Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 49

DETROIT FREE PRESS Thursday, Oct. 12, '72 1-D rrn 9 I iracJleg 2 ally Beats A 4-3 uns uo 10th 111 iilpi On the Inside: More Tiger pictures on Page 9D and Back Page. 'I'm down, I'm sad, I'm embarrassed' A's Reggie Jackson. Story on Page 5D. Billy Martin blisters A's 'mouthy' Blue Moon Odom Story on Page 9D.

Tigers Favored, 11-10 LAS VEGAS, Nev. (UPI) The Detroit Tigers were installed as 11-10 favorites over, the Oakland Athletics in Thursday's finale of "the American League baseball playoffs toy Las Vegas oddsmaker Jimmy (The Greek) Snyder. -k-SM 1 BY JIM HAWKINS Pre Press Sports Writer It was unbelievable. Beautiful but unbelievable. The Tigers we're dead.

No doubt about that. All the Oakland A's lacked were three outs to make it official. But they never even got one, The elegant silver trophy, symbolic of supremacy in the American League, was already waiting in the Oakland clubhouse the champagne was iced and ready to pour Sandy Koufax was standing by to congratulate the conquerors. AND SUDDENLY it was the Tigers Jim Northruip and Mickey Lolich and Bill Freehan everybody wanted to talk to. After blowing the" ballgame in the top half of the 10th inning Wednesday, the underdog Eastern champs battled back in the bottom of the inning to beat the Oakland A's, 4-3, With as wild a finish as you'll ever want to see.

Certainly the Tigers seemed satisfied as they settled down to await Thursday afternoon's championship game one game which will mean everything for both teams. This side of the seventh game of the World Series, they don't come any larger than that. Wootlie Fryman will pitch for the Tigers which is appropriate because without him, they wouldn't be anywhere near here. Blue Moon Odom, who blanked the Tigers on three hits and then infuriated Billy Martin with his comments last Sunday, will try to save this playoff for the A's. NORTHRUP WAS Wednesday's hero.

It was his bases-loaded single off Dave Hamilton in the 10th that sent Gates Brown home and drove 37,615 fans positively wild which probably was impossible, because they already were. Not since the 1968 World Series, when he broke open that scoreless seventh game with that famous basehit that got past Curt Flood, has Jim Northrup hit a ball that meant so much. "But," he added, quickly, "I may get some bigger ones yet this year." That was the kind ot confidence that could lie found in the clamor of the Tiger clubhouse late Wednesday afternoon. i I 14-'- There was Frank Howard, in the middle of. the room, leading his teammates in a triumph cheer like some overgrown high school kid.

There was Mickey Lolich who pitched extremely well for the first nine innings then left the bench believing his team, down 3-1, was done talking about again starting the second game of the World Series, just as he had done in 1968. AND THERE was Billy Martin, licking his lips over the idea of getting another crack at Odom. For nine innings, it was Dick McAuliffe's third-inning homer against Mike Epstein's homer in the seventh. That was all, until pinch-hitter Gonzalo Marquez singled off Chuck Seelbach in the Please turn to Page 9D, Column 1 hito nrti-Y -iri 1 1 Hi i ii AP Phoro rn 11' 131 Here's the key play in the Tigers' fantastic come- "throw as Brown scrambles back to the bag. On the I lie Big lay back Wednesday: The bases are loaded and Bill play, Dick McAuliffe comes home with a run to cut I lt)th liit i Freehan bounces to Sal Bando at third.

Bando goes the Oakland lead to 3-2. Norm Cash then walks to 171 Will Llllllll fe for a double play, but Gates Brown, sliding into force in the tying rlin and Jim Northrup singles to second base, upends' Gene Tenace, who muffs the break up the game, 4-3. 6 l9 et hrwe 09 mo I I igers a it misn said. "If anything pleased me, it's that I got it off a lefthander.1' Northrup looked around at his audience. 1 CT "ff AjVUHtS "Tt'o iantt rlnn't Hi tr wall aaaincr 1 A'tVianHArs he said, the smile broadening.

Pistons Lose Opener 4D Please turn to Page 9D, Column 1 ONDON Q5 There's Never Been Anything Like It! MUM II i I COMF.HOICQMEQ7) BY JOE FALLS Frt Pre" Sports Editor Two strikeouts. A doubleplay. A uh "clutch" grounder to the second baseman with two on "1 was so horseradish out there I had to do something" It was Jim Northrup talking. The Jim Northrup who can look so pathetic one moment, then so sweet the next. He was smiling as he spoke.

This was a sweet moment. One of the sweetest of all. "We've never given up," he said in the bedlam of the Detroit dressing room after Wednesday's victory over the Oakland A's. "We've never quit before and there was no reason to think we were going to quit now not even when they got us down two games and then got those two runs in the tenth inning. "We thought all along we were going to beat them and we surely think so now." Northrup delivered the clinching hit in the fantastic lOth-in-ning rally a drive over Matty Alou's head in right as the A's rightfielder was forced to play in with the bases loaded and nobody out.

The blow sent in Gates Brown from third with the winning run and kept the Tigers alive in their bid to win this American League pennant. The reporters mobbed around Northrup and he took it all in 6tride. He even laughed about it all. They asked him if he was nervous at the plate. "Naw I wasn't nervous up there only when I was in the on-deck circle.

