Table of Content
- Donnie Moore accepted the blame and took a lot of heat
- Dave Henderson, who hit famous playoff homer against Angels, dies at 57
- Dave Henderson, ’86 Red Sox Hero With a Fateful Home Run, Dies at 57
- Dave Henderson, 1986 ALCS hero for Red Sox, dies at 57 Cause of death
- The Times’ boys’ basketball rankings: Corona Centennial stays on top
This entire game was incredible but the last five innings in particular were some of the best baseball you’ll ever see. Everything that’s great about the sport, from the heartbreak to the jubilation, is contained in those pulse-pounding innings. This is where you could really feel the momentum shift as the Red Sox seemed fired up while the Angels and the crowd were more subdued.
Initially called safe, the call was overturned after the umpires conferred and the inning was over. Replay from one angle made it look like he was out while another angle made it look like he was safe. Angels manager Gene Mauch argued the call and was tossed from the game, but in any event, the game went on with the Red Sox clinging to their 1-0 lead. The pitching matchup was a good one, with Oil Can Boyd (16-10) going up against the Angels’ John Candelaria (10-2). Boyd was dealing in the first few innings and one thing I’d forgotten about all these years later was how demonstrative and fired up he got on the mound. Up to the sixth inning, Witt had been dealing and was no hitting the Red Sox.
Donnie Moore accepted the blame and took a lot of heat
There were a couple of interesting pregame things I didn’t know or remember as the series started which I was reminded of on the broadcast. The Red Sox had home field advantage in the series and hosted games 1, 2, 6, and 7 while the Angles hosted games 3, 4, and 5. The series started on October 7, 1986, a mere two days after the Red Sox final game of the regular season. The ALCS and NLCS, which had come into being in 1969 when Major League Baseball split the two leagues into two divisions each, had been a best-of-five series from 1969 to 1984.
Kike Hernandez entered 2021 and wanted to demonstrate that he could be an everyday player in the major leagues after his time with the Los Angeles Dodgers typecast him into the role of a utility man. Reliever Garrett Whitlock hoped to establish himself as a major leaguer when the Yankees handed him a 40-man roster. That was also brought out to me with all of the takeout slides at second base and the several collisions on plays at the plate. That’s how I grew up watching and playing baseball and those two things are sorely missing in today’s game. After watching all seven games of this series, the biggest and most noticeable thing was the pace of play. The games had a pleasing, quicker pace of play that was in stark contrast to how the game is played today.
Dave Henderson, who hit famous playoff homer against Angels, dies at 57
Henderson owned and operated Dave Henderson's Ball Yard in Bellevue, WA during the 1990s. After Gedman’s blast in the second, Witt retired the next eight batters and 10 of the next 11. Gedman broke up Witt’s string with a one-out double in the fifth, but Armas flied to left and Spike Owen grounded to second.
Moore’s next pitch was a split finger fastball that didn’t dive as much as he wanted it to. Henderson swung and hit the ball over the left field wall for a two-run homer that improbably gave the Red Sox a 6-5 lead while stunning and silencing the crowd. Watching all these years later and even knowing what happened, this was still an incredibly dramatic, pulse-pounding moment. What’s been lost to the mists of time is that it was almost all for naught. After Rice struck out looking, Witt looked set finish the game and pitch the Angels into the World Series.
Dave Henderson, ’86 Red Sox Hero With a Fateful Home Run, Dies at 57
His time with Oakland included the only All-Star Game and the only World Series championship of his career. Lucas threw only one pitch — and it sailed up and in and hit Gedman on the right hand. As the Boston catcher trotted to first base, Mauch made another change, bringing in closer Donnie Moore to face Dave Henderson. When he swung and missed on a pitch low and away, Moore and the Angels were one strike away.
Witt’s full-count pitch was outside, but Baylor reached out and hooked it, pulling it to deep left. The ball carried and carried, sailing over the fence for a two-run homer. The crowd was quieter, but they knew their Angels still held a 5-4 lead — and when Dwight Evans fouled to third for the second out, they began loudly cheering again. The Anaheim Stadium crowd was roaring as Witt faced the heart of the Red Sox order in the ninth inning.
Dave Henderson World Series Stats
The Red Sox had every excuse to pack it in after the crushing loss the night before, but to their credit they came out swinging. Gedman hit a two-run homer in the second inning after almost striking out . Henderson played on three straight American League pennant winners in Oakland from 1988 to 1990, winning the World Series with the A’s in 1989. Overall, Henderson spent six seasons with Oakland, batting .263 with 104 home runs and 377 RBIs.
The Sox tried to mount a comeback in the eighth when they scored a run with runners on second and third when Angels closer Donnie Moore balked; they added another when Gedman followed with an RBI single. However, it was too little, too late and the Angels tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the inning when Ruppert Jones drove in a run visa sacrifice fly off of Red Sox closer Calvin Schiraldi. Boyd was cruising until the sixth when he gave up an RBI single to Reggie Jackson which tied the game. In the seventh, Oil Can unraveled when he gave up a solo home run to Dick Schofield, a single to Bob Boone, and a two-run homer to Gary Pettis which made it 4-1, Angels.
He caught it, but the act of crashing into the wall jarred it out of his glove and over the fence for a two-run homer and a 3-2 Angels lead. Hurst looked deflated on the mound while Grich took a curtain call in front of the frenzied crowd. Henderson’s homer gave Boston the lead in a game it eventually won in extra innings. The team also won the next two games and advanced to the World Series against the New York Mets. Henderson’s 14-year career began with the Mariners and he later played for Red Sox, San Francisco Giants, Oakland A’s and Kansas City Royals, hitting 197 home runs and driving in 708 runs during his MLB tenure.
Henderson signed as a free agent with Oakland before the 1988 season, following his brief stint with the Giants. He was the Athletics' starting center fielder on Opening Day, and appeared in a total of 146 games, including 127 complete games in center field. His performance proved to be one of the season's biggest surprises as he set career highs in batting average (.304), runs , hits , doubles , RBIs , and slugging percentage (.525).
He made his debut in 1981 and was traded to Boston during the 1986 season. He later played for the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals. In 14 seasons in the majors, Henderson was a reliable contributor to four teams that reached the World Series.
Hitters stayed in the box, pitchers stayed on the mound, and both teams just got on with the game. Because of that, the five nine-inning games in this series took an average of around two and a half hours. Even the two extra inning games in this series barely surpassed the three hour mark. It was also nice to see several nearly extinct baseball things like contact hitters, bunting to move runners over, hit and runs, and other elements of the game that are sorely missing in 2020.
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