Summary:

In the previous 23 chapters of this series we recalled the history of the Los Angeles Kings baseball franchise from its creation by William Randolph Hearst in 1920 to its tumultuous 1976 MLB season. In this segment we’ll look back at their 1976 American League postseason run.

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The Kings’ quest to win their first American League pennant since 1972 would begin with a divisional playoff battle against a relatively unfamiliar foe. Instead of their longtime archrivals San Francisco or a more recent adversary like Detroit or Oakland, the Purple & Gold would face the Houston Astros as their first obstacle on the road to the 1972 World Series. After turning relatively lackluster records during their first three seasons as an AL franchise Houston had, under the guidance of then-manager Bill Virdon, notched an MLB regular season record good good enough to net them their first-ever postseason berth as the AL wild card entry. David Clyde, once the hope of the Astros for establishing an AL West dynasty, had long since disappeared from the majors by this time but Houston still had two highly capable starters on their roster in the forms of six-footers Larry Dierker and Joaquin Andujar.

Also a major threat to the Purple & Gold’s aspirations of returning to the World Series: newly acquired Astros infielder Mark Belanger, one of the first and most conspicuous beneficiaries of the newly liberalized MLB policy on free agency that had been instituted back in January. The longtime Oriole had been persuaded to leave Baltimore thanks to an offer of a $50,000 annual increase in salary and the promise of a coaching or management job in the Astros farm system after his playing career ended. Belanger would prove to be a serious thorn in the Kings’ side during the ’76 American League divisional playoffs. His bat would be a major threat to their championship aspirations....                                 ******

...but it was his glove that would constitute the biggest obstacle to their quest for a return trip to the World Series, as many frustrated L.A. batters would discover in Game 1 of the ’76 divisional playoffs. In the third inning alone during that matchup he would twice take away what looked like sure base hits off Joaquin Andujar; during the fifth inning Belanger made a seemingly impossible throw to turn what had started out as an RBI double into an inning-ending force play at second base. By the top of the seventh Los Angeles was trailing Houston 4-1, and they ended up losing the game 5-2. As one might imagine, this did not sit well with either the Kings’ fans or with their manager, who vented his displeasure at his players in a three-hour postgame tirade which used six out of the seven words on George Carlin’s famous list.

Eager to avoid being subjected to this kind of rebuke a second time, the Kings came out for Game 2 of the ALCS with guns blazing; they racked up six runs in the first inning and held off a late Astros rally to earn a series-tying 10-7 victory. Toby Harrah was the game’s top star on that afternoon, singlehandedly accounting for three of Los Angeles’ first six runs with a three-run homer off Larry Dierker and making a crucial force play at second base in the eighth inning to squash Houston’s last try at a comeback. With the series evened up, the Purple and Gold flew out east to the Astrodome for Game 3 brimming with confidence.

That confidence was slightly shaken by the roar of boos from Astros fans which greeted Martin and his players when they stepped out onto the Astrodome’s artificial turf to take the field for Game 3. Before the day was over, though, it would be Houston’s morale that truly got shaken up. L.A.’s batters exploited the Astrodome’s famously hitter-friendly angles early and often; by the time Houston starter J.R. Richard was pulled off the mound with the bases loaded and only one out in the top of the fifth inning, the Kings were ahead of the Astros 6-0 and looking to widen that lead still further. Los Angeles went on to win the game 7-1 and secure a 2 games-to-1 series lead; they would clinch a berth in the 1976 ALCS by virtue of an 8-6 extra innings victory against Houston in the fourth and final game of the divisional playoffs.

In the ALCS the Kings would square off with a more familiar foe: the New York Yankees, who after hiring free agent Reggie Jackson’s services from Oakland had run away with the AL East division title during the MLB regular season and were hoping to derail their league rivals’ aspirations of returning to the World Series. George Steinbrenner, the Cleveland-born shipbuilder who now owned the Bronx Bombers, didn’t just want to see the Purple & Gold defeated-- he wanted to see them demolished. Over the days leading up to Game 1 of the ALCS Steinbrenner told just about anyone who would listen that he was out to crush Los Angeles.

