October 11th, 1972
National League Championship Series,
Game 5
Pittsburgh Pirates at Cincinnati Reds
Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati
The
1972 NLCS featured the defending World Series Champion Pittsburgh Pirates
against the 1970 National League Pennant winners, the Cincinnati Reds. It’s
always good to see two blue-collared cities have their sports teams play
against one another in the postseason, especially when those teams have a long
history.
While the Pirates had
just won the World Series in 1971, the Reds were a team on the verge but not
quite there yet. They had a roster consisting of Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony
Perez, George Foster and Dave Concepcion, but had not yet reached the “Big Red
Machine” status they would be labelled with during their back-to-back World
Championships in 1975 and 1976.
The Pirates had Willie
Stargell, Al Oliver, Bill Mazeroski and Roberto Clemente, and were eager to win
back-to-back World Championships. It was evident it was going to be a hard
fought series when the teams split the first two games at Three Rivers Stadium
in Pittsburgh with the Pirates taking Game 1, 5-1, and the Reds rebounding to
take Game 2, 5-3.
The Pirates regained
the series advantage with a 3-2 win in the third game, but the Reds evened it
all up with a 7-1 thrashing of Pittsburgh in Game 4, setting up the fifth and
deciding game in Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. The pitching matchup would
feature Steve Blass for Pittsburgh and Don Gullett for the Reds.
After a scoreless
first, the Pirates struck in the top of the second. A Richie Hebner double—and
an error by Darrel Chaney at short—allowed Manny Sanguillen to score and
Pittsburgh was up 1-0. The next batter, Dave Cash, singled to center, scoring
Hebner and the Pirate lead was now 2-0.
The Reds would cut the
lead in half an inning later when Pete Rose doubled, scoring Chaney and the
score was 2-1. But the Pirates restored their two-run lead in the top of the
fourth when Cash singled in Sanguillen. In the bottom of the fifth, Cesar
Geronimo hit a solo home run and the Pittsburgh lead was reduced to 3-2.
The score remained
unchanged through the sixth, seventh and eighth. After the Pirates went down in
order in the top of the ninth, they sent in relief pitcher, Dave Giusti to
close the door and send Pittsburgh back to the World Series.
But
Giusti blew the save when the first batter he faced, Bench, homered to tie the
game at three. Tony Perez then singled, putting the winning run on base. The
next batter was Denis Menke and he singled as well, moving George Foster (who
was the pinch runner for Perez) to scoring position. Giusti was out of the
game, replaced by Bob Moose.
Moose
got Geronimo to fly out to right, but Foster tagged and went to third. The
winning run was now 90 feet away. Moose got Chaney to pop out to short and now
needed only one out to get out of the jam. The batter for Cincinnati was Hal
McRae.
But
Moose threw a ball in the dirt and it got away from Pirate catcher, Sanguillen.
Foster scored easily without a throw and the Reds were going to the World
Series. They would lose the Fall Classic to the Oakland Athletics in seven
games but, as I mentioned before, would win the World Series in both 1975 and
1976.
This
game would be the final game in the career of Pittsburgh All-Star right-fielder
Roberto Clemente, as his life would tragically end just over two months later
in a plane crash. He was on his way to deliver aid to earthquake victims in
Nicaragua.
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