas."

That six-week stint at the Magnolia Hotel was also the birth of a relationship and philosophy that crested on Tuesday night when Owens and Carpenter both cried like babies as champagne dripped down their faces during the Phillies' victory celebration.

Owens was a full-time Phillies scout in California in the 1960s, a grass-roots baseball man. He had played and managed in the minors, had an uncanny ability to judge talent and would work anybody under the table to accomplish a goal.

Young Carpenter liked this. Even though Ruly, grandson of a Du Pont Co. vice president, never had to worry much about money, he too thrived on long hours and was tired of hearing friends rip the Phillies.

He figured sooner or later it would be his responsibility to turn the franchise around. That's why he decided against a law career in favor of baseball.

"Night after night we would talk baseball," Ruly remembers. "The Pope (Owens' nickname) felt everything revolved around scouting, player development and the minor leagues. It was obvious to me during those six weeks in Leesburg what our problem was.

"We just did not have enough athletes who could basically run and throw. There were a couple of kids – Barry Lersch was one of them – who looked like they had talent, but there just weren't enough. You should have at least 10 or 12 you really like. The Pope and I both agreed there was something grossly wrong with our scouting.

Even then, Ruly considered himself a good judge of talent. He had been a three-sport letterman at Tower Hill School in Wilmington and continued his career at Yale. Soon after graduation in 1962, he became an assistant baseball coach at the University of Delaware where his father is a member of the board of trustees and chairman of that group's committee on athletics.

"Ruly Carpenter was the first one on the field in the afternoon and the last one off at night," remembers Tubby Raymond, who was baseball coach at the time. "He was so intense. He had a good baseball mind then but was always asking questions about strategy and situations."

In May of 1965, Bob Carpenter fired Clay Dennis as farm director and, based on Ruly's recommendation and urging, gave the job to Paul Owens.

"The only way I would take it was if I had complete control," said Owens. "Bob Carpenter was always dedicated to his people and a lot of them took advantage of him. When I cleaned house by replacing at least half our scouts who were not producing, some of them felt all they had to do was to see Bob Carpenter and they would keep their jobs. They found out differently in a hurry."

Ruly quickly moved into the minor-league system under Owens and devoted most of his time to that area until his father stepped down on Nov. 21, 1972. Ruly became the youngest president in the majors.

"The day I arrived as farm director, Bob Carpenter called me into his office," said Owens. "He told me he wanted Ruly to work under me and that I was to teach him everything good, bad and indifferent. He said teach him like any other employee, and it was a great five years."

It was also then that Owens heard from Bob Carpenter – in so many words – that eventually the team would be turned over to this duo.

"I told Ruly then it would take eight years or nine years to build a champion," said Owens, who is a leading candidate for major-league executive of the year. "It took us the first year and a half just to stop the retrogression."

For seven years Owens reshaped the minor-league system, persuading Bob Carpenter to invest $250,000 for a training complex in Clearwater, Fla., and getting him to spend another $30,000 to enter the Winter Instructional League.

On June 3, 1972, Paul Francis Owens was named vice president and player personnel director. A few months later, Ruly Carpenter became president.

The players regard Ruly as a friend more than the owner.

"Guys who come here from other clubs cannot believe the closeness he has with us," said shortstop Larry Bowa. "Ruly Carpenter is a super person. His interest in the team comes all the way down to the clubhouse. I certainly hope when my playing days are over I will still be close to Ruly Carpenter. He helps us in so many ways you never hear about."

So, the Owens-Carpenter entry has been able to accomplish what it talked of and dreamed of those long nights in Leesburg, Fla., in 1964. It was easy to understand why the two cried tears night of joy on Tuesday.

Game One: Shaky Walk wins in Series opener

By Rod Beaton, Staff Correspondent

THE celebrities were on hand, the national press had descended, the whole world was watching.

The Philadelphia Phillies, yes, the fightin’, feudin' Phils, were in the World Series. But the "smart" money was being put on the American League champion Kansas City Royals. The Royals had George Brett, the best hitter in baseball. The Royals had Willie Wilson, the fastest runner in baseball, the second man to get 100 hits from each side of the plate in the same season. The Royals had slick fielding in Frank White, U.L. Washington, Amos Otis, Brett and Wilson. The Royals had power in Willie Aikens and Brett. The AL Fireman of the Year, Dan Quisenberry, and a well-rested starting staff belonged to the Royals.

The Phillies? They were considered lucky to be in it, probably satisfied to have finally survived a playoff.

The Phils had power, speed, fielding grace and a flash in the bullpen, too. But the fielding had lapsed repeatedly against Montreal at season's end. The baserunning had been ludicrous at times in the playoffs. They hit only one home run, Greg Luzinski's, in the five-game set with the Astros.

The Phillies don't win in the World Series, everyone knew that. They never had. Neither had the Royals, but that didn't matter. Kansas City had swept the mighty Yankees in a three-game playoff, and looked awesome doing it.

The Phils scuffled through five playoff games, four in extra innings. Nearly all their pitchers were arm-weary.

So Manager Dallas Green handed the ball to a recruit, a rookie, a youngster who had struggled to an 11-7 record after a 9-2 start. He hadn't pitched in 12 days. He had no chance against KC. No chance against rested 20 game-winner Dennis Leonard.

"I have no qualms about using Bobby Walk," said Green. "Bobby did the job when we needed it. He had a slip for a while with his control and poise, but he's okay now."

Walk was not entirely okay. He struggled early, but Leonard was no more effective. And the Phils opened the World Series with a 7-6 victory at Veterans Stadium. They won their first Series game since 1915, their second ever, to the delight of most of the 65,791 fans.

It started ominously. Otis mashed a two-run homer in the second inning, and Aikens added another in the third. Walk was reeling, and the Royals led 4-0.

The Phillies earned the nickname "Comeback Kids" during their September surge to the pennant. In their half of the third, they again showed why.

Larry Bowa, who sparkled in the unyielding glare of the Series spotlight, woke the slumbering Phils. He singled to center and, despite the four-run deficit, took off on a steal attempt.

