Perrotto: Remembering Night Pirates Took Wrong Fork in Road (+)
While covering the Pittsburgh Pirates’ regular-season finale last Wednesday, someone asked how many Major League Baseball games I have covered in my career.
I’ve never been one to keep count of such things. I’m not like the late great Lawrence “Deuce” Skurcenski, a Western Pennsylvania legend who would constantly – and sometime annoyingly — rattle off the number of high school and college events he had witnessed without being asked.
If I had to venture a guess, though, it would have to be at least 3,000 games. And that might be a conservative estimate.
I was then asked about my most memorable game ever covered. That question was much easier to answer.
It happened 30 years ago tonight and neither franchise has ever been the same.
The Atlanta Braves rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the Pirates 3-2 in the winner-take-all Game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
Pretty much anyone who watched the game in person or on television vividly remembers the game. Fans born before the game was even played can recount the events of that evening because the story has been told so many times.
The Pirates led 2-0 going into the bottom of the ninth and were on the brink of their first World Series appearance since 1979.
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Then it all fell apart.
In Cliff’s Notes version: Gold Glove second baseman Jose Lind uncharacteristically booted a ground ball, home plate umpire Randy Marsh refused to give Stan Belinda any strike calls, then third-string catcher Francisco Cabrera delivered the winning two-run single with slow-footed Sid Bream sliding across home plate with the deciding run.
The memories of that night in Atlanta remain vivid three decades later.
Bream, a beloved former Pirates, chugging around third base on his chronically bad knees.
Andy Van Slyke sitting on the center field grass looking on in despair as the Braves celebrated at home plate.
Standing outside the visiting clubhouse and watching cart after cart of champagne on ice being wheeled down the tunnel to the home clubhouse.
A tearful Jim Leyland walking out the clubhouse door and plaintively asking the media waiting to interview the players if it would give his team some extra time to compose themselves.
Belinda standing at his locker and patiently answering every question asked by reporters.
The usually stoic Doug Drabek, who took a shutout into the ninth inning, dissolving into tears while talking to reporters.
It was the most gut-wrenching loss in Pirates’ history, even worse than the winner-take-all Game 5 of the 1972 NLCS. The Reds scored twice in the bottom of the ninth inning to win that one on Bob Moose’s wild pitch and denied the Pirates a chance at winning back-to-back World Series.
At least, the Pirates stayed competitive all the way through the end of the 1970s.
What happened before and after Game 7 in 1992 is what makes that night in Atlanta so horrific for Pirates’ fans to look back on.
The Pirates also lost in the NLCS in 1990 and 1991. Everyone knew the Pirates were going to rebuilding mode – which would become a recurring franchise theme – in 1993 following the departures of Barry Bonds and Doug Drabek in free agency.
However, no one thought that 30 years later that the Pirates would STILL be rebuilding. Or that the Pirates would not only extend their streak of seasons without a World Series appearance to 44 but have just four winning seasons and fail to win another division title.
Conversely, the Braves have made 20 more postseason trips, including winning their fifth consecutive NL East title this year. Previously, they had been to the postseason just three times in 26 years after the franchise moved from Milwaukee.
Both franchises reached the proverbial fork in the road that night. The Braves went the right way, and the Pirates went the wrong direction.
Little wonder the pain of Oct. 14, 1992 never goes away for Pirates’ fans or even lessens to a dull ache.