The Dodgers misplaced the primary two video games of a 1981 Nationwide League playoff sequence in Houston, each in walk-off style, earlier than storming again to win three straight over the Astros in Los Angeles to win the sequence, which pitted the first-half and second-half division winners from the strike-interrupted season.
That earned them a spot within the best-of-five NL Championship Sequence, the place the Dodgers erased a two-games-to-one deficit by successful twice in frigid Montreal, together with a 2-1 Sport 5 thriller through which Rick Monday hit a game-winning two-out homer within the ninth inning of what Expos followers nonetheless discuss with as “Blue Monday.”
So when the Dodgers misplaced the primary two video games of the 1981 World Sequence in Yankee Stadium, there was no panic, no sense of dread, on the five-hour flight from New York to Los Angeles for Video games 3, 4 and 5.
“We were actually feeling pretty confident,” mentioned Ron Cey, now 76 and the third baseman on that 1981 staff. “It was like, OK, our backs are against the wall … again … and we need to respond.”
Members of the Dodgers’ 1981 World Sequence championship staff pose with their trophy previous to a recreation in 2021.
(Mark J. Terrill / Related Press)
Cey offered a haymaker of a counter-punch, slugging a three-run residence run within the first inning of Sport 3, a series-turning two-out shot that propelled the Dodgers towards 4 straight wins and a championship within the final World Sequence assembly between two of baseball’s most iconic franchises, who will resume one in all baseball’s oldest October rivalries once they open the one hundred and twentieth Fall Traditional in Dodger Stadium Friday evening.
“Anyone who discounts momentum has probably never competed on a big stage, because that [Cey homer] was momentum right there,” mentioned Monday, now 78 and in his thirty first 12 months as a radio broadcaster for the staff.
“Our club was just goofy enough to believe that even though we were down 2-0 in the series, we could come back and win this thing. I see a lot of the 1981 club in this year’s team, where they just don’t believe, at any time, that it’s impossible to win a ballgame.”
It took a sequence of clutch hits, some dazzling protection, a gutsy pitching efficiency from a 20-year-old phenom who spawned the “Fernandomania” craze that spring, a stout begin from a veteran left-hander and a deep reservoir of resilience for these Dodgers to avenge World Sequence losses to the Yankees in 1977 and 1978.
“Most of us still had a sour taste in our mouths from 1977-78, and I think that was an added incentive for us,” Monday mentioned. “It was a chance for redemption.”
Fernando Valenzuela was a teen in Mexico when Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson clubbed three Sport 6 homers to clinch that 1977 sequence and swung the 1978 sequence towards New York along with his controversial hip-check of a possible double-play relay throw to first base in Sport 4.
However the pudgy screwball specialist with the funky supply emerged because the staff’s ace in 1981, going 13-7 with a 2.48 ERA in 25 begins and successful the NL Cy Younger and Rookie of the Yr awards, a efficiency that earned him an extended leash within the postseason. Too lengthy of a leash, within the eyes of some.
Valenzuela, who died on the age of 63 on Tuesday, didn’t pitch effectively in Sport 3 in Los Angeles, giving up 4 earned runs and 9 hits, strolling seven and hanging out six. However supervisor Tommy Lasorda refused to take him out, permitting Valenzuela to throw 147 pitches in a complete-game 5-4 win.
“I don’t know if Tommy was watching this game very closely,” Cey mentioned, “because he let Fernando go the distance.”
Valenzuela gave up two runs within the second and third innings, the Yankees taking a 4-3 lead. The Dodgers scored twice within the fifth, one on a Pedro Guerrero RBI double, for a 5-4 lead.
Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valezula (34) is congratulated by teammates Mike Scioscia (14) and Ron Cey (10) after pitching an entire recreation and beating the Yankees 5-4 throughout Sport 3 of the 1981 World Sequence at Dodger Stadium.
(Robert Lachman)
Cey thwarted a Yankees rally within the eighth when, with two on and no outs, he made a spectacular diving catch of a bunt that Bobby Murcer popped into foul territory and threw to first base to double off Larry Milbourne. Valenzuela retired the aspect so as within the ninth, one in all solely two clear innings on the evening.
“I was on the bench watching that game and thinking, ‘Wow, he’s staying with him,’ ” then-Dodgers pitcher Jerry Reuss, now 75, mentioned of Lasorda. “Fernando’s tank was empty because we were pitching every fourth day, and we had to go the distance to beat Houson and Montreal … I can understand why Fernando was out of gas, because I was, too.”