He made it. Bob Boone scored him with a double to left and Leonard began to dissolve. Lonnie Smith singled and Boone scored the second run when the mercurial, but erratic Smith was caught in a rundown.

Pete Rose stood his ground on an inside fastball, a dramatic and effective play like Bowa "s. The pitch struck him in the leg, and Rose ran a circuitous route to first, one that allowed his to glare at Leonard.

The grandstanding seemed to have an effect. Leonard walked Schmidt, and Bake McBride cleared the bases with a three-run homer.

With single runs in the fourth, on Boone's RBI double, and fifth, on Manny Trillo's sacrifice fly, the Phils' lead, appeared comfortable.

The Royals would not bow easily throughout the Series. They did not in Game 1.

Aikens spotted another Walk fastball in the eighth inning and hit his second two-run homer of the game.

McGraw had worked overtime in the playoffs, but there wasn't time to rest now. Green asked him to stop the Royals, and he did, throwing two scoreless innings.

Game Two: Unser starts Phils’ late-inning heroics

By Rod Beaton, Staff Correspondent

THERE'S something about a World Series that almost annually elevates a marginal player to prominence.

A journeyman suddenly makes a great play or two, or discovers life in a bat that had always been dead-wood, with the punch of balsa.

Del Unser is a 13-year major-league veteran. He has had stopovers with the woeful Washington Senators, classless Cleveland, miserable Mets and Expos teams and a two-year stint with the futile Phils of 1973-74.

The teams were as mediocre as his stats. He never hit more than 12 homers in a season, never batted .300.

He had to call General Manager Paul Owens before the 1979 season to get a spring training tryout with the Phils. Owens agreed, as smart a concession as he has made.

Unser did not wait for the Series to make a contribution to what will be remembered as that championship season. He- delivered clutch pinch hits through the year, in the Eastern Division title showdown with Montreal and in the playoffs with Houston.

He kept it up in the World Series spotlight.

Unser's pinch-hit double started a four-run, eighth-inning rally that carried the Phils to a 6-4 victory and a 2-0 Series edge.

Unser started the assault on Dan Quisenberry, the Royals' most effective regular-season reliever and a most unlikely late-inning victim.

"I was fortunate to hit the ball with the good part of the bat," said Unser, 35, whose drive scored Bob Boone, on with a leadoff walk. "I could have popped it up very easily. It's tough to pull a guy like that."

With Unser an inspiration, the Phils pulled out a come-from-behind victory.

Bake McBride's single scored Unser to tie the game at 4. Mike Schmidt knocked McBride across with a double to right-center field and Keith Moreland singled Schmidt across.

The game had opened as a left-handed pitchers' duel. Steve Carlton did not have his A-1 repertoire, but he kept Kansas City scoreless into the sixth.

The Phils, meanwhile, were hitless until Keith Moreland reached on a one-out grounder to deep short in the fifth inning. They pushed two runs across in that inning.

Garry Maddox followed Moreland with a double down the line in left. Manny Trillo scored Moreland with a sacrifice fly and Larry Bowa's single brought Maddox across.

The Royals halved the 2-0 lead in the sixth. Carlton grittily denied more.

Amos Otis singled and John Wathan walked with none out. Aikens hit a routine grounder to Trillo, who threw too hard and too wide to first. The error scored Otis and put Wathan and Aikens on the corners. Carlton dug in and struck out Jose Cardenal and coaxed Frank White to hit a double play ball.

The Royals were undaunted and took their ill-fated 4-2 lead the next inning. Carlton was fading, loading the bases with walks. Otis drilled a two-run double and Wathan hit a sacrifice fly.

The Phillies summoned their late-inning heroics to take the lead that Ron Reed preserved with an inning of gutty relief.

"Before, we were not able to win games like the one we pulled out tonight," said Schmidt, as the Phils savored their two-game edge. "Getting through that pressure series with Houston left us tired, but we were confident. We were rolling when we came into this Series.”

Game Three:  Aikens’ single gives Royals new life

By Rod Beaton, Staff Correspondent

AS THE scene shifted to Kansas City, the Phils' fortunes shifted, I too. The swagger that had come with two dynamic late-inning charges was suffocated by the effective relief of Royals' Renie Martin and Dan Quisenberry.

The fragile edge that Tug McGraw walks between success and disaster gave way in the 10th inning, as Willie Mays Aikens skied a single to the wall in center field, scoring fleet Willie Wilson from second base to give the Royals a 4-3 victory.

The Phils led the World Series two games to one. They could blame themselves for the loss, having stranded 15 runners.

The game was the first World Series contest held in Kansas City. Before the first inning was complete, it featured a George Brett home run.

Only the day before, Brett had endured minor surgery to lance the most celebrated case of hemorrhoids since President Carter's. He showed he was healthy and ready to play with the blast against starter Dick Ruthven.

"It was a great satisfaction for me just to play," said Brett. "To hit a home run in the World Series is something special. I felt a little more relaxed after that."

Amos Otis and Mike Schmidt did something special, too. Each had a solo home run.

Schmidt's tied the game at 2 in the top of the fifth, but Otis' homer put the Royals back on top in the seventh inning.

In the eighth, the Phils rebounded to tie again, scoring their one run off Martin. Larry Bowa singled and stole second, scoring on a base hit by Pete Rose.

Quisenberry succeeded Martin and survived a Phillies' threat in the 10th, thanks to the fielding excellence of Frank White. With two on and one out, the slick second baseman speared a liner by Schmidt to turn a double play.

McGraw was expected to be fresh after the off day for travel. He wasn't fresh enough.

"I lifted Ruthven because he pitched nine innings of good baseball," said Phils Manager Dallas Green. "And he'd just pitched himself out of a jam. How long did you want me to let him pitch? He pitched super. He got out of several jams."

McGraw could not do the same.

"We left 15 men on base," moaned Green. "If we'd gotten a couple of big hits, there would have been no contest."

Yet it was contested to the end, a 2-1 pitch that Aikens pounded to the track.

"I saw the ball was headed for the gap and I knew Maddox plays a short center field," said Aikens. "As soon as I saw the ball get up in the air, I knew he didn't have a chance to get it.”

And because he didn't, the Royals had a chance to get even with a triumph in Game Four.

