Ted Simmons clobbered the Cubs with his bat, but he also used brains and hustle to beat them.
Fifty years ago, on May 24, 1974, Simmons outmaneuvered the Cubs, escaping a rundown between third and home to score the lone run in a 1-0 Cardinals victory.
Hardly swift, the Cardinals’ catcher evaded the Cubs’ fastest player in a race to the plate.
Cubs tormentor
Sonny Siebert of the Cardinals and the Cubs’ Rick Reuschel were locked in a scoreless duel on a Friday afternoon at Chicago’s Wrigley Field when Simmons led off the ninth.
A switch-hitter, Simmons was a frightening sight on either side of the plate to Cubs pitchers. He would hit .466 against the 1974 Cubs, with a .500 on-base percentage and .781 slugging mark. Eleven of his 34 hits versus the 1974 Cubs were for extra bases. Reuschel was a favorite target. For his career, Simmons batted .357 (30 hits) against him and walked 10 times.
Sticking to the script, Simmons smashed a double to right to start the ninth. He moved to third on Bake McBride’s sacrifice bunt. Reuschel gave an intentional pass to Joe Torre (who hit .300 against him). Ken Reitz was due up next, but Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst sent Tim McCarver to bat for him.
McCarver pulled a grounder to the right of Billy Williams, who was moved to first base from the outfield that season.
Simmons broke from third when McCarver made contact, then stopped when Williams fired an accurate throw to rookie catcher Tom Lundstedt.
“I was a dead duck,” Simmons said to United Press International.
Path opens
Lundstedt ran toward Simmons, who turned and retreated toward third. Lundstedt then tossed the ball to third baseman Matt Alexander. “I thought Lundstedt released the ball too soon,” Simmons said to United Press International.
After making the throw, Lundstedt kept advancing until he was almost even with Simmons. Pivoting, Simmons (“exhibiting amazing reflexes,” the Chicago Tribune noted) turned his back to Alexander and could hardly believe his eyes. Home plate was unguarded. “I was somewhat startled,” Simmons said to United Press International, “because (until then) there was no way I was going to score.”
Reuschel, who had left the mound to cover first base when Williams pursued McCarver’s grounder, was standing near the bag, watching the play. Williams was alongside him.
What they saw was Simmons rush past Lundstedt and rumble toward home, his batting helmet off and long hair flowing, as Alexander chased after him. “It sounded like a fire behind me,” Simmons said to United Press International.
Normally, a race between Alexander and Simmons would be no contest, but “he had too big a head start,” Alexander told the Chicago Tribune.
Though Alexander (described by the Tribune as “the fastest of the Cubs”) was gaining on him, Simmons streaked across the plate before his pursuer could apply a tag, giving the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.
Arriving too late were Reuschel and Williams, whom the Tribune described as “somewhat confused.”
Torre and McCarver advanced to third and second on the play, but Reuschel got out of the inning without allowing anymore scoring. Siebert set down the Cubs in order in the bottom of the ninth, retiring Williams, Jose Cardenal and Rick Monday to complete the shutout. Boxscore
Blame game
Cubs manager Whitey Lockman said Reuschel should have gone from first to home to cover the plate when he saw Simmons in a rundown.
“Any one of a number of players should have covered the plate, but I guess in the final analysis it should have been Reuschel,” Lockman said to United Press International.
Schoendienst told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he agreed that it was Reuschel’s responsibility to protect the plate. (Reuschel won National League Gold Glove awards when he was with the Pirates in 1985 and 1987.)
Cardinals coach George Kissell saw it differently, telling the Post-Dispatch that Williams should have covered the plate because the play was in front of him. (Two months later, Williams returned to the outfield and rookie Andre Thornton took over at first. The next year, Williams was a designated hitter for the Athletics.)
For his career against the Cubs, Simmons hit .334, including .339 at Wrigley Field.
I find that speed is often times thought of as being a great base stealer especially in today’s game where the trend is to steal more, thanks to the changes MLB made with regards to bigger bases and limited “engagements.” Why can’t they just call it pick off moves? Anyway, base running is a skill that does not necessarily require speed and I assume based on Ted Simmon’s intelligence and will to win, he was a great base runner.
Good points, Steve. Ted Simmons was a highly regarded athlete at Southfield High School in Michigan. According to Sport magazine, Simmons, a fullback, was offered football scholarships to schools such as Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Purdue. For a big guy, he knew how to move on his feet.
It’s hard to measure the impact a player has on a team in terms of the intangibles but boy am I glad that the Brewers acquired Simmons back in 1980. He even stole four bases in 1983!
If the Cardinals never won their division during the 1970’s, it wasn’t the fault of Ted Simmons. For his career he hit over .300 against all our NL East opposition except Philadelphia. Even against them however, he hit a respectable .289. There is actually a 15 second clip of this play on YouTube. Just type in Ted Simmons scores when Cubs screw up run down play. Ted was also right about Lundstedt releasing the ball too soon. Should have instead made a couple of more steps up towards 3rd base. Still though, all the credit goes to Ted Simmons.
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Phillip, thank you so much for informing me about the You Tube video of this play. I am including a link here for those who want to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBXcOD6LS4A
I also appreciate the information on how Ted Simmons fared in his career versus NL East foes. He had more career RBI (118) against the Pirates than he did versus any other team. Impressive considering how successful the Pirates were in the 1970s.
