Oct. 4, 1977 – Rough week for The Boss
- Sal Maiorana
- Oct 4, 2017
- 2 min read
NEW YORK – First it was his own manager, Billy Martin, irritating him with the comments he made about wanting a new contract. Now, it was the Royals manager, Whitey Herzog, taking a couple pot shots at George Steinbrenner.
The Yankees and Red Sox were the premier rivalry in Major League Baseball at this time in history, the hostilities rekindled in 1976 when the two teams engaged in a wild brawl, the one where Boston pitcher Bill Lee seriously injured his shoulder. This season’s torrid division race, and the great games they played against each other, kept it hot, and of course in 1978, it would reach a fever pitch, culminating with Bucky Fucking Dent crushing New England’s collective soul.
But Yankees-Royals was right there, too. Their epic 1976 ALCS, won by the Yankees when Chris Chambliss hit an ultra-dramatic walk-off, series-clinching home run, got the blood boiling, and when the Yankees postponed a game in late July on a day where it didn’t even rain, forcing the Royals to have to come back to New York for a one-game matinee in Aug. 29, the intensity was cranked up further.
Herzog was apoplectic about that incident. He accused Steinbrenner of postponing the game because his team was embroiled in one of its many crises and he felt the Yankees weren’t going to be mentally ready to play and a day off would calm the waters. The Yankees ultimately won the makeup, further infuriating Herzog.
“I hope Steinbrenner is out of baseball in a few years,” Herzog said on the eve of the start of the championship series. “He’s got less class than anybody in baseball.”
Herzog was asked late in the season if he was hoping the Yankees would win the AL East so his Royals would get a chance to avenge 1976. “No, I hope it’s Baltimore or Boston,” he said. “These cockroaches don’t deserve to win it. Those jerks in the front office. This used to be a high-class organization, the best in baseball. Now it ain’t beans.”
First pitch was still 24 hours away, and it was only going to get more intense once the games began.
Meanwhile, the NLCS got underway in Los Angeles, and the Phillies defeated the Dodgers 7-5. Philadelphia got off to a 4-0 lead by scoring four unearned runs off Los Angeles starter Tommy John due to a pair of errors by shortstop Bill Russell, but the Dodgers took John and Russell off the hook when Ron Cey hit a grand slam off Phillies ace Steve Carlton in the seventh to tie it at 5-5. However, the Phillies scored twice in the top of the ninth to close it out.
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