Even working on fumes, Reuss pitched the Dodgers to the brink of a title.
The Dodgers erased a 6-3 deficit within the sixth inning of Sport 4 when Jay Johnstone hit a pinch-hit two-run homer, Jackson misplaced a fly ball within the solar in proper subject for a two-base error and Invoice Russell hit an RBI single. The Dodgers scored twice within the seventh (Steve Yeager sacrifice fly, Davey Lopes’ RBI single) and held on for an 8-7 win.
“Our confidence was soaring after we evened the series,” Monday mentioned. “But if you’re climbing Mount Everest, you don’t stop to high-five half-way up.”
Reuss moved the Dodgers nearer to the summit when he allowed one run and 5 hits, struck out six and walked three.in 9 innings of Sport 5, Guerrero and Yeager hitting back-to-back homers off Yankees ace Ron Guidry within the seventh to show a 1-0 deficit right into a 2-1 Dodgers win.
“It seemed like every inning until the seventh, the Yankees had a man on base, and there was a constant threat,” Reuss mentioned. “Plus, we played from behind for seven innings.
“Then we hit a couple of home runs, the momentum shifted in that game and the series, and within a week, we were world champions, and I was on ‘The Tonight Show’ with Johnny Carson. That gives you an idea of how quickly fortunes can change.”
The Dodgers blew out the Yankees 9-2 within the Sport 6 clincher in New York, however their fifth World Sequence title in franchise historical past got here with a dose of drama.
Cey, the stout slugger who was nicknamed “Penguin,” was hit within the head by a Goose Gossage fastball within the eighth inning of Sport 5 and carted off the sector. Whereas the Dodgers headed to the airport for his or her flight to New York, Cey went to Centinela Hospital, the place he was recognized with a concussion.
Outfielder Pedro Guerrero, catcher Steve Yeager and third baseman Ron Cey, who had been named most respected gamers of the Dodgers 1981 World Sequence win over the Yankees, pose for a photograph.
(Uncredited / Related Press)
“In today’s protocol, that would have been it, I would have been done for the series,” Cey mentioned. “That would have hurt a lot worse than getting hit in the head by Gossage.”
Cey was cleared to fly on the off day earlier than Sport 6, which was postponed due to rain, giving him an additional day of relaxation. Cey obtained to Yankee Stadium early earlier than Sport 6, was fitted with a brand new helmet with an ear flap and underwent a sequence of assessments to find out if he may play.
“Tommy was following me around like a shadow dog all day long, saying, ‘How do you feel? How do you feel?’ ” Cey mentioned. “He showed me a lineup card in his office, and the cleanup spot was blank. He said, ‘This is where your name is going.’ ”
Cey performed and had two hits and an RBI within the clinching win, although he departed after seven innings due to dizziness. He hit .350 (seven for 20) with a homer and 6 RBIs within the sequence and shared MVP honors with Guerrero, who had 5 RBIs within the clincher, and Yeager, who hit two homers within the sequence.
In what turned out to be a final hurrah for the long-tenured Dodgers infield of Cey, Russell, Lopes and Steve Garvey, the 4 gamers earned their solely World Sequence rings.
“You’re sitting on top of the mountain, you’ve reached the pinnacle of success, and then to have a World Series MVP tacked onto it?” Cey mentioned. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”
With the Dodgers and Yankees enjoying within the World Sequence for the primary time in 43 years, the recollections of that 1981 sequence and a fantastic October rivalry have come flooding again, particularly for Reuss, who had admittedly misplaced contact with the sport for the previous decade.
“After I wrote my book [in 2014], I really haven’t given baseball a lot of thought,” mentioned Reuss, who lives in Las Vegas. “… Growing up in St. Louis, I became interested in baseball when I was six or seven years old, when the Yankees and Dodgers were playing in the 1955 and 1956 World Series. A store in my small town of Overland, Mo., Brockman’s TV & Appliance, would put the biggest TV they had–a 27-inch black-and-white–in the window with a speaker outside, so I’d come home from school, stand on the sidewalk and watch the games.
“So when the Dodgers won [the NL Sunday night], it fired the embers that I thought had long gone out. This series has me more interested in any World Series since I retired from the game 34 years ago. Why? Because it’s Dodgers-Yankees.”
