"It was a tough loss, but not a devastating loss because of the attitude we carried all year," said Al Oliver. "We always gave it our best shot, so I walked off the field with Roberto and kept my head up. It just wasn't meant to be.

"The Pirates and Reds were so close in talent in '72. Personally, I thought we had the edge that year even though they had more power in their lineup, but we had guys who hit the ball, put the ball in play. If not for that loss and we had gone on to the World Series again, they would've been talking about the Pirates and not the Big Red Machine.

"Moose threw a sinking fastball, a heavy ball, along with a sharp slider. To me, what cost us that game was not the wild pitch but the Bench home run. Bench wasn't known to hit to right field."

Dropping the League Championship Series to the Reds was not the most pleasant way for Bill Virdon to finish his rookie season as manager of the Pirates, for whom he had starred as a smooth center fielder in the 1950s and 1960s. "I thought we were the best club in baseball that year," he said. "We had good left-handed hitters in Stargell, Oliver, and Hebner, and from the right side we had Clemente. Our pitching was deep, and maybe we lacked some speed, but we really didn't need it.

"Moose threw McRae a couple of breaking pitches. Then he tried to throw a little better one and he bounced it. If we had gotten through the ninth, I think we would've had the advantage. I still had all my bench left, and Anderson had nobody left."

In his post-game remarks, Moose said, "I was trying to waste the pitch by throwing a slider outside. When I let it go, I knew it was outside where I wanted it. I didn't think that low, but when it started going down, I figured it would bounce up and hit Manny in the stomach. But it took a crazy hop over his head. How many times have you seen a bounce that high?"

Moose was also heard to ask Sanguillen in a soft tone, "Hey, Sangy, couldn't you stop that ball?" He spoke with a sense of disappointment, not antagonism.

"It looked like it hit something," said Sanguillen. "I jumped for the ball and it came up, but it hit me on the hand. It never touched my glove."

Charlie Feeney, a baseball writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who covered the final playoff game, stayed on in Cincinnati for the World Series. "I met so many scouts there," he said, "and they all asked me the same thing: 'What the hell was the matter with Sanguillen backhanding that ball? How could he do that?' "

"A play like that was all that could have beaten us that year," said Willie Stargell. "I didn't know then that game would be the last time Roberto and I would play on the same field together. Had I known, I would have saved some appropriate words for the occasion. I may even have told him I loved him."

» NEXT