THE CALL

May 25, 2023

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This email is a re-run from a few months ago, but we’ll be back at it with a fresh story tomorrow.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about a blown call that affected the course of baseball history and changed an umpire's legacy forever.

It was Game 6 of the '85 World Series.

The Cardinals were three outs away from clinching another World Series ring and sending the Royals home heartbroken.

St. Louis led the series 3-2 at that point, and carried a 1-0 lead into the ninth inning.

That year, St. Louis was 97 for 97 when leading that late in the game; the odds were definitely against the Royals.

The batter, Jorge Orta, was hitless in his seven post-season AB’s up to that point.

The Cardinals pitcher, Todd Worrell, had struck out out his last six hitters in a row.

On an 0-2 count, Orta hit a chopper down the first base line, then this happened.

Don Denkinger had just made a life-changing mistake.

After the play, the Cardinals became completely rattled and the wheels fell off quickly.

It went like this:

The Cards missed a pop fly in foul territory, then Balboni got a single, sacrifice bunt for an out at third, a past ball, then an intentional walk.

St. Louis sent pinch-hitter, Dane Iorg, to the plate with one out and the bases loaded.

Iorg hit a base knock into right field, and both runners came around to score.

Game 6 went to the Royals, and the Cardinals went home feeling as deflated as a 10-year-old air mattress.

There was still one game left; you could've called the series right then and there.

Denkinger was behind the plate the very next day.

The Royals murdered St. Louis and their manager, Whitey Herzog, got tossed for calling Denkinger a cocksucker.

The aftermath was brutal.

A pandora’s box was opened when two St Louis DJ’s released Denkinger’s phone number and home address on the radio.

Calls came flooding in, keeping Denkinger and his family up at night, and someone even threatened to burn his house down.

Two years after the event, Denkinger received a letter telling him he was being watched and soon would be blown away by a .357 magnum.

Not only that, but the replay continued to run for decades to come, cementing Denkinger’s legacy as the umpire who blew the World Series.

The umpire refused to let the threats get to him, he kept his number the same and continued on with his regular life; even embracing the mistake and publicly saying he got it wrong.

He umpired 13 more seasons in the big leagues and was the crew chief for the ‘91 World Series; he was also behind the plate for Nolan Ryan’s sixth no-no.

After the initial sting wore off, people respected Don for owning his mistake.

In ‘05, Herzog invited Denkinger to the ‘85 Cardinals 20-year reunion.

They presented Don with a braille watch and Herzog got a good laugh out of it.

One thing that you have to respect is that fact that Don Denkinger never let the mistake or the heckling afterwards define him; he retired in '98 after 30 years in the bigs.

ONE QUICK QUESTION

We’ve been having this debate on Twitter, and there seems to be a lot of different opinions when it comes to this question.

Curious what you guys think:

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Harry is the first manger we ever featured on strange names.

He was actually a sports writer for most of his career, but the Browns hired him to manage in 1896.

The team and the ownership had a bad reputation, and things quickly went left.

After three weeks, Diddlebock was fired and never managed in pro ball again.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites:

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