Until the White Sox won the World Series in 2005, the summer of 1977 was the closest thing to nirvana for Chicago baseball fans.
The Cubs and the White Sox both were in first place at the end of July, and the city was in a tizzy over the prospect of a Cubs-Sox World Series.
History tells us the Sox faded down the stretch and the Cubs totally collapsed, but for one glorious summer, there was no better place to be.
We’re approaching the 30th anniversary of one four-day stretch, from July 28-31, when the town erupted in one giant celebration of baseball. A memorable Cubs-Reds slugfest at Wrigley Field on a Thursday afternoon was followed by a frenzied, four-game series between the Sox and Royals at old Comiskey Park.
“It was just crazy,” recalled Jerry Morales, then a Cubs outfielder, now a coach with the Washington Nationals.
“A phenomenally entertaining season,” added Steve Stone, who led the ’77 Sox with 15 wins.
Here’s a brief recap of the wackiest weekend of one of the wildest baseball summers the town has ever seen:
July 28: Cubs 16, Reds 15 (13 innings)
The slumping Cubs still led Pittsburgh by two games in the NL East and were 58-39 when they faced the Big Red Machine, led by Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Ken Griffey. On a warm and windy day at Wrigley, the teams tied a major-league record with 11 home runs, and the Cubs bounced back after trailing 6-0 in the bottom of the first, then 10-7, 14-10 and 15-14.
Finally, Dave Rosello’s 13th-inning RBI single, the Cubs’ 24th hit, sent the crowd of 32,155 into ecstasy.
“Greatest game I ever saw,” Cubs catcher George Mitterwald said in the postgame clubhouse, after his game-tying homer in the 12th made it 15-15.
Cubs manager Herman Franks, who was ejected in the ninth, used outfielders Jose Cardenal and Bobby Murcer at second base when he ran out of position players. Murcer switched back and forth from short to second, depending on whether the batter was left- or right-handed.
Starter Rick Reuschel earned his 15th win with a relief appearance.
“Sometimes you guys underestimate us fatties,” Franks said afterward.
July 29: Sox 11, Royals 8
One year removed from 97 losses, the surging Sox returned home with a 3 1/2-game lead over Kansas City, thanks to an offensive-minded team that was subpar in all other aspects of the game, particularly fielding and baserunning.
“The South Side Hit Men had 10 guys with at least 10 home runs, which for those days was pretty unusual,” Stone recalled. “It might have been the worst defensive team ever assembled. I remember [shortstop] Alan Bannister could really hit, but unfortunately that year he made 40 errors.
“He had such a bad shoulder that he couldn’t keep the ball in the air throwing from short to first. Until the day he died, [Sox owner] Bill Veeck said that if he’d had the money to buy a good defensive shortstop, he felt we would have had a shot to hold off Kansas City.
“But unfortunately, Eric Soderholm had one knee, playing third. Bannister had no arm, playing short. Jorge Orta, at second, is still trying to complete his first double play from that ’77 season, and when Lamar Johnson played first instead of Jim Spencer, it was one of those infields where you just said, ‘Throw fly balls, boys.’
“We had Ralph Garr, Chet Lemon and Richie Zisk in the outfield. It was quite a defensive unit.”
But on this night at old Comiskey, before a season-high crowd of 45,919, the Sox scored four runs in the seventh to overtake the Royals. Spencer threw the ball into the stands after the final out, revving up a crowd that was already in the mood for madness.
“It was the most exciting game in the history of baseball, since yesterday at Wrigley Field,” Soderholm said afterward. “And the game wasn’t even the whole show.”
Announcer Harry Caray was leading the fans in song from the TV booth, and organist Nancy Faust began playing “Na, Na, Hey, Hey” whenever an opposing pitcher was removed, a tradition that continues to this day.
All in all, it was a complete spectacle on the South Side.
