In late May 1971, Sonny Siebert and the Boston Red Sox defeated Vida Blue and the Oakland A’s at Fenway Park. John and I attended the game.
Blue’s loss was his first in almost two months. It took his record for the season to 10-2 and Siebert’s to 9-0.
Siebert and Blue faced each other again on August 11, 1971 at Fenway. Much had changed in the intervening two and a half months. Siebert was now 14-7 with an ERA about a run and one-third-higher than when he outdueled Blue. The Red Sox, in first place by four games after that game, were now in second, 6.5 games behind the defending world champion Orioles.
Blue was still going great. His record heading into the rematch with Siebert was 20-4. His ERA was 1.56, compared to 1.03 before the late-May game in Boston and 1.31 immediately thereafter.
The Oakland A’s were also thriving. After the late-May loss to the Red Sox, they were in first place, six games ahead of the Minnesota Twins. Heading into the Blue-Siebert rematch, they led the division by 13.5 games over second-place Kansas City.
The May 28 game was “standing room” only, the result of overselling tickets. John and I were among those without seats.
Attendance that night was 35,714. Attendance on August 11 was 30,781. Full capacity that year was 33,379.
Rain delayed the August 11 game by nearly two hours. When the contest finally began, the A’s jumped on Siebert, scoring two runs in the first inning on a two-out home run by Blue’s good friend and confidante Tommy Davis.
The A’s scored again in the third inning to take a 3-0 lead. With two out, Davis singled home Blue, who had bunted his way on base and had advanced to scoring position on a single by Reggie Jackson.
Siebert settled down after that, but Blue preserved the 3-0 lead through seven innings. He looked to be heading for his ninth shutout of the season.
In the bottom of the eighth, however, Blue walked pinch-hitter Phil Gagliano (batting for Siebert) and then allowed a home run to Doug Griffin. Griffin hit only seven home runs in more than 2,000 at-bats during his career.
Blue still held a one-run lead heading into the bottom of the ninth. But with one out, Rico Petrocelli tied the game with a home run. Petrocelli had rocked Blue with two homers in the late-May game. His blast in the rematch sent the game into extra innings.
Blue was scheduled to lead off the top of the tenth, and Oakland’s manager Dick Williams decided to let him hit. Blue grounded out, but Bert Campanaris followed with a single and Joe Rudi with a walk.
That brought Jackson to the plate against Boston reliever Roger Moret, a tough left-hander. Reggie didn’t hit lefties all that well (in 1971, he batted only .225 against them), but he seldom got cheated on his swings against them.
On this occasion, he hit a double that sent Campanaris home and Rudi to third base.
One out later, Boston brought in veteran Bob Bolin to face Sal Bando. Bolin unleashed a wild pitch that scored Rudi and gave Oakland a 5-3 lead.
Blue, who probably should have been replaced by a pinch hitter in the ninth, gave up back-to-back singles to Griffin and Aparicio to start the bottom of the tenth. Williams replaced his ace with Darold Knowles, one of the best left-handed relievers in the game, whom Charlie Finley had pried away from the Washington Senators along with Mike Epstein in a great trade for Oakland.
The first batter Knowles faced was switch-hitting Reggie Smith, equally dangerous from both sides of the plate. Hitting right-handed, Smith grounded into a double play.
Carl Yastrzemski was Boston’s last hope. Knowles struck him out.
As we have seen, Blue bounced back nicely from his late-May defeat at Fenway Park. However, his performance dipped after his victorious nine-plus inning outing on August 11. (We don’t know how many pitches he threw that day, but he faced 38 batters and, with nine strike outs and three walks, must have run some long counts.)
Blue’s record during the remainder of the season was 3-4. He never got that ninth shutout.
It seems clear that Dick Williams overused Blue down the stretch. From a baseball standpoint, there was no need to keep pitching him every fourth day, often for eight or nine innings. Oakland held a more than comfortable lead in the AL West.
Williams’ decision was likely dictated by Charlie Finley. The A’s had a great and exciting young team, but struggled to attract fans to the Oakland Coliseum to watch them.
Finley was desperate to reach the one million mark in attendance, a modest figure even 50 years ago. Blue was his meal ticket.
But despite the star left-hander’s appeal, Oakland would draw only 915,000 fans at home — below the league average. And Blue was ineffective in his one playoff appearance.
Still, the hard-throwing 22 year-old southpaw, pitching in his first full big-league season, went 24-8, with a 1.82 ERA. He won the AL Cy Young award and was named the league’s most valuable player.
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