Oct 6, 2008 11:03 pm US/Eastern
Phillies And Dodgers Meet Again In The NLCS
PHILADELPHIA (AP) ―
Back in the era of cookie-cutter stadiums, polyester
pullovers and artificial turf, baseball had another familiar sight: Phillies
vs. Dodgers for the NL pennant.
"It seemed like every
time we turned around, there were the Phillies," former Los Angeles center fielder Rick Monday
recalled.
They played in the 1977
NL championship series and the next year, too. Both times, Tom Lasorda and the
Dodgers won the best-of-five matchup in four games.
Decked out in
powder-blue uniforms, Philadelphia
did better in the 1983 NLCS and beat the Dodgers in four.
They're set to meet
again in the NLCS, starting Thursday in Philadelphia.
"Obviously, this series
brings back a lot of memories and just rekindles those games we had with them,"
said former Phillies shortstop Larry Bowa, now the Dodgers' third-base coach. "We
couldn't beat them those two years that I played, but they were good,
competitive series and we just came up short."
Bowa will see a familiar
face across the field. Former Dodgers second baseman Davey Lopes is the
Phillies' first-base coach.
Eight players appeared
in all three series between the teams, including Phillies star third baseman
Mike Schmidt, pitchers Steve Carlton and Ron Reed and center fielder Garry
Maddox.
Four Dodgers played in
each one: shortstop Bill Russell, catcher Steve Yeager, left fielder Dusty
Baker and Monday, in his 15th full season as one of the team's
broadcasters.
"To this day, Larry
Bowa and I talk about some of the games we played against one another," Monday
said. "There was such a respect that I had for Larry and some of the other
Phillies, because it was the truest sense of competition on one of the biggest
stages that you can play on—the postseason. Now we have a chance to reflect on
it a little bit more."
Led by Carlton, the Phillies brought plenty of
pitching. Their arms were not the only thing that made an impression on Monday.
"We also knew they had
a pitching staff that, if they were in street clothes, would look like an NBA
team traveling through the airport," he said.
Ron Reed, who played
two seasons with the Detroit Pistons, was the tallest member of manager Danny
Ozark's 1977 staff at 6-foot-6. Jim
Kaat, Jim Lonborg and Carlton
all were 6-5. Larry Christenson was 6-4, an inch taller than Randy Lerch and
Warren Brusstar.
Carlton
and Tommy John matched up in Games 1 and 4 that year. The series clincher was played in a steady
rain, and John outdueled the Phillies' ace 4-1 at Veterans Stadium to give
Lasorda a pennant in his first season after replacing Walter Alston as manager.
"Tommy went nuts and
let a lot of emotion out after that game," Monday said. "You have to realize,
there was a great deal of attention focused upon Tommy since day one of spring
training on how he was going to fill the shoes of a Hall of Fame manager. Well,
he filled them very well. He filled them with a Hall of Fame career of his own."
Lasorda and his players
were soaked way before they got their hands on the champagne bottles in the
clubhouse. A number of Phillies players felt the game should have been
postponed because of the elements.
"It was ridiculous,
playing that game. But we had to play it because of TV and how much they get
for broadcasting those games," Bowa said. "We thought before it even started
that it shouldn't have been played. I mean, (then-NL President) Chub Feeney was
sitting in the stands without a raincoat, and he was just drenched. But once it started, the rain was the last
thing on your mind, really."
Monday defended Feeney's
decision to let the game continue.
"It wasn't a driving rain, it
was just a very annoying rain,"he said. "But if we didn't finish that game, the
weather forecast was deplorable and then it would come down to how long would
we have to wait to finish the game. Had it been on something other than
AstroTurf, that game probably would have been called."
Longtime Phillies fans also
remember the previous day at the Vet especially that fly ball to left field.
Philadelphia took a 5-3 lead into the ninth
and Manny Mota, now a Dodgers coach, hit a drive that sent left fielder Greg
Luzinski— a slugger nicknamed "The Bull"—to the wall. The ball bounced off
Luzinski's glove for an RBI double, the key hit of the inning.
"For some reason,
(Ozark) didn't pull Bull for defense and put in Jerry Martin, which we did it
all year," Bowa said. "It was a fly ball. Bull was a big guy, so he didn't get
back to the wall quickly enough. And when he jumped, he hit the wall. Martin
was very athletic, and he would have been camped under that ball. Greg took it
very hard. In Philadelphia,
they call it 'Black Friday.' But you never blame one guy."
The Dodgers lost the
World Series to the New York Yankees in 1977 and 1978. The Phillies got their
chance to move on in 1983 -- after losing 11 of 12 to the Dodgers and getting
shut out five times during the regular season, they trounced Los Angeles.
Gary Matthews homered
in the final three games of that series and was MVP of the NLCS.
"The Dodgers were
always a team that you wanted to beat," said Matthews, now a Phillies
broadcaster. "But they were a model of a really good team. They had it going on—those
white uniforms, the whole philosophy, bleeding Dodger blue."
"They'd beaten us
pretty good that year. That's why you never can tell. Look at what happened to
the Cubs in these playoffs against the Dodgers," he said.
The Phillies finished
off that four-game victory before a raucous home crowd.
"I will tell you this:
I've been in a lot of stadiums over 19 years in the major leagues and been
fortunate to play in some World Series and some playoff games. But I don't know
if I've ever heard a stadium louder than Veterans Stadium," Monday said.
"It got to the point
where you could feel the sound. That's how loud it was," he said.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
