THIS is baseball reporting

[Dave Kindred]

(What follows is from the heart of the Gordon Edes game story on Game 2, the anatomy of a critical play in the 8th inning.)
******


The Sox won their sixth straight Series game and fifth straight of this postseason with one never-before-seen wrinkle. Papelbon, who had not picked off a runner since he broke into the big leagues in 2006, nabbed Matt Holliday straying off first base to close out the eighth inning. Holliday had nearly taken out both Papelbon and second baseman Dustin Pedroia with a line single up the middle, his fourth hit of the night. The ball appeared to glance off Papelbon's leg and caused Pedroia, who gloved the ball with a sprawling spot, to writhe in pain after he landed heavily on the left shoulder he'd dislocated already once this postseason.

At the plate was Todd Helton, the signature player in Rockies history. But he never saw a pitch in the eighth, as Papelbon whirled and picked off Holliday.

"Probably will go down as one of the biggest outs of my career," Papelbon said.

It was not happenstance. Holliday was intending to steal - he confirmed so after the game - and the Sox had a strong suspicion he was going.

They knew that the Rockies were scouting them in the Division Series against the Angels, when Howie Kendrick stole second and third unchallenged against Papelbon in the eighth inning of a tie game.

"If you were advancing us, you would have said the same thing, that Pap is 1.8 [seconds] to the plate, and he doesn't pick," (Sox bench coach Brad) Mills said. "But it was a different situation in the game against the Angels. We didn't care if he stole, because we had confidence in Paps getting the hitter and we didn't want to take anything away from him to try to get the runner on that situation.Continued...

"We know they're advancing us, they're watching it. That night I was talking to Pap in the shower about that exact thing, and about what was to come. [Bullpen coach] Gary Tuck was talking to him about it, [pitching coach] John Farrell talked to him about it, about different things we were going to do."


When manager Terry Francona went out with trainer Paul Lessard to check on Pedroia, Mills noticed that Glenallen Hill, the Rockies' first base coach, never stopped talking to Holliday. Mills also had a color-coded chart he keeps on every player, that showed that Holliday likes to steal on the first pitch with two outs. "It was right there in my pocket," Mills said.

Indeed, it was right there on the chart, multiple steal attempts Holliday had made on the first pitch with two outs.

"You put all those things together, and it comes up, 'Hey, we're going to pick once to see where he's at, and then we're going to slide-step.'

"And, we were watching. I got a big lump in my throat because he kept inching, inching, inching off, and Pap did a great job of holding the ball, letting him get off there. And then I'm sitting there, with a lump in my throat, hoping he doesn't throw [it] away."

Papelbon made the play, Mills said. "He made the great pick."

But while it was nowhere as dramatic as Kirk Gibson knowing that Dennis Eckersley was going to throw a backdoor slider on a full count before Gibson hit one of the greatest home runs in Series history, it was a stunning example of how inside knowledge and paying extraordinary attention to detail can turn a Series.

"There are a lot of times we don't want him to throw over," Mills said. "But in this situation with Helton and [Garrett] Atkins coming up, we couldn't afford it, and it just happened to work out."

 

[hockeybeat]

That's outstanding.

Thanks Dave.

 

[silentbob]

Wow.

I kept reading and thinking, 'What a great detail.' And it just kept on coming.

Impressive indeed. Especially in a deadline situation.

Doesn't get much better than that.

Very well done.

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

Dave. This is great stuff. The details are incredible. It's why I am so angry every time an editor tells me "400 words" or "500 words" because anyone can write 400 or 500 words on a game.

I, for one, love the details.

For example, the local college QB fumble once and three an interception on the weekend. Both came while using the odd ball of three rotated into and out of the game.

That detail was cut from the story, even though the trainer gave me the head's up about the one different football, the QB talked about it in an interview with me and I held all three balls for myself.

Of three guys there, I was the only one who had all this info and it was all left out.

I'm not sure if every reporter knew (and if they did, not everyone wrote about it) that "Mills also had a color-coded chart he keeps on every player, that showed that Holliday likes to steal on the first pitch with two outs."

You have to, HAVE TO, go beyond what everyone in the stands and at home sees.

 

[Jones]

That's great stuff to get, especially out of a World Series clusterhump.

And that, dear sports editors, ain't ever coming over the wire.

