Spotlight on Mickey Lolich
The Year of the Tiger: 1968
A Tribute to Mickey Lolich and Mad Anthony Wayne, Two Motown Heroes
By Evan Pritchard
Last summer I spent some time in Detroit with an old-time Tigers’ fan Bill Spaulding, (of Spaulding Electric and Wayne State fame) and we drove by the old stadium, watched a game at the new one, (which is next door to Ford Field, where this weekend's superbowl will be played) and talked about 1968 like it was yesterday. I was remembering McLain’s amazing run of wins that year, and said, “Who were the other starters in the series?” He looked at me surprised, and said, “Mickey Lolich! He did the impossible for the Tigers in the World Series. McLain was okay, but Lolich…now that was AMAZING!” That’s all he said.
He lent me a Tigers’ history book, such as one would only find in Detroit, but I got sidetracked with answering my own trivia question, which neither of us could remember: “Who was the third member of ‘The G Men?” (Greenberg, Gehringer, and Goose Goslin, in 1934) Most fans don’t remember that Goslin, who started with the old Senators in 1921, batted .344 in the 1924 Series, .308 in the 1925 series, and .250 in the 1933 series, all the Senators’ series in fact, and spent some time in St. Louis, was still in baseball then and was a G Man with the Tigers through 1937. Looking up Goslin, I forgot to look up Lolich’s stats in the 68 series.
Lolich was, in a nutshell, the “Mad Anthony Wayne” of baseball. Wayne was a man who had a lot to do with the establishment of the city of Detroit and the man for whom its largest college is named. Revolutionary War general Wayne won the battle of Stony Point in New York against impossible odds, marching all night without rest, storming an impenetrable British fortress, heavily armed, and taking the fort, and raising the colonial pennant above the parapet. It helped win the Revolution for the Americans. Lolich, on very little rest, stormed an impenetrable St. Louis Cardinals offense, a team that was heavily armed with Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, and Nelson Briles, deep inside Cardinal Stadium, and it helped the American League win the World Series and the 1968 championship flag.
We all know 1969 was the year of the Amazing Mets, and the World Series was the clash of the Titans as far as pitching was concerned. Both teams had three great starters and great bullpens. The Mets had Koosman, Seaver, and Gentry, with Nolan Ryan in the pen. The O’s had Cuellar, McNally, and Palmer, with Dave Leonard (and Watt) in the pen. That story will be retold elsewhere.
But what about the year before? What World Series was fresh in the minds of the populace as the Fall Classic started in 1969? Another upset! The Tigers versus the Cards! 1968 was the Year of the Pitcher. It was amazing that the Tigers were able to break the three-starter rule, and went into St.Looie with only two, Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich. That season, McLain was pretty fabulous, leading the AL with 31 wins, .838 win percentage, 28 complete games, and 336 innings pitched, while coming in second with 1.69 walks per game, and 280 strikeouts. His season ERA was 1.96, but in the year of the pitcher, that was only good enough for fourth place behind Tiant, McDowell and McNally. To draw attention to himself, McLain fed the pitch to Mantle that became his 535th homer, placing Mantle 3rd on the all-time list. McLain won that game, his 31st, of the season, placing him on another list, and noone has matched it since.
Mickey Lolich was pretty good too. He was 17-9 with 8 complete games, 197 strike outs, and an ERA of 3.19, just an average year for him—in some ways below average, but typical stats for a number two World Series starter. As long as McLain could “Chicago” St. Louis for Detroit, they’d have a shot. They were counting on McLain to win three, and Lolich maybe one.
How good was the competition on the mound that year? The team ERAs for that year were like none other in modern history: Tied for first as the ERA leaders in the AL were Cleveland and Baltimore with an ERA of 2.66. Third best in pitching was Detroit with 2.71, next was Chicago with 2.75, then New York fifth with 2.79, then the Twins, sixth with 2.89, then Oakland seventh with 2.94. How Frank Howard (later manager of the Mets for a few months) hit 44 homers that year is amazing.
The NL pitching was just about as good, maybe better; St. Louis, with Gibson, Carlton, and Briles, as their three super starters, and Hoerner, their superlative reliever, were the best pitching unit in the majors with a 2.49 ERA (the best in modern history; since 1920, only the ’72 Orioles come closest with 2.53, then the Cardinals of 1942 with 2.55) Second best in ERA was the LA Dodgers with .269, then the Giants with a .271ERA, the New York Mets with .272, Pittsburgh Pirates fifth with .274, and Atlanta sixth with .292. By the way, the fifth best team ERAs in both leagues that year were better than those of any team since, with the exception of 1981, the strike-split season, and 1972, the Other Year of the Pitcher.
