May 1st, 1993: Philadelphia Phillies (17-5) vs Los Angeles Dodgers (8-15)
The Candy Man Can
An Introduction…
I’m the guy that decided the best way to cope with the present day Phillies by watching the 1993 Phillies. Now that the 2021 season has begun, my attention has returned to the current Phillies, but as too the heartbreak of being a fan of this franchise has also begun, I’ve decided once more to go back in time and revisit the greatest season of baseball of my childhood, the 1993 Phillies. Thanks to the internet and more specifically the saint who runs the ClassicPhilliesTV youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWb6dGkCnKBlrQLJAjZ-4-w), I’m going back and watching every 1993 Phillies I can find just like if it was 27 years ago (but with the internet)... Previously I attempted to go day for day with every Phillies game in the month of June, which was a bold idea but proved to be futile. Now the plan is to start from the beginning of the season and attempt 1 game recap per week until we get to game 5 of the 1993 World series and then decide if I really want to torture myself with game 6. Come along for the ride to reminisce about the legends of John Kruk, Mitch Williams, and Darren Daulton, to mix the knowledge we have now, with jokes of how dumb things were then.
Where We Last Left Our Intrepid Heroes (and Villains)
The Phillies have entered May with a 17-5 record good enough win percentage wise as the greatest start in franchise history. They just swept a two game series against the Padres in San Diego. The second game was won in spectacular fashion when David West faced Bob Geren in the 8th inning with the bases loaded, and Geren hit a long fly ball to left field that Milt Thompson amazingly brought back from over the wall to prevent a grand slam. It’s probably the best defensive play of the entire 1993 season. The next night in Los Angeles in the first game of the series, Mickey Morandini likewise saved a game with a remarkable defensive play.
The Dodgers of Los Angeles (Nee Brooklyn) have an 8-15 record on the season and are comfortably relaxing in the NL West basement. Since leaving Philadelphia 6 days previously (in 1993) the Dodgers have won 2 out of 3 against the Mets and Expos after a six game losing streak. Very little is going right for Tommy Lasorda’s ball club, and last night’s umpires only angered him more. A fun fact about Lasorda is that he coached Rookie of Year winners 9 times in the 20 seasons he was manager, the Philadelphia Phillies have had 4 Rookie of the Year winners in 73 seasons since the award was created in 1947. Sadly, the veterans who are brought to Los Angeles with the allure of huge contracts are just as often underachieving. This year’s disappointments Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis are batting .156 and .253 while making 3.8 and 2 million dollars each (the highest salary in 1993 was 6 million a year, for the services of Bobby Bonilla, services the Mets continue to pay for to this day), the equivalent today would be about 18.5 and 10.3 million respectively. Their lone bright spot has been the play of rookie catcher Mike Piazza.
Today’s Game:
It is Wednesday May 1st, 1993 and the Phillies are visiting the Chavez Ravine to play the Los Angeles Dodgers. You know how in Roger Rabbit, the reason the Judge wants to get rid of Toontown is to build a mass transportation highway though it. In real life Los Angeles, they built a mass transportation highway through the Mexican Neighborhoods (It’s a metaphor). Then they built Dodgers Stadium. The television broadcast is brought to you on Philadelphia’s favorite regional channel WPHL 17, home to all of the important Phillies games. Our broadcasters are the A team of Richie Ashburn, Harry Kalas, and their gopher Chris Wheeler.
Watch for yourself at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqNXabZYdI0
The Line-up
CF Lenny Dykstra .