 

[hockeybeat]

The following is the greatest World Series game story I've ever read:

Fisk's HR in 12th beats Reds

By Peter Gammons
Courtesy of the Boston Globe

Editor's Note: During the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies Sunday, Peter Gammons will receive the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, given annually "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing." To commemorate Peter's honor, ESPN.com -- with permission from the Boston Globe -- is reprinting his story off Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, originally published on Oct. 22, 1975.

And all of a sudden the ball was there, like the Mystic River Bridge, suspended out in the black of the morning.

When it finally crashed off the mesh attached to the left-field foul pole, one step after another the reaction unfurled: from Carlton Fisk's convulsive leap to John Kiley's booming of the "Hallelujah Chorus'' to the wearing off of numbness to the outcry that echoed across the cold New England morning.

At 12:34 a.m., in the 12th inning, Fisk's histrionic home run brought a 7-6 end to a game that will be the pride of historians in the year 2525, a game won and lost what seemed like a dozen times, and a game that brings back summertime one more day. For the seventh game of the World Series.

For this game to end so swiftly, so definitely, was the way it had to end. An inning before, a Dwight Evans catch that Sparky Anderson claimed was as great as he's ever seen had been one turn, but in the ninth a George Foster throw ruined a bases-loaded, none-out certain victory for the Red Sox. Which followed a dramatic three-run homer in the eighth by Bernie Carbo as the obituaries had been prepared, which followed the downfall of Luis Tiant after El Tiante had begun, with the help of Fred Lynn's three-run, first-inning homer, as a hero of unmatched majesty.

So Fisk had put the exclamation mark at the end of what he called "the most emotional game I've ever played in.'' The home run came off Pat Darcy and made a winner of Rick Wise, who had become the record 12th pitcher in this 241-minute war that seemed like four score and seven years.

But the place one must begin is the bottom of the eighth, Cincinnati leading, 6-3, and the end so clear. El Tiante had left in the top of the inning to what apparently was to be the last of his 1975 ovations; he who had become the conquering king had been found to be just a man, and it seemed so certain. Autumn had been postponed for the last time.

Only out came an Implausible Hero, to a two-out, two-on situation against Rawlins J. Eastwick III, and Carbo did what he had done in Cincinnati. Pinch hitting, he sent a line drive into the center-field bleachers, and the chill of lachrymose had become mad, sensuous Fenway again. Followed by the point and counterpoint.

In the ninth, a Denny Doyle walk and Carl Yastrzemski single had put runners at first and third, which sent Eastwick away and brought in lefthander Will McEnaney, who walked Fisk to load the bases and pitch to Lynn.

Lynn got the ball to the outfield, but only a high, twisting fly ball down the left-field line that George Foster grabbed at the line and maybe 80 feet in back of third base. Third-base coach Don Zimmer said he told Doyle not to go, but he went anyway, and Foster's throw got to Johnny Bench in time for the double play. As the Red Sox shook their heads, mumbling "bases loaded, nobody out in the ninth,'' the Reds had their hero in Foster, who had put them ahead in the seventh with a two-run double.

Then in the 11th, the Reds had it taken away from them by Dwight Evans. With Ken Griffey at first, one out, Joe Morgan crashed a line drive toward the seats in right. Evans made his racing, web-of-the-glove, staggering catch as he crossed the warning track ("It would have been two rows in'' -- Reds bullpen catcher Bill Plummer), then as Griffey in disbelief stopped halfway between second and third, Evans spun and fired in. Yastrzemski, who had moved to first for Carbo's entrance to left, retrieved it if to the right of the coach's box, looked up, and guess who was standing on first base, waiting for the ball? Rick Burleson, who had raced over from shortstop. So **** Drago, who worked three scoreless innings, the Red Sox, and a seventh game all had been saved.

When it was over, it was almost incomprehensible that it had begun with Tiant trying to crank out one more miracle. But it had, and for four innings, the evening was all his. They had merchandized "El Tiante'' tee shirts on the streets, they hung a banner that read "Loo-Eee For President'' and everything the man did, from taking batting practice to walking to the bullpen to warm up to the rhumbas and tangos that screwed the Reds into the ground for four innings brought standing ovations and the carol, "Loo-Eee, Loo-Eee ...''

El Tiante had a 3-0 lead from the first inning, when Lynn had followed Yastrzemski and Fisk singles by driving a Gary Nolan kumquat into the bleachers over the pitching mound of the Boston bullpen. Nolan did not last long, followed by a succession of seven, but the Billinghams, Carrolls, and Borbons had apparently done what they had to do.

