“THE POLISH PRINCE PAYS OFF” and “UP GOES FRAZIER!”
#829/#828
829. NEW YORK RANGERS VS CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS
STANLEY CUP SEMIFINALS
GAME SIX
APRIL 29, 1971
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
QUALITY OF PLAY—7.63
DRAMA—8.41
STAR POWER—6.36
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—7.25
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—6.77
LOCAL IMPACT—7.06
TOTAL: 43.48
“THE POLISH PRINCE PAYS OFF”
After winning the Stanley Cup in 1940 the Rangers were perennial bridesmaids. One of their best chances to win it all came in 1971, when the defending champion Bruins, who had beaten New York the previous postseason, were upset by the Canadians in the opening round. That seemed to open the door for the Blueshirts, the second-best team in the league. Their 49 wins and 259 goals were the most in franchise history, and with Eddie Giacomin, the league’s best goaltender in ’71, between the pipes, they had to like their chances. Led by Walt Tkaczuk and Brad Park, the Rangers got a nice finishing piece by acquiring bruising winger Pete Stemkowski from Detroit for spare parts on Halloween.
The Rangers got by a tough Toronto squad in the opening round, winning in a Game six overtime to take the series. That brought in the Chicago Blackhawks in the semis. Chicago was, amazingly, in the midst of an even longer Cup drought than the Rangers, one that stretched back 33 years. In a six-team league for most of that time, sheer math would seem to have worked in favor of the Hawks winning a Cup along the way, but after 1938 they could never hoist the hardware. The teams Chicago trotted out in the 60s and 70s were outstanding, led by the immortal Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita, with Tony Esposito in goal. But they could never get over the proverbial hump.
Because the Hawks won the Western division, they had home ice, and the Chicago Stadium was a raucous barn that was tough on all opponents. But the Windy City rabble were quieted when Stemkowski, aka “The Polish Prince,” scored in overtime to win Game One. Esposito shut out the Rangers in Game Two, and the teams split the next two at the Garden. Back in Chicago for Game Five, this time the locals got to explode with joy in overtime, when the Golden Jet, Hull, who had been shut out thus far in the series, won it for the Hawks in sudden death.
That set up an elimination game for the Rangers on a hot and humid Thursday night, April 29, 1971, back at MSG. The “Other Hull,” Bobby’s less talented brother Dennis, scored after decking Giacomin to the ice to open the scoring, and the fabulously named Chico Maki added another to extend the lead to 2-0 for the visitors and bum out the sellout crowd. But Eddie G stoned the midwesterners after that, and the comeback began. Rod Gilbert pulled one back about five minutes after Maki’s goal, and in the third period, Jean Ratelle beat Esposito to tie the game. After 60 minutes the draw could not be broken, and for the third time in the series, overtime beckoned.
The Rangers, who adhered to “one of the most Spartan work out schedules in hockey,” per Gerald Eskenazi in the Times, were clearly fitter than the Blackhawks, who scarcely practiced once the postseason began. Hull and Mikita were skating in molasses, their movements slowed to a crawl. It didn’t help that the humidity in the building turned the ice surface to a slushy morass that played havoc with passes and skate blades.
One overtime crawled by, then a second, without a goal. The Rangers outshot Chicago 15-10 across the two periods, and mostly controlled the action, except for one astonishing sequence at the beginning of the second OT. Mikita blasted a shot that smashed Giacomin in the facemask, stunning him. The rebound shot by Bill White smacked off the left post, and another by Mikita rapped off the right post. Otherwise, the Rangers defense, led by star young defenseman Park and 41-year old talisman Tim Horton (of Canadian doughnut fame), kept danger at bay.
The game went deep into the night, so late the cabdrivers pulling in to the Belmore Cafeteria (soon to be made famous as a setting in Marty Scorcese’s Taxi Driver) at 28th Street and Park Avenue South for a pit stop of self-service borscht and boiled potatoes gathered around a transistor radio to listen to the game.
After the horn sounded to end the second overtime period, an oxygen tank was wheeled into the Rangers dressing room. “No one passed on it,” said Rangers coach Emile Francis. “It was the only thing the whole team did voluntarily all season.” Park took a big hit of the gas and, counterintuitively, immediately felt like passing out. “Gee, I'm sick and tired of coming in and going out be tween periods,” he told his teammates. “I wish it were over.”
