SOME OF BASEBALL’S MORE BIZARRE MOMENTS : Hitchcock Would Be a Good Commissioner If the Games Always Ended as These Did

“It ain’t over till it’s over” --Yogi Berra

Even now, more than 20 years later, Gene Mauch displays a trace of pain as he recalls the ninth inning of that American Assn. game at Charleston, W.Va.

A tie. Two out. Winning run on third. Ted Bowsfield pitching for Mauch’s Minneapolis Millers.

“He’s on the mound looking in for a sign when he drops the ball,” Mauch said, shaking his head.

And every Little Leaguer knows what that means.

“Balk,” Mauch said. “Run scores. Game over.”

Ah, Yogi, how right you are. Just ask Mickey Owen or Floyd Bevens or Harvey Haddix or Whitey Herzog or anyone who ever wore flannels or a subsequent synthetic.

Just ask Charlie Hough.

Hough prompted this Hitchcock-like reminiscence of strange endings with his sensational-turned-bizarre performance against the Angels at Anaheim Stadium last Monday night.

Hough took a no-hitter into the ninth inning. His knuckler had the Angels swinging as if the ball were on a string. Texas led, 1-0, with one out in the ninth when Jack Howell hit a fly down the left-field line that defensive replacement George Wright dropped just before crossing the line. The official scorer called it an error. There was no argument.

Wally Joyner then singled to center, ending the no-hitter and tying the game. Joyner promptly moved to second when catcher Orlando Mercado failed to hold one of Hough’s knucklers and was charged with a passed ball, his first of the game. Hough responded by striking out Doug DeCinces, but then walked Reggie Jackson intentionally before striking out George Hendrick for what should have been the third out.

The ghost of every catcher who has tried to catch a knuckleball was now sitting on Mercado’s shoulder, however. The ball got past him, rolling approximately 15 feet behind the plate. Hendrick stood, stared, then took off for first as Mercado raced to retrieve it.

Joyner, running from second, saw Mercado go for it, figured the play would be at first and decided to go home without even looking at his coach.

Mercado retrieved the ball, thinking that Hendrick had taken off at once and that he would have no play at first. He caught sight of Joyner, cocked his arm and . . .

. . . Had no one to throw to because Hough was still near the mound, thinking that the play would be at first and forgetting that Joyner might be gambling with two out.

Joyner scored without a play, Hough’s no-hit victory having turned into a one-hit defeat. The stunning finish left Hough blaming himself, saying that he had made a stupid mistake by failing to cover the plate.

It also left the victorious Mauch shaking his head again, saying that in almost 40 years of baseball this was the “most unique” finish he had ever seen.

The redundancy seemed appropriate, for those who saw it or read about it and were subsequently contacted and asked to provide their own strangest endings, most came up empty, saying this was now the strangest in memory and that they could offer nothing in comparison.

Joe Garagiola, for instance, who was reached at his Arizona home, said:

“I read about that and tried to remember what the strangest play I had ever seen end a game was and couldn’t really come up with anything.

“To have a guy score the winning run from second on a passed ball . . . well, the crowd must have left thinking it was Halloween.”

Garagiola gave it a second effort, though, and recalled a 1950 game that his St. Louis Cardinals lost to the Brooklyn Dodgers, 9-8, after having led through seven innings, 8-0. The Dodgers scored four in the eighth and five in the ninth.

That was strange enough, Garagiola said, but stranger yet was that third baseman Tommy Glaviano made four errors, three of them in the decisive ninth inning.

“It seemed like every ground ball either went through his legs or was thrown into the second deck,” Garagiola said. “The final one, as I recall, sailed past our catcher, Del Rice, and the winning run scored.

“Tommy was in tears, devastated. He was rooming with me then and I remember that Marty Marion (the Cardinal shortstop) tried to get his mind off it by taking him to a movie. The movie was ‘D.O.A.’ ”

Games are frequently lost on errors. It is the manner of the error or the significance of the game or the number of errors or the name of the man who makes the error that locks it in memory.

Angel second baseman Bobby Grich, for instance, recalled a game that Baltimore lost at Cleveland on a ninth-inning throwing error by the peerless third baseman, Brooks Robinson.

Said Grich, who was Robinson’s teammate at the time: “We were already heading off the field, thinking extra innings, when Brooks threw it away. I’ll never forget that he then just ran to the clubhouse, threw his clothes on and left.