So how did the Tigers, with only two stellar starters, beat the best pitching fleet in modern baseball history? A regiment of Red Coats led by none other than Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA, best since 1914? According to McLain, it was all thanks to Pepsi. (no popups or banners please). In fact, Mickey Lolich, the southpaw that refreshes, won three starts when McClain’s Pepsi lost its fizz. McLain and Mickey Lolich started three games apiece, which is remarkable in itself, but Lolich won all three, and McLain only got through one. It isn’t unheard of for a #1 pitcher to get three wins, but for a #2 guy, that’s amazing. To do so, he had to become the fourth starter by pitching the seventh game (instead of Wilson) on three days’ rest, against Gibson in the Battle of Cardinal Stadium.
McLain had lost the first game 4-0 to Gibson’s shutout. Lolich won the second giving up only a run in the sixth. Briles gave up three homers, and the final score was 8-1. The third starter, for the game at Detroit, was a guy named Earl Wilson, who gave up 3 runs, plus 6 walks and was pulled in the fifth, a four run inning that blew a 2-0 Tigers lead, and the game. That one ended 7-3. The fourth game was again McLain versus Gibson and again Denny didn’t have that “pick-me-up taste” and was gone by the end of the third. Gibson had one of his greatest outings, striking out ten and hitting a home run. The Tigers fell behind 3 games to 1 and faced elimination.
In the first inning of the fifth game, matched against Nelson Briles (2.81 with 19 wins and 141 strikeouts for the Cards) Lolitch gave up a home run to Orland Cepeda and three runs, and it looked bad for the Tigers. If they didn’t score at least four off of Briles it was all over. There was no great closer in the bullpen (Pat Dobson was 5-8, in spite of a 2.66 ERA; Fred Lasher? Who’s that?) And if they did win, who would pitch the sixth game in St. Louis if not McClain, now 0 and 2? McLain had lasted only 2+ innings last time, (only 72 hours or so before) and it used up the bullpen. And then who would pitch the seventh game against the world’s most dominating pitcher Bob Gibson? 34 year old Robert Earl Wilson? Ouch! I don’t think so! The Tigers’ chances were about 100 to 1. In fact the Red Sox had been in a similar jam a year earlier, against this same pitching staff, and failed miserably in the seventh game trying to stretch Jim Lomborg’s arm out over 72 hours against Gibson.
Fortunately for the Tigers, they had a skipper named Mayo Smith, who had been managing in the bigs on and off since 1955, and knew his pitchers, and apparently knew something about Lolich no one else in the stadium knew. That this guy had bollocks the size of Spaulding autographed baseballs. He knew Lolich like George Washington knew the little-known Anthony Wayne, who gave him an unthinkable task on which the fate of the nation teetered. Mayo Smith kept Lolich in!
As it turned out, the odds were turned upside-down, when Lolich went on to pitch 16 consecutive scoreless World Series innings, a la Christie Mathewson, Babe Ruth, Nolan Ryan, Orel Hirshiser, and other Hall of Famers, but he did all that in just over 72 hours, and helped the Tigers win the championship, in pretty much the same situation that had ruined the Red Sox a year earlier. The only pitcher I can think of that got so many World Series outs in such a short time was back in 1905, when Christie Mathewson pitched 27 consecutive shutout innings between October 9th and October 14th, a span of 6 days. That was a different era; if that series had happened any longer ago, it might have been mentioned in the Old Testament!
How did it happen? The Tigers won that fifth game 5-3, knocking Briles out in the 7th, then went back to St. Louis and won the sixth behind McLain, 13 to 1, knocking Washburn out in the 10 run 3rd inning, taking the pressure off Denny and making the seventh game a necessity. The problem was that Smith had no more pitchers. Again he looked to Mad Mickey Lolich.
The seventh game was a thriller, forcing Lolich to pitch a complete game on October 10th on little rest after a complete game on October 7th. Both teams went scoreless through the sixth, but in the top of the seventh, the Tigers broke through the wall against Gibson with three, and then another in the top of the ninth, to make the score 4-0. Lolich was really exhausted, but he was working on a four hit shutout. Mike Shannon hit a solo cannon shot in the bottom of the ninth, and it stopped Lolitch’s scoreless streak and his shutout, but he closed the door and won his third series game, 4-1. That last out was celebrated in downtown Detroit for weeks.
In the annals of World Series pitching, there are very few examples where one man played so far above his season par that he reversed the probable outcome of a World Series. Lolich’s World Series ERA was 1.67 in 27 World Series innings, about half his season average of 3.19. Bob Gibson also pitched 1.67 in 27 World Series innings that year, exactly the same stats. For him, however, that was higher than his average, and the result was a pitching upset like few before or since, an upset comparable perhaps only to the battle of Stony Point, in 1778, where Mad Anthony Wayne’s suicide squeeze paid off with a routing of the Red Coats and a victory for the American League.
