April 11, 1977 - Royals 5, Yankees 4 (13)
- Sal Maiorana
- Apr 11, 2017
- 2 min read
KANSAS CITY - If current Yankees manager Joe Girardi would ever dabble in baseball history and study how managers before him handled their respective pitching staffs, his head might explode. Seriously, the man who thinks nothing of making five or six pitching changes per game would look at a game like the one the Yankees played on this date 40 years ago and he’d be incapable of understanding what Billy Martin was thinking.
Sparky Lyle was the Yankees ace closer in 1977. In fact, he was so good in that role, he won the American League Cy Young Award. But that didn’t prevent Martin from allowing Lyle to pitch five innings in what became a 13-inning loss to Kansas City.
Lyle took over for starter Dock Ellis in the seventh inning, worked out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam, and he went on to face 20 batters, allowing three hits and two walks, but no runs. Martin finally showed some mercy and sent Dick Tidrow out for the 12th, and ultimately, Tidrow gave up a two-out RBI single in the 13th to John Mayberry that decided the game and extended the Yankees losing streak to three games.
The last time these two teams had gotten together, Chris Chambliss hit one of the most dramatic home runs in Yankee history – hell, one of the most dramatic in baseball history. It was Oct. 14, 1976, Game 5 of the AL Championship Series at Yankee Stadium, bottom of the ninth inning, and Chambliss launched Mark Littell’s first pitch into the right-field bleachers for a walk-off 7-6 victory that gave the Yankees their first American League pennant since 1964.
These days, Chambliss is more than happy to relive one of the greatest moments of his career, but in the aftermath of that epic home run, he often bristled when asked about it. “It gets to be frustrating,” he said before the game when, of course, it was a topic given that the Royals were the opponent. “People are always pushing that on me. I’ve got to keep it in the back of my mind. In fact, I don’t even think about it unless people ask me about it. It’s over now. I can’t live with that hit the rest of my life.”
This meeting wasn’t quite as dramatic, but it was Kansas City’s home opener and an announced crowd of more than 39,000 was packed into the ballpark, so there was some juice. The Yankees were down 3-1 early, but rallied as Reggie Jackson homered in the fourth and Roy White and Thurman Munson had back-to-back RBI knocks in the fifth to send New York into a 4-3 lead. Dock Ellis allowed the Royals to tie it in the sixth, and then no one scored until Mayberry’s clinching hit chased Freddie Patek home with the winning run.
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