“The rest of us were still sitting there, wondering what had happened.”

Mauch recalled a 1961 game between his Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants, then managed by Alvin Dark.

The Giants had a runner at third with one out in the ninth, a runner at third with one out in the 10th and a runner at second with nobody out in the 11th and failed to score. Then, with Phillies at first and third and two out in the bottom of the 11th, Giant catcher Hobie Landrith, throwing the ball back to pitcher Mike McCormick, threw it over his head, allowing the winning run to score.

Said Mauch: “I mean, the Giants have a chance to win it in the ninth, 10th and 11th, then lose it when their catcher throws it over the pitcher’s head. Alvin was so angry that when he got to the clubhouse he picked up a steel stool and tried to throw it except that his little finger got caught under the seat of the stool and he ripped off the top knuckle.”

Mauch, himself, has thrown clubhouse tantrums in response to the manner of a loss. Once, with the Phillies, he upset a table of postgame spare ribs, splattering his players’ street clothes as they hung in lockers. He has mellowed somewhat now and can recall other ninth innings without the pain he experienced at the time.

There was a game at Anaheim, for example, when Mauch was managing Minnesota, and the Angels loaded the bases in the ninth. The score was tied. Mauch responded, as he does periodically, by employing a five-man infield and summoning relief pitcher Dave Johnson.

The strategy seemed right except that Johnson’s first pitch was so wild it sailed over the catcher’s head and struck the backstop screen. The runner on third had time to crawl home.

Mauch also remembered a 1961 game with Milwaukee in which his Phillies took a three-run lead into the ninth only to have the Braves load the bases with two out. Mauch had fireballing Turk Farrell on the mound. Milwaukee countered with a pinch-hitter named Mel Roach, who ultimately hit seven homers in parts of eight big-league seasons.

“The first pitch was almost in the catcher’s mitt when he swung and missed it,” Mauch said. “The second was in the catcher’s mitt when he swung and missed it.

“The third? I’ll be damned if he didn’t hit the third on the roof for a grand-slam homer.

“I mean, that wasn’t the strangest ending I’ve ever seen, but it was the most shocking.”

Bill Rigney, now an assistant to the president of the Oakland A’s, recalled that he, too, was in a state of shock after the ninth inning of a 1961 game at Washington.

He was managing the Angels, who were in their first American League season. The Angels were up by a run with two out and a runner on first. Ryne Duren, the flame throwing relief pitcher whose control was almost as bad as his vision, was pitching to Billy Klaus, a pinch-hitter.

“Klaus no more wanted to be hitting against Duren than the man in the moon,” Rigney said. “He got two strikes on him and (catcher Earl) Averill called for a fastball.

“Unfortunately, Ryne already had it loaded up (a spitball).

“Well, Klaus missed it by a foot and Averill missed it by three.”

Klaus reached first on the passed ball strikeout, and Gene Woodling, one of that period’s best hitters, then delivered a two-run double to win the game. Rigney was furious.

“I remember saying to Duren later, ‘If you wanted to throw someone a spitter, why the hell wouldn’t you throw it to Woodling instead of Klaus?’ ” he said.

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, obviously thinking there was nothing strange about his decision to pitch to Jack Clark in the ninth inning of last year’s sixth playoff game with St. Louis, cited the strange endings of a pair of triple-A games.

--The first happened in Hawaii, with Lasorda’s Albuquerque team leading, 1-0, in the ninth. There was one on for Hawaii when a sacrifice bunt was fielded by Joe Ferguson.

“Fergy has time to throw the guy out by 20 feet at second,” Lasorda said. “But he throws it into center field. The center fielder comes in to field it and the ball hits a rock or something and bounces over his head and rolls to the fence. Both runners score and we lose, 2-1.”

--Another game against Hawaii, this one at Spokane. The Islanders’ Dennis Ribant takes a no-hitter into the ninth.

“Davey Lopes popped up the first pitch and Von Joshua popped up the second,” Lasorda said. “Then Tom Paciorek hits the third for a home run and Ron Cey hits the fourth for a home run. Four pitches and he’s lost the no-hitter and the game, and when he left the field he threw his glove into the stands.”

Bob Lemon, the Hall of Fame pitcher who now does scouting for the New York Yankees, pitched no-hitters and had them pitched against him.