Game Four: Phils lose another game, but win a point

By Rod Beaton, Staff Correspondent

THE PHILLIES lost the game, but won a point. A big point. One pitch, nothing more than a called ball, might have been the pitch that gave the final push to the Phillies' ultimate triumph in the World Series.

And they didn't even win the game in which it was thrown.

The Royals evened the Series at two games apiece with a 5-3 decision. It wasn't that close.

What was close was a whisker-tight 0-2 fastball thrown by Dickie Noles to George Brett. It was thrown in the immediate vicinity of Brett's head, to be exact.

The Royals led 5-1 at that point. They only scored four runs in the next 24 innings, the balance of the Series. Moreover, Brett, the most potent bat in their arsenal, was a quiet 3-for-12 for the duration. He was 6-for-12 before that.

The duster, intentional or not, came after a four-run, six-hit first inning had routed Phils starter Larry Christenson. The Phillies and Royals had traded second-inning runs before Noles' high-and-tight purpose pitch started a furor.

KC Manager Jim Frey charged onto the field challenging Noles. Pete Rose charged and challenged Frey. The war of words had begun.

"I thought it was a knockdown pitch," said Frey, hardly an intimidating figure at 5-foot-9. "When a team hits the ball like we did today and with a good hitter up and an 0-2 count, well, the situation is there. He threw the ball at George's head and I went out there to stop that."

Noles, a tough, young right-hander, had little to say about the incident.

"All I'll say is I wasn't throwing at him," he said.

Brett said he wasn't upset.

Christenson was ruffled. He retired just one batter before his untimely ouster.

Willie Wilson opened with a single and scooted to third when Christenson threw a pickoff attempt away. With one out, Brett tripled. Willie Aikens began his second two-homer game with a two-run shot to right. Hal McRae doubled. Amos Otis doubled. The Phils were troubled.

Game Five:  Phils win heart-Tugger

By Rod Beaton, Staff Correspondent

Tug McGraw emotes on the mound like a mime. In a major league stadium, few fans can hear above the din of thousands of zealots screaming. So McGraw lets everyone know what he's feeling with exaggerated gestures. A favorite is the hand poised over the heart, fluttering like crazy.

The Phillies were not a good thing for a bad ticker. But in Game Five they had a good Tugger, and with old reliables Del Unser and Mike Schmidt fueling a come-from-behind effort, McGraw took charge for a 4-3 victory.

The triumph gave the Phils a 3-2 edge returning to Philadelphia with two chances to secure the championship. It was never easy.

The Royals were three outs Game Five from taking the 3-2 lead for themselves. They had submariner Dan Quisenberry on the mound. The lead looked as safe as money in an armored car.

But Brinks got robbed and so did the Royals.

They were plundered by culprits who had masterminded it all before. Schmidt led off the ninth with a single. Unser ripped a double past the slow glove of Willie Mays Aikens at first, scoring Schmidt. Two outs later, Manny Trillo bruised Quisenberry's arm and ego and the Royals' hopes with an RBI single off the pitcher's arm.

McGraw made it stand up, but not before he gave up a long foul to Hal McRae that would have won the game had it stayed fair. It just missed. Undaunted, the Royals loaded the bases. Undaunted, McGraw struck out Jose Cardenal to beat them.

The Royals were now nearly scuttled.

Their troubles started in the fourth, when Aikens stabbed for first with his foot and couldn't find it in time to beat Bake McBride. That error was proceeded by a two-run homer by Mike Schmidt.

The Royals got one back in the fifth and took a 3-2 lead in the sixth on Amos Otis' homer, two singles and a sacrifice fly.

Phils starter Marty Bystrom gave way to Ron Reed in that inning. The Royals' Larry Gura lasted into the seventh, when he was succeeded by Quisenberry.

Quisenberry did not succeed.

"The magic is back", said Phils Manager Dallas Green. "I have said it all along this team had character and it proved it again today."

Game Six:  Phillies end years of futility in Royal style

By Rod Beaton, Staff Correspondent

THE PHILLIES had always been equated with futility. "Damn Yankees” had been written with a National League team as the club that rose from ashes, the Phils would have filled the Washington Senators' part.

The Phils were one reason, a big one, for all those Philadelphia jokes.

Even when they won, they lost. The Phils looked like pennant-winners in 1964, but collapsed near the finish. They managed to win divisional titles three times, from 1976 through '78, but lost the National League playoffs in embarrassing fashion each time.

At 11:29 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 1980, those memories were drowned in the din created by 25 Phillies, the team's management, 65,836 fans and most of the Delaware Valley celebrating a world championship. At that very moment, the Phillies defeated Kansas City 4-1 to win the World Series.

They were embarrassments no more.

The Phils had won the big one to take the Series four games to two. The past was buried by heroes like Mike Schmidt, named World Series Most Valuable Player; Steve Carlton, who threw seven four-hit innings; and Prank Edwin "Tug" McGraw, who polished off the Royals.

McGraw made it exciting at the end, as always, but was equal to the Royal challenge.

From the start of the season, Manager Dallas Green had pushed the slogan "We, not I," on the Phils, who were a less compatible group than the United Nations. He spoke of "character" to 25 characters and discipline to men who generally knew only their own whims.

Green was conductor to 25 different drummers.

All that was forgotten when Schmidt delivered a two-run single in the third inning, the Phils added single scores in the fifth and sixth and held on as the Royals scored a run in the eighth and threatened in the ninth.

McGraw filled the bases with one out, and then left them full of disconsolate Royals. Frank White popped out to Pete Rose for out No. 2, but not before Bob Boone revived visions of Phillie futility by letting the foul fly ping off his glove. Rose, on the spot as always, caught the carom.

Then it was McGraw with only Willie Wilson between him and history. Wilson was immersed in a miserable Series, particularly for an American League MVP candidate. Wilson was 4-for-25 as he strode the plate. McGraw soon had him 1-2 in the count and somehow found one last fastball in his burned out arm.

Wilson swung, missed and the party began.

"We have a lot of great fans here," said Green, hoarse and dripping with tears and champagne in the clubhouse. "The city has wanted a champion for a long time and we've got our niche now."

