Just more than 30 minutes after Oct. 21, 1975, had given way to Oct. 22, Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk etched his name in World Series lore. Famously waving, maybe even willing the ball fair, Fisk’s 12th-inning walk-off home run gave Boston a pulsing 7-6 victory over the Reds that would send the Series to a deciding Game 7. The following story, by managing editor Lowell Reidenbaugh, first appeared in AllSportsPeople dated Nov. 8, 1975, under the headline “Fisk’s Shot Floors Reds, Turns Boston Wild,” capturing one of baseball’s most famous World Series games, an instant classic played 50 years ago.
BOSTON — The numerals on the clock atop the scoreboard overlooking the right-field bleachers at Fenway Park stood at 12:33 a.m., October 22.
At the plate, a black 27 emblazoned across the back of his white uniform, Carlton Fisk measured a Pat Darcy "sinker down and in," and swung mightily.
The crash of bat against baseball turned 35,205 pairs of eyes peering into the New England darkness, searching for the target area.
A few steps away from the plate Fisk stopped and, like a boy at recess, did a slight jig, employed body English generously and, with hand signals, tried to prevent the missile from straying into foul territory.
When the baseball at last caromed off the foul pole for a home run, Fisk leaped convulsively and undertook his romp around the bases.
KIDS POURED from the stands, ignoring attendants and security personnel so they might bestow their own special idolatry on the man of the moment.
"I was going to make certain I stepped on every little white thing out there," said Fisk, "even if I had to straight-arm or kick somebody to do it."
When he stepped jubilantly on home plate, to be greeted by hysterical teammates, Fisk rang down the curtain on one of baseball's most pulsating dramas, a 12-inning, 7-6 Red Sox victory in the sixth game of the World Series.
The clock showed 12:34, the organist pounded gleefully "Stouthearted Men," the "Hallelujah Chorus" and "The Beer Barrel Polka." And 35,205 emotionally drained spectators traipsed from the historic ballyard convinced they had just witnessed one of baseball's all-time spine-tinglers.
FISK'S HOME run, dramatic and climactic, was just one of many show-stoppers that occurred in game No. 6, which had been postponed three times by rain. Only because of players such as Fred Lynn, Bernie Carbo and Dwight Evans was Fisk able to perform so spectacularly.
In the first inning Lynn rapped a three-run homer to right field, marking the first time a rookie had hit for the circuit in a World Series game since Reggie Smith of the Red Sox connected twice against the Cardinals in 1967.
In the eighth inning, Carbo, who had insisted from the start that "I should be playing," clouted a pinch three-run homer with the Reds only four outs away from the world championship.
In the 11th inning, Evans made a miracle catch of Joe Morgan's bid for a homer and doubled Ken Griffey off first base, thereby setting the stage for Fisk.
LUIS TIANT, winner in games 1 and 4 and available only because of the triple postponement, was Manager Darrell Johnson's choice to deadlock the Series. The righthander had not been beaten since September 20 and had not allowed an earned run in Fenway Park for 36 innings.
This time, however, the señor lacked some of his earlier artistry. In the first seven innings, Loo-eee gave up 10 hits and five runs. So, when Cesar Geronimo opened the eighth inning with a homer to right field, making the score, 6-3, Johnson excused Tiant, following with Roger Moret, Dick Drago and Rick Wise, the winner.
With four pitchers, Johnson was only half as profligate as his counterpart, Sparky Anderson. Anderson called on eight pitchers, doing more than his share in contributing to a record total of 12 hurlers in one Series engagement.
Gary Nolan worked two innings, Fred Norman two-thirds, Jack Billingham one and one-third, Clay Carroll one, Pedro Borbon two, Rawly Eastwick and Will McEnaney one each and Darcy two.
Electric impulses were transmitted to the crowd in the very first inning when Carl Yastrzemski, in left field, made a sliding catch of leadoff batter Pete Rose's soft liner.