“Bob Turley, who was then with Baltimore, had me beat 1-0 with a no-hitter in the ninth when Al Rosen trickled a hit between the shortstop and third baseman,” Lemon recalled. “Larry Doby hit the next pitch out of the park to give us a 2-1 win.

“I mean, I had been heading for the shower. That’s how quickly the game can change on you.”

Lemon said he also had seen it happen in a game against Detroit that provided his strangest ending.

“I tripled to lead off the 11th or 12th inning and they walked the next two guys to load the bases and set up a force play,” he said. “Doby then hit a grounder to the first baseman who stepped on the base and threw home.

“I was out by 10 feet, but Aaron Robinson, the catcher, forgot that the force was off and stretched out for the throw with his foot on the plate. I scored the winning run without a play.”

Lemon also remembered managing the White Sox in a game against Boston that had similar overtones to Hough’s game against the Angels.

It was tied in the ninth with Carl Yastrzemski of Boston running from first on a full-count pitch to George Scott. The pitch was a called strike but eluded catcher Jim Essian. The pitcher, forgetting about Yastrzemski, failed to cover the plate, prompting first baseman Jim Spencer to race down.

Essian recovered the ball and instinctively fired to first, unaware that no one was there. The ball caromed into the right-field corner as Yaz breezed home with the winning run.

“I don’t care how long you’ve been around, you’ll never see it all,” Lemon said.

Is there solace then for Hough knowing he is not alone in his misery? Hough knew it before Monday. The 1986 Rangers had spent other ninth innings in the twilight zone.

--They were losing to Baltimore, 1-0, April 12. Two on, two out and two strikes on George Wright when Rich Bordi attempted a pickoff at first base and threw the ball down the right-field line. Tom Paciorek, running from second, was going to be an easy out at home, but hit catcher Rick Dempsey so hard that the ball popped loose and rolled toward the Baltimore dugout as Oddibe McDowell followed Paciorek across with the winning run.

--They were beating the Red Sox, 3-2, at Boston May 18. There was one out with Steve Lyons on second in the home ninth when Marty Barrett flared a single down the right-field line. Wright attempted a diving catch but missed, though Lyons thought he had caught it and headed back toward second as Barrett headed for the same base from the other direction.

Wright, seeing that he had two runners at second, came racing in as Lyons broke for third. Wright was at the edge of the infield and on the run when he made an off-balance throw that skipped past third baseman Steve Buechele and also eluded pitcher Greg Harris, who was backing up the play. Both Lyons and Barrett scored, giving the Red Sox a 4-3 victory.

Similarly, the Angels remembered a pair of 1985 games in which they staged strange rallies in the ninth inning.

They beat Toronto, 5-3, July 13 with a three-run rally that saw Brian Downing hit the decisive two-run homer. The drive was actually caught by George Bell as he went over the railing in left field, but a fan took it out of his glove. They then beat Detroit, 7-6, Aug. 13, scoring five runs after two were out, the big hits coming from Dick Schofield, who was batting .194 and Gary Pettis, batting .248.

All of that may stay with the managers and players who endured it, but who will ever forget:

--Brooklyn’s Mickey Owen failing to catch a third strike to the Yankees’ Tommy Henrich with two out in the top of the ninth--hasn’t it always been thought of as a game ending incident?--and the Dodgers leading Game 4 of the 1941 World Series, 4-3. The Yankees went on to score four runs and register a 7-4 victory.

--Cookie Lavagetto delivering a two-out, pinch-hit double that drove in two runs and gave the Dodgers a 3-2 victory over the Yankees in Game 4 of the 1947 World Series, the only hit allowed by Floyd Bevens, who walked 10.

--Bobby Thomson’s three-run homer in the ninth inning of Game 3 of the 1951 playoff with the Dodgers, capping the Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff by giving the Giants a 5-4 victory and the pennant.

--Harvey Haddix of Pittsburgh pitching 12 perfect innings against Milwaukee in 1959 only to lose on a 13th-inning home run by Joe Adcock, 1-0.

--The Kansas City Royals taking advantage of a controversial call by first base umpire Don Denkinger, the failure of first baseman Jack Clark to catch a pop fly, a passed ball by catcher Darrell Porter and Dane Iorg’s pinch-hit single that scored two runs and won Game 6 of last year’s World Series with the Cardinals, 2-1.

So ends a reminisence that is not designed to be a complete compilation of bizarre endings. Stephen King is at work on that. In the meantime, don’t leave early. It ain’t over . . .