October 22, 1975: Game 7 of the 1975 World Series is played at Fenway Park, starting at 8:15 PM, only 19 hours and 41 minutes after a 12th inning home run by Carlton Fisk gave the Boston Red Sox a 7-6 win over the Cincinnati Reds, in a Game 6 that has been called one of the greatest games in baseball history, and maybe the greatest. As a result, people tend to forget how good Game 7 turned out to be.
Reds manager George "Sparky" Anderson started Don Gullett, and said, "No matter who wins, my starting pitcher is going to the Hall of Fame." Red Sox manager Darrell Johnson started Bill Lee, who, asked about Anderson's statement, said, "No matter who wins, I'm going to the Eliot Lounge." That was a famous Boston bar, since gone out of business. Gullett would be kept out of the Hall of Fame by shoulder woes.
He was kept from being the winning pitcher in this game by allowing 3 runs in the bottom of the 3rd inning, including an RBI single by Carl Yastrzemski and back-to-back bases-loaded walks to Rico Petrocelli and Dwight Evans.
Lee kept his shutout through 5 innings. He allowed a single to Pete Rose to lead off the top of the 6th, then got 2 outs. Then he made the biggest mistake in Red Sox history. He had been experimenting with a blooper pitch, and had used it with some success in this game. This time, he threw it to Tony Pérez, who knocked it far over the Green Monster, Fenway's left field wall, 37 feet high and 315 feet from home plate. (Or so it was labeled at the time. It was eventually relabeled 310, and some people believe it's even closer than that.) Cincinnati 3, Boston 2.
The Reds tied the game in the 7th. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Jim Burton walked Ken Griffey Sr. to start the top of the 9th. César Gerónimo bunted him over to 2nd base. One out, but now, the run that would win the World Series was in scoring position.
Dan Driessen grounded out. Two out, but now, the run that would win the World Series was in scoring position. Burton walked Rose to keep the inning alive. Joe Morgan was up, and he blooped a single into short center field, scoring Griffey. In the bottom of the 9th, Will McEnaney got Juan Beníquez to fly to right, Bob Montgomery to ground to short, and Yastrzemski to fly to center.
Cincinnati 4, Boston 3, both in this game and in the World Series. Not only has Game 6 been called baseball's "Greatest Game Ever Played," but the Series has been called the best World Series ever. At any rate, the Big Red Machine had their title, and their validation. The Red Sox, and all of New England, would have to wait.
Some people say, "The Red Sox won, 3 games to 4." It doesn't work that way.
Sports Illustrated named Rose their 1975 Sportsman of the Year.
Carl Yastrzemski, the big Sox hero of 1967, had been a hero again in 1975, but made the last out. He would also make the last out of the Playoff for the American League Eastern Division title in 1978. Still, he would remain the most popular player in Red Sox history -- until 2004.
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October 22, 1975 was a Wednesday. Historian Arnold Toynbee died. Modern Family actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Spanish soccer star Míchel Salgado were born. Venera 9, a Soviet space probe, lands on the planet Venus, and sends to Earth the 1st photographs of the surface of another planet.
Sir Hugh Fraser, a member Britain’s Parliament; his wife, historian Lady Antonia Fraser; and Caroline Kennedy, the 17-year-old daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, who was visiting them at their Holland Park home, in Kensington, West London, are almost blown up by a car bomb, placed under the wheels of his Jaguar by the Irish Republican Army. It had been triggered to go off at 9:00 AM, when he left the house.
Almost certainly, Sir Hugh was the target. The bomber was unlikely to have blown up the daughter of America’s only Irish-Catholic President if he’d known she would be there.
The bomb exploded, killing a noted cancer researcher, Gordon Hamilton-Fairley. A neighbour of the Frasers, he had been walking his dog, when he noticed something amiss and stopped to examine the bomb.
Had Fraser -- or, worse from the American perspective, Caroline -- been killed, I would have made a separate entry for this event.
College football and the NFL were in midweek. The World Football League had folded the day before. Neither the NBA nor the ABA had scheduled any games for the day.
There were 7 games in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers lost to the Buffalo Sabres, 9-1 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Rick Martin scored a "natural hat trick," scoring the 1st 3 goals of the game. Between them, Martin, René Paul Robert and Gilbert Perreault, "the French Connection Line," scored 4 goals and had 5 assists.
* The Kansas City Scouts beat the Washington Capitals, 4-2 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
* The St. Louis Blues and the Atlanta Flames played to a tie, 1-1 at The Omni in Atlanta.
* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.
* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-3 at the Chicago Stadium.
* And the California Golden Seals beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-2 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.
There was 1 game in the World Hockey Association: The Denver Spurs beat the Calgary Cowboys, 2-1 at the Stampede Corral in Calgary.
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