Oct. 16, 1977 – World Series Game 5: Dodgers 10, Yankees 4
- Sal Maiorana
- Oct 16, 2017
- 4 min read
LOS ANGELES – Imagine how baseball history would have been altered had this debacle for the Yankees not occurred?
Instead, Don Gullett got obliterated inside five innings by the Dodgers for seven runs on eight hits, a walk, and an error, and the Dodgers rolled to an easy victory that sent the series back to New York for Reggie Jackson’s soon-to-come coronation. Nice job, Gullett.
Los Angeles’ powerful offense, which led the National League in home runs with 191 during the regular season, had hit six home runs in the first four games, but in losing three of the games the collective batting average was a woeful .190. However, on yet another gloriously sunny Southern California afternoon – yes kids, day World Series games were a regular thing then - the Dodgers bats finally awoke from their series-long slumber at just the right time with elimination staring Tommy Lasorda’s team in the face.
They pounded out two more home runs – a three-run blast by Steve Yeager and a two-run shot by Reggie Smith – among 13 hits off Gullett, Ken Clay, Dick Tidrow, and the world’s highest-paid mop-up man, Catfish Hunter. “It’s better than going home,” said Dodgers’ outfielder Dusty Baker after Los Angeles cut its series deficit to three games to two.
Earlier in the series, several Dodgers eagerly shared their opinion that they didn’t like playing in New York, but this was one occasion where they couldn’t wait to get back to the vitriolic Bronx, even though the task at hand was monumental, trying to win three in a row over the Yankees, the last two needing to come at Yankee Stadium. “I don’t care,” Baker said. “This is my first World Series. If it was in Vietnam, I wouldn’t mind.”
Here is the full video of Game 5 at Dodger Stadium. And here are the key moments, with time stamps:
Bot 1st: 9:30 - Lopes leadoff triple
11:00 - Martin mound visit, then Russell RBI single
Bot 4th: 52:20 - Baker RBI single
57:20 - Yeager 3-run homer
Bot 5th: 1:15:20 - Baker RBI single
1:17:00 - Lacy RBI single
Bot 6th: 1:30:45 - Smith 2-run homer
Top 7th: 1:37:00 - Nettles RBI double
Top 8th: 1:52:20 - Munson HR
1:53:00 - Jackson HR
Lasorda gathered his team before the game and rather than dress his players down, he propped them up, and it seemed to pay dividends. The Dodgers were loose, and they played like they had nothing to lose, even though the reality was, they had everything to lose.
“I’m proud of them,” Lasorda said. “I told them in a meeting before the game that regardless of who won, I wouldn’t trade this team for any other in the world. But what it means is this – there’s no room for us, we’ve got to win. I told them if they won today, we’d only have to win two straight, and the odds were better for that.”
Genius.
It was pretty clear they would reduce their long odds when, after ace Don Sutton worked through the first inning, Davey Lopes led off the bottom half with a triple off the fence in left and promptly scored on Bill Russell’s single, tuning up the sellout crowd counted at 55,955, which other than large and boisterous, would have made for a pretty nice poker hand in nearby Las Vegas. That was only the beginning of the onslaught. With Sutton mowing down 12 of the first 13 men he faced, the Dodgers’ four-run explosion in the fourth essentially put the game out of reach.
Steve Garvey doubled with one out, and Baker singled him home to make it 2-0, Baker taking second when Lou Piniella misplayed the ball in left. Graig Nettles then booted Lee Lacy’s grounder, and Yeager hit a high fly down the left-field line that barely stayed fair, and barely cleared the fence and it was 5-0.
“I always try to have fun and play like I did when I was 9 and 10,” said Yeager, referring to the curtain call he made to the crowd. “He had been throwing off-speed stuff all day and he threw this one up where I could hit it.”
A moment of reflection for Reggie Jackson at the end of Game 5. If only he knew what was to come two days hence.
Gullett was soon headed to the showers when, in the fifth, the Dodgers attacked again. Smith walked, Garvey singled, and Billy Martin called for Clay who promptly lit the inning on fire as Baker and Lacy greeted him with RBI singles and Yeager hit a sacrifice fly to center that made it 8-0.
“Gullett made a couple mistakes,” Martin understated. “Hanging forkballs and hanging screwballs.”
With Tidrow pitching the sixth, Smith launched his fourth homer of the series. The Yankees scored the final four runs, the last two coming on back-to-back solo homers in the eighth by Thurman Munson and Jackson. “With a 10-run lead, I made up my mind not to walk anybody,” Sutton said with a smile. “I wasn’t going to walk ‘em. They were going to have to hit eight more home runs.”
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