Monday, December 31, 2012

#479 - A's Celebrate/1973 World Series



And there it is. For the second time in two years Oakland won a Game Seven to take the Series title. Here Sal Bando jumps on Darold Knowles who has jumped on top of Ray Fosse after Knowles got Wayne Garrett to pop up to end the game. That appears to be umpire Russ Goetz rushing to safety in his maroon jacket before the field gets stormed by A’s fans. They’d actually already mobbed Reggie Jackson in right after the second out and time had to be called until they were escorted away from things. But for a few short moments it was good to be an A. Yeah, their very successful manager was leaving and the players all had to still put up with owner Charlie O Finley. But for the rest of the off-season the battling A’s didn’t have to battle any more and they would return essentially intact for ’74 and one more Series win. What’s a little controversy if it means three straight titles?


So once again Topps disses the pitchers, which is too bad since they generally outperformed the hitters. We remedy that below. So the Mets outhit, outscored, out-homered, out OBA’d, and, from that fat difference between runs and RBI’s, out-took-advantage-of-errors and still ended up on the losing end. But they also left a bunch more guys on base – about 68 to 58 – and, from my recall of the narratives, just weren’t as clutch. On the Oakland side Joe Rudi quietly had himself a nice Series and Gene Tenace, though he only hit .158, had a .467 OBA from all those walks – nearly half his team’s total. Reggie had a nice Series too, but he got recognized for it by being named mvp. On the NY side Rusty Staub really kicked butt and added a homer to his three from the NL championships. I love that Willie Mays went out with a respectable .286. NY was pretty democratic with the walks but poor Wayne Garrett really stands out with all those K’s. But the big question NY fans had after the Series was why wasn’t George Stone used more? On the surface the answer was pretty obvious: he was a lefty as was most of the Oakland starting roster. But Jerry Koosman and Jon Matlack were lefties also and they each got plenty of time. Stone was NY”s hottest guy down the stretch and he had a real nice start against Cincinnati in the playoffs but Yogi went with his three guys and that was the hand he dealt himself. For the Oakland guys it must have been nice for the other team to have some controversy for a change. Here are the pitching stats:



G
GS
W
L
S
IP
H
R
ER
 BB
SO
 ERA
Koosman
2
2
1
0
0
    8.2
9
3
3
     7
8
    3.12
Matlack
3
3
1
2
0
   16.2
10
7
4
     5
11
    2.16
McGraw
5
0
1
0
1
   13.2
8
5
4
     9
14
    2.63
Parker
3
0
0
1
0
     3.1
2
1
0
     2
2
       -  
Sadecki
4
0
0
0
1
    4.2
5
1
1
      1
6
    1.93
Seaver
2
2
0
1
0
   15.0
13
4
4
     3
18
    2.40
Stone
2
0
0
0
1
    3.0
4
0
0
      1
3
       -  

7
7
3
4
3
  65.0
51
21
16
   28
62
   2.22














G
GS
W
L
S
IP
H
R
ER
 BB
SO
 ERA
Blue
2
2
0
1
0
    11.0
10
6
6
     3
8
    4.91
Fingers
6
0
0
1
2
   13.2
13
5
1
     4
8
   0.66
Holtzman
3
3
2
1
0
   10.2
13
5
5
     5
6
   4.22
Hunter
3
2
1
0
0
    13.1
11
3
3
     4
6
   2.03
Knowles
7
0
0
0
2
     6.1
4
1
0
     5
5
       -  
Lindblad
3
0
1
0
0
     3.1
4
0
0
      1
1
       -  
Odom
2
0
0
0
0
    4.2
5
2
2
     2
2
   3.86
Pina
2
0
0
0
0
    3.0
6
2
0
     2
0
       -  

7
7
4
3
4
  66.0
66
24
17
   26
36
   2.32

Those are some damn good pitching lines. Lots of unearned runs, particularly behind Matlack and Fingers. And poor Tom Seaver: the guy had the best stats of anyone and only came away with a loss.

It’s December 31 and this puppy is going to bed for the year. Happy New Year!

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