Park got his wish shortly after the third OT began. The winning goal, as it so often does in hockey, came from nothing. At 11:58 PM, after four hours and 23 minutes of action, a Rangers power play expired. Horton slapped the chocolate frosted into the Blackhawks zone, and Ted Irvine got to it, ignored Stemkowski streaking toward the net, and let fly with a shot that Esposito turned aside. But it bounded right to the “big, lumbering” Stemmer, who slashed the rebound past Espo for the victory.
"Suddenly it was over,” reported the Times, “but a mass delayed reaction affected the 17,250 fans. They bellowed, raising their fists, hugging whoever was close enough, tossing programs toward the roof.” The goal forced a seventh game in this evenly matched series, and the dream of the first Cup since 1940 remained alive on Broadway.
AFTERMATH:
Game Seven back in Chi-Town was, as one would expect, tight, tied at two after two periods. Then Bobby Hull rose to the dramatic occasion once more, scoring the game-winning goal early in the third (he also assisted on two others). The Blackhawks won 4-2 to eliminate New York and advance to the Cup finals, where they were upset by Montreal and their rookie goaltender, Ken Dryden, with the Canadiens winning a thrilling Game Seven at Chicago Stadium.
The Polish Prince was denied a place in Rangers lore when the Hawks won Game Seven, but Stemkowski remains a minor deity in franchise history, and has made numerous appearances in the broadcast booth and at team events over the years.
WHAT THEY SAID:
“It was this club’s finest hour since I’ve been here. I doubt very much whether you’ll see a finer hockey game.”
—Rangers coach Emile Francis
FURTHER READING:
Always Fresh—the Untold Story of Tim Horton’s by Ron Joyce
VIDEO:
828. NEW YORK YANKEES VS OAKLAND A’s
AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
GAME TWO
OCTOBER 14, 1981
YANKEE STADIUM
QUALITY OF PLAY—5.11
DRAMA—5.48
STAR POWER—7.59
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—8.45
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—8.23
LOCAL IMPACT—8.63
TOTAL: 43.49
“UP GOES FRAZIER!”
1981 was a tough year for New York. Gang and mob violence was at high tide, with 2,166 murders that year. A trash collecters strike kept the streets dirty, while an air traffic controller strike ended when Ronald Reagan broke the union, with NYC and its three major airports bearing the brunt of the unemployment and the slowed air traffic as scabs took over. And a mysterious disease, called the ‘gay plague,’ began killing homosexuals, striking fear into the vibrant downtown cultural scene.
And perhaps worst of all, Major League Baseball went on strike for two months during the summer of 1981.
The World Series-killing strike of 1994 would supplant the ’81 strike in the minds of fans, but at the time it was a harsh realm, particularly if you were a baseball-obsessed little kid at the time. From June 12 to August 9 there was no summer game, and by the time the pastime retook to the elysian fields the specter of school restarting was just over the horizon.
With the season cleaved in two, the sport declared the teams in first place at the time of the strike “winners” of the first half, and restarted the schedule in August with everyone 0-0. The Yankees were thus guaranteed a playoff berth due to their 34-22 record at the time of the strike; they played disinterested baseball in the second half, finishing in fifth place in the A.L. East behind Milwaukee.
The playoffs thus added a round well before the expansion we’ve come to know, with the two winners from each half squaring off to find a division winner to advance to the ALCS. The Yanks took out Milwaukee in five games, winning the decisive fifth game after almost blowing a 2-0 lead.
Their opponent in the championship series was Oakland, who surprised Kansas City, the Yanks’ usual playoff opponent in that era, sweeping the Royals in three straight. That brought a familiar face to Yankee Stadium, the manager of the A’s—Billy Martin.
New York’s trickster god had ‘only’ been manager of the Yankees for two separate stints at that point, the original that saw him fired in July, 1978, after endless battles with owner George Steinbrenner and star player Reggie Jackson led to his infamous “One’s a born liar, the other’s convicted” bon mot, and then his even more bizarre 1979 rehiring, made after a surprise announcement at the Old-Timers Game at the Stadium just five days after his firing. He was supposed to return for the 1980 season but came in after Bob Lemon was canned in June, 1979. Martin then drunkenly slugged it out with a marshmallow salesman in a Minneapolis hotel bar, and lost his dream job once again.
