Sept. 13, 1977 – Yankees 4, Red Sox 2
- Sal Maiorana
- Sep 13, 2017
- 3 min read
NEW YORK – There were 55,269 pairs of eyes staring at the ball as it sailed into the faraway night, headed toward the place that, in Yankee Stadium, was referred to as Death Valley because so many fly balls went to die out there.
Carlton Fisk had taken a mighty swing at yet another blazing fastball thrown by Ron Guidry, and unlike most of the balls Boston had managed to put in play in the opener of this pivotal three-game series, this one in the top of the ninth with Jim Rice on first base was truly smoked.
Audible gasps could be heard throughout the raucous crowd - largest for a regular-season game since the ballpark had been renovated for the 1976 season - as the ball soared and soared and soared toward left-center field, but the one guy who wasn’t worried was Billy Martin.
“This ball park has been beating teams for 50 years,” Martin said. “The Dodgers used to come here and hit those 400-foot fly outs and now it’s the Red Sox. It makes a big difference whether you get to first base and turn left or right.”
Indeed, rather than turn left and trot around the bases, all Fisk could do was turn right and head back to the dugout with his head down after Mickey Rivers ranged almost all the way back to the wall to haul in the prodigious fly, one that would have tied the score at 4-4 had it been hit in any other ballpark in the major leagues.
Instead, Rice had to scamper back to first base, and there he stayed as he watched Guidry strike out George Scott and Butch Hobson to end a game that felt every bit like a tense playoff struggle.
The Yankees were winners because Guidry was brilliant. He gave up only five hits to the best hitting team in baseball, while striking out nine. The Red Sox, who saw their five-game winning streak snapped, entered the night with an MLB-best 197 home runs, but Fisk’s deep drive was the closest they came to hitting one off Guidry. It was now clear that, despite his youth, he was rapidly becoming the ace of a rotation filled with established veterans.
“He has been our most consistent pitcher since he started,” Martin said. “At the beginning of the year Guidry was the last man on my staff, the long relief man. But I knew if he got his feet on the ground, got his confidence, found his control, he’d be a fine pitcher.”
Things did not start well for Guidry, though. Boston jumped to a 2-0 lead in the second as Carl Yastrzemski led off with a triple and scored on a one-out wild pitch. Butch Hobson later drove a RBI single to left, and Martin admitted that he thought the moment might be too big for Guidry.
“I was concerned,” said Martin, “but I didn’t have any thought of bringing anybody in from the bullpen. You don’t bring in Sparky Lyle in the second inning.”
Guidry settled down and retired Denny Doyle and Rick Burleson, and the Red Sox never scored again as they managed only three more hits. “He was as good as he’s been all along,” Red Sox manager Don Zimmer said of Guidry.
The Yankees cut their deficit in half in the fourth when Boston starter Mike Paxton allowed singles by Thurman Munson, Graig Nettles and Lou Piniella, and then in the fifth, the Yankees moved ahead for good. Bucky Dent led off with a single on Paxton’s first pitch, and Rivers hit his second pitch over the wall in right to make it 3-2. Paxton’s night ended when Munson singled, and reliever Jim Willoughby gave up a two-out RBI double to Chris Chambliss.
From there, Guidry and Willoughby matched zeroes, and when it was over, the Yankees were 2.5 ahead in the AL East with 17 games to go.
“The first game’s gone – now we have to get the second game,” said Zimmer. “No matter who you play now, you got to win.”
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