Inside Baseball: The Best of Tom Verducci (27 page)

Morris wound up returning to the Tigers, squeezing a $1.85 million one-year deal out of them in arbitration. Five years later, after the owners were found guilty of collusion and Morris was one of several players set free as a “new look” free agent, he knocked again on the doors of Pohlad and MacPhail. This time they signed him.

Arvid’s boy at last had come home to the Twin Cities. It was a heartwarming story, unless you knew that Morris’s marriage was falling apart and that he would live alone that year, his two sons living with their mother. “It was miserable,” Morris says. “I poured all of my focus into baseball.”

The first day of spring training he told his new teammates, who had finished last the previous season, “Men, I’m going to get you guys to the World Series. I’m going to throw the most innings on this team, have the best ERA and win the most games. I will lead you.”

“The guy was the ultimate competitor,” Tapani says. “If we were running wind sprints, he’d try to beat you. Scott Erickson and I would take turns running hard. That way we’d save energy so one of us would always be strong enough to beat him. But Jack would run all 16 sprints hard and beat us every time. He had this attitude,
Whatever
you do, I’m going to beat you.”

Morris won 18 games for the Twins. He won both of his starts against Toronto in the American League Championship Series. He won Game 1 of the World Series 5–2. He was ahead 2–1 in Game 4 when manager Tom Kelly pinch-hit for him after six innings. His replacement, Carl Willis, gave up a home run to the third batter he faced, Smith. Minnesota lost 3–2 in the bottom of the ninth.

“T.K. screwed up by taking me out,” Morris says. “We would have won it, and I would never have had to pitch Game 7.”

That final World Series game was his third start in eight days. He had already logged 273 innings for the year.

The Braves quickly and consistently challenged whatever was left in his reservoir of strength and will. They put a runner on second in the second inning, runners at first and second in the third, a runner at second in the fourth, runners at first and third in the fifth … and Morris allowed none of them to score.

“When Kirby hit that [Game 6] home run, a calm came over me that I never had felt in the game,” Morris says. “Growing up, I always envisioned being on the mound in Game 7, bottom of the ninth. I had this calm come over me knowing that I had mentally prepared for this game my whole life.”

There was, however, something Morris never counted on: an opposing pitcher with the same kind of resolve.

JOHN SMOLTZ grew up in Lansing, Mich., 90 minutes from Tiger Stadium. His father played the accordion at the Tigers’ team party after they won the 1968 World Series. Smoltz’s grandfather worked at Tiger Stadium for more than 30 years, first on the grounds crew and then as an attendant in the pressroom. He would brag to Bill Campbell, Al Kaline, Bill Lajoie and anybody else in the Detroit front office, “My grandson’s going to play for you one day.”

John was a huge Tigers fan. “Never missed a game,” he says. He made a few trips to Tiger Stadium each year and listened to all the other games on the radio. When the team played on the West Coast, Smoltz would set his alarm clock so he could wake to hear Ernie Harwell call the first pitch. He’d catch a few innings before falling asleep again.

He liked all those Tigers—Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammell, Sweet Lou Whitaker and the rest—but one player stood out above all others: Jack Morris. “He was tough on the mound,” Smoltz says. “He had good stuff. And he wasn’t one of those pitchers who came out when it was convenient. He pitched a lot of innings, a lot of big games.”

In the summer of 1985, just as Grandpa Smoltz had been predicting for years, Detroit drafted his grandson. Smoltz signed too late to play in rookie ball, so the Tigers let him spend two weeks with the major league club. Smoltz would put on a uniform for batting practice, change into his street clothes and watch the game from the stands, then return to the clubhouse upon its conclusion. He was just a kid out of high school, so green that when the team traveled to New York City and the hotel desk clerk gave him a card to open the door to his room, he had no idea what it was.

Smoltz hung out with the bullpen catcher and kept his mouth shut. He sat there in awe as he shared a locker room with the Tigers of Harwell’s word pictures, only they were crankier and saltier in real life, veterans playing out the string in a disappointing season.

Morris was there, but Smoltz didn’t have the nerve to say hello. Then one day somebody said something funny in the clubhouse, and Smoltz laughed. Morris gave Smoltz one of his icy glares. “Go ahead and laugh, kid,” Morris said. “You’re trying to take our jobs.” Smoltz stopped laughing.

