TORONTO – The acronym WAMCO – the surnames of Devon White, Roberto Alomar, Paul Molitor, Joe Carter and John Olerud in the order they batted for most of the 1993 season – has a special place in Toronto Blue Jays lore.
Those dudes lay a hurting on opposing pitchers, forming a daunting gauntlet atop a fearsome lineup integral to the club’s identity that year. Chances are that if you followed the team back then, that nickname immediately comes to mind whenever ’93 comes up.
Yet during the defining ninth inning of Game 6 in the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies – airing Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on Sportsnet’s Blue Jays Classics – it was Molitor batting behind White, not Alomar against closer Mitch Williams, and Alfredo Griffin in the on-deck circle behind Carter, not Olerud.
The former, of course, was a byproduct of Rickey Henderson’s addition prior to the trade deadline, and I’ll have more on that in a moment. The latter is a fun piece of trivia, as Griffin pinch-ran for Olerud in the eighth, and the thought process on both fronts demonstrates how closely those Blue Jays paid attention to detail.
“Cito called me and he had a matchup list,” Griffin says of manager Cito Gaston in my 2016 book, The Big 50: Toronto Blue Jays. “He goes, ‘Listen, I’m not going to pinch-hit for you. If Carter gets on or whatever happens, you’re going to hit. You own this guy (3-for-10 career).’ I said, ‘Hey, that’s fine with me,’ but I said to myself, ‘Please God help me, let Carter do it.’ I wasn’t afraid to go up and do it. Just I was at the end of my career, I wasn’t the same player I was in my prime. So Carter hit a home run and I said, ‘Oh God, thank you.’”
Maybe in an alternate universe, it’s a Griffin hit that wins it for the Blue Jays. In this one, Carter’s home run became only the second to end a World Series, joining when Bill Mazeroski’s Game 7 drive off Ralph Terry handed the Pittsburgh Pirates a 10-9 win over the New York Yankees in 1960.
There will be more on Carter later, as well.
First, when Gaston pinch-ran for Olerud after an eighth-inning walk, he was not only trying to erase a 6-5 deficit then and there, he also knew that if Olerud’s turn came up again in the ninth, it would be in a lefty-lefty matchup with Williams. Griffin offered a better chance to score a run in the eighth, and while you can debate who you’d rather have up in the ninth, Gaston had made his choice and had faith in Griffin.
More importantly, he had the trust of his players, something that allowed him to make tough decisions like benching Olerud in Game 3 of the Series against lefty starter Danny Jackson, or fiddling with the WAMCO alignment after Henderson arrived.
Henderson, obviously, was going to bat leadoff, but managers can understandably be reluctant to disrupt a good thing. And changing things around could easily have ruffled feathers. Hence, Gaston called his hitters in for a meeting after the trade and asked them for their lineup suggestions.
“They knew what kind of player he was, he certainly wasn’t going to hurt us, he was going to help us, but you like to keep guys where they’re comfortable,” says Gaston. “They pretty much came back with the lineup I was thinking.”
By and large, that meant slotting in everyone as is behind Henderson, although against lefties Molitor moved up into Alomar’s spot in the two-hole and the second baseman dropped to sixth behind Olerud.
Why?
Though Alomar’s career splits aren’t especially pronounced – an .842 OPS against righties and .745 versus lefties – in 1993 they were more significant at .988/.670. White’s presence in the two-hole was oft-debated, but the dual speed threat he provided with Henderson right out the gate gave the Blue Jays an added dynamic.
Regardless, that’s why in Game 6 Alomar was batting sixth, as the starter for the Phillies that night was lefty Terry Mulholland.
And that’s why after Henderson opened the inning with a walk, White flew out at the end of a nine-pitch at-bat and Molitor came up knowing he was a career 1-for-8 with a walk against Williams, and having talked some sense into himself.
“I remember being in the on-deck circle when Devon was up, and I had this thought of all the days when you’re a kid, and you’re in the backyard and you think about coming up in the bottom of the ninth with a chance to hit a home run to win the World Series, and I was about to live that moment,” says Molitor. “I said to myself, ‘Put that thought out of your mind, that’s not what you do.’
“I hadn’t done much against Mitch in my career. I hadn’t faced him a ton, but I knew he had been tough on me, so to go up there thinking about hitting a home run to win the World Series, that’s the last thing to be thinking about. I said to myself, ‘Just go up there and have another good at-bat like you’ve been doing,’ I got a pitch that I was able to hit into centre field and it got down. I had a little conversation about it with John Kruk at first, and I remember saying, ‘This is unbelievable how much fun this is.’ He goes, ‘I’m not having any fun right now.’”
That put men at first and second for Carter, who at that point was 0-for-4 in his career versus Williams. He took a fastball outside for ball one, a fastball high for ball two and a third heater on the outside corner for strike one, before swinging hesitantly at a breaking ball that nearly dipped into the dirt.
“I had a bit of a flat-footed swing on the 2-1 pitch. I lost track of the ball because Mickey Morandini was right behind second base,” says Carter. “I had just moved the umpire over, because umpires like to stand on the first-base side of second base with a guy on first. Against a left-handed pitcher, it comes right out of the umpire, but you can’t move the defender out of the way. The breaking ball looked pretty good when he first threw it, and once I picked it back up after it went through his jersey, I saw it was a ball but I had already committed, so it kind of looked like a feeble swing.”
At that point, the chess match between Carter and Williams really picked up.
“In my mind, I’m thinking, ‘OK, he’s going to come back with a breaking ball, he has to the way I swung at that one,’” says Carter. “Then he shook off the first sign, and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, he just shook off the breaking ball, because I knew Darren (Daulton) put down breaking ball, he had too, and he shook him off.’ One thing Bobby Bonds always taught me was … if you’re ever looking breaking ball and get a fastball, trust your hands. So I said, ‘OK, I’m still looking breaking ball.’ He threw a fastball that he was trying to get up and away, but because he did the slide step, he kind of jerked it and threw it down and in. Ninety-nine out of 100 times I would either swing over that ball, foul it off my foot, or hit a line drive into the third base dugout. But because I was looking breaking ball, everything slowed down. They say you have 1/16th of a second to make a commitment or adjust to the ball. I think I went probably about 1/20th of a second. All I did with the fastball in was just react, and drop the head straight down. When I looked up all I saw was a bank of lights.”
Even before the ball sailed toward the Blue Jays bullpen in the left-field corner, Molitor wasn’t taking anything for granted, jumping out to a big lead at first base.
“I wanted to be ready in case Rickey took off from second,” he explains. “Joe makes contact, and I take off running because I’m just not sure. I’m watching Pete Incaviglia in left field and I’m thinking if the ball hits the wall, I score and we win. I was probably just about rounding second when I saw Incaviglia drop his head just a little bit, and then it was just a matter of making my way around and getting ready for the celebration.”
Celebrate the Blue Jays did, having won their second straight title, a triumph borne out of not only the big decisions in the executive offices, but also the little ones on the field that allow good teams to be great, and great teams to be champions.
