July 2, 1977 – Yankees 6, Tigers 4
- Sal Maiorana
- Jul 2, 2017
- 2 min read
NEW YORK – When Fred Stanley returned to the dugout after circling the bases in the eighth inning following one of the most improbable home runs of the season, several of the Yankee players and coaches were lying on the ground, having pretended to have fainted.
“Guys were laughing and stuff,” said Stanley, whose lazy fly ball landed just over the wall, barely fair inside the left-field pole for a game-winning two-run homer. It was one of only 10 home runs he hit in his career which spanned 14 years and 1,906 plate appearances with five different teams, though most of that came with the Yankees.
“What it all boils down to is you can’t have nine guys and win,” said Stanley, who went into spring training thinking he could be the starting shortstop, but was relegated to bit player status when the team acquired Bucky Dent on the eve of Opening Day. “You’ve got to have more than that. Maybe tomorrow it’ll be someone else.”
Likely, it would be, because Stanley wound up appearing in just 48 games in 1977, with 46 official at-bats and 12 hits. But on this night at Yankee Stadium, he was able to steal the spotlight. Billy Martin had pinch-hit for Dent in the seventh, a move that worked out because Jimmy Wynn drew a walk and came around to score on a two-run, game-tying double by Roy White.
Stanley took over for Dent at short, and then came to the plate in the bottom of the eighth with two outs and Graig Nettles at second. Tigers closer John Hiller left a slow curveball over the plate and Stanley was able to hit it out, barely, for the decisive runs.
“It’s been pretty tough,” Stanley said of sitting on the bench a year after he’d started a career-high 87 games at short for the Yankees, then started all nine playoff and World Series games, hitting .285 in the postseason. “There was a stretch where I didn’t play for three weeks. I was like a batting practice pitcher. When they got Bucky, it was like somebody pulling the rug out from under me. All winter I’d been anticipating playing 150 games.”
“It just goes to show you how good our bench is,” said Martin, who benched lefty-swinging outfielders Reggie Jackson and Mickey Rivers in favor of Paul Blair and Lou Piniella against Tigers lefty Dave Roberts. “Blair came through (two hits), Wynn got a big walk, and the Chicken did it all.”
“You’re my hero,” Cliff Johnson told Stanley. “But you’re just another Chicken.”
Stanley’s nickname was Chicken, a moniker that had been hung on him because he weighed all of 165 pounds.
“It started out as ‘chicken wing,’” Stanley explained to the New York Daily News a few years ago. “I didn’t look like Arnold Schwarzenegger coming out of high school. I was thin and lanky. I couldn’t gain weight. Del Unser said I looked like a chicken wing. It just kind of became ‘Chicken.’ I’d goof around, too, walking around like a chicken. You’re 19 years old – it wasn’t something profound. They told me I ran funny, too, like a chicken. I thought I ran fine.”
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