“It’s like the Christians and lions all over again,” Zisk said after the game. “I don’t know whether the crowd comes here to watch us, or we come here to watch them. Whatever it is, it’s beautiful.”
July 30: Sox 6, Royals 4
Despite having both Garr and Bannister thrown out at the plate by 15 feet on separate plays in the first inning, the Sox won for the 21st time in 26 games on the strength of Soderholm’s three-run homer, and Francisco Barrios won for the eighth time in his last nine starts.
“They have been thrown out at home more often than Archie Bunker’s son-in-law,” wrote Bob Verdi, then the Tribune’s Sox beat writer.
The nationally televised game was a coming-out party for the Sox, and NBC analyst Joe Garagiola declared: “It’s a happening.”
Even Kansas City manager Whitey Herzog was impressed.
“The [’69] Mets were no miracle team, not with Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman pitching for them,” Herzog said afterward. “What’s happening here in Chicago is a real miracle.”
July 31: Sox 5, Royals 4 (10 innings); Royals 8, Sox 4
The final day of the series featured another Sox comeback, a near brawl and a postgame war of words between the two teams. And a fight in the stands that owner Veeck jumped into the middle of, peg leg and all.
The Sox trailed 2-1 in the ninth inning of the opener when Orta’s RBI single tied it. The Royals took a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the 10th, but Lemon’s two-run homer tied it again, and Garr slapped a game-winning single off Doug Bird.
But with a 6 1/2-game lead, Sox manager Bob Lemon rested most of his starters for the second game, and Kansas City salvaged the final game on Hal McRae’s seventh-inning home run after Garr and Royals third-base coach Chuck Hiller nearly came to blows. McRae did a slow jog around the bases in protest of the Sox’s new tradition of taking curtain calls after every home run.
“It’s bush, what they do,” McRae said afterward. “It’s a disgrace to baseball. It makes the game a sideshow, and those fans are making clowns of their players with all that jazz.
“The White Sox look like fools doing that. In the National League, something like that would be stopped in one day. The pitchers over there would see (the curtain calls) and the next batter up would get the ball in his ear.”
Adding to the feistiness, Veeck was slightly injured during the second game when he saw Sox administrative assistant Charlie Evranian get jumped by fans outside the press box and decided to come to his rescue.
“I had to go out there, or they’d have killed Charlie,” Veeck said afterward. “It’s a hot day, but all I’ve had is 10 glasses of iced tea.”
Postscript
The Sox wound up winning 90 games but finished in third place, 12 games behind Kansas City. In hindsight, Stone says Lemon’s second-game lineup killed the Sox’s momentum.
“That was the game that might have changed the whole season around,” Stone recalled. “I felt that way. Had we won the second game of the doubleheader, which I think we would have won had we played our first team, we would have pushed them 7 1/2 back and I think it would’ve been kind of difficult for them, even if they made a great stretch run.
“But Bob made a strategic decision to play all the bench players in the second game, and they won that and cut it to 5 1/2 , so in a four-game series, we only picked up two games instead of four. Then the Royals had one of the most remarkable runs the last six weeks of the season.”
Meanwhile, the Cubs went into a total free fall after their 16-15 victory over the Reds, going 22-42 down the stretch to finish in fourth place at 81-81, 20 games behind Philadelphia.
Morales, who was hit in the knee by Yankees reliever Sparky Lyle during the All-Star Game, never returned to form in the second half. Morales recalled the Cubs being mentally and physically exhausted by August.
“The first half we had a lot of fun, and by the All-Star break were ahead and had good momentum,” he said, “but the second half we weren’t the same. We never had lights at Wrigley and had all days game. When you start traveling, playing nights and coming back to play day games … we didn’t have the same intensity. We were burned out.
“I missed most of the second half. It was a good time, but it wasn’t good enough. To have a real good time, you have to go all the way, and it never happened. The Sox finally made it. Hopefully, one of these years the Cubs will make it too.”
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psullivan@tribune.com