Morris has no memory of Smoltz’s being with the team, had no knowledge of him two years later when the Tigers traded Smoltz to Atlanta to get Doyle Alexander, had no idea that his Game 7 opponent grew up idolizing him.

In that game Smoltz, then 24, matched Morris zero for zero, clutch pitch for clutch pitch. After seven innings neither team had scored, the first time that had happened in a final game of a World Series. The tension was excruciating. The noise was so loud that Twins bullpen coach Rick Stelmaszek watched the game with his foot on the bullpen telephone: He had to feel for the vibration if it rang, because he couldn’t count on hearing it.

“There was no discussion on the bench of what was going on,” Tapani says, “because you had to yell in the ear of the guy next to you if you wanted to be heard. And that gets old real quick. So we just watched.”

Smoltz got three ground ball outs to end the seventh then, exhausted, trudged up the four flights of stairs from the dugout to the clubhouse for some rest. He flopped into a chair in front of a television and cried out, “Please,
please
can we score?” They would not. Morris, with some help from Lonnie Smith, would not allow it.

SMITH CHECKED his swing on the second pitch of the eighth inning, sending the ball softly into rightfield for a single. Morris missed with his first pitch to Terry Pendleton, and the bullpen phone vibrated. Pitching coach Dick Such wanted Steve Bedrosian and Mark Guthrie to warm up.

With the count 1 and 2 on what was Morris’s 100th pitch, Pendleton crushed a fastball toward the gap in left centerfield. The speedy Smith seemed certain to score. Except there was a problem—Smith had broken toward second on a delayed steal but committed a fundamental mistake by not peeking toward home to pick up the ball when it was hit. Now he was looking to his left, then to his right. Where was it?

The Metrodome is as artificial a ballpark as you will find. The ceiling is a dull white, perfect camouflage for baseballs. Outfielders—who otherwise can check base runners, teammates or the proximity of walls while tracking fly balls—are warned never to take their eyes off the baseball once it is in the air in the Metrodome. Smith knew Pendleton’s hit was in play. He just had no clue where.

As Smith took off for second base, Braves jumped off their seats in the dugout. “I remember yelling, ‘Go! Go! Go!’” says pitcher Mark Grant. “When the ball was hit we thought, There it is. There’s the run that’s going to win it.”

As Smith searched, Chuck Knoblauch, the second baseman, crouched as if fielding a ground ball, then threw an invisible baseball to shortstop Greg Gagne, who raced to cover second base, finishing the pantomime double play. A legend was born: Knoblauch deked Smith. It may have looked that way on television, especially with broadcaster Tim McCarver telling the world that’s what had happened, but it wasn’t true.

“In no way was I faked out by Knoblauch,” Smith says. “If I did think Knoblauch had the ball, why didn’t I slide?”

Leftfielder Dan Gladden, his back to the infield, chased the ball. Smith pulled into second standing up and rounded it, stopping four steps past the bag. He then froze, staring into left centerfield. Puckett, the centerfielder, was nowhere near the ball, but his reputation for the impossible catch—only the night before he had made a leaping grab to take away a home run—made Smith indecisive. “What people don’t realize is that I had played in Kansas City,” Smith says. “I saw Kirby run down the ball many times.”

Up in the clubhouse Smoltz yelled at the television—and at Smith—“
Go! Go! Go!
”

Smith, still staring into the outfield, took two more hop-steps. Jimy Williams, the third base coach, never gave Smith any direction, never moved in the coaching box. Finally, only after the ball had bounced in front of the wall (about 20 feet from Gladden), off the wall, into the air like a little pop-up and eventually into Gladden’s glove, Smith took off for third base. Gagne circled into the outfield to take Gladden’s throw as Williams finally threw his left hand up and pointed at third base with his right hand, the signal for Smith to stop there. Pendleton easily pulled into second with a double.

Smoltz came running down those four flights of stairs, back to the dugout. “I wanted to watch us score some runs,” he says, “because I knew the game was over if we scored. Lonnie’s play didn’t bother me. It was like, We’re going to score. Second and third, no outs, and we’ve got our boys coming up.”

Ron Gant, the number three hitter, failed for the third time that night with two runners on, grounding meekly to first base.

David Justice, a lefthanded hitter, was up next. Kelly came out to the mound, a daring move, according to Harper. “I learned early that you’re better off not talking to Jack when he’s on the mound.”