A Tribute to Mickey Lolich and Mad Anthony Wayne, Two Motown Heroes
By Evan Pritchard
Last summer I spent some time in Detroit with an old-time Tigers’ fan Bill Spaulding, (of Spaulding Electric and Wayne State fame) and we drove by the old stadium, watched a game at the new one, (which is next door to Ford Field, where this weekend's superbowl will be played) and talked about 1968 like it was yesterday. I was remembering McLain’s amazing run of wins that year, and said, “Who were the other starters in the series?” He looked at me surprised, and said, “Mickey Lolich! He did the impossible for the Tigers in the World Series. McLain was okay, but Lolich…now that was AMAZING!” That’s all he said.
He lent me a Tigers’ history book, such as one would only find in Detroit, but I got sidetracked with answering my own trivia question, which neither of us could remember: “Who was the third member of ‘The G Men?” (Greenberg, Gehringer, and Goose Goslin, in 1934) Most fans don’t remember that Goslin, who started with the old Senators in 1921, batted .344 in the 1924 Series, .308 in the 1925 series, and .250 in the 1933 series, all the Senators’ series in fact, and spent some time in St. Louis, was still in baseball then and was a G Man with the Tigers through 1937. Looking up Goslin, I forgot to look up Lolich’s stats in the 68 series.
Lolich was, in a nutshell, the “Mad Anthony Wayne” of baseball. Wayne was a man who had a lot to do with the establishment of the city of Detroit and the man for whom its largest college is named. Revolutionary War general Wayne won the battle of Stony Point in New York against impossible odds, marching all night without rest, storming an impenetrable British fortress, heavily armed, and taking the fort, and raising the colonial pennant above the parapet. It helped win the Revolution for the Americans. Lolich, on very little rest, stormed an impenetrable St. Louis Cardinals offense, a team that was heavily armed with Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, and Nelson Briles, deep inside Cardinal Stadium, and it helped the American League win the World Series and the 1968 championship flag.
We all know 1969 was the year of the Amazing Mets, and the World Series was the clash of the Titans as far as pitching was concerned. Both teams had three great starters and great bullpens. The Mets had Koosman, Seaver, and Gentry, with Nolan Ryan in the pen. The O’s had Cuellar, McNally, and Palmer, with Dave Leonard (and Watt) in the pen. That story will be retold elsewhere.
But what about the year before? What World Series was fresh in the minds of the populace as the Fall Classic started in 1969? Another upset! The Tigers versus the Cards! 1968 was the Year of the Pitcher. It was amazing that the Tigers were able to break the three-starter rule, and went into St.Looie with only two, Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich. That season, McLain was pretty fabulous, leading the AL with 31 wins, .838 win percentage, 28 complete games, and 336 innings pitched, while coming in second with 1.69 walks per game, and 280 strikeouts. His season ERA was 1.96, but in the year of the pitcher, that was only good enough for fourth place behind Tiant, McDowell and McNally. To draw attention to himself, McLain fed the pitch to Mantle that became his 535th homer, placing Mantle 3rd on the all-time list. McLain won that game, his 31st, of the season, placing him on another list, and noone has matched it since.
Mickey Lolich was pretty good too. He was 17-9 with 8 complete games, 197 strike outs, and an ERA of 3.19, just an average year for him—in some ways below average, but typical stats for a number two World Series starter. As long as McLain could “Chicago” St. Louis for Detroit, they’d have a shot. They were counting on McLain to win three, and Lolich maybe one.
How good was the competition on the mound that year? The team ERAs for that year were like none other in modern history: Tied for first as the ERA leaders in the AL were Cleveland and Baltimore with an ERA of 2.66. Third best in pitching was Detroit with 2.71, next was Chicago with 2.75, then New York fifth with 2.79, then the Twins, sixth with 2.89, then Oakland seventh with 2.94. How Frank Howard (later manager of the Mets for a few months) hit 44 homers that year is amazing.
The NL pitching was just about as good, maybe better; St. Louis, with Gibson, Carlton, and Briles, as their three super starters, and Hoerner, their superlative reliever, were the best pitching unit in the majors with a 2.49 ERA (the best in modern history; since 1920, only the ’72 Orioles come closest with 2.53, then the Cardinals of 1942 with 2.55) Second best in ERA was the LA Dodgers with .269, then the Giants with a .271ERA, the New York Mets with .272, Pittsburgh Pirates fifth with .274, and Atlanta sixth with .292. By the way, the fifth best team ERAs in both leagues that year were better than those of any team since, with the exception of 1981, the strike-split season, and 1972, the Other Year of the Pitcher.