The champagne was a cheap American brand, the only thing that was not first class about a thrilling Series.

"I guess the Phillies' ability to come back was the key," said Kansas City Manager Jim Frey, like Green a rookie at the helm. "We watched 'em do it to Houston and then they did it to us."

On this night, when the Phillies won their first world championship in 97 years, they did not have to come from behind to win. It was the only post-season triumph in which they did not.

They loaded the bases with none out in the fifth of a scoreless game against KC starter Larry Gura. Schmidt drilled a high, tight fastball, a pitch thrown where Gura wanted it, to right-center field for a two-run single. Gura prevented a rout by getting three outs without further damage.

The Phils went ahead 3-0 when Bake McBride's fifth-inning slow grounder scored Lonnie Smith, who had led off with a single that he hustled into two bases. Smith had reached third on a fly ball.

Carlton was again a dominating power pitcher. His slider was nasty, plunging at the plate. His curve tantalized and his fastball sizzled. When the Phils went ahead 4-0 in the sixth, he seemed Steve Carlton unreachable.

The fourth run scored when Boone followed Larry Bowa's two-out double with a single to center. Just as the championship was a vindication for the Phillies in general, so it was for Bowa and Boone, who dispelled subpar seasons with gutty, excellent post-season play.

Carlton had thrown over 300 innings during the season with his durable left arm. He faded in the eighth, loading the bases with one out. McGraw came in, yielded a sacrifice fly, reloaded the bases and then escaped when Hal McRae grounded to Manny Trillo at second.

In the ninth, the Royals again filled the bases with one out. Again McGraw escaped, this time untouched.

The Phillies had escaped the storm clouds that hovered over the franchise.

Bizarre playoffs led to World Series fun

By Rod Beaton, Staff Correspondent

THE playoff crucible is torture. The World Series, is the payoff.

Pete Rose said it. They all said it. When five grueling National League Championship Series games were complete, when the Philadelphia Phillies grasped their first pennant in 30 years, no one could anticipate a World Series more draining, more enthralling than the playoff With Houston that preceded.

Five games, the last four in extra innings. Great plays, inept plays and bizarre plays. Baseball with all the trimmings.

Manny Trillo dazzled one and all with his range, lethal arm on relays, and productive bat. He won the playoffs' most valuable player award.

It could have gone to Tug McGraw, appearing in all five games and, for the most part, cooling the Astros' jab-and-joust bats.

It could have been Terry Puhl, ripping the Phils' staff like no one else. The cherubic right fielder had a playoff-record 10 hits and a .535 average.

To get to the playoffs, the Phillies won the two games they had to have in a three-game series in Montreal for the Eastern Division crown. The clincher was an oft-grotesque, 11-inning affair. The Phils made five errors in that one and fan the bases like Little Leaguers, but prevailed on Mike Schmidt's titanic home run. McGraw – who else – finished up.

The club was steeled by the Montreal experience. It was ready for Houston.

The Astros had survived their own showdown, a one-game playoff with Los Angeles, forced when the Dodgers swept a season-ending series between the teams. The Astros could not survive the Phillies.

The Phils rallied in each of their victories and recovered from a two games-to-one deficit with consecutive triumphs in the Astrodome.

"They showed me they are a championship team," said Houston Manager . Bill Virdon. "I think they showed a lot of people that in these five games. They were outstanding games."

The first one was tame, hardly indicative of the drama to follow.

The Phillies won a home playoff game for the first time, 3-1. Steve Carlton was not up to his standard, struggling through seven innings. Greg Luzinski, excelling in the playoffs as always, hit a two-run home run. Greg Gross blooped a single to left for insurance.

McGraw hardly needed it He allowed just one runner, on a walk, in two innings.

The Phils had runners, lots of them, in Game Two. Four scored.

The Astros evened the series at J-1 with a 7-4 triumph. The Phillies stranded 14 baserunners, including a bases-loaded, one-out opportunity to win in the ninth. The Astros, reprieved, scored four runs off Ron Reed in the 10th.

Facing a best-of-three series in the Dome did not faze Phillies Manager Dallas Green.

"We were in this position in Montreal," Green said. "We didn't do too badly up there."

They started poorly in Houston, sputtering against Joe Niekro and hard-throwing reliever Dave Smith in a 1-0, 11-inning loss.

Joe Morgan tripled to open the 11th against McGraw, who intentionally filled the bases with walks Dennis Walling beat the Phils with a soft fly to mid-left field. Luzinski's weak throw floated off-line and Morgan scored to put the Phils in a must-win situation.

They won Game Four in a as freakish a post-season game as any in recent memory, replete with a "phantom" triple play and two offbeat double plays.

Schmidt keeps driving ‘til Phils are champions

By Ray Finocchiaro, Staff Correspondent

THE LAST six weeks of the Phillies' season was a whirlwind of gut-wrenching comebacks and never-say-die spirit. If the Phillies had been buried before the season began, the last six weeks had proven the critics wrong.

And nobody was more a part of that whirlwind than third baseman Mike Schmidt. His home runs had won big games, the biggest perhaps in Montreal to win the Eastern Division. He had hit more home runs than anybody in baseball this season but that last one, No. 48, was the biggest.

Then, as the playoffs dragged to five incredible games against Houston, and then the World Series continued that come-from-behind magic that convinced the dourest of skeptics that this was, indeed, the Phillies' year to win it all, Mike Schmidt, as if driven by an unseen force, came under the nation's spotlight.

“How would he enjoy the world championship?” asked one amateur psychologist the day before Game Six, when the Phillies would win the World Series with a 4-1 decision over Kansas City. The game-winning hit, a two-run single, naturally would come off the bat of Mike Schmidt.

"I haven't had a chance to think what it would be like." Schmidt said. "It's something you sit and wait for, but I won't be able to sit and savor things for awhile. I'm going down to Hilton Head (S.C.) for my golf tournament and then to Japan for three weeks.

“That means it'll be a month before I can sit in my easy chair in my office at home and say, 'Hey, that was a World Series I was in.' Then I'll be back here in the Nautilus room, working with weights, getting ready for next year. And then we'll have to do tt all over again."

