The Heart and Soul of The Big Red Machine, and an Icon of Seventies Baseball - Pete Rose (76 WS)
Statis-Pro Baseball ⚾️ Cards for the 1975 NL:
"Game On" The 1975 National League for Statis-Pro Baseball
(A Merely Good Pennant Race Effort)
These teams are indeed compatible with the 1975 AL published earlier.
Elton John played two “Game On” Concerts in Dodger Stadium in October, 1975
City of Angels
The defending National League Champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, had the pitching and the lineup seemingly to repeat every year. They had won 102 games in 1974 but they had lost the World Series to the A's Dynasty. But in the spring of 1975 the Dodgers still had all of their formidable pieces in place- Steve Garvey, the 200 hit machine at 1B, Ron Cey, the main power hitter at 3B, and Dusty Baker and Reggie Smith in the outfield. Their moundsmen as a staff were the league's best in 1974, deep and talented, and they would be once again in 1975. None of these truths would turn out to matter by August.
On the Banks of the Monongahela
The League's Eastern Champions, the Pittsburgh Lumber Company, may have played partly in the shadow of their NFL brethren, the Steelers, who would win their third title in the fall of 1975. While the Steelers lost Steve Blass as an effective starter, they gained John Candelaria, another tremendous pitcher. To stalwarts like Wille Stargell, Manny Sanguillen, Al Oliver and Richie Zisk the Pirates now had 24 year old Dave Parker, who hit 25 homers, drove in 101 RBI and batted .308. Returning to the NLCS for the fifth time in six years, they looked to add another World Series crown to the crown they won in 1971. Unfortunately for them, it was not to be.
They both faced a significant impediment to their NL pennant chances- Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Reds came into the 1975 baseball season having been one of baseball’s best teams for the previous five years. They had won the NL West three times in that span and the pennant twice. One thing they hadn’t accomplished was to win the World Series, and it was an omission that seemed to grow increasingly more significant as the great core talent of The Big Red Machine got older. In 1975, the Reds finished the job when they won one of the great Fall Classics of all time.
Joe Morgan won back to back NL MVPs in 1975 and 1976.
Their great lineup included legends in catcher Johnny Bench and third baseman Pete Rose, who each finished in the top five of the final MVP voting. George Foster was an emerging star in left field and Tony Perez was a reliable clutch hitter at first base. But in 1975, no player in baseball was better than second baseman Joe Morgan, who easily captured the NL MVP award. Morgan posted a stat line of .466 on-base percentage/.508 slugging percentage and stealing 67 bases. Bench hit 28 home runs and had 110 RBIs, while Perez had 20/109. Rose’s OBP was .406. Nor was the Cincinnati lineup top-heavy. Ken Griffey played rightfield and had a .391 OBP and great speed on the basepaths. George Foster, who would eventually win consecutive NL MVP awards in 1977-78 was coming into his own and hit 23 home runs in 1975. Cesar Geronimo in centerfield and Dave Concepion at shortstop weren’t big offensive threats, but each could run and each was a superior defender at a position where that was the most important quality.
The key move manager Sparky Anderson made was in early May, when he transferred Pete Rose, a Gold Glove outfielder, to third base in order to make room for Foster, a power hitting left fielder.
Before Cincinnati could think about October, they had to get back on top of an NL West that the Los Angeles Dodgers had won in 1974. The Dodgers were led by first baseman Steve Garvey. Andy Messersmith, a starting pitcher was in a nasty struggle with the front office that eventually led to an arbitrator’s decision which ushered in the era of free agency. But it didn’t stop Messersmith from having a good year in ’75. By the regular season’s first turn at Memorial Day, the Dodgers held a 3 ½ game lead over the Reds. The Giants, getting good years from shortstop Chris Speier and starting pitcher John Montefusco were four back. And the San Diego Padres, with Cy Young runner-up Randy Jones anchoring the rotation, were five games off the pace. Cincinnati obliterated them all and did it in an astonishingly short period of time. An early summer blitzkrieg vaulted the Reds not only into first place, but by a 12 ½ game margin at the All-Star break. The NL West race was blown wide open and the margin only got wider. Cincinnati won 108 games and clinched the division with several weeks to spare.
“Jaws” was first released on June 20, 1975
The 1975 NLCS
The Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates were two teams that had already gotten familiar with each other in National League Championship Series play. The two teams met in 1970 and the Reds won in a sweep. They met in 1972 and the Reds won a thriller. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh got together one more time in the 1975 NLCS. And one more time, the Big Red Machine asserted themselves. The NLCS opened on a Saturday in Cincinnati’s old Riverfront Stadium. Each team had its rotation lined up, and the aces—Don Gullett for the Reds and Jerry Reuss for the Pirates—ready to go. Don Gullett won the game with his arm and his bat. The fifth inning broke the game open. Three straight singles from Tony Perez, George Foster and Dave Concepion loaded the bases with no one out. A productive ground ball out from Griffey made the score 5-2. Cesar Geronimo hit a sac fly to add another run. The coup de grace came from Gullett—the pitcher hit a two-run homer to make it 8-2, and the game ended with an 8-3 final.
Cincinnati came back on Sunday in Game 2 and didn’t take their foot off the gas. Pete Rose singled to lead off the home half of the first inning. Pittsburgh starter Jim Rooker was able to get Morgan and Bench, but Perez took it deep for a 2-0 lead. For the second straight game, a Cincinnati pitcher helped himself at the plate—Norman picked up a run with a sac fly and it was 4-1. And for the second straight game a Pittsburgh starter didn’t make it through five innings. Perez later delivered an RBI single in the same inning, and the 6-1 final put Cincinnati on the brink of a pennant.