And the abracadabra that had blinded the Reds before began to smudge. In the fifth, after Boston had lost two scoring opportunites, Luis walked Designated Bunter Ed Armbrister, and before he could hear his father incant Grande Olde Game No. 56 ("Walks ...''), Pete Rose singled and Griffey became the first player in three games here to hit The Wall. Not only was it the first time anyone had scored off Tiant in Fenway in 40 innings, but as the ball caromed away to be retrieved by Evans, the park went silent. In his running, leaping try for the ball at the 379-foot mark, Lynn had crashed into the wall and slid down to the ground, his back hurt.

Lynn eventually was able to stay in the game, but by the time the inning was over Bench had become the second to tickle The Wall, with a single, and it was 3-3. Then when Foster sent his drive off the center-field fence in the seventh, it was 5-3, and when Tiant was left to start the eighth, Cesar Geronimo angled a leadoff home inside the right-field pole, El Tiante left to his chant and his ovations. And in the press box, Sport Magazine editor **** Schaap began collecting the ballots that determined which Red got the World Series hero's automobile.

So, if the honey and lemon works on the throat and the Alka-Seltzer does the same for the heads, Fenway will not be alone tonight. She has one drama, and it is perhaps sport's classic drama.

Bill Lee and Don Gullett, the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox, and a long night's journey into morning, a game suspended in time as Fisk's home run was suspended beyond the skyline, a game that perhaps required the four-day buildup it got.

Summertime has been called back for just one more day -- for the seventh game of the World Series.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/gammons/story?id=2118859

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

That's great stuff to get, especially out of a World Series clusterhump.

And that, dear sports editors, ain't ever coming over the wire.

Damn right.

 

[earlyentry]

I have no idea who Mills is in last night's game story. Who is he? The online version doesn't say "Sox bench coach"...just, "said Mills."

 

[Mayfly]

I have no idea who Mills is in last night's game story. Who is he?

The Red Sox's bench coach.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

That's great stuff to get, especially out of a World Series clusterhump.

And that, dear sports editors publishers and CEOs, ain't ever coming over the wire.

Fixed that for you.

 

[BillyT]

Pete said:


I'm not sure if every reporter knew (and if they did, not everyone wrote about it) that "Mills also had a color-coded chart he keeps on every player, that showed that Holliday likes to steal on the first pitch with two outs."


How many reporters: A) knew who Mills was? B) Had the rapport with him to get that stuff?

Yep, the Gammons piece still resonates perfectly after all these years. I would love to know how quickly after the game he filed *that* version (and remember, it was pre-Internet). It wasn't as though he had a chance to pre-write the lead. And like the example today, look at the detail -- "Hallelujah Chorus," for example.

 

[playthrough]

"That night I was talking to Pap in the shower..."

How well do you have to know a source to get that?! Not exactly something a coach says into a wall of microphones. Of course, the bench coach never faces a wall of microphones, which is the point. Great job by Edes.

 

[MileHigh]

Fantastic reporting and writing by Edes.

 

[daemon]

That's great stuff to get, especially out of a World Series clusterhump.

And that, dear sports editors, ain't ever coming over the wire.

Then again, if the majority of reporters were using their access to churn out unique copy like that, it'd be a little easier to convince the dear sports editors not to rely on wire copy.

 

[Write-brained]

In the ESPN interview right after the game, Papelbon said the dugout told him to do the pickoff move ... I've been wondering ever since how it transpired. At the time, I figured someone in the dugout just saw him taking too big of a lead and made some kind of signal. Had no idea they kept records of when the other team's slugger likes to steal bases ... what an obscure stat ...

 

[Dan Rydell]

HB, I hear that Gammons guy is pretty good, too.

 

[ballscribe]

Edes: great writer, even better guy.
Was very, very good to me and supportive when I started out doing baseball. Will never forget it.

 

[Songbird]

Great read.

 

[STLIrish]

That was phenomenal, especially the shower detail.

 

[pseudo]

Damn, I love this place. Would never have seen that outstanding story otherwise; thank you for bringing it to our attention, Mr. Kindred.

And to find that legendary Gammons piece in the same thread? No matter how many times I've read it before, it gives me chills -- and makes me wish yet again that I could write one one-hundredth as well as he does.