“When they’d come to the mound, I didn’t want to hear nothing,” Morris says. “I already knew I was in trouble. You got something to say to me? Tell me between innings on the bench. I’m embarrassed when you’re out there. I know I suck. That’s why you’re out there.”

“What do you think?” Kelly said.

“I can get him,” Morris said.

Kelly said, “Let’s walk him.”

Morris, head bowed, replied, “All right.”

Justice was intentionally walked. Now the bases were loaded. The tension was too much for Dona. She left Arvid and her grandsons in their press-level box to stand alone in an empty concourse, unable to see the field. “It’s unbelievable,” Morris says, laughing at the tension he sees on the TV as he watches a tape of the game, “because I realize the importance of [the moment], but I’m still believing that I can get out of this. They are
not
going to score.”

Harper had another thought, a horrible one. He suddenly thought of the error Bill Buckner made in the 1986 World Series, an error so huge it blotted out the memory of his prolific hitting career. Harper saw himself throwing the baseball into rightfield, the winning runs scampering home. It was a horrible thought at a horrible time.

Four pitches later Morris hung a forkball to Sid Bream. It was a lousy pitch, the kind of awful pitch that sometimes causes a hitter to jump at it. Bream topped the ball to first baseman Kent Hrbek, who fired a strike to Harper to force Smith at home. Harper took a step, cocked his arm and made a perfect return throw to Hrbek. Double play. Inning over.

“I sat on the bench,” Harper says, “and thought, I don’t know how much longer I can take this. I was exhausted. My head hurt.”

The bottom of the inning was just as wild. Smoltz, pitching with one out and a runner at first, yielded a hit-and-run single to Knoblauch that barely cleared the glove of Bream at first base. Braves manager Bobby Cox walked to the mound to remove a disgusted Smoltz. “I felt like Jack did,” Smoltz says. “I was going to go as long as it took—10, 11 innings. I’m amazed Kelly was able to leave Morris in, but that’s what I grew up watching.”

Reliever Mike Stanton intentionally walked Puckett to load the bases. Then Knoblauch made an even worse baserunning gaffe than Smith’s. He took off from second on Hrbek’s soft liner to second baseman Mark Lemke and was doubled off. Inning over.

MORRIS HAD reached the big leagues in 1977, a time when no one paid much attention to pitch counts or rotator cuffs or knew what a closer was. He was 22 years old when he made his first major league start. He walked the first four batters he faced. Manager Ralph Houk left him in for nine innings. He struck out 12; heaven knows how many pitches he threw. His arm hurt like hell for the next year and a half. Houk’s successor, Anderson, reinforced the tenet that Morris should not look to the bullpen for help.

“During the ’82 season Sparky left me out there to rot because he was teaching me something,” Morris says. “He believed in me, believed I had the best stuff on the team. He knew I was strong, knew I was durable and knew I could handle it mentally. Once I got what he was doing, I wasn’t going to let him take the ball from me ever again. I always looked at it this way: If the relievers came into the game, I screwed up. It wasn’t, Jack, you did a good job for seven. Bull crap.”

One day Morris was losing 5–4 in the fifth inning when he noticed “our 20th pitcher warming up.” He saw Anderson leave the dugout for the mound, his second visit of the inning, which required Morris’s removal once Anderson had crossed the third base line. Morris walked toward Anderson and grabbed him before he reached that line. “Get the hell out of here,” he yelled, “because what you’ve got warming up is no better than what I’ve got right now.”

Says Morris, “He looked at me like, You’re nuts, but he turned around. I got out of the jam, and we won the game.”

“We had more fights and arguments than the world would allow,” Anderson says. “But I don’t have more respect for anybody. This man was quality, the best pitcher I ever had in 26 years.”

MORRIS BREEZED through the ninth inning, getting three outs on eight pitches. He had thrown 118 pitches in the game. His innings odometer for the year read 282. Kelly thanked him in the dugout, told him, “Great job, that’s all we can expect from you,” and walked away … even though no one was throwing in the bullpen.

“I’m fine,” Morris said. “I’m fine.”

Morris and Kelly had not always seen eye to eye. “I think when I came to Minnesota he didn’t know how to handle me,” Morris says. “It was all kind of trial and error for the first few months. One time I remember I got so pissed off at him that I wanted to kill him.”