ALCS Game #6

10/15 - Tiger Stadium
White Sox 6, Tigers 4
With their backs up against the wall the Tigers went to Seth Greisinger their game 2 winner.  Chicago, having a game in hand, went with Jack Fisher who has had a shaky post season at best.  Both starters went through the first 3 innings without giving up a run.  Greisinger would have a bumpy 4th that would yield 2 runs for the Chisox.  Tommy Davis led off with a clean single and McCraw doubled to put runners on 2nd and 3rd.  Berry Singled home Davis and McCraw would score easily on a sac fly by Pete Ward.  Down 2-0 the Tigers were further behind the 8-ball considering that they had no margin for error.  A 2 run single by Joe Randa with 2 outs in the bottom of the inning would knot the game at 2.  Chicago would threaten in the 5th when Alomar singled to center with 2 out.  Davis followed with a hot smash to short that Deivi Cruz booted to put runners on 1st and 2nd.  Greisinger's day was now done, through no fault of his own.  With runners on 1st and 2nd Detroit could not take any chances, so Bryce Florie was called on to end the inning.  After fouling off a couple of pitches McCraw popped one up on the first base line that drifted foul, but not out of play.  Tony Clark was able to squeeze it in his glove and the inning was over.  A huge sigh of relief was heard coming from Michigan and Trumbull.  The bottom of the inning would give tremendous pleasure to the fans attending the game at the ballpark on the corner.  With 2 out Cruz   hit a bounding ball to second that took a bad hop and caromed off of Alomar's glove to extend the inning.  Damion Easley turned on an inside fastball from Fisher and blasted it just beyond the diving reach of Ward at third.  Cruz was on his horse since he was moving on the 0-1 pitch.  Cutoff man Aparicio elected to allow Cruz to score and take his chances getting Easley at 3rd.  On a bang bang play Easley was out by a hair trying to stretch his sure double into a triple, but the damage was done and the Tigers were now up 3-2 after 6 innings of play.

The euphoric feeling for Tiger fans was short lived.  Florie, who was so clutch the inning before by rescuing Greisinger was now the goat.  Berry would lead off the 6th with a double to right center.  Ward would follow with a seeing eyed single between the hole that separates the 1st and 2nd basemen.  Duane Josephson would single through the opposite hole to score Berry and tie the game at 3.  Doug Brocail would now be called upon to get out of a 1st and 2nd jam with nobody out.  Leon Wagner hit a bullet up the middle that Cruz lunged for and miraculously scooped.  That was the tough part of the play.  The easy part was stepping on second and relaying to first to complete the 6-3 DP.  Berry moved to third, but there was now 2 out.  Next up came the weak hitting speedster Bill Voss.  Voss has had a wonderful season in limited duty for the Chisox.  With a 1-1 count he sliced a slow roller to short that Cruz had to really get on his horse to field.  Instead of barehanding it Cruz scooped it in his glove then transferred the ball and threw to first.  That brief hesitation was just enough time to allow the speedy Voss to beat the throw to first to extend he inning and allow Berry to score the go ahead run.  Time was now ticking down on the Tiger season.  When Fisher got Easley to pop out to short to lead off the 8th the Tigers were down to 5 outs.  Wilbur Wood was now brought on to replace Fisher and get the lefty/lefty matchup  vs Higginson.  Bobby Higginson would spoil that idea by blasting a triple over Bradford's head in right with 1 out.  Where there's a pulse, there is life and the Tigers now had life with a man on 3rd and one out and their big RBI man Tony Clark stepping to the plate.  If there was a silver lining in this cloud for the White Sox it would be the fact that Clark has been mired in a deep slump all season, but all he needed to do was make one good swing and Detroit would tie this one up.  Clark's bad fortune from the regular season carried over to this at bat as he whiffed on a 1-2 knuckler to make it 2 outs.  When you live by the knuckler you can also die by it.  It's a great pitch, but it's also a double edged sword.  Wood would be nicked by that sword when one of his knucklers knuckled too much and evaded the oversized mitt of Josephson and wound up rolling to the backstop.  In the process Higginson would dash home and the game would be tied.  They don't ask how they just ask how many, and if they were asking how many at this point the answer would be 4 apiece.

The game was now tied, but the worry was still clearly visible on the face of the fans in Motown.  Everyone was on the edge of their seat when Aparicio led off the top of the 9th with a single and stole second.  When he was bunted over to third things looked good if not for Todd Jones striking out Davis and getting McCraw to ground out weakly to second the Chisox could have had a 1 run lead.  Joe Randa reached 1st successfully to lead off the bottom of the 9th thanks to an Alomar error at second.  Wood would make his knuckler dance to perfection and the next 3 batters went down weakly, which meant one thing:  Extra innings.  Neither team scored in the 10th.  In fact Jones was dominant as he fanned 3 of the last 5 batters he faced.  Wood gave up a single  to Cruz to lead off the home half of the 10th, but he fanned Easley and lucked out when Higginson's blast to right could only make it to the warning track.  DH Leon Wagner would lead off the top of the 11th with a single to right.  Buddy Bradford, who came in as a defensive replacement in the 9th stepped up to the plate.  Jones fell behind 2-1 and wasn't about to go to 3-1, so he took a little bit off the offering, which helped to speed up Bradford's bat.  Buddy turned on the pitch and launched it into the upper deck for a 2 run shot to give the Chisox a 6-4 lead.  Worrell would now come in from the pen to replace Jones, who had been so good in relief up until this point.  Worrell got the next 3 batters easily, but the pressure was now on the Tigers to get 2 runs to extend their season to a game 7.  Wood began his 4th inning of work by giving up a clean single to Luis Gonzalez.  At that point Wilhelm began throwing seriously in the pen.  Next up was Joe Randa, who had 1 hit in 4 trips to the plate today.  Randa sliced one down the right field line that Bradford made a diving catch on.  A collective groan could be heard across Michigan.  Frank Catalanotto was called upon to pinch hit for  catcher Paul Bako and he grounded weakly to Alomar at second.  It all came down to Wilbur Wood vs Juan Encarnacion with a runner on 1st.  Encarnacion was 1-4 on the day, but he eats up lefties and Wood is a lefty.  Wood wasted no time getting an 0-2 count on the batter.  Instead of wasting a pitch, which is the popular convention, Wood went right after Encarnacion and got him to ground one fittingly to Aparicio at short.  "Little Louie", who has been Chicago's MVP all year, fittingly backhanded the two hopper and threw a pea to McCraw at first to close out the game and the series.  As improbable as it sounds, the 1968 Chicago White Sox just won the AL pennant.

Chicago wins the series 4-2