So how did the Tigers, with only two stellar starters, beat the best pitching fleet in modern baseball history? A regiment of Red Coats led by none other than Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA, best since 1914? According to McLain, it was all thanks to Pepsi. (no popups or banners please). In fact, Mickey Lolich, the southpaw that refreshes, won three starts when McClain’s Pepsi lost its fizz. McLain and Mickey Lolich started three games apiece, which is remarkable in itself, but Lolich won all three, and McLain only got through one. It isn’t unheard of for a #1 pitcher to get three wins, but for a #2 guy, that’s amazing. To do so, he had to become the fourth starter by pitching the seventh game (instead of Wilson) on three days’ rest, against Gibson in the Battle of Cardinal Stadium.
McLain had lost the first game 4-0 to Gibson’s shutout. Lolich won the second giving up only a run in the sixth. Briles gave up three homers, and the final score was 8-1. The third starter, for the game at Detroit, was a guy named Earl Wilson, who gave up 3 runs, plus 6 walks and was pulled in the fifth, a four run inning that blew a 2-0 Tigers lead, and the game. That one ended 7-3. The fourth game was again McLain versus Gibson and again Denny didn’t have that “pick-me-up taste” and was gone by the end of the third. Gibson had one of his greatest outings, striking out ten and hitting a home run. The Tigers fell behind 3 games to 1 and faced elimination.
In the first inning of the fifth game, matched against Nelson Briles (2.81 with 19 wins and 141 strikeouts for the Cards) Lolitch gave up a home run to Orland Cepeda and three runs, and it looked bad for the Tigers. If they didn’t score at least four off of Briles it was all over. There was no great closer in the bullpen (Pat Dobson was 5-8, in spite of a 2.66 ERA; Fred Lasher? Who’s that?) And if they did win, who would pitch the sixth game in St. Louis if not McClain, now 0 and 2? McLain had lasted only 2+ innings last time, (only 72 hours or so before) and it used up the bullpen. And then who would pitch the seventh game against the world’s most dominating pitcher Bob Gibson? 34 year old Robert Earl Wilson? Ouch! I don’t think so! The Tigers’ chances were about 100 to 1. In fact the Red Sox had been in a similar jam a year earlier, against this same pitching staff, and failed miserably in the seventh game trying to stretch Jim Lomborg’s arm out over 72 hours against Gibson.
Fortunately for the Tigers, they had a skipper named Mayo Smith, who had been managing in the bigs on and off since 1955, and knew his pitchers, and apparently knew something about Lolich no one else in the stadium knew. That this guy had bollocks the size of Spaulding autographed baseballs. He knew Lolich like George Washington knew the little-known Anthony Wayne, who gave him an unthinkable task on which the fate of the nation teetered. Mayo Smith kept Lolich in!
As it turned out, the odds were turned upside-down, when Lolich went on to pitch 16 consecutive scoreless World Series innings, a la Christie Mathewson, Babe Ruth, Nolan Ryan, Orel Hirshiser, and other Hall of Famers, but he did all that in just over 72 hours, and helped the Tigers win the championship, in pretty much the same situation that had ruined the Red Sox a year earlier. The only pitcher I can think of that got so many World Series outs in such a short time was back in 1905, when Christie Mathewson pitched 27 consecutive shutout innings between October 9th and October 14th, a span of 6 days. That was a different era; if that series had happened any longer ago, it might have been mentioned in the Old Testament!
How did it happen? The Tigers won that fifth game 5-3, knocking Briles out in the 7th, then went back to St. Louis and won the sixth behind McLain, 13 to 1, knocking Washburn out in the 10 run 3rd inning, taking the pressure off Denny and making the seventh game a necessity. The problem was that Smith had no more pitchers. Again he looked to Mad Mickey Lolich.
The seventh game was a thriller, forcing Lolich to pitch a complete game on October 10th on little rest after a complete game on October 7th. Both teams went scoreless through the sixth, but in the top of the seventh, the Tigers broke through the wall against Gibson with three, and then another in the top of the ninth, to make the score 4-0. Lolich was really exhausted, but he was working on a four hit shutout. Mike Shannon hit a solo cannon shot in the bottom of the ninth, and it stopped Lolitch’s scoreless streak and his shutout, but he closed the door and won his third series game, 4-1. That last out was celebrated in downtown Detroit for weeks.
In the annals of World Series pitching, there are very few examples where one man played so far above his season par that he reversed the probable outcome of a World Series. Lolich’s World Series ERA was 1.67 in 27 World Series innings, about half his season average of 3.19. Bob Gibson also pitched 1.67 in 27 World Series innings that year, exactly the same stats. For him, however, that was higher than his average, and the result was a pitching upset like few before or since, an upset comparable perhaps only to the battle of Stony Point, in 1778, where Mad Anthony Wayne’s suicide squeeze paid off with a routing of the Red Coats and a victory for the American League.
posted by evan pritchard | 7:44 PM
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