RetroSimba

Bob Bailey had lots of hits against the Cardinals in his career, but it was an out he made that was most memorable.

Bailey, a right-handed hitter with power, played 17 years in the major leagues. Primarily a third baseman and left fielder, Bailey played for the Pirates (1962-1966), Dodgers (1967-1968), Expos (1969-1975), Reds (1976-1977) and Red Sox (1977-1978).

In 199 games versus the Cardinals, Bailey had 176 hits, including 20 home runs, and 82 RBI. He batted .358 (24-for-67) against the Cardinals in 1964 and .339 (20-for-59) in 1974. One of his best games occurred on May 21, 1968, when he produced five RBI for the Dodgers against the Cardinals at St. Louis.

“That Bailey makes his living off high sliders,” Cardinals catcher Ted Simmons told The Sporting News.

By 1977, when Bailey was with the Reds, he primarily was a pinch-hitter. That was the year he had a feature role in a St. Louis drama.

Big Red Machine

On May 9, 1977, a game between the Reds and Cardinals at Busch Stadium was the ABC-TV “Monday Night Baseball” national telecast. The Reds, with their powerful Big Red Machine lineup, were two-time defending World Series champions. The Cardinals, in their first season under manager Vern Rapp, were looking to make a mark after finishing 18 games under .500 in 1976.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Cardinals’ Keith Hernandez led off with a home run against Rawly Eastwick, tying the score at 5-5.

Rapp brought in Al Hrabosky to pitch the ninth. The left-hander, known as the “Mad Hungarian,” immediately got into trouble. Ken Griffey singled, Joe Morgan walked and Dan Driessen bunted for a single, loading the bases with none out. George Foster was up next and Johnny Bench was on deck. Both were right-handed power hitters.

“I thought with Foster and Bench coming up, there was no way,” Hernandez said to Dick Kaegel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I thought they’d at least get a fly ball and get a run in.”

Mind games

Hrabosky, forced by Rapp to shave his Fu Manchu in compliance with the manager’s policy banning facial hair, decided to challenge the sluggers exclusively with fastballs. “They knew it was coming,” said Simmons.

Foster struck out swinging.

Bench did the same.

With a left-handed batter, Cesar Geronimo, due up next, Reds manager Sparky Anderson sent Bailey to face Hrabosky. Bailey, whose father, Paul, played in the Cardinals’ minor-league system in 1940, batted .370 as a Reds pinch-hitter in 1976.

When the count got to 1-and-2 on Bailey, Hrabosky walked in a semicircle from the mound almost to second base, turned his back on Bailey, talked aloud to himself, pounded the ball into his mitt and stomped back onto the hill.

“I talk to the gypsy war gods,” Hrabosky said. “I work myself into a controlled rage.”

Bailey fouled off each of Hrabosky’s next three pitches. After each one, Hrabosky went behind the mound and performed his antics, heightening the tension with each delivery. “In a way, I self-hypnotize myself,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. “I learned how to manipulate my mind between pitches.”

On the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Bailey watched the ball go into Simmons’ glove for a called strike three.

Hrabosky delivered a performance worthy of Houdini, striking out three right-handed sluggers and leaving the bases loaded.

“I was completely in awe,” said Hernandez.

Said Simmons: “It was dark and all of a sudden he groped around until he found the light switch and turned it on.”

Perfect play

After the Cardinals went down in order in their half of the ninth, Hrabosky returned to pitch the 10th. He retired the first two batters before Ray Knight singled. Griffey followed with a double off the wall in right.

As Knight raced around the bases, right fielder Mike Anderson, inserted as a defensive replacement for starter Hector Cruz, fielded a carom off the padding of the wall, turned and fired a throw to the cutoff man, shortstop Don Kessinger.

“He gave me a good, high relay throw where I could handle it,” Kessinger said.

Simmons kneeled in front of home plate, awaiting the peg from Kessinger. “My theory is to block the plate. Don’t let him get there,” Simmons said.

Knight dived head-first and was tagged out by Simmons, ending the Reds’ threat.

“It was a perfect play,” Rapp told United Press International. “Anderson acted real cool and Kessinger did a superb job. Simmons knew he had the guy.”

Simmons connects

The Reds brought in Dale Murray, a right-hander, to pitch the bottom half of the 10th. His best pitch was a sinking fastball, but it had been staying up in the strike zone in recent outings. With switch-hitter Simmons, batting left-handed, leading off, Murray told Bench he would throw knuckleballs.

Hernandez tipped off Simmons that Murray might throw the knuckler. “The thing I try to do with knuckleballs is not swing until I have to,” Simmons told the Associated Press. “All you can hope is that you can gauge the speed of it.”

With the count 2-and-2, Murray delivered a knuckleball that darted toward Simmons’ right knee. He drove it over the wall in right for a walkoff home run, giving the Cardinals a 6-5 triumph. Boxscore

“It was the greatest game I ever played in,” Hernandez said.

Calling it “a game that wobbled the knees and blew the mind,” Kaegel informed Post-Dispatch readers, “It was a classic thriller, baseball at its spine-tingling best.”

Previously: 5 memorable Reds-Cardinals games of 1970s