But once it was over, the championship won, Schmidt looked around the Phillies' steamy locker room that resembled a multi-media sardine can, crammed with champagne-soaked players and sweat-drenched writers, jostling for gems of wisdom from the world champions.

"I don't see how anybody could say we're underservlng," said Schmidt, the unanimous choice as Series MVP with two homers, seven runs batted in and a .381 batting average. "Over the last month and a half, this team has learned to fight and scrap for everything it got. We keep battling. There's a limit to how many times a team can come back. We hit that limit and then somehow found a way to come back some more. I can't explain it – I just know we did it.

"I'm sure if we hadn't won this Series, there would have been some writer who would brand us losers, not able to win the big one. But I couldn't buy that. I think we buried that image when we went into Montreal and had to win two, then went into Houston and had to win two. We showed those two times that we weren't losers."

Now everyone knows it. World Series champions at last, the Phillies have buried the choke labels forever. Mike Schmidt had won one MVP title and he is soon to win another for the entire National League season. He will wear a World Series ring with his name on it. He has everything he could've wanted.

Except one.

Mike Schmidt had wanted his grandmother, Viola Schmidt of Dayton, Ohio, to see this night, this culmination of her love for him and the game he played. She had given him his first baseball. In the tough times, when the Veterans Stadium fans booed Schmidt, she had encouraged him.

"She died on Sept 26," Mike Schmidt said softly, the happiness and enthusiasm all around him vanishing for a fleeting moment. "I really would've liked her to have seen this."

She probably had, from a seater even better than a box seat behind the Phillies' dugout. That cheering that Mike Schmidt felt driving him on, the inner voice that kept, pushing him to one more comeback... and then another... may have been Viola Schmidt's after all. Mike had listened to her so long, it would have been foolish to turn a deaf ear to her now.

Series MVPs

By the Associated Press

1980 – Mike Schmidt, Philadelphia

1979 – Willie Stargell, Pittsburgh

1978 – Bucky Dent, New York Yankees

1977 – Reggie Jackson, New York Yankees

1976 – Johnny Bench, Cincinnati

1975 – Pete Rose, Cincinnati

1974 – Rollie Fingers. Oakland

1973 – Reggie Jackson, Oakland

1972 – Gene Tenace, Oakland

1971 – Roberto Clemente, Pittsburgh

1970 – Brooks Robinson, Baltimore

1969 – Donn Clendenon, New York Mets

1968 – Mickey Lolich, Detroit

1967 – Bob Gibson, St. Louis
1966 – Frank Robinson, Baltimore

1965 – Sandy Koufax, Los Angeles

1964 – Bob Gibson, St. Louis

1963 – Sandy Koufax, Los Angeles

1962 – Ralph Terry, New York Yankees

1961 – Whitey Ford, New York Yankees

1960 – Bobby Richardson, New York Yankees

1959 – Larry Sherry, Los Angeles

1958 – Bob Turley, New York Yankees

1957 – Lew Burdette, Milwaukee

1956 – Don Larsen, New York Yankees

1955 – Johnny Podres, Brooklyn

Phillie fans

Watching Phils win it a night to remember

By Charles Walker

IT WAS the fulfillment of every armchair athlete's dream – to be part of the crowded, overflowing stadium when your hometown team hauls down baseball's biggest trophy – a World Series victory.

Very few people will forget the night of Oct. 21, 1980, but for 65,838 fans in Veterans Stadium that night, the memories retain a special glow. Tug McGraw unloaded one final pitch and unparalleled pandemonium unreeled in slow motion before their eyes.

After simmering for 8½ endless innings, expectations boiled over into shocking reality and the Phillies were world champions.

No adjectives seem worthy to describe the spectacle that unfolded that evening. Being part of the gathered humanity, kinship of spirit (and spirits) brought fans together, swapping jugs and lusty cheers.

There were to be no problems with the crowd that night. When I first walked into the Vet that night, I knew I was part of a crowd that came to see their team win. As the Phillies loosened up and took their batting practice swings, they seemed quietly confident of the task before them. They knew what they fans wanted. There would be no tomorrow, with their "backs against the wall," daring to choke on the seventh game in the feast of champions.

Sports columnists have written and will write about ending years of endless frustration, and a ballclub smoothing over a season's worth of internal squabbles to clinch the big one when nobody thought they could do it.

But once the original roar died down at game's end, the revelers looked around at each other for a moment. A sense pf unity ran through the crowd – they were there, where no one else had been before. They were part of history, and most of all, everyone in the park seemed to realize that it was more than history.

They had seen something they would never forget, an event they could look back on fondly for the rest of their lives.

Phils fans just want a winner

By Rod Beaton, Staff Correspondent

BEING A Philadelphia Phillies fan has long been a lesson in humility. While in other cities, major league baseball rooters could crow over a super talent or two, or perhaps a great team, Phillies fans were consigned to cheering the Tony Currys and Bobby Del Grecos of the game.

Then, when the Phils reached prominence with a team that appeared to have all the elements for success, something, anything, always interceded to divert their march to the championship.

The fans' booing, legendary throughout professional sports, was not a result of malice, nor was it born of paranoid or persecution complexes. It was frustration, pure and simple, with an unacceptable, inadequate or indifferent product.

The Phillies fans respond to effort. They'll embrace excellence.

For the six weeks, they've had that opportunity. Thirty years after the last pennant, 65 after the last victory in a World Series game, Philadelphia fans could savor the team's first world championship. It was a long time coming.

Thousands of them had trooped to a North Philadelphia slum, paying protection to street-wise children so their cars would remain intact, just to see the artistically awful Phillies play in Connie Mack Stadium.

When the club opened in Veterans Stadium in 1971, attendance blossomed, as soon afterwards did the team.

The Phillies nowadays are consistently one of baseball's best draws. This season the Vet turnstiles spun 2,651,650 times. Last year it was 2,775,011. Next year, in defense of a World Series championship, the Phils could eclipse the three million mark. That's something only the Los Angeles Dodgers have done. It is a baseball axiom that the season following a championship, the gate is hyped considerably.

