In Relief: Agony, Ecstasy And Comedy

Game 7 brings out Bill Lee for Boston. Not always a starter, he had been one of the characters of the Boston bullpen. He was noted for his industriousness out there: he made sculptures and constructions from the flotsam tossed into the bullpen, a famous one made entirely of fruits, largely bananas. There was always a lot to choose from, from beer cans to platform shoes. Lee had talked about the ingredients necessary in a good relief pitcher. "Well, you need a big set of adrenaline glands," he said, "preferably as large as basketballs." He went on to say that even more important was the relief pitcher's mental outlook, the power of mind over matter. Lee is very interested in occult religions. He began to fantasize about the potential of a Tibetan priest coming out of the bullpen. "Now those guys can sit naked in the snow at 18,000 feet and they have such powers of mental discipline that if they put their mind to it, hell, they can generate enough heat to melt snow for 20 feet around." His eyes shone with the thought. "Now you put that Tibetan priest on the mound, naked or not, with a baseball in his palm, and he'll take that power of concentration and make the ball disappear and then materialize down the line in the catcher's mitt. There's my idea of a relief pitcher."

Lee threw one blooper pitch too many to Tony Perez, who put it out of the park for two runs, and developed a blister in the seventh inning, so the Boston bullpen was called upon. It did not fare well. The Cincinnati batters not only saw their pitches, but pounded them to remote parts of the playing field.

On the other hand, Cincinnati's bullpen, emptying as usual like a rush-hour elevator—Billingham, Carroll ("Get the Hawk up," came the voice on the bullpen phone), and then McEnaney—performed with such distinction that Boston was unable to score after its early three-run success off Don Gullett.

Forgetting the two home runs hit off Eastwick (the rookie was beginning to work up a smile, just the trace of one, after his horrendous experience the night before), the Cincinnati relievers had allowed only 20 hits and eight runs in 31? innings. Will McEnaney was the last of them. He has an odd premonition when the phone rings and he is told to get ready. It is not that he is going to get in trouble once he goes into the game, but that when he takes his first warmup pitch his arm is not going to work, like turning an ignition key in an engine and having nothing happen. He knows that if his arm does not feel right he must start a whole procedure he calls "locating," throwing pitches to spots, in and out, until the arm begins to come around, if indeed it does.

"I never worry about batters," he says. "I know what they can't do. This guy can't hit a curve, so I'm going to challenge him with a curve. Now it's true that he can hit a home run, but a pitcher can't think things like that; he's got to drive such thoughts out of his head—so that if anything like that happens, it comes as a great surprise."

In the eighth inning McEnaney was asked to get ready. He checked out the arm and discovered it was functioning. He put it to work in the ninth inning, retiring two pinch hitters and, finally, Boston's talisman and captain, Yastrzemski, bringing the Series to an end. He was not surprised by anything the Boston batters did. A Tibetan priest could not have done better.