The Baseball Digest Archives 1/78

January 1978

No surprise that Reggie Jackson was the cover subject for this month’s issue. January editions annually served as the wrap-up of the previous year’s World Series and as you may recall Jackson did pretty well for himself in the ‘77 Series. The composite box score that was included demonstrates how much the game has changed. In the 6 games, the Yankees used a total of 7 pitchers. Not only that, but between the Yankees & the Dodgers neither team had a pitcher appear in more than 2 games. We don’t know which teams will meet in this year’s WS but it’s safe to say that there will not be similar pitcher usage. Stick a pin in discussing pitcher workloads; I’ll get back to that shortly.

An additional point about the 1977 Yankees; an article in this issue correctly points out that the team was not simply a product of splashy free agent signings. The core of the club was put together by a series of smart trades. Yes, they had Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter. Look at the rest of the key players: Nettles, Randolph, Chambliss, Rivers, Piniella, Lyle among others were all acquired via trade.

The editors made their selections on the likely comeback candidates for the 1978 season: Mark Fidrych, Jerry Koosman, Fred Lynn, Randy Jones, and Joe Rudi. Koosman was a solid choice; after 2 down seasons with the Mets (partially due to the fact that the punchless Mets offense gave him no run support) he won 20 games in his first season in Minnesota. Lynn had a down, injury plagued year in ‘77, and made a nice rebound in 1978 before taking thing a step further with the best season of his career in 1979. Jones had a decent comeback year in 1978, but that turned out to be his last decent season. There was no comeback to be for Joe Rudi; by this time he was fully in the decline phase of his career. And sad to say, Mark Fidrych was never able to recreate the magic of his 1976 rookie year. Injuries brought his promising career to a screeching halt.

A couple of pieces this month focused on the lighter side of the game. Where have all the zany guys gone? Former Cubs manager Charley “Jolly Cholly” Grimm lamented the lack of colorful personalities in the modern game. There wasn’t much substance to the article, Grimm mentioned names such as Dizzy Dean but few examples of what made guys like that seem so colorful. The article on favorite all-time all-stars was a “fun with names” piece - items such as a Labor Day all-star team consisting of Max Butcher, Gene Baker, and Bill Plummer. You get the idea.

Some big winners are also big losers? That article listed pitchers who had both won and lost 20 games in a given season over the course of their careers. There used to be a saying that you had to be a good pitcher to lose 20, the theory being that a pitcher wouldn’t have enough opportunities to lose that many games unless they were very talented to begin with. As proof there are some impressive names listed here, beginning with Cy Young along with several other greats such as Steve Carlton and Robin Roberts. Keeping with the negativity vibe, there is another article which pointed out that large error totals don’t necessarily reflect poorly on a player’s defensive acumen. You can’t make an error on a ball that you don’t get to. It was still rare in 1978 for analysis to contain nuance.

Speaking of which, this issue also contains an article that discusses pitcher usage, specifically on the fact that Angels starters Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana were gassed by the end of the 1977 season due to overuse. Wait a sec, pitch counts and inning limits as a talking point in the late 70’s? I was led to believe that no one noticed this stuff until the nerds took over. And this talk coming from the bionic armed Nolan Ryan? Believe it. As Ryan says, “I think I came up with a tired arm due to an excess of pitches… You’re more susceptible to injury when you’re fatigued.” Tanana: “During the season you need to give it proper rest… It would be different if I were a five or six inning pitcher.” Ryan and Tanana, who were two of the most dominant fireball pitchers at the time, took wildly divergent paths in subsequent seasons. Ryan was an ageless wonder, with an almost superhuman ability to throw hard well into his 40’s. Tanana lost his explosive stuff at a young age - those large inning totals he accumulated now look like flashing red lights - but successfully reinvented himself as a classic soft tossing lefty. But he was a merely a guy, as opposed to being A GUY as he had been.

I cannot end a look at this issue without sharing this photo of White Sox third baseman Eric Soderholm. I don’t think you could find a more quintessentially 1970’s photo if you tried.