“Unless they fall flat on their face, and if they make some interesting trades, use Keith Moreland and Lonnie Smith and the kids more and get a break in the weather, they could hit three million," said Sig Ettinger of B&B Tickettown in Wilmington. Ettinger runs the Phillies' leading ticket agency and is a man in tune with the team's appeal and its fans.

So the fans turn out. They eat hot dogs in prodigious amounts. Pay $2 to park. Drink beer. Lots of beer. What kind of fans are they?

“The worst bleeping fans in baseball," Larry Bowa called them Sept. 29. after boos cascaded around the fiery shortstop and his teammates during a game with the Cubs. Bowa later amended that statement to say the fans were the worst "that night," but the damage was done.

The Phillies' faithful had their membrane-thin skin pierced, their highly sensitive psyches bruised. And they let Bowa know.

The fans can be as sullen as many of their heroes are in an interview, or as belligerent as a teamster in traffic, but given a win, they provide throat-cracking encouragement.

Bowa won them over with a .375 Series, setting a defensive record, too. That, in microcosm, is the Philly fan. Do what you will, but win and he'll take you to heart.

Over a half a million fans lined Broad Street and packed JFK Stadium to take Bowa and jus teammates to their collective bosom last Wednesday. Winning heals the most festering of hostilities.

John Vukovich helped, too

He is the faceless Phillie… No. 25 in the pecking order

By Al Cartwright

They also serve, who get to bat only 62 times over the long season. And who don't get to bat at all in the World Series.

The champagne tastes just as good and shampoos just as bad for John Vukovich as it does for Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton and Pete Rose and the other sweaty aristocrats of the Phillies.

You know "The Third Man Theme." For John Vukovich, they should play "The Twenty-Fifth Man Theme."

He is the faceless Phillie, No. 18 in your program and No. 25 in the pecking order that is the Phillies' roster. There are 25 men on it.

If you would go out of your way to see it, you would discover that it is a nice face, and this 33-year-old Californian has been one of the nice persons of the sport ever since he started to make his living at it.

What's a nice guy like this doing in a joint like the Phillies' dugout? What he is doing is serving as one of those old-fashioned utility men. His serving consists mostly of playing a waiting game waiting to be needed. He is in the strange position of wanting to play but hoping he isn't needed, because if he plays it means he has stepped over the wounded or ill body of a regular.

In the 15th season of his career, he reported to training camp last February as one of those "non-roster" players, not on the official spring squad but "invited" to Florida because a few extra bodies are always required. These bodies spell the regulars, flesh out the lineup for "B" games and generally are found useful in the preseason shakedown. Most non-roster players eventually disappear into the minor-league side of the operation.

Vukovich stayed. He stayed because this gifted defensive infielder – and to these eyes, in his 20's he could play third base better than Mike Schmidt and almost as well as Brooks Robinson, the king of them all – also took a catcher's mitt to camp. Manager Dallas Green, who by this time may have given you the impression that he is a pretty fair organizer, felt he could not afford the luxury of a third catcher who could do nothing but catch. He wound up with the luxury of a professional, one dedicated to The Organization, who could fill in all over the infield and also be an emergency catcher.

Vukovich said he did not join the varsity squad at Clearwater just to get in shape for the traditional trip to Oklahoma City, or Reading.

“I knew I had a legitimate chance of sticking," he said. "Dallas Green has always been honest with me, and he told me if I showed him I could handle catching – which I did – I had a shot. It wasn't that new to me. They had told me the same thing at Milwaukee and Cincinnati, where I was the third catcher for a while. There, I had to learn by myself. With the Phillies last spring, I had Mike Ryan (an ex-catcher who is the bullpen coach) going for me, showing me what it was all about."

The experiment was initiated by the subject – Vukovich himself. "When I found out late in the 1979 season that Tim McCarver was retiring, I told Dallas I'd like a crack at being a spare catcher, as well as infielder. He put the job up for grabs between me and Mike Anderson, the outfielder who was also learning to catch. Turned out I was the winner."

Vukovich never caught a regular-season inning. He didn't have to, not with Bob Boone and Keith Moreland staying healthy. "There were a number of times when Dallas pinch-hit or pinch-ran for Boone, and then put Moreland behind the plate. That left me as the only other catcher. That showed me the manager had confidence in me when he made those moves. All that was between me and getting behind the plate was a split finger. And I wasn't rooting for anybody to get hurt. We need the regular guys and besides, I'm not that type person."

Vukovich got into only 49 games, fewer than any non-pitching Phil, and what else is new? He has been the classic good-field, no-hit ballplayer for parts of nine major-league years that figure out to an official five seasons in the pension plan. It also figures out to some 550 at-bats, which, as he points out, isn't even a full season to a regular player.

"Being a spare," he said, "is as tough as you want to make it. One of our many pluses this season was our bench. Our bench knows what our role is and we accept it and work at it. I look out there and see the eight guys playing who should be playing, discounting injury. Sure, it's not easy sitting game after game, week after week. The mental part is the worst. But you can't complain yourself out of a job. You try to keep yourself sharp, keep your game together the best you can."

John Vukovich was in the 1980 World Series, and yet he wasn't. The record shows that he didn't get to play.

"But the record will also show," he said, "that I was one of only 50 guys in the world who were on the Series clubs. I can't feel anything but positive, and a winner. And a contributor."

Some Phillies won’t be back next season

By Ray Finocchiaro, Staff Correspondent

Names like Fred Lynn, Dave Winfield and Bruce Sutter are making the rounds in virtually every trade rumor you hear. The Philadelphia Phillies hear them, too, while checking their inventory to see what spare parts might he needed to Keep tne world-championship express clicking along.

Even the presence of World Series rings on their fingers won't keep some of the current cast from changing uniforms in the off-season. Of course. people like Mike Schmidt, Pete Rose, Manny Trillo, Garry Maddox, Bake McBride, Steve Carlton and Dick Ruthven aren't going anywhere but on to bigger and better things with the Philles. But others, including some who are considered fixtures at Veterans Stadium, will be needing Trip-Tix before long.

Greg Luzinski mav well have played his final game in a Philles uniform, and the Bull has an 0-for-9 World Series disappointment to show for it. Trade rumors have Luzinski going back home to Chicago for reliever Bruce Sutter or any number of places.

