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N0KFQ > TODAY 21.10.12 20:30l 52 Lines 2367 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Oct 21
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Sent: 121021/1845Z 30062@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.53
...
Oct 21, 1975:
Fisk homers off foul pole
On October 21, 1975, Boston Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk hits a
homer off the left-field pole to beat the Cincinnati Reds in the
sixth game of the World Series. The Sox went on to lose the
championship, of course. Still, even 30 years later, the films
and photos of Fisk urgently trying to wave the ball into fair
territory provide some of the game's most enduring and exciting
images. As team president Larry Lucchino pointed out, "the appeal
of baseball at its best was illustrated that night."
Before Game 6 began, the Sox were trailing the Reds three games
to two. They took an early lead_they were winning 3-0 after their
first at-bat of the game_but the Reds tied the game in the fifth.
In the top of the eighth, the Big Red Machine took a 6-3 lead.
But then, with one out to go in that inning, Red Sox pinch-hitter
Bernie Carbo stepped to the plate. He knocked a three-run homer
into the stands, and the game was tied. In the next four innings,
the teams shuffled through a remarkable 12 pitchers as they
struggled to gain the upper hand. The Sox failed to score in the
ninth with the bases loaded and nobody out, and one of their
outfielders made a miraculous catch in the 11th to prevent
Cincinnati from ending the game.
Then, at 12:34 in the morning, Carlton Fisk came to bat at the
bottom of the 12th. He cracked Pat Darcy's pitch hard to the
left. He stood at the plate, bouncing up and down and flailing at
the ball as though he was helping an airplane land on a dark
runway. "I was just wishing and hoping," he said at a ceremony a
few years ago. "Maybe, by doing it, you know, you ask something
of somebody with a higher power. I like to think that if I didn't
wave, it would have gone foul." Whether or not the waving was
responsible, the ball bounced off of the bright-yellow foul pole
above the Green Monster for a home run. Fenway's organist played
the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah while Fisk rounded
the bases.
Unfortunately, it turned out that the Curse of the Bambino was a
stubborn one after all. The Sox lost the series 4-3 the next
night, on a ninth-inning single to center field. In 2005, to
commemorate his amazing homer, the Red Sox officially named the
left-field pole after Fisk.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
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