Originally Posted by ChiTown:
I went to HS with one of Carl's daughters. Very nice family.
RIP, Whitey. You are a legend.
Carl was a " Good ' man, but I never got to meet any of his family the 2 years I played for him.
Just a little bit of history at that time, Ban Johnson & Casey Stengel Leagues always got their talent from the local colleges baseball teams in the metro area. I was the 1st kid at that time to play BJ/CS baseball that never went to or played in college.
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After thinking about this all day, I can’t help but smile as I remember how much fun Whitey Herzog made those summers.
When he took over for Jack McKeon in 75, they were above .500 but McKeon had forced Charlie Lau - who would become the hitting coach guru in the 70’s and 80’s - into a minor league role. And the homegrown pitching ace, Steve Busby threatened to quit, if something wasn’t done about McKeon. And Whitey was hired. The Royals would go on to win 91 games. But the A’s were just so damn good. And they had that ability to just turn it on in the clutch.
I saw 27 home games that season. And I just couldn’t wait for 76. In those days, you had to go to the stadium in early February to purchase blocks of tickets for opening day. And we did that every year. They lost that game to the Angels. Finished April with a 5-7 record.
Heated up in May. Then got hot in June. 51-31 at the All Star Break. Then they got super hot. Coming out of the ASB, took 5 of 6 from the Red Sox (the defending AL Champs), got their manager fired. I saw all of those games. To watch Rice, Lynn and Yaz play in that huge outfield was almost unfair. They chased balls into those rounded corners and would misplay them and the ball would hug the underside of the wall and roll toward CF. I lived a dream that summer.
Endured a collapse down the stretch as the A’s came charging until Larry Gura threw a 2 hitter in Oakland to clinch at least a tie. Then won it on fan appreciation night even though they lost 4-3.
Lost on the Chambliss HR and it crushed a young me. But looking back, I had one of the greatest summers of my life being a fan of a division winner.
There were a LOT of charming characters on those championship teams. The players would sign autographs and the bullpen would spray us down with a water hose on those scorching summer days. George Toma would ride that giant vacuum cleaner on the turf.
Thanks Whitey. You made that decade so much fun for a teenager in the 70’s.
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He was a great manager. He got criticized sometimes for his choice to go to relievers in certain situations in high-stakes games and favoring "platoon" match-ups (bringing in a right-handed pitcher against a left-handed batter and vice-versa). He brought me great joy when I was working as a food vendor at game 7 of the 1985 World Series and on three separate occasions he brought in a right-handed reliever to face the right-handed Steve Balboni. Balboni was an oddball, because he was anti-platoon that year: his .802 OPS as a right-hander batter against a right-handed pitcher was 30% better than the league overall in that situation; whereas as a right-handed batter against a left-handed pitcher his .733 OPS was 1% worse! With each of the first two relievers, Balboni added to the Royals win probability. First, with the bases loaded in the 3rd inning, he drove in a run with a single to make the score 3-0 and increasing the win probability to 94% from 89%. Then, in the 5th, after Sundberg led off with a single, Balboni got a single on the new righty reliever, bringing our win probability to 99%. We ended up scoring 6 that inning to make the score 11-0, the eventual final score.
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