That sacred October
By David Leonhardt |
October 25, 2009, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
For 15 years, from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s, two players dominated October baseball.
The first was Bob Gibson, perhaps the most imposing pitcher in the game's history. In 1964, working on two days' rest for the St Louis Cardinals, he helped to end the Yankee dynasty of Mantle and Berra by pitching all of Game 7 of the World Series. Three years later, he beat the Boston Red Sox three times in one World Series. The next year, he set a Series record by striking out 17 Detroit Tigers in one game.
After Gibson retired, he was soon replaced on the October stage by a player who eventually took that month as his moniker: Reggie Jackson, Mr October. Today, fans tend to recall his three home runs, in three straight at-bats, against the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1977.
But there was so much more: a steal of home for the Oakland A's in the 1972 playoffs; the Most Valuable Player award in the 1973 Series; the illicit (but unpunished) twitch of his hip on the base paths in the 1978 Series, which deflected a throw from one Dodger fielder to another.
Gibson and Jackson weren't just great players. They were clutch players. They were forerunners of Derek Jeter, the Yankee captain, who, thanks to a World Series home run he hit just after 12 o'clock on Halloween Night eight years ago, is sometimes called Mr November. "What he's done better than the next guy is produce in the clutch," Jackson says of Jeter in "Sixty Feet, Six Inches," a 273-page conversation between Jackson and Gibson. "That's mental makeup."
The question of clutchness may be the biggest flash point in baseball's current ideological war. To traditionalists, clutchness is a self-evident concept that is at the game's core. Just look at Jeter compared with Alex Rodriguez, a notorious choker in previous playoffs. Or look at the players great and less great -- not just Christy Mathewson, Willie Mays and Josh Beckett, but also Johnny Podres, Gene Tenace and Billy Hatcher -- who did their best when it counted the most. Their success wasn't just about talent. It was about mental makeup.
However, to the game's analytically minded fans, writers and front-office executives -- like the ones described in Michael Lewis' "Money-ball" -- clutchness is overrated. More often than not, it's a story created after the fact. It is only rarely a character trait that tells us what's likely to happen in the future. Mays made his spectacular, game-saving catch in the 1954 Series. But he was also a mediocre hitter in his Series appearances. Mays' godson, Barry Bonds, was Rodriguez's predecessor as the symbol of post-season failure (yes, even into the years when he was apparently using steroids).
Then, in 2002, he had one of the greatest Series a hitter has ever had. Even Gibson and Jackson found their clutch powers wanting in some of their biggest moments. Jackson struck out against a young Bob Welch to end a game in the 1978 Series. In 106 subsequent postseason at-bats, he hit just 236.
"Sixty Feet, Six Inches" is a ringing defense of the traditional view of baseball, the one that knows clutch when it sees it.
The book is an edited transcript of a series of conversations between Gibson and Jackson, overseen by Lonnie Wheeler, the collaborator on Gibson's autobiography, "Stranger to the Game."
This book's reason for being, Wheeler writes in the introduction, is the "sacred place in October where only the two of them have been." As such, "there's a language ... that only they can speak."
At its best, the book is an oral history, and not just of baseball. Gibson and Jackson were part of the generation of black players, between Jackie Robinson and Jeter, who were accepted without being fully so. Gibson tells the story of an off-season barnstorming tour through the Southwest, in which the all-black Willie Mays All-Stars played the all-white Harmon Killebrew All-Stars.
To find something to eat after games, the Mays All-Stars would sometimes send one of their players into a restaurant dressed as a chauffeur, and he would emerge with food for the team. "Or Sam Jones, who was light-skinned," Gibson says, referring to a journeyman pitcher, "would pull a stocking cap down over his head, pass as white and pretend he was a deaf-mute."
The first was Bob Gibson, perhaps the most imposing pitcher in the game's history. In 1964, working on two days' rest for the St Louis Cardinals, he helped to end the Yankee dynasty of Mantle and Berra by pitching all of Game 7 of the World Series. Three years later, he beat the Boston Red Sox three times in one World Series. The next year, he set a Series record by striking out 17 Detroit Tigers in one game.
After Gibson retired, he was soon replaced on the October stage by a player who eventually took that month as his moniker: Reggie Jackson, Mr October. Today, fans tend to recall his three home runs, in three straight at-bats, against the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1977.
But there was so much more: a steal of home for the Oakland A's in the 1972 playoffs; the Most Valuable Player award in the 1973 Series; the illicit (but unpunished) twitch of his hip on the base paths in the 1978 Series, which deflected a throw from one Dodger fielder to another.
Gibson and Jackson weren't just great players. They were clutch players. They were forerunners of Derek Jeter, the Yankee captain, who, thanks to a World Series home run he hit just after 12 o'clock on Halloween Night eight years ago, is sometimes called Mr November. "What he's done better than the next guy is produce in the clutch," Jackson says of Jeter in "Sixty Feet, Six Inches," a 273-page conversation between Jackson and Gibson. "That's mental makeup."
The question of clutchness may be the biggest flash point in baseball's current ideological war. To traditionalists, clutchness is a self-evident concept that is at the game's core. Just look at Jeter compared with Alex Rodriguez, a notorious choker in previous playoffs. Or look at the players great and less great -- not just Christy Mathewson, Willie Mays and Josh Beckett, but also Johnny Podres, Gene Tenace and Billy Hatcher -- who did their best when it counted the most. Their success wasn't just about talent. It was about mental makeup.
However, to the game's analytically minded fans, writers and front-office executives -- like the ones described in Michael Lewis' "Money-ball" -- clutchness is overrated. More often than not, it's a story created after the fact. It is only rarely a character trait that tells us what's likely to happen in the future. Mays made his spectacular, game-saving catch in the 1954 Series. But he was also a mediocre hitter in his Series appearances. Mays' godson, Barry Bonds, was Rodriguez's predecessor as the symbol of post-season failure (yes, even into the years when he was apparently using steroids).
Then, in 2002, he had one of the greatest Series a hitter has ever had. Even Gibson and Jackson found their clutch powers wanting in some of their biggest moments. Jackson struck out against a young Bob Welch to end a game in the 1978 Series. In 106 subsequent postseason at-bats, he hit just 236.
"Sixty Feet, Six Inches" is a ringing defense of the traditional view of baseball, the one that knows clutch when it sees it.
The book is an edited transcript of a series of conversations between Gibson and Jackson, overseen by Lonnie Wheeler, the collaborator on Gibson's autobiography, "Stranger to the Game."
This book's reason for being, Wheeler writes in the introduction, is the "sacred place in October where only the two of them have been." As such, "there's a language ... that only they can speak."
At its best, the book is an oral history, and not just of baseball. Gibson and Jackson were part of the generation of black players, between Jackie Robinson and Jeter, who were accepted without being fully so. Gibson tells the story of an off-season barnstorming tour through the Southwest, in which the all-black Willie Mays All-Stars played the all-white Harmon Killebrew All-Stars.
To find something to eat after games, the Mays All-Stars would sometimes send one of their players into a restaurant dressed as a chauffeur, and he would emerge with food for the team. "Or Sam Jones, who was light-skinned," Gibson says, referring to a journeyman pitcher, "would pull a stocking cap down over his head, pass as white and pretend he was a deaf-mute."
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