In a darkening Southern California afternoon, Pedro Guerrero breaks down the third-base line. A rookie pinch-hitter, R.J. Reynolds, making his 27th career plate appearance, watches Atlanta pitcher Gene Garber begin his follow-through, and drops the bat from his shoulder into bunting position like water flowing downstream.
It’s the final play of a game that stood for more than 20 years as the greatest in Dodger Stadium history. The play comes during the softening glow of a heated September pennant race, the Dodgers clinging to a two-game lead in the NL West after losing in extra innings to the Braves the previous night.
It comes hours after Jack Fimple, one of those temporary heroes the Dodgers find from time to time, adds to his fleeting legend by doubling in two second-inning runs. It comes hours after Atlanta center fielder Dale Murphy almost single-handedly throttles the Dodgers, hitting a three-run homer in the top of the third and then going above and nearly through the outfield fence in the bottom of the inning to steal Guerrero’s two-run bid. It comes hours after the Dodgers use four pitchers in the fourth inning to try to keep the game from becoming a complete runaway; the home team is fortunate to escape the inning with only a 6–2 deficit.
The play comes through a small opening in the fabric of baseball reality, a pathway carved by the truly bizarre. Future Dodgers manager Joe Torre, then helming the Braves, signals for relief pitcher Tony Brizzolara to come into a bases-loaded sixth without having him warm up that inning. Four balls to Steve Sax later, Brizzolara leaves the game with the Dodgers one run closer.
In a game that could be subtitled A Series of Improbable Events, the play comes after a ninth inning full of them.
Leading off, 38-year-old pinch-hitter Jose Morales offers a textbook-rejected swing, a Leaning Tower of Pisa flick of the wrists sending Donnie Moore’s pitch into left field, far enough from Atlanta outfielder Brett Butler that Morales can come in standing with a double.
After Moore walks Sax, Garber enters the game and strikes out Bill Russell, and for a penetrating moment, there’s a sense that the surreal has finally expired.
But then Dusty Baker hits a seeing-eye blooper to right field for a single to load the bases. And to a Dodgers fan base watching from home, Vin Scully rises:
This crowd is on its feet and pleading. They’re all getting up. It is that time of day. Never mind the seventh-inning stretch. This is the wire.
And then Pedro Guerrero, in a nine-pitch at-bat that lasts a full six minutes, ekes out a walk to cut the deficit to 6–4.
It is almost too much to take. You’d have to be a block of wood not to feel it.
And then Mike Marshall hits a fly to right field that dovetails into one of the sun’s gallant rays, stymieing Claudell Washington, who spins around but can’t find the ball before it lands at the base of the outfield fence and allowing the tying runs to score.
The play comes with the infield in, with the outfield in. The play comes with Dodgers fans begging, imploring Reynolds to find a hole within or beyond that shortened field.
Guerrero breaks down the third-base line.
The SQUEEZE! And here comes the run!!
Dodgers 7, Braves 6. Bedlam.