The Better Letter: October is the Best Month
I'll start with a baseball story....
October is the best month of the year. Fall is fantastic. Leaves are turning in most of the country. The weather is usually crisp and inviting. College basketball begins practicing. The NBA season opens. It’s World Series time. And my birthday arrives, which I always associate with the Fall Classic.
The MLB post-season begins tonight and I will be watching my Padres with great hope and less confidence, wearing the new, exorbitantly priced post-season gear from Nike that I purchased at Petco Park during Tuesday evening’s win over the Giants.
Most seasons, the last regular season home series is a great time to pick up heavily discounted gear before Major League Baseball closes down in San Diego until the spring.
Not this year.
But, that’s very good news. It means there are more games to be played. The Pads face the New York Mets at Citi Field in Queens. Go Padres!
A World Series story is at the heart of this week’s TBL. If you like The Better Letter, please subscribe, share it, and forward it widely.
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Two-Sided Coin
It was my 32nd birthday, almost 34 years and thus more than half-a-lifetime ago, that Saturday evening in October, and one of the iconic moments in baseball history. The Los Angeles Dodgers were batting in the bottom of the ninth inning, trailing the Oakland A’s by a run in the first game of the World Series.1
It’s hard to overstate the extent to which Oakland was favored in the game and the Series. It didn’t help that NL MVP Kirk Gibson was not in the line-up for the Dodgers due to injury.
Mickey Hatcher equaled his regular season home run total with one swing in his first World Series at-bat, in the first inning, but the L.A. advantage was short-lived. Jose Canseco hit a grand slam in the second for the lead.2 Mike Scioscia pulled the Dodgers within 4-3 with an RBI single in the sixth, but A’s ace Dave Stewart pitched eight solid innings and handed the game over to closer Dennis Eckersley, who had saved 45 games during the regular season and been the MVP of the ALCS, with a one-run lead.
Eckersley had reinvented himself as a closer in 1988, beginning a late-career renaissance that included a World Series title in 1989, the MVP and Cy Young awards in 1992, and which eventually got him elected to the Hall of Fame.
Gibson, a former All-American football player at Michigan State, was a very tough guy. But, when Dodger manager Tom Lasorda sat down in his office to fill out the lineup card, Kirk’s name wasn’t listed. His knee wouldn’t allow it. He watched the game on television from a table in the training room, receiving treatment. He did not even appear on the field for pregame introductions.
Gibson had advised his wife to leave the game in the seventh inning to beat the traffic. He wasn’t going to play, anyway.
“I was hurting pretty bad,” Gibson said. “I had a torn hamstring tendon in my left leg and a strained medial collateral ligament in my right leg. I hurt my hamstring in Game 5 [of the NLCS] against the Mets and got a shot right after that game from Dr. [Frank] Jobe. I didn’t play in Game 6, but I did play in Game 7. Then I went to break up a double play and I slid funky because of my other leg, and that’s when I stretched my medial collateral.”
After the game began, Lasorda kept walking the tunnel from the dugout to the clubhouse to check on his star left fielder.
“How you doing, big boy?,” Lasorda asked. The answer was the same each time. “No change. No change. No change. No change.”
After the Dodgers were retired in order in the bottom of the eighth inning, Gibson swung his aching legs down from the training table to hobble toward the clubhouse. At about that time, the television cameras panned the Dodger dugout and broadcaster Scully noted that Gibson was incapable of aiding the cause.
“Well, the man who's been there for the Dodgers all season, Kirk Gibson, is not in the dugout and will not be here for them tonight.”
Gibson raged at the TV screen. “I was prepared anyway when Vin Scully said that, but I did respond.”
“I got dressed in about two minutes,” Gibson said.
Batboy Mitch Poole started setting up balls for Gibson to hit off a tee. Gibson took his swings; “they weren’t pretty, [but] I told Mitch to go down and get Tommy,” Gibson remembered. Lasorda didn’t appreciate the intrusion when Poole approached him in the dugout.
“I said, ‘Hey, get the hell away from me,’ but then he told me Gibby wanted to see me. I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I ran up that tunnel,” Lasorda said. Gibson says he “waddled.”
Gibson was still hitting off the tee when the manager reached him.
“I told Tommy, ‘You probably want to bat [Mike] Davis for [Alfredo] Griffin, and I’ll hit next,’” Gibson said.
