Tag: Cleveland Municipal Stadium

Municipal Memories Of The Tribe

Hopefully, the owners and players can come together soon on an agreement to get baseball back on the field sooner than later, and we will have some sort of season this summer.

Until then, we thought we’d write about some Municipal Stadium memories.  Games played at the old ballpark that don’t really carry any special historic significance but when friends get together, they always come up.

Here are two of them:

May 17, 1978 vs. the Yankees:  The Tribe came into this one at 15-16, six games behind the Tigers and Red Sox who were tied for 1st in the American League East.  The Yankees were 19-12, two behind.

Lefty Rick Waits started for the Indians, and he would pitch a much more important game vs. New York later in the season, defeating the Yankees on the last day of the year to force a one game playoff vs. Boston.

Ed Figueroa started for New York and the Yanks got to Waits early, opening with three straight hits, the third, a double by Thurman Munson, plated a run, and a groundout by Reggie Jackson plated a second.

Cleveland scored a run in the second to cut the lead in half, but NY scored two more in the third, a single by Roy White and an error to make it 4-1.  And when Waits got in trouble in the fourth, Tribe manager Jeff Torborg went for another southpaw, Sid Monge.

Monge came over from the Angels the year before with Bruce Bochte with Cleveland sending Dave LaRoche to California.  Monge was terrible for the rest of 1977, with a 6.23 ERA in 33 games, but he was back for the ’78 season, and had only been in two games, allowing four runs in five innings.

The Tribe drew closer with two in the bottom of the 4th on a two run single by Rick Manning.  Meanwhile, Monge was mowing down New York hitters, weirdly, based on his track record.  He allowed a lead off hit to Munson in the top of the fifth, but retired the next seven hitters.

The Tribe tied it in the bottom of the seventh on a Buddy Bell single, and Monge kept getting hitters out.  Not allowing a hit after the Munson single in the fifth.

Cleveland won it in the 10th on a triple by Paul Dade and a single by Manning.

Monge would up pitching 6-1/3 innings allowing one run and two walks.  He made two starts shortly after, but as a reliever, he went 4-2 with six saves and a 2.34 ERA.

September 28, 1984:  The Indians weren’t on NBC’s Game of the Week very often in these days, but they were to be the next day because Kansas City and Minnesota were neck and neck in the AL West standings, and the Tribe was playing the Twins.

We were sitting a couple of rows in front of NBC’s Tony Kubek for the Friday night game, and Minnesota took a 10-0 lead after two and a half innings of starter Jerry Ujdur and relievers Jeff Barkley and Jamie Easterly.

Our group yelled back to Kubek jokingly that the Tribe was coming back, but several guys in our group decided to spend the rest of the night in The Flats.

Frank Viola was on the hill for the Twins, his last start in a year where he went 18-12 with a 3.21 ERA.

The Indians got two in the bottom of the third, but erupted for seven in the bottom of the sixth to get back in the game.  Andre Thornton homered, Jerry Willard had a two run single, a Brett Butler double, an error, and a two run single by Thornton made it 10-9.

In the bottom of the eighth against Twins’ closer Ron Davis, Joe Carter hit a mammoth home run deep in the lower deck in left to tie it up.

Davis walked two of the first three hitters in the ninth, before being relieved.  Mel Hall singled to load the bases and Butler won it with another hit.

The loss knocked the Twins out of the division race, and the guys who went to The Flats?  They couldn’t believe it.

MW

 

What A Day, It’s Opening Day!

Today is the most special of days for a baseball fan, it’s Opening Day.

We aren’t going to wax poetic about it, that has been done by some of the great sportswriters who have ever put pen to paper.

However, if you are a baseball fan, you have Opening Day memories.  Some of them are great, and being born and raised in the Cleveland area, some of them are about freezing your butt off.

The opening of then Jacobs Field was an amazing day.  After a lifetime watching baseball in dilapidated Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the city had a new park for the Tribe.  It took several years for the feeling of newness to wear off.

Randy Johnson flirted with a no-hitter, carrying it into the 8th inning, before Sandy Alomar Jr. broke it up with a single, and rookie Manny Ramirez tied the game later that inning with a double.

Wayne Kirby, who will throw out the first pitch Monday in Cleveland on the 25th anniversary of the ballpark, won the game in the bottom of the 11th with a single.

With the passing of Frank Robinson this winter, our biggest memory is that of 1975, Robinson debut as the first African-American manager of a major league baseball team.  In his first at bat as a player-manager, Robinson homered off Doc Medich, while we sat in the lower deck between home plate and first base.

In 1973, we were one of the still Opening Day record of 74,420 in attendance to see Gaylord Perry outduel Mickey Lolich and the Tigers, 2-1, making a Chris Chambliss first inning two run homer stand.

The immortal Gomer Hodge sent us home happy in 1971 with a walk off single in the bottom of the ninth, beating Boston, 3-2.  Hodge had only 17 major league hits, but was a folk hero early in the season, collecting hits in his first four at bats.

He started his career going 6 for 10, mostly in a pinch-hitting role.  Unfortunately, he went 11 for 73 for the rest of his career.

Other games are memorable for another reason.

In 1986, newly acquired Phil Niekro seemingly went to 3-2 on every Detroit hitter on a very cold Friday afternoon, and the Indians went down to a 7-2 loss.  It may have been the most frigid game we had ever attended.

1992 saw the home opener go 19 innings, before a Tim Naehring homer gave Boston a 5-3 victory.  The game went six and a half hours, although most of the 65,000 who were there at the start of the game remained.

And of course, the 2007 opener in Cleveland featured the game that fell just short of being an Indians’ win because the falling snow made it impossible for players to see.  The snow didn’t stop, forcing the Tribe to play a series in against the Angels in Milwaukee because the field was unplayable.

We do have one more memory we would someday like to have.  That would be when the Indians players line up to get their World Championship rings and raise a banner commemorating a World Series title.

Perhaps next year can be that year.  All Indians’ fans can hope for that.

MW