Monday, September 30, 2013

World Series: Did You Know?

The 1983 Philadelphia Phillies had four players 40 years and over in the 1983 World Series!

No wonder they were called, "The Wheeze Kids!"

Pete Rose was 42.

Tony Perez was 41.

Joe Morgan and Ron Reed were both 40.

Then you had Steve Carlton, who was 38. Mike Schmidt and Gary Maddox who was 34. Another Gary, Matthews, was 33.

Even Bo Diaz and Ivan de Jesus were 30, so the only regular positioned player younger than 30 was Von Hayes, 24.

John Denny, a starting pitcher, was also 30. The closer, Al Holland was, again, 30.

Philadelphia made it an interesting Series. But the Baltimore Orioles, were too tough. The O's, who were now managed by Joe Altobelli, seemed to be alright without one of this blogger's favourite characters, Earl Weaver.

In game 1, on October 11, 1983, featured a grand pitcher's dual. It saw the Philadelphia's Denny and Baltimore's Scott McGregor, bewilder the batters. Both teams managed just 5 hits and the Phillies took it, 2-1.

It would prove to be their only win of the Series, however.

It was a strange Series.

Philadelphia lost game 2, 4-1, but only because of a bad bottom of the 5th. Again, though, the O's pitching was great. In this case, Mike Boddicker.

Game 3 saw Jim Palmer, actually pitching in relief, get his last World Series win by taking a close 3-2 decision over Carlton. Carlton and Steve Holland allowed the O's just 6 hits. The Phillies got 8.

Game 4 was some hitting from both teams. Each got 10 hits.

Philadelphia came back from 2-0 down to take a 3-2 after 5. But the Orioles took control from there, at least until the 9th.

Baltimore was up 5-3 in this crucial affair. After this game, it's either 3 games to 1 or Series tied 2-2.

Diaz singled with one out, and was replaced by Bob Dernier. Jesus then made the second out on a grounder to 3rd.

Dernier was on second. Ozzie Virgil pinch-hit (And it was for Larry Anderson, who would be with the Phillies when they made their next World Series appearance...10 years later) and delivered a single on a 3-2 pitch to score him. Now it was 5-4, and Joe Morgan was up.

But Tippy Martinez got him to fly out to end the game.

Game 5 was like game 1, as each team got only 5 hits. But the O's got 5 runs to the Phillies' 0.

So the Whiz Kids and the Wheeze Kids came up empty in the World Series. Colourful nicknames, nonetheless.

And certainly, some nice "antiques" were in this World Series.


References


Enders, Eric. (2005). 100 Years Of The World Series. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Nemec, David, and Scott Flatow. Great Baseball Feats, Facts & Firsts. Toronto: Signet (Penguin Group), 2010. Print.

Nemec, David et all. 20th Century Baseball Chronicle: A Year-by-year History of Major League Baseball. Collector's Edition. Lincolnwood, Ill: Publications International, 1993. Print.

Snyder, John S. (1995). World Series. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

Sports Reference LLC. Baseball-Reference.com - Major League Statistics and Information. http://www.baseball-reference.com/. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.

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