No team had rallied from on 0-2 deficit since LCS play was instituted as a best-of-five in 1969, but Pittsburgh would get the rest of the series at home in Three Rivers Stadium. They sent John Candelaria to the mound, and the lefty did what he could to keep his team’s season alive. Fate was cruel in the eighth though. Leading 2-1, Candelaria got the first two batters out. Then, after having controlled the Big Red Machine’s lineup of future Hall of Famers all night long, he walked pinch-hitter Marv Rettenmund. It flipped the lineup to the top and Pete Rose homered. Griffey got one more Reds rally going in the 10th, with a leadoff single. He moved up to second on a balk, and took third on a ground ball out by Geronimo. A sac fly from Ed Armbrister brought in the lead run. For all of the firepower the Reds had, they also could move baserunners and execute in key spots, and it gave them the last lead they would need in the 1975 NLCS. Reds reliever Pedro Borbon set the side down in the 10th . The 5-3 win gave the Cincinnati Reds their third National League pennant in six years.
So far, the 1975 baseball season was following very familiar storylines. In each of the three divisions discussed, the traditional power took control of the race in June and rolled into October. If form would have held, that would point to the Baltimore Orioles, with five AL East titles over the previous six years, as the team taking control. But the AL East in 1975 would be different. The Orioles were still good, to be sure, with staff ace Jim Palmer winning the Cy Young Award. The Yankees had high expectations, with the addition of Hunter to a team that contended to the final weekend of the 1974 season. New York’s lineup was anchored by one of the game’s best catchers, Thurman Munson.
But the team that emerged was the Boston Red Sox. A consistent contender since their pennant run in 1967, the Red Sox had not made it back to October since that magical season. In 1975, they added two electrifying rookies to the lineup. Jim Rice began a Hall of Fame career in leftfield and he finished third in the MVP voting as a rookie. The greatest rookie season of all time, at least as measured by MVP votes, belonged to centerfielder Fred Lynn. With a mix of power, grace and spectacular defense, Lynn became the first—and thus far only—rookie to win the AL MVP award.
Boston had a four-game lead on New York at the All-Star break. The surprising Milwaukee Brewers were within 4 ½ and Baltimore seemed to be having a down year. The Yanks and Brewers both faded. The Orioles made a move and got into second place by Labor Day, within six games. The race got as close as 4 ½ games, but Boston held off the division’s reigning power and became the new AL East champ.
If you’re writing a novel from the perspective of the Reds, you would certainly make them face the reigning dynasty from Oakland as the way of getting their championship breakthrough. But the real world requires that you simply play the best team left. And in the ALCS, the Red Sox did their own dismantling of the A’s.
Defensive mistakes from Oakland in Game 1 opened the door for Boston to pull away late and win 7-1. The Red Sox were getting good hitting from shortstop Rick Burleson, catcher Carlton Fisk, first baseman Cecil Cooper and the legendary Carl Yastrzemski in left. Even with Rice missing the postseason due to a broken hand, Boston could still produce. And in a surprising development, Red Sox reliever Dick Drago did more than pitch well—he outpitched Fingers over the next two games. That was the difference in Games 2 & 3 and Boston closed out a sweep.
Dick Drago was the Sox closer in 1975 and 1978.
A Fall Classic for the Ages
To this point, the 1975 baseball season hadn’t produced much drama. No hot pennant races. A couple of sweeps in the LCS round. No showdown among any of this decade’s established powers to look forward to in the World Series. Little did anyone know, the Reds and Red Sox were about to play a Fall Classic that has since become the subject of books, documentaries and been intertwined into popular culture. Cincinnati was a solid favorite, but Boston ace Luis Tiant baffled the Reds in Game 1 at Fenway, spinning and twirling his way to a 6-0 win. Red Sox lefty Bill Lee had Cincinnati on the ropes, holding a 2-1 lead into the ninth. But the Reds, playing with desperation, punched across two runs and got a 3-2 road win.
Game 3 was an extra inning classic, replete with a controversial umpire’s call that to this day sticks in the craw of Red Sox fans of a certain age. Cincinnati won 6-5 and it seemed the favorite was getting control of the series.
17 game winner Bill Lee in 1975.
Tiant went back to the mound for Game 4. What he did was a display of guts and a vivid demonstration of how much baseball has changed over the ensuing decades. Tiant wasn’t sharp, but he threw 163 pitches and held off the Reds in a 5-4 win. Even though Cincinnati got an easy win in Game 5, the Red Sox were taking the Series back to Fenway Park.
Three days of rain added to the drama and allowed Tiant to take the mound in Game 6. But the gutsy ace finally started to run out of gas about halfway through. Cincinnati took a 6-3 lead into the eighth inning.
Boston put two runners on. Pinch-hitter Bernie Carbo stunned everyone with a three-run homer to dead center. Tie game. In the ninth inning, the Red Sox had the bases loaded with no one out and couldn’t score. In the eleventh inning, Morgan ripped a drive to right that should have scored a run, but Dwight Evans made a spectacular catch. One of the greatest games in baseball history went to the 12th inning. Finally, Fisk won it with one of baseball’s iconic home runs—a long fly ball that bounced off the left field foul pole, with the TV cameras showing Fisk “waving the ball fair”.
The two teams still had to come back and play a game the next night and Game 7 was a classic in its own right. The Red Sox took a 3-0 lead. Lee held that lead into the sixth inning when Perez hit a two-run homer. The Reds tied it in the seventh. Game 7 of the World Series was tied 3-3 going into the ninth inning. With two outs in the top of the ninth, Cincinnati had a runner on third base. Morgan was at the plate. A nasty breaking ball went to the outside corner. Morgan got the bat on it and looped a single into center. It was a soft hit, but it was enough. The Reds had the lead, they got three more outs and finally, at long last, they were World Series champions.
Fred Bobberts
Initial Date of Publication 8-19-2026
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