RetroSimba

(Updated April 29, 2018)

Like Yogi Berra, Hank Bauer, Elston Howard and Whitey Herzog, Norm Siebern was a St. Louis-area athlete who was bypassed by the Cardinals and began his professional baseball career in the Yankees organization. Toward the end of his big-league career, Siebern faced the Cardinals in the World Series and got three at-bats _  all against Bob Gibson.

Born in St. Louis and raised in the nearby town of Wellston, Mo., Siebern was an outfielder and first baseman for 12 years in the big leagues with the Yankees, Athletics, Orioles, Angels, Giants and Red Sox. He three times was named to the American League all-star team: 1962 and 1963 with the Athletics and 1964 with the Orioles.

Siebern was a basketball and baseball standout at Wellston High School in St. Louis County. He caught the attention of Yankees scout Lou Maguolo, who signed Siebern after he graduated from high school in 1951. During the baseball off-seasons, Siebern pursued a journalism degree from Missouri State (then known as Southwest Missouri) in Springfield. While there, he played on the 1952 and 1953 basketball teams that won NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) championships.

In 1957, Siebern had a breakout season with the Yankees’ Class AAA affiliate at Denver. He batted .349 with 45 doubles, 15 triples, 24 home runs, 118 RBI and 97 walks.

Boston bound

Ten years later, Siebern, 34, primarily was a pinch-hitter and role player. He began the 1967 season with the Giants and was dealt to the Red Sox in July.

The Red Sox were seeking a left-handed pinch-hitter and manager Dick Williams recommended they pursue Siebern. Williams, a St. Louis native, and Siebern were teammates with the 1960 Athletics.

Siebern hit .205 in 33 games for the 1967 Red Sox, but Williams kept him on the World Series roster.

Siebern vs. Gibson

In Game 1 at Boston, with Bob Gibson protecting a 2-1 Cardinals lead in the seventh inning, Reggie Smith was on first base with two outs when Williams sent Siebern to bat for catcher Russ Gibson. As Bob Gibson delivered a pitch, Smith attempted to swipe second and was thrown out on Tim McCarver’s peg to shortstop Dal Maxvill, ending the inning.

“He went on his own,” Williams said to The Sporting News. “I didn’t want him to go at that time.”

Because Siebern was at-bat, Williams was faced with either lifting him and wasting a plate appearance, or keeping him in the game. Williams opted for the latter, sending Siebern to play right field in place of Ken Harrelson.

Siebern led off the eighth with a single, moved to second on a bunt by Elston Howard and was stranded there. Gibson completed a six-hitter and got the win in a 2-1 Cardinals victory. Boxscore

In Game 4 at St. Louis, Siebern, batting for pitcher Dave Morehead, led off the eighth and flied out to center. The Cardinals won, 6-0, behind Gibson’s five-hit shutout. Boxscore

Final showdown

The decisive Game 7 in Boston was a matchup of aces: Gibson for the Cardinals and Jim Lonborg for the Red Sox.

Gibson again dominated.

In the eighth, the Red Sox, who trailed, 7-1, mounted their final threat. Rico Petrocelli doubled and advanced to third on Gibson’s wild pitch. Dalton Jones followed with a walk, putting runners on first and third with none out and “stirring the Boston crowd into shouts of encouragement,” The Sporting News reported.

Williams sent Siebern to bat for pitcher Jose Santiago.

In his book “From Ghetto to Glory,” Gibson said, “I was struggling. I decided to junk the fastball and go with the slider.”

Siebern, fooled by the slider, hit a groundball to Julian Javier at second. Javier tossed to Maxvill, retiring Jones at second on the force play, and Petrocelli scored from third. Siebern got a RBI, but Gibson, emboldened by the success of the slider, used it to retire the next two batters and defuse the threat.

Gibson completed a three-hitter in a 7-2 Cardinals victory, earning his third win of the World Series and carrying St. Louis to its second championship in four years. Boxscore

Siebern had this consolation: a World Series batting average of .333 (with a RBI) against the great Gibson.

The World Series duels versus Gibson were a last hurrah for Siebern. In 1968, his final big-league season, Siebern batted .067 in 27 games for the Red Sox before he was released in August.

Previously: Dick Williams couldn’t intimidate 1967 Cardinals

Previously: George Scott: Bob Gibson ‘won’t survive 5’ in Game 7

Previously: Do Cardinals still win if Dick Groat gets dealt for Roger Maris?

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In a painfully fitting ending to the most miserable inning experienced by the Cardinals, a player who helped them win a World Series title delivered a hit that prevented them from earning another championship.

On Oct. 26, 1985, in Game 6 of the World Series at Kansas City, Dane Iorg looped a two-run single against Todd Worrell in the bottom of the ninth inning, lifting the Royals from a one-run deficit to a 2-1 victory that evened the series. The Royals won Game 7 the next night, clinching their first World Series crown.