As Gibson prepared, Eckersley was pitching the ninth inning. He got Scioscia to pop out and then struck out third baseman Jeff Hamilton. All that stood between the A's and a Game 1 win was Mike Davis, who had hit .265 with 22 home runs for Oakland in 1987, but just .196 with two home runs for L.A in ‘88.
When Gibson reached the Dodger dugout, he sat at the far end, next to Scioscia. He wanted to go out to the on-deck circle, but Lasorda had other ideas, sending Dave Anderson out there instead and instructing Gibson to stay out of sight.
“[Ron] Hassey [the Oakland catcher] sees Anderson on deck, Anderson hadn’t played in a couple of months,” Lasorda said. “Hassey’s not going to give Davis anything he can drive out of the ballpark. Did you notice all of Eckersley’s pitches were away?”
Meanwhile, Gibson watched, bat in hand — a 34 1/2-inch, 33-ounce Worth carved of white ash and dipped in black paint, the barrel stamped with block letters that spelled out his name.
“I just sat, and prayed that Davis would get on,” Gibson said.
Davis walked, even though he had more than twice as many strikeouts (59) as walks (25) during the ‘88 season. Eckersley made 22 more postseason appearances over the next decade. He never issued another free pass.
As soon as Davis flipped away his bat, Gibson was on his feet, heading to the batter’s box. He walked up the stairs and onto the field, using his bat as a cane. “Hey, look at the way he’s limping. That’s impossible,” the great Jack Buck intoned on the national radio broadcast.
“And look who’s coming up,” legendary broadcaster Vin Scully informed the NBC television audience, as Gibson limped to the plate.
Buck set the scene: “He could win the game with one swing of the bat against the best reliever in baseball.” However, “he limps very noticeably as he walks to the plate.”
Meanwhile, Dodger Stadium was having convulsions.
At this point, according to Baseball Reference, the Athletics had a 96 percent win probability (and, because of Gibson’s injuries, that almost surely understates things).
“My leg didn’t hurt when I came out of the dugout,” Gibson said. “I expected a very warm reaction from the fans, which happened. I knew the adrenaline would take over.
“But then I swung at the first pitch. I had forgotten about my hamstring, but I felt it.”
Once at the plate, Gibson lunged at the first two pitches, both fastballs, and fouled them both off. Eckersley saw that, because of the injury, Gibson “couldn’t catch-up to the fastball.” He swung at the third fastball, too, and dribbled the ball toward first base, just foul, as he gimped up the line.
Leadoff hitter Steve Sax was on deck: “When Kirk trickled that ball down the line, I was thinking, ‘Someone should shoot this animal and take him out of his misery.’”
Scully, again: “With the left knee bothering him, he can’t push off. He can’t push off and he can’t land. ... Gibson is shaking his left leg and making it quiver, like a horse trying to get rid of a troublesome fly.”
On the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Eckersley missed outside as Davis stole second, making the count three-and-two.
“When Davis steals second, the No. 1 thought was to fear the worst,” according to Oakland manager, Tony LaRussa. “I thought, ‘Oh man, [Gibson] can tie the game with a base hit.’”
Narrator: “A base hit tying the game wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to Oakland in that spot.”
Eckersley had thrown 17 ninth inning pitches to the Dodgers at that point. All were fastballs away.
“At some point in the at-bat, I started thinking about what [Dodger advance scout] Mel Didier told me, that every time Eckersley gets to 3-2, he throws a back-door slider. Here I get to 3-2 and Dennis goes into the stretch position. I call time out and step out. I said to myself, ‘Pardner, sure as I am standing here breathing, you are going to see 3-2 backdoor slider.’ Those are Mel Didier’s exact words to me.”
Didier’s scouting report had been a bit more specific, if still applicable. “[I]f Eck faces a left-handed batter only on a 3-2 pitch with the tying or winning run on second and/or third, I’ll bet that you are going to get a backdoor slider.”
“All year long, they looked to him to light the fire and all year long, he answered their demands until he was physically unable to start tonight on two bad legs,” Scully reported.
“And I’m just thinking, now, … a jam shot over the shortstop. That’s all I’m thinking,” Gibson said. He thought of it as “full emergency” mode. “I was just trying to get to the top of the order.”
Spoiler Alert: He didn’t get the Dodgers to the top of the order.
“The plan in that situation was to stay away with every pitch,” according to A’s catcher Ron Hassey. “If we were going to go inside, it was pretty much to knock him off the plate.”
