The dominant teams of Major League Baseball in the 1970s, in order, were the Baltimore Orioles, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Oakland Athletics (they were the Swingin’ A’s then), the Cincinnati Reds, and New York Yankees.
Joe Morgan was the difference maker on the great Big Red Machine world-championship teams of 1975-76, just as Frank Robinson had become the difference maker in Baltimore (1970 world champs) and Reggie Jackson would become in New York (’77-78 world champs), having already been the so-called star of the A’s (’72-74 world champs), despite Oakland having won one of its titles without him.
The Pirates, of course, a remarkable baseball team and franchise in a remarkable baseball time, were made champions by two even more remarkable men, Roberto Clemente in 1971 and Willie Stargell in 1979.
The Reds were a great and powerful team in 1970, on the verge of becoming a team for the ages, even being known as The Big Red Machine then. They had a kid named Johnny Bench catching, The Big Bopper, Lee May, playing first base; the professional Tommy Helms at second, young Dave Concepcion and veteran Woody Woodward at shortstop, Tony Perez at third, Bernie Carbo and Hal McRae in left, Bobby Tolan in center and a hustler (in many ways we would come to learn) named Pete Rose in right.
The starting pitching was decent, but a mid-season injury to Wayne Simpson threw a wrench into that. The bullpen? Pretty good, anchored by Clay Carroll (the closer before it was a title) and a kid by the name of Don Gullett.
The Reds, though, were loaded with right-handed power hitting, which helped them run away with the National League title (beating the Pirates in the second NLCS), but would prove to be their downfall in the World Series, as the Orioles had two great left-handed starting pitchers and a third baseman by the name of Brooks Robinson.
The Reds of 1970 were a great team; the Orioles were just better. And when Cincinnati struggled in 1971 (the Giants, in Willie Mays’ last hurrah in San Francisco, won the NL West), it was apparent to Reds GM Bob Howsam that his team was top heavy with right-handed power and no speed.
Thus, the trade that nobody in Cincinnati liked from the moment it was announced, and wouldn’t like until they saw what they had received -- the Reds traded May, Helms and utility player Jimmy Stewart (not that one) to the Houston Astros for outfielder Ed Armbrister, starting pitcher Jack Billingham, center fielder César Gerónimo, utility player Denis Menke and the second baseman, Joe Morgan.
The rest was history, as Morgan immediately became the difference maker on an already ready-to-be truly great team. He had left-handed pop, he had speed and could run the bases, he was a Gold Glove second baseman and he was the leader the Reds needed.
The trade for Joe Morgan, while costly (May averaged about 35 homers a year for the Reds) is what made Cincinnati the team for the times, and for the ages, as he led them to the ’72 National League pennant (falling to the dynasty A’s in the Series) and to the world titles in 1975 and 1976, beating the Red Sox in the best World Series any of us have ever seen in 1975 before making a meal of the Yankees in a 1976 sweep.
Maybe it was because we were so young and didn’t know any better, but it seems to some of us to have been the perfect decade of baseball for our delightfully imperfect lifetimes; and it came at just the perfect time as well, as the NFL had been passing up Our Great Game as the most popular sport in the culture.
I can see it so clearly. I remember entering Memorial Stadium in the splendid neighborhood of Waverly and gasping each time the way Dorothy Gale did with her first gaze of Emerald City. We lived each week for the Willetts bus trips to Three Rivers Stadium for Sunday doubleheaders when our parents just wanted their junior high-aged kids out of the house and out of their hair, and under somebody else’s supervision …
From the 1960s and the 1970s, I can see them all; I can see their faces, and I can still imitate their batting stances and their pitching motions.
Just this year – just this perfectly horrid year – we have lost Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Whitey Ford, Joe Morgan, Lou Brock, Horace Clarke, Ed Farmer, Tony Fernandez. Bart Johnson, Lou Johnson, Jay Johnstone, Al Kaline, Eddie Kasko, Matt Keough, Don Larsen, John Miller, Biff Pocoroba, Hal Smith, Ed Sprague, Tony Taylor, Claudell Washington, Bob Watson, Jimmy Wynn …
And they were just the players you went to the park, or watched The Game of the Week, to see. So many more have gone as well, and so many more had gone before.
They say baseball is a microcosmic, but real, view of real life itself. I don’t know who they are, and I don’t even know if microcosmic is really a word. But they’re right. As the great Earl Weaver said, “Everything affects everything.”
Though we should always thank our lucky stars, this year has been dreadful. Just dreadful.
But it will get better. It will because we must make it better, and we will make it better.
For you see, even in death … baseball is life.
The emerald green of the splendid infield grass in our splendid neighborhood of Waverly.
Being dumped on a charter bus by our parents for Sunday doubleheaders in Pittsburgh. Yeah, they showed us!
Hearing Chuck Thompson sing, “Ain’t the beer cold!” … Watching Curt and Tony on The Game of the Week.
Yes, baseball is life.
And we will keep and further strengthen our life; because baseball has always helped us understand just how wonderful of a life it’s always been …
And will be again.
Everything affects everything.
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Mike Burke has been writing and covering sports since 1981. Write to him at [email protected], or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @MikeBurkeMDT and @JackYdk. Listen to him, Matt Gilmore and Lydia Savramis on their “You Don’t Know Jack” podcast. Follow “You Don’t Know Jack” on Facebook as well.