"I figure I’m gone," Luzinski said during the Series. "The handwriting's on the wall for me."

The Bull just can't make out the team name that s scrawled on that wall. The Phillies have to make room for Lonnie Smith, who hit .339 in his rookie year, and left field seems the likeliest spot. Luzinski's still young enough (29) to have a few productive seasons left but knee surgery and two off-years may have dimmed his trade value somewhat. Still, the Bull's a good gamble for a power-hungry club, and the Phillies may reluctantly decide that it's time to let Luzinski, who grew up in the organization, go.

Every trade, rumor in town had Larry Bowa headed everywhere from Cleveland to Texas next season as the 34-year-old shortstop saw his batting average plummet and his fielding suffer as well. But Bowa got his act, if not his clubhouse oratory, together and played some of his best baseball after mid-August.

The Bowa rumors have slackened, but Bowa's bruised feelings weren't completely drowned in Great Western champagne. With 11 years in the National League, Bowa can veto any proposed deal. Still, he makes it clear he will stay with the Phillies only if he's wanted.

"If I know an organization doesn't want me, I won't tie their hands," Bowa has said. "But I won't go anywhere where I have to start at the bottom. I've had enough good years here that, if I get traded, I'll tell them where I want to go. If they don't want me here, I won't stay here. But I won't go to no Toronto."

Unless the Phillies get a stopgap shortstop in a trade, their best future prospect, a Dominican named Julio Franco, is several years away and Bowa isn't easily replaced.

Another major loss could be Tug McGraw, the toast of Philadelphia for his clutch relief pitching since mid-July. Tug's a free agent and the lure of the Big Apple, where he first earned his pitching reputation and madcap Scroogie image, may prove greater than any Phillies' contract offer. Tug seems certain to test the free-agent waters, if only to see how much money could be flowing his way. The Phils will be certain to make a lucrative counter-offer to anything the Mets come up with, and perhaps the World Series acclaim Philadelphians bestowed on McGraw will keep him here.

"I might be forced into free agency because of the time," McGraw said this week. "But, if I do declare myself a free agent, and test the market, it's only fair to Philadelphia and me to get a ballpark figure about my value. And the Phillies will have the first shot at me anyhow."

If Tug is back in '81, the Phillies will have an overabundance of left-handed relievers, namely McGraw, Kevin Saucier and Sparky Lyle, acquired in September from the Texas Rangers for a player to be named later. Something has to give in this department and neither McGraw nor Lyle, who was ineligible for post-season play, seem likely candidates to depart, considering their experience and hefty salaries. That means Saucier could well be wearing another uniform when baseball's trade winds blow.

Larry Christenson, the ill-starred right-hander whose physical problems seem to go in – and on – cycles, is also a free-agent who wants to see what he's worth on the open market. The hard-throwing starter should fetch a good price if teams are willing to overlook his medical chart.

Some baseball types feel Christenson owes the Phillies a few more years for the ones they weathered while Larry Was in traction but still drew a good salary. Whether Christenson feels that way remains to be seen. The Phillies certainly seem to have enough young arms on the farm to replace him.

Like past World Series flops, left-hander Randy Lerch is already part of the Phillies' past. If Lerch's 4-14 record didn't put the Blade on the trading block, his postseason "mutiny" did. Upset about being dropped from the 25-man playoff roster for Saucier Lerch ripped the team and then refused to appear in uniform for the series against Houston and Kansas City. Lerch's walkout didn't go unnoticed.

"Randy Lerch left us," said Manager Dallas Green. "I know it hurt and I know the decision I had to make hurt a guy who has made his livelihood in baseball and that hurt in itself…. But the kid left us. And that we don't forget, either. That's pouting and baby stuff and that's not 1980. This is not a baby team. We're not going to put up with that stuff."

Like Lerch, Nino Espinosa didn't make the Phils' playoff roster, giving way to young right-hander Marty Bystrom when chronic tendinitis in Nino's right shoulder rendered him ineffective. Unlike Lerch, Espinosa remained with the team as a uniformed cheerleader.

"Nino was very much a part of this team," said Green, "because he got over the hurt. He was yelling and screaming as loud as everybody else and he earned his money and his ring."

If Espinosa's medical problems are over, he can still be an effective starter. But it remains to be seen whether Nino can feel comfortable with the Phils' apparent lack of confidence in his ability to get batters out down the stretch. The Phils' crowded pitching picture, which includes Bystrom and Bob Walk, could find Espinosa included in a package deal.

Right-handed reliever Ron Reed and Green weren't speaking much to each other this season. Reed was upset with his manager's published remarks that he wasn't pitching well early in the season – which he wasn't. But Reed developed an abrasive attitude toward Green and the media, and Green at times seemed to lose confidence in Reed's ability to get batters out.

Reed would've been sliced from the roster when Luzinski came off the disabled list (Saucier went on the list instead), but the Phillies feared bad public relations andi held off. Now, he has two chances – slim and none – to be in Phillies double-knits next season. He could even get an unconditional release and be free to bargain on his own.

Playoff-tested Marty Bystrom should join one-year veterans Lonnie Smith, Keith Moreland and Bob Walk on the Phils' 25-man roster from the outset next spring. Del Unser and Greg Gross will be back to bolster the bench, but fringe players like Ramon Aviles, George Vukovich and even John Vukovich could be playing elsewhere if a major trade needs a throw-in or two.

The Phillies' facelift won't be as drastic as was promised had the team fallen short of the world championship. But there will be enough new names on the 1981 roster to ensure a brisk sale of scorecards at the Vet next spring.

Worcester has forgotten Phils

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) – While the Philadelphia Phillies aim for their first world championship, the memory of their forerunners who played in Worcester 100 years ago is buried under autumn leaves.

In a sleepy park in this central Massachusetts city, children scamper through piles of leaves near the site where the original Phillies played their first baseball game.

But most people in Worcester have forgotten that the team ever existed.

“There's not that much local pride about the Phillies being in the World Series because nobody realizes they started here," said Ralph Colebrook, 70, who grew up in Worcester.

