Presented by CITIZENS AGAINST POACHING.
This Day In Sports…October 21, 1975, 50 years ago today:
The World Series resumes in Boston after three days of rain and provides one of the Fall Classic’s all-time great moments. A Game 6 had never been played at night before, but the wicked nor’easter forced commissioner Bowie Kuhn’s hand, as he scheduled the game opposite a Monday Night Football matchup between the Buffalo Bills and New York Giants and America’s No. 1 TV show, “All in the Family.” Alas, the rains kept coming, and Game 6 was moved to Tuesday night.
It delivered, going deep into the night with the Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds tied at 6-6 going into the bottom of the 12th inning. That had been the score since the extra innings began—and truth be told, it was now early in the morning of October 22. Boston star catcher Carlton Fisk led off the 12th, and took the first pitch from Cincy pitcher Pat Darcy for a ball. On the next one, Fisk sent a long fly down the leftfield line. He bounced down toward first base, waving the ball to be fair with both arms. And after dancing around the bases, Fisk emphatically jumped on home plate, tying the Series at three games apiece.
However, Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine would win it all the next night. The Red Sox were rudely reminded that they were 57 years into the 86-year “Curse of the Bambino” as the Reds took Game 7 by rallying for a 4-3 victory. Cincinnati’s world championship drought certainly was not as long as that of the Red Sox, but it was still significant, as it was the Reds’ first World Series crown since 1940. Major League Baseball would then toy with weekend night games in the Fall Classic, but it would still be 10 years until all World Series games moved to night telecasts
A 2015 Sports Illustrated column by Tom Verducci puts that moment on a pedestal. Verducci talked about church bells tolling at 1:07 a.m. the next morning in Charleston, NH, 128 miles from Fenway Park. That happened to be Fisk’s hometown, the place where he was nicknamed “Pudge.” But that’s also the effect his homer—and the Red Sox win—had on New England.
“Think about what we now take for granted in televised sports,” wrote Verducci 10 years ago. “Prime-time starts, the networks influencing when games are played, cameras placed at unusual vantage points, reaction shots of athletes away from the ball—all of it can be traced to the NBC telecast of Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. What the 1958 NFL title game did for pro football, Game 6 did for televised sports. There is only before and after. It is the most influential telecast in the 76 years that baseball has been televised.”
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