But Didier was right – after 17 straight fastballs away, the A’s didn’t stick to the plan. “The pitch was not down and away [and it wasn’t a fastball]. It was in the middle. I [Eckersley] could have shaken Hassey off, but I didn’t. I thought it was the right pitch.”
“I threw him a backdoor breaking ball, which is probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” Eckersley admitted. “It was probably the only pitch he could get to. Normally, you’d think that he’d pull off, but he was so flat-footed, that was perfect for him. But I couldn’t imagine him hitting a ball that far.”
He hit it that far.
“If you look at the swing,” Gibson said, “I’m not sure how it went out. The swing was ugly [one-handed, with his back foot off the ground], but productive.”
Buck: “We have a big 3–2 pitch coming here from Eckersley. Gibson swings, and a fly ball to deep right field! This is gonna be a home run! Unbelievable! A home run for Gibson! And the Dodgers have won the game, five to four; I don't believe what I just saw! I don't believe what I just saw!”
Scully: “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”
Gibson summarized: “He threw the pitch and the ball went out.”
It did.
“The last thing on my mind was a home run. He’d seen so many fastballs, I thought he’d pull off and roll it over,” Eckersley lamented. “But he didn’t.”
No, he did not.
The ball landed several rows up the bleachers in right field. In the parking lot, a car that was leaving the ballpark famously stopped, illuminating its brake lights just as the ball landed in a sea of disbelieving Dodgers fans, as shown in the linked video above. Down on the field, Gibson was going around the bases, very slowly and gingerly, pumping his fists as he rounded second.
On the Dodger radio broadcast, Don Drysdale described how Gibson’s teammates reached out to touch him at the plate with care, as if he were a Rembrandt.
Gibson said, “The first thing I remember was as I was coming to home plate, those guys were getting ready to mob me and I didn’t want them to because I could barely stand up.”
Eckersley: “Once it sunk in, I turned around to walk off. The whole place was going nuts. I had the total opposite emotion. What a feeling. I was looking for eye contact. Not from the fans – players, in the dugout. It was like I was saying, ‘Someone, please look at me.’ Nobody did.”
Gibson’s home run immediately became baseball legend. He did not play again in the Series, but the inspired Dodgers rolled over the A’s in five games.
“I'm out there throwing a bunch of fastballs, and then finally changing my mind and throwing him a backdoor slider,” Eckersley later said. “There are regrets there, my biggest regret. Because the last thing on my mind was a home run. Truly. And it’s pretty easy. Shouldn’t have thrown him that pitch.”
A home run was Eckersley’s worst-case scenario. Had he stuck with a fastball away, Gibson could not have hit it out, as hurt as he was. He should have thrown another fastball away, he would have, at least, lived to fight another day.
The primary mechanism for human improvement is the elimination of error. Errors are inevitably part of the process, but they shouldn't become part of the pattern. Yet errors tend to pile up. Negative compounding can make a bad situation much, much worse.
Leading by 3 strokes standing on the 18th tee at the 499-yard home hole, Jean Van de Velde needed just a double-bogey 6 to claim the 1999 British Open title and become the first player from France to win The Open since Arnaud Massy in 1907.
A comedy of errors ensued, with Van de Velde hitting a grandstand, knocking an approach in the Barry Burn, wading into the water to hit it before deciding against, and finally making a 6-footer for triple-bogey to join two other players in a four-hole playoff.
Van de Velde made two bogeys and a double bogey in the play-off to lose it by three shots.
In golf, the analytical key to better performance is simple and profound: it’s easier to avoid losing shots than intentionally to gain them. In other words, eliminate mistakes. Don’t be stupid.
The same principle can be demonstrated mathematically. Gather 10 people and show them a jar that contains equal numbers of $1, $5, $20, and $100 bills. Pull one out, at random, so nobody can see, and auction it off. If the market is efficient, the bidding should top out at just below $31.50 (how much less will depend on the extent of the group’s loss aversion), the value of the average bill {(1+5+20+100)/4}. The winning bidder would have had a 75 percent chance of suffering a loss, but would have had a 25 percent chance to make $69.50.
If you repeat the process but this time allow two of the ten prospective bidders to see the bill you picked, the bidding should look quite different. If you picked a $100 bill, the insiders should be willing to pay up to $99.99 for it. Neither of them will benefit much from insider knowledge. However, if it’s a $1 bill, neither of the insiders will bid. On an expected value basis, each gained $3.05 from being an insider and avoiding a loss.
Once again, you gain more by eliminating error than you do by making a smart play.
