PAUL LINDBLAD – Sully Baseball Unsung Post Season Hero of October 16

Topps / Cardboard Gods

OCTOBER 16, 1973 – World Series Game 3

Today’s unsung post season hero, the late Paul Lindblad, had a long career where he seemed to bounce back and forth between the Athletics organization and the Senators/Rangers organization before wrapping up his career with a cameo in the Bronx. Along the way he picked up a few World Series rings and played along side a bunch of Hall of Famers over 13 seasons.

In 1973, he found himself back in Oakland helping the defending World Champs against the upstart New York Mets.

The A’s won game 1 but lost a sloppy Game 2 in extra innings, sending the series back to Shea. Errors by second baseman Mike Andrews  sparked A’s owner Charlie Finley to try and fire or release Andrews and replace him with another player. He even tried to make Andrews announce he was injured. It was an ugly incident that made an already tense A’s clubhouse worse (and eventually would lead to manager Dick Williams resigning at the end of the series.)

Two future Hall of Famers, Catfish Hunter and Tom Seaver, started Game 3. A Seaver win would give all the momentum to manager Yogi Berra and the Mets. And an A’s loss would keep the team in an emotional spiral. A lead off homer by Wayne Garrett and another run put the Mets up 2-0 in the first. Seaver kept the A’s off the board until the 6th. Oakland tied the game in the 8th but could not score in the 9th against the Mets bullpen.

Williams, having already used his best lefty reliever Darold Knowles, handed the ball to Lindblad in the bottom of the 9th after not using him in the ALCS or the first two World Series games.

Every single pitch he threw could have won the game for the Mets. He allowed a ground rule double to Rusty Staub in the 9th, but after an intentional walk, worked out of the jam.

In the 10th, he let up a single to Bud Harrleson and faced Willie Mays. Now of course Willie Mays was no longer the great player he once was. But all he needed was one swing against a journeyman left hander to put the perfect exclamation point on his career.

Instead, Lindblad got Willie Mays to ground out. It was Willie Mays’ last at bat ever.

Lindblad batted in the 11th and the A’s rallied to score a run. He took the mound in the bottom of the 11th before allowing a single to Wayne Garrett. Rollie Fingers finished the game and earned the save. But Lindblad earned the win, shutting out the Mets and denying the “You Gotta Believe” squad from a walk off win. As it turned out, the Mets did indeed win the next two games in New York but the A’s took the series in Oakland in seven games.

Had Paul Lindblad faltered, the Mets may have won it at home and Oakland’s defense of the 1972 World Series would have fallen short instead of extending to 3 straight in 1974.

Reggie Jackson won the MVP of the Series. Mike Andrews returned as a pinch hitter. But the series may have hinged on those two innings Lindblad threw.

For that reason, he is the Unsung Postseason Hero we salute on October 16th.

 

Sully Baseball Daily Podcast – July 10, 2014

PHOTO BY BECK DIEFENBACH/SPECIAL TO THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

The current Giants squad has nothing to prove nor accomplish to ensure an historical legacy. The A’s need to make the World Series NOW.

How we remember our great teams is painted entirely in October.

It is a legacy episode of The Sully Baseball Daily Podcast.

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A Request from my Cousin Dave

I’ve mentioned my Cousin Dave before.

He’s a huge Mets fan and a loyal reader of this blog.

I bet he is reading this sentence right now.

We were having one of our many e mail exchanges recently and I told him I was watching the 1973 World Series highlight film. (My brother Ted got me the World Series film collection for Christmas… a great present!)

Dave wrote me in an e mail that he wanted me to find a picture of Willie Mays complaining to the umpire after the controversial out call on Bud Harrleson in extra innings of Game 2.

And he was quite specific.

“Find a photo of that on the internet and email it to me. And not with him holding the batting helmet, I want the hands palm up to the heavens…..”

And Lord help me I looked.

And I couldn’t find one.

I found all sorts of strange stuff, including THIS, but no picture of Willie Mays, batting helmet off, palms up to the heaven from Game 2 of the 1973 World Series.

And it is up to Sully Baseball to solve this issue!

So I took my camera…

And then used the incredibly high tech process of pointing the camera at my computer screen. I just happened to have the 1973 World Series DVD still in my computer… and I snapped a few pictures.

Hey, this method worked on my 1979 World Series entry including the amazing shot of Don Stanhouse.

Then again, I was taking pictures of my HD TV… but that is nitpicking.

So, as per your request Dave, are pictures of Willie Mays, palms to Heaven, protesting the call at home plate.

And for the rest of the planet Earth, you now have these pictures on the internet, courtesty of your pal Sully.

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