On this day ...

... in 1980, the Phillies clinched the 1980 NLCS at the Astrodome in one of the greatest playoff series ever played. The Phillies won it in the 10th on a double from Garry Maddox, but it was the crazy eighth inning where the Phillies overcame a three-run deficit against Nolan Ryan to set the stage for Maddox in the 10th.

As the story goes, Pete Rose said to Larry Bowa just as he was getting ready to head to the plate to lead off the eighth inning of the deciding Game 5 of the 1980 NLCS and said, "Get on and we'll win this thing..."

So choking up on that knobless Adirondack, Bowa laced the third pitch into center field for a single with the Phillies trailing the Astros, by three runs in the eighth inning.

That's three runs in the eighth inning against Nolan Ryan ... 

In a game started by a rookie pitcher, Marty Bystrom, making his sixth major league start...

In fact, Bystrom said manager Dallas Green didn't tell him he was started the game until the night prior. Of course, the Phillies had to win Game 4 in 10 innings to force the finale.

"I hadn't pitched in nine or 10 days and Dallas came up to me after Game 4 and said, 'You got the ball tomorrow, kid,'" Bystrom said. "I said, 'I'm ready.'"

Bystrom called that NLCS finale "the toughest game I ever pitched." More than just the pressure of a game with the World Series on the line, Bystrom recalled that the noise from the fans in the Astrodome was deafening.

"I took a suggestion from Steve Carlton and put cotton in my ears," Bystrom said, adding that pitching with Rose, Mike Schmidt, Bowa and Bob Boone on his side in the field made things a lot easier.

The Phillies ended up scoring five runs in the eighth inning off Ryan, lefty Joe Sambito and starter Ken Forsch. Boone, the slowest running catcher in the league, got an infield hit, followed by a bunt single from Greg Gross. Five pitches into the inning and Ryan had already loaded the bases for Rose, who took a seven-pitch walk to force in a run.

A ground out by Keith Moreland against Sambito scored a second run and put runners on second and third for Schmidt. With a chance to be the hero, Schmidt took three straight strikes from Forsch for the second out.

But pinch hitter Del Unser delievered an RBI single to tie it and Manny Trillo laced a two-run triple for the lead. The Phillies were in the drivers' seat.

Only Tug McGraw, pitching in his eighth game in 11 days (and all five games in the NLCS) gave up two runs in the bottom of the eighth. That was 14 2/3 innings over eight games. Counting the postseason, McGraw had 14 multi-inning saves with 108 innings in 66 appearances in 1980. Looking at another two-inning save in Game 5, McGraw was out of gas.

Starter Dick Ruthven pitched a scoreless ninth and 10th in his first appearance since going seven innings in Game 2. In the process, Ruthven became another one of the unheralded heroes of the 1980 postseason with Gross, Unser, Bystrom, Bake McBride and Lonnie Smith.

Anyway, here is four-plus hours of Game 5. Don't watch it all it once ... it's too crazy.

Comments

[GBrettfan]

Tough luck for the Dodgers these first two games to be on the losing end of well-pitched, low-scoring games. I would have thought Greinke and Kershaw could beat the Cardinals' starters not named Wainwright.

Magic Johnson looked pretty nervous - read a headline on mlb.com to that effect.

Wow, Wacha was their compensation pick for letting Pujols walk?

Hopefully, the Dodgers can win at home. They're going to have to score a few more runs.

I don't dislike the Cardinals. I'm just tired of them winning. I am envious, though.

[GBrettfan]

I will say how impressive it is to see these rookies pitching so well in this postseason. Cole, Gray, Wacha...

[Hugh Mulcahy]

Wacha has been crazy dominant. Worst outing of his last 3. NLCS has been worth the hype. Will be a great out game on Monday.

[aksmith]

That game against the Astros was the greatest game I have ever seen. It had a little bit of everything. And I felt like I had run a marathon by the time it was over.

[Juums]

Michael Wacha is actually the perfect example of why it's easy to hate the Cardinals. He's a four-year college draftee in 2012, taken with the compensation pick awarded for the privilege of not being under a 9yr/$200MM+ contract, who reaches MLB at the end of 2013 and is introduced to baseball world via a game with 8.2 innings of hitless baseball, to follow-up that up with 6 IP+ of hitless baseball and simply being stupid dominant in his first two playoff appearances.