Most Memorable Moment - Houston Astros

MLB’s Original 1976 Choice: Opening of The Astrodome

My Updated Selection: Chris Burke ends an epic game

When I began this project I had a feeling that it would be tricky to choose an Astros moment. In a lot of cases it’s fairly easy to go with a big postseason moment, especially if it takes place in a year that ends with a championship. As some of you may be aware, there is some tarnish to the titles that the Astros won. Not that there, um, advanced help was unprecedented. The 1951 Giants had their own sign stealing system in place; Bobby Thomson almost certainly knew what pitch was coming when he took Ralph Branca deep. The difference is that the Giants’ activities were not revealed until decades later. Their unlikely pennant had long since been lionized and besides, many of the central figures were already deceased. The feelings surrounding the trash can banging Astros, however are still raw. There are plenty of opponents and fanbases who legitimately feel that they were cheated out of a chance at the title. It’s hard to select a feel good moment under those circumstances.

One could conceivably go with Jose Altuve’s walkoff home run against Aroldis Chapman which ended the 2019 ALCS. Altuve’s teammates were unanimous in saying that not only was Altuve not involved in the subterfuge, but he was adamantly opposed to it. On the other hand, it looked very suspicious when he held tight onto his jersey so that his teammates would not rip it off in celebration. I find it hard to believe that he hid a wire underneath his jersey so that he could receive signals that way - it’s implausible that anyone would risk something so easily detectable - but the event still symbolizes the cloud that hangs over the team.

The original selection was a solid one. Not only was the Astrodome opening an indication of a sea change to the sport - introducing both indoor baseball and artificial turf - but as of 1976 it was still the only MLB stadium with a roof. It remained a novelty. It would still be a good selection for the top Astros moment today, but let’s see if there are better available choices.

One could go with Nolan Ryan’s no-hitter in 1981, the 5th of his career which broke a tie with Sandy Koufax for the most career no-no’s by a single pitcher. He added two more before he was done; I think it’s safe to say that 7 no hitters is one of those untouchable records. If I’m being honest I was almost tempted to choose a fictional moment, the point in The Bad News Bears In Breaking Training when Bob Watson yelled, “come on, let the kids play!” Such a moment of purity helps cleanse whatever stain is on the franchise.

OK, you prefer a real moment. How about an actual Bob Watson achievement, albeit one with an asterisk? It was in 1975 that Watson scored the 1,000,000th run in MLB history. The asterisk is because there is no way of proving that his was actual the millionth run. Record keeping in the game’s early days was haphazard at best, so the total number of runs in the sport’s history up to that point was merely an estimate. Regardless, there was a lot of excitement in the lead up. Everyone was keeping close tabs as the total approached one million, and Watson crossed the plate mere moments before Dave Concepcion scored run 1,000,0001 in a different game. (Now that Negro Leagues are part of the official MLB record the actual millionth run occurred years earlier than Watson’s score. But it was Watson who had the honor of winning a prize from MLB’s sponsor of the promotion - one million Tootsie Rolls.)

Ultimately I will go with a moment that was part of the march to the first pennant in franchise history. The Astros were on the wrong end of two of the most exciting NLCS matchups from the 1980’s; losing to the Phillies in 1980 and the Mets in 1986, so a pennant was long overdue. They finally broke through in 2005, and even though they were swept by the White Sox in that World Series it was still their most successful season up to that point. In Game 4 of the NLDS the Astros were trailing the Braves 6-1 in the 8th inning but a Lance Berkman grand slam brought them within 1 and then Brad Ausmus tied it up in the bottom of the ninth with a solo shot. The two teams exchanged scoreless innings until Chris Burke hit a one-out home run in the bottom of the 18th to end the game and end the series.

Would that moment be the actual choice were MLB to put together a new list? Probably not. Yes, it was a series ender, but the Astros were leading the series 2 games to 1 at the time, so they were not facing the win or go home scenario as the Braves were. In addition, it was the NLDS and not the NLCS, so the stakes were high but not tremendously so. Even so, the fact that the victory led to something greater is good enough for me. Chris Burke’s home run it is.

TV Of the 21st Century - Gilmore Girls

Gilmore Girls played the long game. After a 7 season run on the WB & CW networks in which the ratings were predictably low, the show had built a cult following which grew even further in syndication and on streaming. Now all these years later, helped to some extent by the popularity of a later show produced by GG creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, it is one of the most heavily streamed TV shows that there is. (Midge Maisel is practically a mashup of both Gilmores.) Just goes to show what patience, rapid fire dialogue, and an unholy amount of coffee consumption can do for you.

The show’s main setting was the fictional Stars Hollow, Connecticut, the type of small town only found on TV shows. You know the archetype. Charm and whimsy are omnipresent, every citizen is lovably quirky, and even the antagonistic characters are likable. The titular Gilmore Girls are Lorelai & Rory Gilmore, portrayed by Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. The premise of the show is that Lorelai was the daughter of one of the classic blue blood, old money New England families. She had gotten pregnant as a teen and rather than marry the girl’s father, who was part of a similarly upper class family, she raised her daughter on her own and had been largely cut off from her parents for years.