Three years earlier, Iorg had served as a designated hitter for the Cardinals in the 1982 World Series. He batted .529 (9-for-17) with four doubles, a triple and four runs scored, helping the Cardinals defeat the Brewers in seven games.

In eight seasons (1977-84) with St. Louis, Iorg batted .294, including .303 in 105 games in 1980 and .294 in 102 games in 1982. The Cardinals sold his contract to the Royals in May 1984.

Damn Denkinger

Iorg was in a position to beat the Cardinals in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series because of an infamous ninth-inning blown call by first-base umpire Don Denkinger, who ruled leadoff batter Jorge Orta safe at first base, even though Worrell, fielding a throw from first baseman Jack Clark, clearly had tagged the bag with his foot before Orta did.

With Orta on first, the Cardinals dug a deeper hole when Clark failed to catch a pop-up by Steve Balboni in foul territory _ Balboni, given a reprieve, singled _ and when Darrell Porter let a slider elude him for a passed ball, allowing runners on first and second to advance to second and third.

After Hal McRae was walked intentionally, loading the bases with one out, Royals manager Dick Howser chose Iorg to bat for reliever Dan Quisenberry.

Mix and match

In his only other at-bat of the 1985 World Series, Iorg faced Worrell in the opener and flied out to right, ending a game the Cardinals won, 3-1, but Clark had a bad feeling as Iorg batted in the ninth inning of Game 6.

“When Dane came up there, the Royals had the matchup they wanted,” Clark told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Iorg has always been tough in those situations because he puts the ball in play.’

Though a left-hander, Ricky Horton, was loosening in the Cardinals bullpen, manager Whitey Herzog chose to stick with Worrell, a right-handed rookie.

The 1985 Cardinals hadn’t lost a lead in the ninth inning all year.

“If I thought about everything that was going on around me, I would have never made it to the plate,” Iorg told the Sacramento Bee. “I would have had a heart attack before I got there.”

The showdown

Worrell’s first pitch to Iorg was taken for a ball.

“I wasn’t looking for a pitch in a specific location,” Iorg said to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “I was just looking for something I could get my bat on.”

The next pitch was belt high.

“He jammed me with a fastball,” Iorg told the Columbus Dispatch.

Said Worrell to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “I got it in on his hands.”

Iorg swung and lifted a soft liner into right field.

“It broke my bat, but I had a good enough stroke to get it to the outfield,” Iorg said. “I knew it was a hit. I was just hoping it would score two runs.”

Said Clark: “A nice piece of hitting.”

The throw

Right fielder Andy Van Slyke, who had been shaded toward right-center, said, “That ball just died on the (artificial) grass when it should have taken a good bounce up to me.”

Van Slyke retrieved the ball and unleashed a low, accurate throw toward the plate.

Pinch-runner Onix Concepcion scored easily from third with the tying run. Catcher Jim Sundberg, who had been on second base, was steaming toward the plate, representing the winning run.

“I couldn’t get the throw off I wanted to make,” said Van Slyke. “And the ball, it hung there in slow motion.”

Said Worrell: “If he (Iorg) hit it harder, we might have had a chance to get (Sundberg).”

Van Slyke’s peg was caught on the fly in front of the plate by Porter, who turned to try a sweep tag on Sundberg, diving head-first safely across the plate. Video

Special feeling

“Those are the kinds of situations that you dream about as a child when you’re in Little League or playing Babe Ruth ball,” Iorg said to the Akron Beacon-Journal. “To fulfill such a dream is very special.” Boxscore

Asked whether he had mixed emotions about beating his former team (Herzog had called Iorg “one of my favorite people.”), Iorg replied, “I didn’t think about that at all. That was a new pitcher (Worrell) that I basically never played with and a new team. The situation was important enough without thinking about the past and who it was against.”

(In the 2002 book “Whitey’s Boys,” Iorg admitted, “I had better friends on the Cardinals than on the Royals.”)

Regarding the historical impact of the hit, Iorg told the Sacramento Bee, “When I’m fishing with my brother for steelhead on the Mad River in northern California, it’ll probably hit me then. Right now, I’d like to think I did this for my father (in the lumber business). He sacrificed a lot for me to play baseball. This, in some way, is paying him back.”

Hero and villain

In his column for the Post-Dispatch, Kevin Horrigan best summarized the feelings of Cardinals fans.

“Dane Iorg got to be a hero,” Horrigan wrote. “That was the only good thing about the inning from an eastern Missouri point of view. Dane Iorg, a former Cardinal and one of the nicest men ever to wear the birds on the bat, got to be a hero by driving in the two runs with a single to right.

“In 1982, he was a World Series hero for the Cardinals. In 1985, he killed them. This was his job. Don Denkinger also killed them. This was not his job.”

Horrigan concluded, “Jesse James used to rob trains for a living. He’d ride up with his gang, pull a gun and heist the loot. Don Denkinger ought to be able to relate to that. He robbed the Cardinals blind last night.”

Previously: Dane Iorg excelled as World Series DH for Cardinals

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