Sid Bream Does The Impossible
Last week I wrote about baseball history that took place on October 14th. I started 120 years ago, and worked my way up to 1998. But as a heady reader pointed out to me, I missed a huge moment (upon reflection, I actually missed two, but more about the second one all the way at the bottom).
On October 14, 1992, at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, history was being written and re-written. Some readers – including those who read Wikipedia – will recall “The Slide.” But before we get to the slide, we need the prologue.
The 1992 National League Championship Series pitted the Atlanta Braves against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates were in the NLCS for the third straight year, having yet to make it to the World Series. The Braves were hoping to make it back to the Fall Classic after losing to the Minnesota Twins in a 10-inning thriller in Game 7 of the 1991 version.
Atlanta won Games 1 and 2 at home, before the series traveled to Pittsburgh. The Pirates won Game 3, but dropped Game 4, and found themselves on the brink of elimination…again. A 7-1 victory at home in Game 5, and a 13-4 wipeout in Game 6 in Atlanta, set the stage for yet another Game 7 showdown.
The Pirates took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, and padded that with another run in the sixth. Doug Drabek, pitching the game of his life, took a shutout into the ninth inning. Terry Pendleton, the 1991 NL MVP – and 1992 NL MVP runner-up – led off the bottom of the ninth with a double. David Justice then hit a hard grounder that was booted by second baseman José Lind – who, ironically, would go on to win the Gold Glove. With runners on the corners and no outs, Drabek walked Sid Bream on four pitches to load the bases, put the tying run in scoring position, and the winning run on base.
Future Hall of Fame manager Jim Leyland came out and replaced Drabek with closer Stan Belinda. Ron Gant greeted Belinda with a deep sacrifice fly to left fielder Barry Bonds, cutting the lead in half. The next batter, Damon Berryhill, took a 3-1 offering that appeared to be strike two, but was called ball four, re-loading the bases. Future Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox called on Brian Hunter to hit for second baseman Rafael Belliard. Two pitches later, Hunter had popped out to second, and now the Braves were down to their final out. If Pittsburgh could escape the jam, Cox would become the first MLB manager to ever lose two playoff series in which his teams previously led 3-1 (his Blue Jays gave up a 3-1 lead and the pennant to the Kansas City Royals in 1985). Desperate times call for desperate measures. So Cox called upon Francisco Cabrera to pinch hit for pitcher Jeff Reardon. Cabrera had 11 plate appearances all season (3-for-10 with a walk), and he was 0-for-1 in this series. So what did he do? He promptly lined a 2-1 pitch to left field, scoring Justice from third to tie the game. Barry Bonds, who at this point in his career had won two Gold Gloves, and was about to win his third, and would go on to win eight in all, scooped up the ball in left field. Bonds’ throw was just to the right of home plate, and catcher Mike LaValliere needed to reach to catch it and then swipe his tag at the sliding Bream. There is no sprint speed records for 1992, but Bream – he of the five previous knee surgeries and chronic knee pain – was known to be one of the slowest runners in the game. And yet, somehow, some way, his all-out hustle and perfectly executed slide beat LaValliere’s tag by microseconds.
When the play ended and the Braves mobbed Bream at and on the plate, Pirates center fielder Andy Van Slyke could be seen sitting in the outfield watching the celebration unfold. Prior to the 2-1 pitch, Van Slyke motioned for Bonds to come in a few steps to be ready to make a play at home. As legend has it, the often mercurial Bonds flipped Van Slyke the bird and remained in his previous position.
Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS remains the first and only time in MLB history that a team was one out away of losing a deciding game and yet won that game on the last pitch (for example: Bill Mazeroski hit his famous homer in a tie game; Joe Carter’s homer won the 1993 World Series, but it was only Game 6; Edgar Martinez’s “The Double” happened with no outs).
Even though this writer forgot “The Slide” in my original article, the Atlanta 400 Baseball Fan Club never forgets, and they get together at the site of home plate at the former Fulton County Stadium each year to celebrate and pay homage to Bream’s slide and the team’s pennant victory.
PLAY BALL!!