As Charley Ellis famously demonstrated, investing and life more broadly are loser’s games much of the time, with outcomes dominated by luck rather than skill and high transaction costs. If we avoid mistakes we will generally win.
It is even more important to avoid singular catastrophic errors.
My family and I were evacuated in 2003 due to the Cedar Fire. A lost hunter lit a signal fire in hot, dry, and windy conditions that triggered one of the biggest fires in California’s history. Almost 300,000 acres of forest were destroyed, 2,322 homes lost, and 15 people killed, including one firefighter. A foolish error had catastrophic consequences.
You can’t always succeed at it, but the gameplan is clear. Eliminate errors. Keep the game going. Avoid catastrophic errors. Live to fight another day. Don’t give up the game-winning homer.
Avoiding mistakes will improve your life. That said, doing so is necessary but not sufficient to live a full and fulfilled life. In a Christian context, the Ten Commandments provide a foundation by telling us what not to do, but more is expected of us. As our prayers of confession assert, “we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” In simple terms, it isn’t enough to avoid doing bad things. We are called to do good things.
“But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love and don’t take yourself too seriously — take God seriously.”
That isn’t a faith often on display today – Christians known by their love. The faith most often seen in the U.S. today is unkind, fearful, angry, and enslaved by politics. We are called to say grace yet we spew condemnation.
All of us tend to focus on the not-now. Stressing what we won’t be doing is living in the not-now, in some abstract future. However, real love is as present as can be. Real love is acting with kindness, grace, and love right now.
We all struggle to be truly present. We want to lose weight but eat the cake. We want to be fitter but stay on the couch. We want to save money but buy the new thing. We want to have stronger relationships but don’t invest in them. We want to be better parents but don’t give our kids time and attention.
We are supposed to love people and use things. We get it backwards far too often. Remarkably, Jesus doesn’t propose making bad people good, or even better. He promises to make dead people alive to live love and speak grace.
As psychiatrist Curt Thompson pointed out, “The most prominent question to be answered is to what degree will I become a living, breathing outpost of unfailing love for those around me.” That means being embodied by and active with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
The rubber eventually meets the road. The golfer hits the shot. The pitcher throws the ball. It’s a two-sided coin: Avoid errors and make good plays.
May it be so.
Totally Worth It
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A new estimate for the total number of ants burrowing and buzzing on Earth comes to a whopping total of nearly 20 quadrillion. That staggering sum — 20,000 trillion or 20,000,000,000,000,000 — reveals ants’ astonishing ubiquity even as scientists grow concerned a possible mass die-off of insects could upend ecosystems. Put another way: If all the ants were plucked from the ground and put on a scale, they would outweigh all the wild birds and mammals put together. For every person, there are about 2.5 million ants.
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Benediction
This week’s Benediction is a song performed by Judy Collins and Pete Seeger, with lyrics from the Book of Ecclesiastes and tune by Seeger.
Recent (excellent) versions from Sara Niemietz and Josh Turner are here and here. The classic rendition by The Byrds from 1965 is here.
Amen.
Thanks for reading.
Issue 124 (October 7, 2022)
When Dave Stewart worked a walk before scoring on Conseco’s blast, Vin Scully relayed a story – no doubt from Stewart – about how the Oakland righthander’s fondest memory as a hitter was lacing a three-run triple off former Reds ace Mario Soto. This was before the DH, remember, and also before the internet. A check of the box score today (on-line, of course) shows that Stewart’s lone career triple scored just one run and came off Reds reliever Geoff Combe in the seventh inning of a game started by Soto on May 31, 1981.
Thanks for sharing, good to see you are back. I remember Kirk Gibson's homer and Orel Herscheiser's pitching in 1988, but my best personal memory was watching former Minnesota Twins outfielder baseman Mickey Hatcher. He played left field in place of Gibson.
Hatcher was a fan favorite with the Twins, and in the mid 80's he had a pretty good sized (by Twin's fans standards) fan group who called themselves "Mickey's Hatchery" in left field at the old Metrodome. That was typically where we would sit. Hatcher seemed like a real fun loving guy who enjoyed the game, and was very interactive and popular with the fans. Sadly he was released by the Twins prior to the 1987 season, the year the Twins won their first World Series. We were happy when he made it to the World Series with the Dodgers, and then he had a great performance (thanks to Retrosheet: .388, hit in every game, 2 HR, 5 RBI with 2 in games 1 and 5). It was something like good karma.