2B Mickey Morandini
1B John Kruk
3B Dave Hollins
C Darren Daulton
RF Pete Incaviglia
LF Jim Eisenreich Batting .320
SS Mariano Duncan Phillies are 11-0 in Duncan Starts
SP Ben Rivera
On the Mound:
Ben Rivera is one of the few Philadelphia Phillies who has had a rocky start to the season, the six foot six Dominican currently has a 1-1 record and 6.55 ERA over 11 innings. The 24 year old had a late start to spring training due to getting the flu, and had the inconvenience of missing a start due to rain, skipping his spot in the rotation and messing with his timing. Wheels also attributes the fact that it’s cold and Fregosi told the media earlier today that Rivera “was trying to aim the ball”. No matter what, Fregosi needs Rivera to eat innings today after the bullpen took care of four innings yesterday and Mitch Williams has pitched in three straight games. The Phils currently hold a 4.5 game lead over the second place St. Louis Cardinals.
Pitching for the Dodgers today is knuckleballer Tom Candiotti, as is mentioned multiple times during the broadcast, Candiotti didn’t start his career as a knuckleballer, but kind of slouched there eventually in 1986. Like most knuckleballers before him, Candiotti only learned the pitch when the rest of repertoire failed to make him an employable Major League Baseball player. Before the knuckleball, Candiotti was 6-6 over 14 starts with a 4.04 FIP and 4.5 K’s per 9 innings, but didn’t even make the major league roster in 1985, and thus began his learning of the great floater of fear. In 1993, he is one of three knuckleballers in the NL, and has a career record of 95-96 and a 1-3 tally against the Phillies. After baseball, Candiotti appeared in Billy Crystal’s HBO film about the 1961 home run chase 61* as fellow knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm. To learn more, check out Candiotti’s biography A Life of Knuckleballs by K.P. Wee, which both exists and is available on Amazon.
Highs (Hopes) and Lows
Low- Bottom 1st- Early Hole
The Dodgers quickly get on the board when the male Brett Butler (not to be confused with the female Brett Butler who starred on Grace Under Fire) singles, advances to second after a wild pitch by Ben Rivera, is sacrificed over to third, and comes home with a sacrifice fly to make it 1-0 Dodgers. One might argue that taking the hands out of your 2 and 3 hole hitters is actually a win for the Phillies, as the Dodgers had far less chance of scoring more runs in the inning. Older non-analytics fans would respond that a run is a run is a run. 1-0 LAD
Low- Bottom 5th- Piazza the Hutt
As mentioned above and in the past three Dodgers’ game write-ups, the best player for LA in this early season is catcher and former 62nd round draft pick (1390th overall) Mike Piazza. Born in Norristown, Piazza grew up in nearby Phoenixville (this is never mentioned by the Phillies broadcast), and was drafted primarily because he was the Godson of Tommy Lasorda. Now in the big leagues, Piazza is thriving to a degree that steroid allegations would haunt his entire career (nothing has ever been proven), and in the 5th inning, Piazza launches his 5th home run of the season. Now he’s slashing .321/.379/.564 with 9 runs 5 home runs and 14 RBIs, if he was on your fantasy team today in the 2021 season he’d be the 4th best catcher in baseball.
Mids- Bottom 6th- Chess
With the Dodgers still clinging to a 2-0 lead, manager Tommy Lasorda is met with a classic baseball decision, thanks to a strategic move by Phillies manager Jim Fregosi. With a man on first and third with two outs, the Dodgers sent up their 8 hole hitter Jose Offerman (who amazingly is the father-in-law to the WWE superstar Bray Wyatt) to the plate, Fregosi counters by walking Offerman to load the bases and bring up the pitcher Tom Candiotti. Now up to this point in the game Candiotti has handcuffed the Phillies to the tune of 7 k’s and 4 scattered hits through 6 innings, and the fact that Candiotti is knuckleballer gives the pitch count no thought (Tim Wakefield of the Pittsburgh Pirates last week in 1993 threw 171 pitches!). Lasorda decides to go with his pitcher and sends Candiotti to the plate to bat and he weakly grounds out to end the inning. In 2021, there’s no question that Candiotti would be pinch hit for for the chance to score more runs, even if you believe in the adage that knuckleballers can’t be hurt by throwing too many pitches, the fact that the Phillies line-up was about to see him for the third time would scare any present day manager to risk it in a two run game. Maybe not Tony La Russa.