I wanted Norm (Cash) to do it so I wouldn't have to hit," he smiled. And when he got up there? "AH I was trying to do was get the ball into the air," he Reds Clinch NL Title on Wild Pitch I'niv It all goes back almost 20 years to a night in St. Louis when they still used to play ball games in old Sportsman's Park. first Tiger game I ever covered. Opening Day, 1953.

Or, rather, Opening Night. It was Virgil Trucks pitching for the St. Louis Browns against his old mates. It was Ned Garver of the gimpy knee working for the Tigers against his old teammates. Bill Veeck was the boss of the Brownies and there he was bounding around the press box on that wooden leg of his, talking to everyone around, jabbing people in the ribs and chortling in complete delight over what was going on down on the field.

It was a 10-0 nightmare for the Tigers that night a night of complete embarrassment. It was a night when the rightfielder of the Tigers, a friendly guy named Russ Sullivan, gat hit on the shoulder by one ball and then missed another as it came at him and then missed it again when it came bouncing back off the Twenty years. Hundreds of players, thousands of games, a million memories and nothing ever matched the emotion that filled Tiger Stadium Wednesday afternoon. Not the night they won the pennant in '68 not the day Denny won his 30th not the day they stayed alive against the Cardinals on Al Kaline's clutch single in the seventh inning of the last World Series game ever played around here. Not even the Monday and Tuesday night games against the Red Sox a week ago.

Nothing matched the mad scene Wednesday afternoon as the Tigers don't ask me how pulled out their incredible 4-3 victory over the Oakland A's. Had to Know It Was Over Let me tell you what it's like from a newspaperman's viewpoint. It's the top of the tenth. The Oakland team suddenly goes ahead first on the shattering play at the plate when Bill Freehan seems to have his man out only to have the ball dribble away from him. Then, on a dunk single to right which falls in front of Al Kaline.

In moments like this, you are supposed to react as a newsman. You are supposed to hold yourself together and think what's going to be best for the paper. But strange that isn't what I thought at all. As Kaline came running and grabbed the ball off the ground, I thought to myself, "What must he be thinking? What must be going through his mind?" He had to know it was all over. Right then and there, he had to know the season was over.

All those months of struggling all of those months of such tremendous effort all the bickering with Baltimore the battles with Boston Billy Martin sitting in his office glowering after each defeat the Nobody talked, or cared, about 'the shadows that were the topic of discussion Tuesday, or the rain that delayed Wednesday's game an hour and a half, or even the splendid pitching job Pittsburgh's Steve Blass did for V3 innings. In the end everything came down to a single wild Ironically, the Pirates drew first blood for the first time, in this series. oil A It's the perfect coat for any weather, wherever you go. Tightly-woven texturized Dacron polyester in twills and solids thac have a wonder BY CHARLIE VINCENT Fret Press Sports Writer CINCINNATI They all went wild in Cincinnati Wednesday. Bob Moose.

The Cincinnati Reds. The City of Cincinnati. Only Moose didn't enjoy it. The Pittsburgh righthander uncorked a wild pitch to pinch-hitter Hal McRae that allowed pinch-runner George Foster to race home with the run that gave the Reds a 4-3 ninth-inning victory and the National League championship. Now all eyes focus on Tiger Stadium, where they'll decide the Reds' World Series opponent Thursday afternoon.

"We've had our scouts over there," jubilant Sparky Anderson, manager of the Reds, said in the champagne soaked dressing room. "And we'll go over their scouting- reports pretty throuroughly. But I honestly don't care who we play." THE REDS were still far too involved in Wednesday's dramatic victory to think about something as far removed as the opening of the World Series Saturday. The wild pitch and the Johnny Bench' home run that opened the ninth inning and gave the Reds new life erased a lot of things from their memory. ful repellency from rain and wind, that look great under the sun, that travel easily and lightly.

Left: a navy single-breasted with wool zip-out lining at $95. Right: a sand tan double-breasted with attached red lining at $95. From a collection that begins A SINGLE by Manny San-gui'llen, a double by Rich Heb-ner and a single by Dave Cash produced two Pirate runs in the second innmg. Baefc-to-back-to-back singles by the same three Bucs got another run across im the fourth and chased Cincinnati 6tarter Don Gullett. 1 Then came the string of relieversPedro Borbon, Tom Hall and Clay Carroll who shut the Bucs out the rest of the way.

Cincy, in the meantime, was nibbling away at Blass, getting one run. in the third on a single by Darrel Chaney, a sacrifice by Gullett and a double by Pete Rose, and another on Cesar Geronimo's solo homer in the fifth. AND THAT'S just where tilings stood when Pittsburgh's Please turn to Page 5D, Col. 1 at $55. players sitting outsiae in tne dressing room just sianng into space.

You thought of the other days, too, the winning days Woodie Fryman coming around with that hard one on the outside coreer Kaline singling through the hole to start another rally Dick McAuliffe spitting into his glove the black cork marks under Northrup's eyes Ail of it. I thought, "The poor guys have lost it. It's all gone." fc" it i Inn imi.nuiii iiLr riim I couldn believe it myself. I couldn believe there would be no game on Thursday. I hate to admit it because a newspaperman is never supposed to admit such things but I felt terrible as I took Please turn to Page 5D, Column 2.