The way they were

1915: Top players almost bring a Series crown

By Izzy Katzman

THE BASEBALL team that won the 1980 World Series bears a marked resemblance to the first Phillies team that made it to the world championships.

The 1915 club, first to bring Philadelphia a National League pennant, had a rookie manager in Pat Moran, a great pitcher in Grover Cleveland Alexander and a batting champ in Gavvy Cravath, who led the league that year in home runs and runs batted in.

The 1980 Phillies had their counterparts in Dallas Green, Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt.

Moran had spent 14 years in the National League, chiefly as a catcher. After ending a four-year playing career with the Phillies in 1914, he was picked to succeed Red Dooin as manager.

The Phillies finished in sixth place in 1914 despite the accomplishments of Alexander and Erskine Mayer, both 20- game winners. Alexander was the league leader with 27 wins; Mayer had 21. The league's home-run leader was right fielder Cravath with 19, and the league's leader in RBIs was out-fielder-infielder Sherwood Magee with 104.

The next year, Moran guided the Phils to first place and to the pennant with a 90-62 won-lost record for a .589 percentage. They beat George Stallings' "miracle" Boston Braves by seven games, only a season after the Braves amazed the baseball world by rising from last place in mid-summer to win the pennant and go on to sweep the World Series over Connie Mack's great Philadelphia Athletics.

The St. Louis Cardinals, under Miller Huggins, later to become the pilot of the great New York Yankee teams of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, finished sixth behind the 1915 Phillies, and the New York Giants under the famous John McGraw wound up last.

The two pitchers who were so excellent in 1914, Alexander and Mayer, returned as stalwarts in the pennant-winning season. But this time Alexander led the league with 31 victories and had the best earned-run average, 1.22. Mayer, a sidearm and underhand pitcher who was one of the first outstanding Jewish ballplayers, again won 21. But he was overshadowed by Alexander.

Cravath, too, came through again, leading the league with 24 home runs and 115 RBI. He was tops in assists by an outfielder with 28. His home-run total stood as a 20th-century mark until Babe Ruth started hitting them for the Yankees.

In addition to Alexander and Mayer, the Phillies' pitching staff included Al Demaree, who won 14 games, Eppa Rixey, who won 11, and George Chalmers, who won 8. Chalmers, born in Scotland, was in the sixth of his seven seasons with the Phillies, with whom he spent his entire major-league career.

Big Eppa Jeptha Rixey – he was 6-feet-5 and 210 pounds – later was traded to Cincinnati, where he wound up his 21-year career and eventually joined Alexander in the Hall of Fame. Dave Bancroft started his career as a shortstop with the 1915 Phillies. After 16 years that included three pennant-winning seasons with the Giants in the '20s, he, too, entered the Hall of Fame.

Bancroft's infield mates included Fred Luderus at first base, Bert Niehoff at second and Bobby Byrne at third. Byrne led the National League third basemen in fielding with a .969 percentage. Milt Stock was a reserve third baseman.

Cravath played in an outfield that included Dode Paskert in center and Beals Becker in left. Possum Whitted, who came over to the Phils after playing on the Braves in 1914, was a reserve outfielder.

Bill Killefer, who spent his last years as a Blue Rock Manor resident, was the catcher, and Ed Burns was his understudy.

Luderus was the only .300 hitter on the club, winding up at .315. Cravath had the second-best average with .285.

Huck Belts of Millsboro, who at 83 is one of the oldest living former big-leaguers in Delaware, still remembers some of those 1915 Phillies he came to know as teammates or rivals.

Betts, who went on to become a pitching star at Boston, joined the Phillies in 1920 right out of Wesley College. Slugger Cravath was manager in 1920 and Betts remembers him as "a big man who didn't cover much ground. He was playing in his last year when I joined the Phillies, but he had been known as a home-run hitter.

"He was a right-handed hitter who liked the ball away and hit a lot of his home runs to right field. He had liked hitting in Baker Bowl and the Polo Grounds with those short distances down the right-field line.

"Bancroft was a good shortstop. He played differently than any shortstop I ever saw. He played balls on a half-hop. I don’t know why.

"Paskert, I remember, was traded to the Cubs for Cy Williams about two years before I joined the Phillies. Alexander and Killefer also were traded to the Cubs in about the same year."

Williams became one of the Phillies' best outfielders and home-run hitters.

The deal involving Alexander and Killefer was one of the greatest in baseball history at the time. This storied battery – Killefer caught Alexander from 1912 through 1922 – went to Chicago in 1918 for Mike Prendergast, Pickles Dilhoefer and $60,000.

The 1915 Phillies had no Jim Konstanty or Tug McGraw for relief. Starting pitchers in those days were expected to go the distance. Alexander and Mayer certainly did, as Alexander led the league with 36 complete-game performances and Mayer had 20.

Phillies to ‘relax’ in Schmidt golf event

Most of the Phillies cannot get away from competition.

After spending nearly eight months together, they're going to Hilton Head Island, S C., later this week to compete in the sixth annual Mike Schmidt Golf Classic.

The tournament, founded by Frank H. Hirt and the Phils' third baseman, will be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Palmetto Dunes Resort and is attracting players from many major-league teams.

Attending from the Phillies will be Bob Boone, Steve Carlton, Larry Christenson, Greg Luzinski, Tim McCarver, Tug McGraw, Ron Reed, Dick Ruthven, Manny Trillo, Del Unser and coach Billy DeMars. In addition, broadcasters Richie Ashburn and Harry Kalas, along with Dave Raymond, the Phillie Phanatic, will attend.

Bob Horner and Jerry Royster of the Atlanta Braves have entered, Baltimore Manager Earl Weaver will be there as will the Red Sox' Jim Rice, the Cubs' Jerry Martin and Ernie Banks; Dan Driessen and Ray Knight from Cincinnati, Milwaukee's Buck Martinez, Charlie Moore, Gorman Thomas and Billy Travers.

Graig Nettles, the Yankees' third baseman, has entered, along with Jim Kaat of the Cardinals.

Former Phils' Manager Danny Ozark, now a coach with the Dodgers, plans to play as does National League umpire Billy Williams.