Three starting-Cardinals’ catchers of various seasons in on that play. Simmons had one additional hit against the Cubs that year, facing Bill Madlock. I hate to type this over-used word: literally.
Yep, and Tim McCarver, Joe Torre and Ted Simmons all eventually got honors in the Baseball Hall of Fame _ McCarver for his broadcasting, Torre for his managing and Simmons for his playing.
Here is the story (with video) of Ted Simmons punching the Cubs’ Bill Madlock in a 1974 game: https://retrosimba.com/2014/09/20/ted-simmons-packed-powerful-punch-versus-cubs/
Simmons not receiving the required 5% of votes to remain on the Hall of Fame ballot in his first year of eligibility is maybe the most baffling thing to me that has ever happened in the history of the HOF voting. I’m glad he finally got his due.
Yes, indeed. the vote total for Ted Simmons in his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame was an insult and an injustice. He got 17 votes, or 3.7 percent, in the 1994 balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Others receiving more votes than him that year included Bobby Bonds (37), Dave Concepcion (31), Ron Guidry (24) and Mickey Lolich (23). Simmons was one of three catchers on the ballot. The others were Joe Torre (53 votes) and Thurman Munson (31). The only player elected by the writers that year was Simmons’ Cardinals teammate, Steve Carlton, who got 436 votes in his first year of eligibility. Besides Carlton, the top five vote-getters were Orlando Cepeda (335), Phil Niekro (273), Tony Perez (263) and Don Sutton (259). They all eventually got elected.
That’s a scary baseball card as Simmons looks like the high school kid who you’d run into out in the wild and would totally mess with you and maybe even slug you and steal your money. The 80’s were a rough time, man.
Yep, Ted Simmons grew up about 15 miles from downtown Detroit. His father, Finis, was in the harness racing business and seldom was home during summers. As Jim Brosnan wrote in the book “The Ted Simmons Story, “In a tough neighborhood, Ted had learned to be hard-nosed about sports, whether it be baseball, football, basketball or hockey.”
In baseball, Simmons starred not only for the high school squad but for Kowalski’s Sausage and Baloney travel team.
Being recruited by Ohio State coach Woody Hayes turned Ted off to football. Ted was a running back in high school but Hayes wanted him to be an offensive guard at Ohio State. Hayes told him to add 20 pounds. “That was the end of my football career,” Simmons told Brosnan. “I knew that if I was a pulling guard for Woody Hayes, I’d have lost all my teeth by the time I was 20.”
So much to marvel at in this story. Two starters going into the ninth in a scoreless deadlock, a sacrifice bunt to set up the winning run, and, of course, a catcher escaping a rundown to win the game. Great story!
You summed it up well, Ken _ and all done in a relatively snappy 2 hours, 16 minutes in the afternoon.
I never get tired of seeing rundowns gone awry where the runner or runners manage to elude capture. 🙂
On July 18, 1976, the Phillies beat the Dodgers in Los Angeles because of Jerry Martin’s great escape during a rundown.
In the ninth inning, with the score tied at 1-1, the Phillies got two on with one out. Mike Schmidt was the runner at third and Greg Luzinski was at first. Manager Danny Ozark sent Martin to run for the Bull.
Facing knuckleballer Charlie Hough, Tommy Hutton pulled a sharp grounder down the first-base line. Steve Garvey grabbed it and stepped on first for the second out, then threw to shortstop Bill Russell, covering second.
Martin stopped and Russell started running toward him. Garvey moved toward Martin, too. Schmidt watched intently from third. Russell and Garvey flipped the ball back and forth too many times. On Garvey’s last toss to Russell, Martin dived head-first toward first. When Russell threw back to Garvey, Schmidt broke from third. Garvey lowered his glove, expecting Martin to be there, but, as Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia Daily News noted, Garvey “tagged nothing but air” and Martin was safe at first. Schmidt was two strides from the plate by then and all Garvey could do was hold the ball as Schmidt scored the go-ahead run.
The Phillies retired the Dodgers in the bottom of the ninth and won, 2-1: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1976/B07180LAN1976.htm
My Dad and I was at the game with the Cubs when Simba coldcocked Bill Madlock. What a beautiful sight. Reggie Smith raced in from right field. I will never forget that because I had just got my driver’s license a couple of months beforehand.
Thank you for sharing your firsthand experience with us. As Mike Shannon used to say, “Nothing beats fun at the ol’ ball orchard.”
Ted Simmons was always the sharpest and most aware player on any field he stepped onto. He was the reason I wanted to be a catcher in little league and the reason I’ve always appreciated great catchers at every level of the game. I guess the dream script would have had #23 wearing the birds on the bat in 1982, but considering it all in retrospect and having some idea about the kind of reflective man he is, I suppose it worked out perfectly for STL and for HOFer Ted Simmons, too. I can’t say it enough, but R-E-S-P-E-C-T to Simba!
Terrific comment. As Ted Simmons’ Brewers teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Paul Molitor said to “Memories and Dreams” magazine, “You realized when you talked with Teddy just how smart he was. He had a unique way of thinking. A lot of it was above most of us, to be honest. He influenced the game in a lot of ways.”