Yount has a magical four-hit game in the 1982 World Series
With the sports world on hold, we gave you the 50 greatest moments in Wisconsin sports history over the past 50 years. What about the next 10 that just missed the list? This is No. 53.
The answer to a pretty tough trivia question is Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson.
In 1960, Richardson battled .367 with 12 RBI in the World Series and remains the only player from a losing team to be named World Series MVP. The Pirates won the World Series when Bill Mazeroski hit a winning home run in Game 7.
In 1982, the World Series MVP went to Darrell Porter, the St. Louis Cardinals catcher and former Milwaukee Brewers who batted .286 and drove in five runs. Although the title so frequently goes to a player on the winning team, Robin Yount certainly did enough to buck convention.
Yount was sensational, finishing one hit shy of the World Series record of 13, going 12 for 29 (.414 batting average) with six runs and six RBI. His 4-for-4 performance in Game 5 was his second four-hit game of the series, and he was at the center of the Brewers’ 6-4 win that put Milwaukee one win away from a World Series title.
“He has all the reason in the world to be cocky, arrogant, self-centered, but he’s not,” said teammate Paul Molitor
after the Game 5 win. “And he won’t ever be.”
Molitor grounded out in the eighth inning to end a two-run rally against Cardinals star closer Bruce Sutter, leaving Yount on deck and preventing him from getting a crack at a World Seriesrecord tying fifth hit.
Yount, whose third child also happened to be due any day during the 1982 World Series, wasn’t impressed with his own achievement.
“I wasn’t aware of it,” Yount said of the potential record with a fifth hit. “I guess I feel the same about it as I do getting the four hits. It’s not that big a deal. I don’t care about World Series records. Winning the World Series is what’s big on my mind.”
“You can say the word ‘MVP’ to him and he won’t change his look,” Molitor said. “But you say ‘World Champions,’ and he’ll be grinning ear to ear.
We know that the Brewers didn’t win the series, but on Oct. 17, 1982, Milwaukee got a win that put the club as close as it’s ever come.
Robin Yount rounds the bases after hitting a home run in the World Series on Oct. 18, 1982, giving the Brewers an insurance run and a 4-2 lead in the seventh inning.
The Kid delivers
Yount was one of many heroes in Game 5, a victory that concluded with fans rushing the field at County Stadium, just as they did when the Brewers won Game 5 of the American League Championship Series against the California Angels. The Brewers emerged with a 3-2 series lead over the Cardinals, with the series shifting back to St. Louis two days later.
Yount’s fourth hit, a home run off Bob Forsch in the seventh inning after St. Louis had cut the Brewers lead to 3-2, gave the Brewers a sigh of relief. Moments earlier, Cecil Cooper had his own heroic moment, a sprawling save of a Porter ground ball that he converted into the final out of the seventh, keeping the lead intact.
“It was just a ground ball in the hole,” Cooper said. “I stumbled a little bit once I got the ball. Then I made the throw. It was not a strong throw, but it was a good throw. I just wanted to get it to him.”
Apparently, Yount and Cooper shared a taste for understatement.
Charlie Moore had ranged to try and flag down a foul ball off the bat of George
Hendrick with two outs in the seventh but couldn’t put the squeeze on. Hendrick then singled, scoring Lonnie Smith to pull St. Louis within 3-2.
With runners at first and second, Porter hit the ball toward Cooper, who speared it and threw from the seat of his pants to Mike Caldwell for the last out.
“When Porter came to bat, I’m thinking he’s a pull hitter,” Cooper said. “You have to anticipate every play. My first reaction was, I didn’t break right away. I stumbled a little bit. I knew I had enough time to get it. My job is, once I go, to get it.”
Then came Yount’s homer.
“It was a fastball outside and up a little bit,” said Yount. “They’ve been pitching me outside for almost the whole series. I was a little bit surprised when I got a slider inside when I doubled down the left field line in the third. But I don’t know if that was where he was trying to put it.”
Pitching and defense
Caldwell navigated through the eighth and set the stage for the two-run rally against Sutter, with singles by Moore and Jim Gantner plating the insurance runs with two outs.
Those came in handy when Caldwell ran out of gas in the ninth and surrendered two runs back. But Bob McClure checked in to record the final two outs. He dismissed Willie McGee on three pitches, with a devastating curveball to trigger the strikeout, and got Gene Tenace to fly out to left.
Caldwell allowed 14 hits over but got the win.
Caldwell, who shut out St. Louis on three hits in Game 1 of the series, had a lot of help behind him.
Cardinals leadoff hitter Smith, who finished second in the National League MVP voting that season, had to feel particularly snakebitten by the Brewers defense. He was caught stealing by Ted Simmons in the first, was retired on a short-hop fielded by Yount in the third, victimized by Moore’s diving catch in the fifth and retired by a field-and-twirl by Molitor at third base in the ninth.
“When this Series began, a lot of people had the impression that we were a bunch of lumberjacks who went up there and cut down trees,” Simmons said. “But what you’ve been seeing for five games is more than that. We’re showing people we know how to play the game.”
They were showing a lot of people, too, with the 56,562 in attendance at County Stadium marking the third straight record crowd. Many of them were showering Yount with MVP
81⁄3 innings chants.
“It’s nice to be recognized for doing something well, but I’m not after that,” Yount said. I’m just a human being like anyone else who has been gifted with the ability to play baseball.”
Through Game 5, he was batting .524 and led both teams in hits, total bases, RBI and slugging percentage.
“We’ve been throwing the ball to a certain spot against him, and he hits it every time we get it there,” Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog said. “We don’t really want it there, but that’s how it’s working out. He’s a great all-around player. You’d have to say he’s among the top three in baseball. I don’t think anybody could have a better series.”
How the moment lives on
The 1982 World Series fell apart from there. The Cardinals stomped Don Sutton and reliever Doc Medich and won Game 6, 13-1.
In Game 7, the Cardinals scored three times in the sixth to take a 4-3 lead, with Keith Hernandez’s single driving in two runs to tie the game and Hendrick’s single scoring Hernandez with the goahead run. Caldwell checked in as a reliever in the eighth but yielded two more run-scoring singles to Porter and Steve Braun. St. Louis won, 6-3.
Sutter closed down the Brewers with 1-2-3 innings in the eighth and ninth.
Yount did go on to win the MVP Award in 1982, claiming every firstplace vote but one and winning the voting in a runaway over Baltimore’s Eddie Murray. Cooper finished fifth in the vote, Gorman Thomas eighth and Molitor 12th. Even Rollie Fingers, who was injured in September and didn’t play in the World Series, received some votes and finished tied for 16th, with Cy Young winner Pete Vuckovich right behind him.
The Brewers have yet to get back to a World Series. Yount has been a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame for 21 years, and Molitor has been there for 16.