WHEN YAZ singled to right and Fisk to left and Lynn hit for the circuit in the home half, the Sox fans were ecstatic.
After allowing two singles in the first four innings, Tiant buckled in the fifth. A one-out walk to pinch-hitter Ed Armbrister and a single by Rose preceded Ken Griffey's triple off the left-center field wall. Lynn crashed into the wall trying for the catch, but remained in the game after attention from the Red Sox trainer.
Johnny Bench's single off the left-field wall deadlocked the score, 3-3.
Cincinnati gained the lead for the first time in the seventh when, with two out, George Foster doubled off the wall in center to score Griffey and Morgan, who had opened with singles.
Geronimo provided what appeared to be an insurmountable 6-3 lead with his second Series home run in the eighth before the Red Sox stirred shock waves again in their turn.
LYNN'S SINGLE off Borbon's leg and a walk to Rico Petrocelli KO’d Borbon and brought on Eastwick, responding for the fifth time in the six games.
The righthander struck out Evans and retired Rick Burleson on a fly to left before Carbo, batting for Moret, homered to center field.
The pinch-homer was Carbo's second of the Series, matching Chuck Essegian's feat with the 1959 Dodgers, and the 12th in Series history.
"It was a fastball right over the plate," related Carbo, "and I was just trying to get a piece of it for a single, but I knew when I hit it that there was a chance it would go out.
"Funny thing, but when I got near second base and saw Geronimo standing there looking up, the first thing I thought of was that I had tied a record. Then I realized I'd also tied the score.”
IT APPEARED certain the Sox would win the game in the ninth when Denny Doyle, the only player to hit safely in each game, walked and took third on Yastrzemski's single.
McEnaney, replacing Eastwick, issued an intentional walk to Fisk and then forced Lynn to hit a fly just barely foul to George Foster in shallow left field, an estimated 180 feet from the plate.
To the consternation of virtually everyone, especially coach Don Zimmer, Doyle took off after the catch. Although Foster's throw was to the first base side of the plate, Doyle was doubled up easily. "I hollered, "No, no!', but apparently he thought I said, "Go, go!" Said Zimmer. "I yelled so much that Pete Rose asked, 'Hey, how many times you gonna scream at him?’"
The deadlock might have been dissolved in the 11th inning, except for what Anderson termed "just about the greatest catch I've ever seen.”
WITH GRIFFEY on first base and one out, Morgan smashed a drive toward the visitors' bullpen in right field. Explained Bill Plummer, second-string Cincinnati catcher from his vantage point in the bullpen:
"Morgan hit the ball to the deepest part of the field and it looked like it was gonna land two or three rows up in the seats, but …”
Evans, picking up the narrative, added: "The ball was hit good, fairly low. I just stuck out my glove and the next thing I knew I was throwing it to first base."
Evans threw toward first base because Griffey was already past second base. His throw was off the mark, but was grabbed by Yastrzemski, now playing first base.
Yaz flipped to Burleson, who had come over from his shortstop position, to complete the double play.
"It was gone if I didn't get it,” explained Evans. "I was playing him deep and when the ball was hit, I didn't think I had a chance. But I had to give it my best shot."
Singles by Perez and Foster ruffled Wise in the top of the 12th before the righthander slipped a third strike past Geronimo and turned center stage over to Fisk.
THE FELLOW they call Pudge because of his long-gone childhood corpulence looked at one pitch from Darcy and then swung his way into baseball's book of most memorable moments.
"I knew it was gonna go out," said Fisk. "It was just a question of it being fair or foul. The wind must have carried it 15 feet toward the foul pole. I just stood there and watched. I didn't want to miss seeing it going out."
Was this Fisk's greatest thrill in his 27 years?
"Yes," he replied with refreshing perspective, "except for my two kids.”
POST-SCRIPT: Later that day, still Oct. 22, the Reds scored a run in the top of the ninth and held on for a 4-3 victory in Game 7, the first of back-to-back World Series victories by the Big Red Machine.