On April 6, 1974 — At Veterans Stadium, Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt hits a ninth inning two-run home run off Tug McGraw to beat the Mets on Opening Day, 5-4. The walk-off homer is the first of the league-leading 36 dingers the third baseman will hit this season. It is the Mets’ only Opening Day loss of the 1970s.
From the beginning the difference was apparent. .
It was the way they talked in the clubhouse, the way they acted during the pre-game introductions. It was Dave Cash, the newest Phillie, standing in front of his locker and saying,
“You couldn’t give me a million dollars to take off this uniform . . It was the way they ran out of the dugout and lined up along the first base line, jumping and shouting and slapping hands. They looked like schoolboys, not a bunch of pros … “That’s when it started,” Phillies’ manager Danny Ozark said. “It started when they were introduced. You “could write a story on that. They were like a bunch of dogs in a dog race. They couldn’t wait to get out of the kennel . . .” Maybe they were too eager, too excited because for eight innings they were clearly barking up the wrong tree, making the mistakes Phillie teams have been making for years.
“A fan sitting there had to be thinking, ‘Here we go again,’ ” Mike Schmidt said. ” ‘The Phillies get in a close ball game and they botch it up again . . .’ ” And now here it was, the bottom of the ninth, and the Phillies trailed by a run. What made it so agonizing was that they had scored three times against Tom Seaver, .baseball’s No. 1 pitcher. “You get a man in scoring position, he’s unbelievable,” Schmidt said. “God, he’s good. He’s the best. You’ve just got to stay close to him and hope . . .” And hope that Tug McGraw doesn’t come into slam the kennel door shut the way he did in the eighth. And the way he surely would do in the ninth once they cleared the exhibitionists off the field. In the Dugout, It Was Different Schmidt was right. All through the stands they must have been saying it, or at least, thinking it: “Same, old Phillies.” In the dugout, though, it must have been different. “There wasn’t one time anybody on the club playing or on the bench gave up,” Mike Rogodzinski said. “I walked down the bench (as the bottom of the ninth began) and I said, ‘If we get somebody on, Schmidtie’s going to jerk one,’ ” Ozark claimed. And zap just like that Tony Taylor lined McGraw’s first pitch of the inning, a fastball, to center for a pinch single. As somebody once said, “You gotta believe.” The tying run was on second with one out when Schmidt came up. Obviously,. Mike was the ideal man for the job. After all, he’d spent most of last season in Danny’s dog house. The young third baseman took a screwball that missed, then guessed fastball. “Tug’s going to have to try to get ahead of me,” he said, “because Bill Robinson’s behind me. I think he’d rather pitch to me than Bill Robinson . . .” Schmidt had gone 0-for-26 at the end of the 73 season, but this was 74. “He’s going to be a super ball player,” Tony Taylor was saying at the next locker. “He’s strong. He’s got quick hands. The ball jumps out.”
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