Because there was not a huge age difference between the two Gilmores, and because Rory was a bit of an old soul, they were friends just as much as they were mother & daughter, with all of the inside jokes that come with such a relationship. Rory had Harvard dreams, and as the series began she had been admitted to a prestigious prep school that would keep her firmly on the Ivy League path. The problem was that tuition was more than Lorelai could afford, so she had to swallow her pride and ask her parents for assistance. They agreed, on one condition. If they were paying for their granddaughter’s education they needed to get to know her. Therefore they would gather for a family dinner each Friday.

This was a show with a deep bench, both in terms of the characters as well as the actors, several of whom would shortly go on to bigger and better things. Lauren Graham was a revelation; the skill with which she could handle that dialogue was something to behold. And it was a close competition to see who was the most delightfully quirky of the supporting characters. Kirk? Michel? Paris?

In the end the show came down to the relationships. Lorelai’s reconnection with her parents, portrayed by Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann, restirred old resentments that she had thought were long buried. The Gilmore grandparents were your standard upper class snobs, but they contained layers. Richard Gilmore was basically a good man, but somewhat cold. Emily Gilmore was the classic mama bear; she resented the way that Lorelai seemingly threw away her future, but she would defend her family with all of the ferocity that she could muster.

The love lives of the Gilmores were a central component of the show. Lorelai had a few partners, but from the moment we were introduced in the pilot to Luke the diner owner, with an omnipresent three day growth of beard and gruff scowl it was obvious that there would be a running will-they-or-won’t-they plot. Thankfully the show didn’t drag out the inevitable for too long and made them a couple relatively early in the show’s run.

Rory as a high school student went through the obligatory love triangle situation, torn between the nice but boring Dean (Jared Padalecki) and the troubled soul that was Luke’s nephew Jess (Milo Ventimiglia.) In the end her longest relationship was with her college boyfriend Logan (Matt Czuchry) who was an Ivy legacy student and the possessor of a terribly punchable face. And about her college life - Rory had those Harvard ambitions in the early seasons but she wound up attending Richard’s alma mater of Yale instead. It was the easy way out; they never specified where Stars Hollow was specifically located, but Connecticut is a small enough state that Rory could have her own life on campus yet still be close enough to continue to attend those mandatory Friday night dinners.

For fear of burying the lede it has taken me this long to point out that Milo Ventimiglia was not the biggest future star in the show’s cast. When the show began Lorelai was the manager of a local inn; she had goals, which eventually came to fruition, of opening her own inn along with her best friend Sookie, portrayed by Melissa McCarthy. This was the type of character that McCarthy specialized in before Bridesmaids; sweet, endearing, clumsy. I should also mention that there were some great casting choices for recurring characters, starting with Sally Struthers as one of the town gossips. Rory’s BFF Lane was the drummer in a garage band; the band’s singer was played by Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach, it was taken as a matter of fact that he was at least a decade older than everyone else in the band. And not only was Where You Lead the show’s theme song, but Carole King herself made a few appearances as a piano teacher.

It was long a part of the show’s mythology that Amy Sherman-Palladino knew what the final five words of dialogue were going to be. Alas, the best laid plans of mice & men… due to a contractual dispute with the network ASP left the show prematurely and it did not end the way in which she intended it would. For the record, it was one of those long running shows in which the network did not officially cancel it until the last episode of the last season was shot. Which meant that it was one of those awkward “could be a season finale, could be a series finale” endings without a real sense of closure.

But there would be a second life for the gang. The popularity of the show sustained itself long enough that Netflix produced a brand new 4 episode miniseries nearly a decade later with the original cast and creative staff. Edward Herrmann had passed away by then, but otherwise every important character showed up in at least one of the episodes. It was a treat to see everyone once again; one minor criticism is that the adult Jess had too much of a Jack Pearson font of wisdom vibe about him. But it finally gave ASP the chance to reveal that final piece of dialogue that she had long promised. Without being spoilery I will say that those lines would have been much more effective ten years earlier.

Originally aired on: Initially the WB, then the CW

Currently streaming on: Hulu & Netflix; the miniseries is on Netflix only

Closing Laughs

Here is wishing a wonderful week to all of you good people. Have a great day & we will talk once again on Wednesday.