High then low - Top 7 - Take that Old School or Not?
Jim Eisenreich (who is one of the few Phillies with extended history against Candiotti in the American League) doubles in Pete Incaviglia to tighten the score 2-1 in the top of the 7th, but Candiotti is able to get out of the inning by striking out Mariano Duncan to end the threat. Duncan was particularly perplexed by the knuckler today, ending up 0-3 with 3 strikeouts. So while Lasorda was betting the wrong percentages with keeping Candiotti in, he ended up beating the odds.
Low- Bottom 8- Terrible Umpiring
It would be nice to tell you, that Umpires were once good, it’d be nicer to tell you that they continually got better and now they’re great, but I can’t. Umpires have been and probably always will be terrible. Of course there are exceptions, but Baseball happens far too fast for this to be a thing any more, so calls get missed, and players/fans/broadcasters will always get angry about it, and now with the technology that television provides, it’s only getting worse. In the bottom of the 8th, the Phillies brought out former Cy Young winner Mark Davis to pitch, but he quickly loaded the bases after giving up two singles and hitting a guy. Which brings up Jose Offerman again (years before he tried to attack a pitcher who hit him with a bat in the Atlantic League), and then came this pitch on a 3-2 count.
“Right down the middle of the plate, fooled the hitter, fooled the umpire.” Says Whitey. Darren Daulton also says something, but it can’t be heard by anyone but the umpire, and he is tossed for whatever opinion he shared. This brings out Manager Jim Fregosi, who also quickly gets kicked out of the game for sharing his opinion to the umpire. After everyone calms down, Mark Davis gives up another single and another run and gets the hook for Bobby Ayrault who gives up another run before finally putting an end to the bleeding. 5-1 LAD.
Wild Rides
Though no longer a save opportunity, Tommy Lasorda brings in Jim Gott to finish off the game after Tom Candiotti went 8 innings, struck out 9 Phillies, and allowed 1 run, 5 hits, and 1 walk. Jim Gott was the bullpen coach for the 2018 Philadelphia Phillies and was Dennis Quaid’s personal pitching coach for Disney’s The Rookie. He strikes out Dave Hollins to start the ninth when he comes up against Darren Daulton’s replacement, Doug Lindsey. Lindsey is only on the Phillies roster due to an injury to Todd Pratt, and has only played in one other professional baseball game, 2 years previously on the last game of the 1991 season. Lindsey is like Crash Davis, if Crash Davis wasn’t very good offensively, he spent 7 years in the minors, where he was known as the best defensive catcher in the Eastern League (Double AA Reading). In his one other appearance, the only start of his career so far, he had the bad luck of facing David Cone, on a day where David Cone was really really pissed off. Cone would strike out 19! Phillies on that day, and Lindsey would be a victim three times (his only at professional at bats). Now Lindsey comes to the plate fresh off going 2 for 17 in double A in the bottom of the 9th
and slaps a single to right field for his first (spoilers: and only) major league hit. “I guess he figures after David Cone this game is easy” jokes Whitey. Two pitches later, Pete Incaviglia hit into a double play to end the game.
Final: Philadelphia Phillies 1 (17-8) Los Angeles Dodgers 5 (9-15)
Words of Wisdom from Harry and Whitey and sometimes Wheels
“All his other pitches couldn’t get anybody out.” Whitey explaining why Candiotti became a knuckleball pitcher.
Final Conclusions
The Phillies lose the second game of their series in Los Angeles after all the wind comes out of their sail thanks to a terrible umpire call. If you enjoyed this wonderful blast from the past please feel free to share, like, or comment on it. The hope is to have more people watching 93 Phillies games on youtube and talking about it. So hit me up @Kevin_Seamus on twitter or @loudphilliesguy on Instagram. The next game is May 2nd’s day game where we see a battle of the titans with Terry Mullholland facing off against Orel Hershiser.
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