Oct. 15, 1977 – World Series Game 4: Yankees 4, Dodgers 2
- Sal Maiorana
- Oct 15, 2017
- 5 min read
LOS ANGELES – Something was amiss in the Yankee clubhouse before the game. Everyone was smiling and getting along, and it prompted Thurman Munson to quip, “I’m bettin’ against us. We’re too overconfident. Everybody knows we can’t win unless we’re behind or have had some big argument.”
Reggie Jackson was in such a good place, he uttered words no one could really believe came from his mouth. “Billy Martin,” said Jackson, “should probably get a Nobel Peace Prize for managing this damn team.” To which Martin replied, “I accept, with deep humility. Thank you very much.”
What the hell was going on here?
Dodgers first baseman Steve Garvey was made aware of this new tranquil atmosphere across the way when the media entered the Dodgers clubhouse before Game 4 and he said, “Maybe that’s a good omen. They’re not hitting each other. We’ll lull ‘em to death.”
The only one lulling anybody to death was Ron Guidry, the little Yankee left-hander who, in what would be the final start of his breakout major-league season, dazzled the Dodgers with a dominating complete-game four-hitter on a luminous Saturday afternoon in Chavez Ravine to give the Yankees a commanding three games to one lead.
Here is the full video of Game 4 at Dodger Stadium. And here are the key moments, with time stamps:
Top 1st: 15:45 - Piniella's RBI double
17:00 - Chambliss double
20:30 - Nettles RBI groundout
22:20 - Dent RBI single
Bot 3rd: 37:30 - Lopes 2-run HR
Top 6th: 1:00:50 - Jackson's solo HR
Back in spring training, Guidry wasn’t even slated to make the team and was ticketed to head back to Triple-A Syracuse. And who knows what would have become of him because his career was at a crossroads. After all, the previous season, following a demotion to Syracuse, he was ready to quit baseball, and very nearly did.
“They’d sent me back to Syracuse last year, but I was driving south,” he said. “I was ready to quit. I didn’t tell ‘em nothing. I figured if they wanted me, they could find me. They’d been playing games with me, bringing me up and sending me down, up and down, up and down, and I was tired of it. I figured why throw my arm out just to hang around in the minors? I guess we were about 50 miles outside New York, in New Jersey, I guess, when my wife (Bonnie) said I ought to give it one more chance and then quit if it didn’t work out. I pulled in a service station and just turned around went back. It was that simple.”
About as simple as his approach to the Dodgers hitters in the biggest start, to date, of his career. “I could’ve gone out there and had the shakes and gotten nervous and walked 20 batters in a row, but I wasn’t nervous,” Guidry said. “I had confidence in myself. I just went out and threw my game.” He continually pumped blazing fastballs past Los Angeles’ big boppers, and then he tied them in knots with the new-found slider taught to him by Sparky Lyle. The Dodgers were rendered helpless.
The Yankees had given Guidry a 3-0 lead in the second. Reggie Jackson doubled, Lou Piniella singled, and Chris Chambliss doubled to make it 2-0 before Doug Rau could record an out, and that was all Tommy Lasorda needed to see, pulling the plug on the left-hander who had been a somewhat controversial pick to start the game in the first place.
Reggie Jackson is greeted by Chris Chambliss after his sixth-inning home run.
Most observers thought with the Dodgers down in the series that Lasorda should have come back with his ace, Game 1 starter Don Sutton, but Lasorda didn’t want to risk it on short rest. Rau was the option, but it was obvious he’d have a short leash, and Lasorda tugged it quickly. Rick Rhoden came in, but he promptly allowed both inherited runners to score on a Graig Nettles groundout and Bucky Dent’s single to right.
Guidry sailed through the bottom of the second, but in the third, he encountered his only hiccup of the day. Rhoden hit a ground-rule double down the left-field line, and Davey Lopes followed with a two-run homer to straightaway center field to cut the Dodgers deficit to 3-2.
“That was a slider that didn’t break down,” Guidry said of the lone big mistake he made. “I didn’t think he hit it that hard, but it seemed to carry.”
One guy who was shocked was Lyle. Lyle possessed a great slider, and it was that pitch that keyed his magnificent Cy Young season in 1977, but he admitted that his pupil, Guidry, had a much better one.
“It did not take that long because he had the good mechanics,” Lyle said, recalling his teaching the pitch to Guidry early in the year. “I told him how to correct things when the pitch was going bad, and he did the rest. I don’t throw nearly as hard as he does. I guess if I had the sort of fastball he has and they screwed around with me like they did with him I might have been ready to pack it in, too.”
Guidry settled down quickly after Lopes’ blast as he retired the next eight Dodger batters to get through the fifth, though there was one scary moment in the fourth as Ron Cey hit a moonshot to left, only to see Piniella reach over the fence and snare it, robbing him of a tying solo homer. At first, no one knew whether Piniella had caught the ball, and that’s what Sweet Lou was going for.
“I just wanted to savor the moment,” he said with a laugh recalling his delay before showing the ball in his glove. “That’s exactly what I did. I’d missed two balls in earlier games that I thought I could catch and finally I caught one, so I wanted to take a moment. I knew I had it.”
“Lou had me faked out on that one,” Martin said. As for Cey, he spat, “It might have changed the whole game.”
After Jackson gave Guidry an extra run to play with by launching a 420-foot home run to right-center, a portent of what was to come in this series, Guidry worked his way through the last four innings by allowing only four baserunners, none of whom advanced past second base.
The Yankees mob Ron Guidry after his complete-game victory.
Thus, for a team that seemed to be facing a crisis in its starting rotation due to injuries, the Yankees had now received three masterpieces from Don Gullett, Mike Torrez and Guidry, and were one win away from ending their World Series drought at 15 years.
In the 73 previous World Series, only three teams had come back from 3-1 deficits to become world champions - the 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates over the Washington Senators, the 1958 Yankees over the Milwaukee Braves and the 1968 Detroit Tigers over the St. Louis Cardinals.
“I’ll guarantee one thing,” said Sutton, Los Angeles’ Game 5 starter. “We’re all bringing our suitcases to the park tomorrow. Nobody in this clubhouse thinks the Series is over.”
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