So Martin went back to his hometown, Oakland, and went to work for an only slightly less mercurial and buffoonish boss, Charle Finley, then mercifully in talks to get out of baseball by selling the franchise. As manager of the A’s Billy instituted a system known as “BillyBall,” which consisted of non-stop running, small ball, quasi-legal tactics, and an overreliance on starting pitching. The 1980 A’s improved by 29 games over the moribund 1979 version, winning Billy Manager of the Year and allowing Finley to sell the team at a good price.
In 1981 the A’s, like the Yanks, won the first half before the strike, and unlike New York were strong post-walkout as well (Billy wasn’t the type to half-ass his way through anything), finishing just a game behind Kansas City. Led by the superb outfield of Tony Armas, Dwayne Murphy, and the great Rickey Henderson (soon to bring his immortal speed/power combination to the Bronx), the A’s swept away the Royals. That brought Billy back to his favorite place, Yankee Stadium, where he had not only been manager but of course a crucial ingredient in the hard-drinking dynasts of the 1950s. But this time, he was in enemy colors (garish green-and-gold, at that).
The Yanks took Game One behind Tommy John, with both of their sterling relievers, Ron Davis and Goose Gossage, pitching. Manager Bob Lemon, himself right back as Yanks skipper after being fired for Martin in mid-1979 (it’s hard to believe the chaos of those years if you didn’t live through it), was thus hoping not ot have to use either reliever again in Game Two, which took place on a perfect Wednesday afternoon, October 14, 1981. The short turnaround from the night before affected both Lemon’s bullpen reticence and the crowd, which was somewhat shy of the usual monster sellout. Nevertheless, 48,497 were on hand for the ballgame.
Oakland’s Steve McCatty, the AL ERA leader in ’81, gave up an early run, but got put in front when Rudy May, New York’s starter, got in trouble. May nearly surrendered a homer to Armas, but Yankees star Dave Winfield went over the fence to rob him. But a Henderson triple tied the game, and three straight hits in the fourth put Oakland ahead 2-1. May was done, and Lemon was in a conundrum. Since his “gold-dust twins,” Davis and Gossage, were shelved, Lemon turned to an unlikely arm—George Frazier.
The 27-year old had spent the last few seasons with St. Louis, but the Cardinals told Frazier he was to be sent down in the spring of 1981. He was thus literally the “Player to be Named Later” in a deal that sent Rafael Santana from New York to the Cards. Frazier arrived in New York in June, and was effective, if little-used, as a minor bullpen piece.
Now he was pitching in a key spot in the A.L. Championship Series, with Billy Martin snarling at him and calling him all manner of names from the A’s dugout. Frazier immediately gave up a bases loaded single to make the score 3-1, but somehow got Henderson to bounce into a double play on a comebacker to the mound, and escaped further damage.
All Frazier did from there was shut down BillyBall over the next five innings, allowing no runs and just four hits. Meanwhile, the Yankees exploded off McCatty and reliever Dave Beard. They put up a 7-run fourth inning, the big blows being a two-run double by Winfield and a three-run homer by “Sweet” Lou Piniella that brought the house down. The Yanks cruised from there, piling on the runs until the game ended at 13-3. But the final score obscured the crucial role Frazier played in holding down the A’s at the critical juncture.
“It was easily the longest I’ve ever had to go as a professional,” Frazier said afterwards. “I still can’t believe what’s happened to me this year. Last spring I thought I’d be somewhere fishing by now.”
For his part, Martin was unconcerned. “We’re fighters,” he said. “We’re a battling ballclub. We’ll win tomorrow and we’ll win the next day and then we’ll see who’s singing that song.”
AFTERMATH:
The only song being sung in Oakland was by the Yankees, and it was “The Time Has Come For Us To Say Sayonara.” New York capped off the sweep with a 4-0 shutout behind Dave Righetti in Game Three, in a game best remembered for the semi-official debut of the Wave. New York advanced to the World Series where they lost to L.A. in six contentious games.
Martin, of course, had not seen the last of New York or the Yankees.
WHAT THEY SAID:
“Don’t pinch me until it’s all over.”
—George Frazier
FURTHER READING:
Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A’s by Dale Tafoya
VIDEO: