6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Ron Davis LAN b. 1955, played 1987, All-Star: 1981. He had a fastball, the kind that evoked Nolan Ryan, but absolutely no secondary pitches. Ryan-like, he once struck out the last eight Angels in a May 4, 1981 game at Anaheim Stadium, tying a major league record. For the Dodgers, his most memorable moments came in a Yankees uniform as he walked Derrel Thomas and Ron Cey in the top of the eighth in Game 1 of the 1981 World Series; both later scored when Goose Gossage allowed an RBI single to Jay Johnstone, and Dusty Baker's sac fly. (Gossage had a 0.77 ERA that year in the regular season; how intolerable that must have been for the Boss!) Again in Game 4, he gave up a two-run homer to Johnstone, and Davey Lopes reached on a memorable Reggie Jackson fielding error, losing the ball in the sun, which then bounced off his chest for a two-run error. (The Times quipped that where once Jackson "beat the Dodgers once upon a time with his hip", he helped them "win one with his chest".)

The beating continued in Game 6. With the game tied 1-1 in the fourth, men on first and second, Yankees manager Bob Lemon pulled Tommy John, who had been pitching well, in favor of pinch hitter Bobby Murcer. He flied out to end the threat, but that move opened the door to the Yankees wobbly bullpen. What followed was one of the most spectacular collapses of the Yankees bullpens in World Series history, as George Frazier gave up an RBI single to Ron Cey in the fifth; two more Dodgers crossed the plate when Pedro Guerrero tripled.

After that disaster, Lemon called in Davis for the sixth to maintain a 4-1 deficit. He managed to strike out the weak-hitting Steve Yeager, and then walked pitcher Burt Hooten and Davey Lopes. Again Lemon went to his bullpen, this time for Rick Reuschel. Reuschel allowed both men a double steal, setting up an intentional walk of Steve Garvey to load the bases; Darrel Thomas then hit into a scoring fielder's choice. Dusty Baker reached when third baseman Graig Nettles, who had been playing with a slightly broken thumb, misplayed his routine grounder. Pedro Guerrero, who ended the day with five RBIs all by himself, drove in three on a bases-clearing double, making it to third on the throw.

In all, the Yankees bullpen imploded for eight runs, seven of them earned. It sealed the game and a Dodgers World Series victory; Frazier became the first pitcher in history to be the losing pitcher of three World Series games in a series that only reached six games. As for Davis, he had a four-inning cameo with the Dodgers in 1987 following an August release by the Cubs. He surrendered four runs, three of them earned, and got his walking papers in spring training the next year. The desperate Giants allowed him to pollute their bullpen for a few innings before he retired later in 1988.

Clem Labine BRO,LAN b. 1926, played 1950-1960, All-Star: 1956-1957. Why was Ralph Branca on the mound on October 3, 1951? Asking that question is like peeling an onion. For one thing, Don Newcombe had run out of gas. Charlie Dressen then asked coach Clyde Sukeforth who looked better, Branca or Clem Labine, both of whom had been warming up. Sukeforth said Branca. (Perhaps the decision was also influenced by the fact that Branca would marry into ownership just 17 days hence.)

But more importantly, Labine made an emergency start the day before, shutting down the Giants in a 10-0 complete game. Why had he made the start? Because the rotation was exhausted. It showed in the team's diffident 14-13 September. And that in turn was because, as Glenn Stout pointed out in The Dodgers, the team hadn't been built with enough depth to survive a season:

Yes, the Dodgers had lost because of Bobby Thomson's home run off Branca, but for a hundred different reasons it should never have come down to that. To blame Branca for the loss is to assign blame to the last man standing in a long row of failure. In the largest sense, the Dodgers lost because of O'Malley's and Dressen's inflated, personal overconfidence that led them to leave the obvious holes in the Dodger lineup after the 1950 season unaddressed — that's what cost Dodgers the 1951 pennant. In particular, the utter lack of left-handed relief pitching and lack of depth left the Dodgers ill equipped to face the final weeks of the season. That's what had made an apparently insurmountable lead surmountable, and that's what sent the Dodgers into the playoffs ill prepared.

Andy Messersmith CAL,LAN b. 1945, played 1968-1975, 1979, All-Star: 1971, 1974-1976. Top 100 Angel Messersmith still holds franchise records for victories; he's most famous for getting shipped to the Dodgers in an awful trade that got the Angels a handful of nothing. He eventually paved the way for modern baseball free agency when he and Dave McNally played without a contract in 1975, claiming that doing so voided the reserve clause, a position vindicated by arbitrator Peter Seitz.

Darryl Scott CAL b. 1968, played 1993