That career trajectory required everything to break right for the Cardinals. As the Cardinals are a good organization with a sound approach to team-building, they don't need good luck in order to be successful. Which is why their Midas-touch, especially with things beyond their control (e.g. Pujols' avarice), is insufferable.

[Juums]

Whelp, Anibal Sanchez takes his place in baseball history as just the second man to strikeout four people in one inning. It's going to be one of those games, isn't it?

[Conway Twitty]

That whole Astros series was better than any WS. Last 4 games all extra innings. I was ready to settle in for 4 hours until I saw the first commercial break was longer than the original. I always wondered if a video was available, without ads, but with Phils announcers. Didn't remember that either Keith Jackson or Howard Kosell did baseball.

[NEPP]

Scouting matters...a shame the Phillies, a team supposedly that believes in old-school scouting, sucks so bad at it.

[GBrettfan]

It's still a no-hitter, but the bases are loaded. Wild.

[Juums]

GBrettfan:
It really is one of those games. Just how many no-hit innings have been thrown so far this postseason? Tonight's the...fourth game to have a no-hitter thrown through six innings? While probably not a record, it's indicative of just how ridiculously good the pitching's been so far this postseason.

[GBrettfan]

Especially since these are normally good offensive teams.

Bullpens have done a great job, as well as starters.

[GBrettfan]

Ellsbury stole 52 bases this year. I'm impressed.

[Iceman]

Boston has always had a culture of whining/entitlement and it continues with this team. Pedroia just threw a sh*t fit over watching strike three go by on what was clearly on the outside corner. They've been crying all night.

If Vic wasn't on this team, they'd be just as loathsome as they are every other year.

[Juums]

Hitless through eight innings! Craziness. It'd figure, with all of the no-hit innings so far this postseason, the pitching staff that actually pulled it off would be one whose performance was the ugliest of the lot.

[GBrettfan]

Whoa. I didn't think Drew was going to catch that. Nicely done!

[GBrettfan]

Red Sox are looking a little Phillie-ish at the plate tonight.

[Iceman]

If Boston wins this game, you'll never hear the end of it from their fans.

[Iceman]

Thank God.

[Juums]

Bogaert chokes. Clearly a bum without a future.

Seriously, though. I really wish I liked any of the teams in that've made it this far, because the quality of the games has been incredible.

[Dragon]

Loved the 80 WS. Was shocked and thrilled that I lived long enough to see a second in 08. Don't expect to live ling enough to see a third, not the way the Phillies do things.

[Pblunts]

That game was one of the enduring memories of my childhood. I was 11 at the time and never missed a game on TV or radio. But after going down three in the 8th, I thought the dream was over and headed upstairs nearly in tears. My parents had the lights out in their room but my my mom, knowing the heartbreaks of the previous NLCS battles called out "is it over yet?" I told her that, no, it wasn't but they were down three in the 8th and they were going to lose. Something in the way she asked (she told me later she "had a feeling") made me flip on my clock radio, which naturally, was set to the Phillies station. And what I heard was something bordeine homer-ish that you rarely heard from a Phillies broadcast: "Larry Bowa starts the Phillies comeback with a single to centerfield." I believe, but not 100% certain it was Harry who made that call. Needles to say, I scrambled back downstairs to watch the rest of that magnificent, compete with Wheels screeching like a schoolgirl after Maddox caught the final out.

[jayban]

Have been a lifelong Phils fan but, you have to admire the Cardinals ability to annualy be in the mix for the pennant. Don't hear that word any more! Would like to see the Phils raid the St. Louis organization and bring sanity to a sport gone amok.

[derekcarstairs]

The Cards have been a great franchise since the mid-twenties after Branch Rickey invented the farm system. Since then, the Cards have been strong in every decade except the 50's, the 70's, and the 90's.

Rickey went on to make the Dodgers into a great franchise beginning in the late 40's by bringing talented black players to MLB.

[GBrettfan]

What a great Tweet and reminder from Matt Stairs!

mstairs12 ‏@mstairs12 48m
5 years ago today is when I started drinking free in Philly. Love homeruns !!!!

[awh©]

jayban, the Phillies will not raid STL. To go outside their own org like that would be a tacit admission that the FOols they have making baseball decisions are not up to the job.

[kuvasz]

That 1980 Astos/Phillies series was the best playoff series I ever saw. Nothing else has come close.

[JZ]

I had a dopey MLB game in the late '80s on our home IBM.

Based on his undefeated record and lights-out ERA, Bystrom was unhittable.

[r4 3d]

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