Only Los Angeles didn’t particularly feel like being crushed, it turned out. Before an astonished Yankee Stadium crowd Doyle Alexander pitched one of the greatest games of his career in the ALCS opener; in eight innings’ work he recorded eleven strikeouts and held New York to just four hits. A pair of homers by Toby Harrah and Cesar Tovar helped power the Purple & Gold to a 7-1 victory and laid the groundwork for a surge in momentum that would lead to a 10-4 win over the Bronx Bombers in Game 2 the next day.

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 With the Pinstripes in an 0-2 hole as the ALCS headed to the West Coast for Games 3 and 4, conventional wisdom held that the Kings would make short work of the rest of the series. At worst it was thought they could split those two games and clinch the American League pennant with a Game 5 victory. At best fans anticipated a sweep of the Yankees; some of the most optimistic Purple & Gold backers were already anticipating a World Series rematch with the Dodgers. Expectations of an ALCS victory for L.A. only grew after news broke that Graig Nettles, a critical part of the New York infield, would have to sit out at least one game-- and possibly more --due to back troubles. With Nettles on the bench for the make-or-break third game of the ’76 ALCS, it seemed the odds were very much against the Yanks. But in the fifth inning of Game 3, disaster hit Los Angeles square in the face when Kings outfielder Bruce Bochte made a costly error, misjudging the arc of an apparent fly ball to center field; Bochte’s miscalculation allowed the Yankees to score two unearned runs to tie the game 3-3. In the sixth the Yanks pulled ahead 4-3 on a solo homer by catcher Thurman Munson, and from there it was all downhill for L.A. as they went on to lose 6-4.

The Kings' Game 3 defeat added to the already intense pressure they were facing in Game 4; a loss in that matchup would at least tie the ALCS up going into Game 5, and what was more it might also put Los Angeles in jeopardy of losing control of the series altogether. A Game 4 victory by New York would give the Yankees a chance to seize the momentum in Game 5 and possibly eliminate the Purple & Gold if and when the ALCS moved back to Yankee Stadium for Game 6. So it was with a mix of anxiety and a grim determination to avoid this nightmare scenario that Martin’s players took the field for the fourth meeting between L.A. and New York in the ALCS.

Their resolve paid off in buckets. Thanks to a leadoff double by Pete Incaviglia and a sacrifice bunt by Cesar Tovar sparked a six-run scoring barrage for Los Angeles in the first inning and set the table for an 11-3 Kings win to tie the ALCS at two games apiece. Frank Tanana, the Purple & Gold’s starting pitcher that afternoon, racked up twelve strikeouts over seven innings’ work during the game and a string of accolades from Kings skipper Billy Martin at the post-game press conference. Thanks in part to the morale boost the Game 4 victory provided, the Kings were able to take Game 5 7-6 in an extra innings slugfest and head back to Hearst Palladium with a 3 games-to-2 series lead.

It was in the third inning of Game 6 when the Purple & Gold began to slam the door shut for good on the Yankees. Toby Harrah drew first blood for Los Angeles that afternoon with a solo homer to center field. A Cesar Tovar RBI double later in the inning drove in two more runs for L.A., and from there the rout was on; the Yankees never recovered, finally falling to the Kings 13-5 in one of the biggest postseason blowouts for either of the two clubs in over three decades. When the last out of the game, a pop fly by Yankee infielder Chris Chambliss, dropped into Cesar Tovar’s glove the Hearst Palladium faithful erupted like Mount Vesuvius in celebration of L.A.’s first American League championship since 1972 and a World Series rematch with their old Fall Classic arch-nemeses from Cincinnati.

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Unfortunately for Billy Martin and company, the dream of World Series glory in America’s bicentennial year became a flat-out nightmare. The Big Red Machine lived up to its nickname with a vengeance as Cincinnati threw its old Series rival under the bus in one of the most thorough dominations of one Series team by another in MLB history. Having steamrollered L.A.’s other team, the Dodgers, in the ’76 divisional playoffs and decimated the Phillies in the NLCS, the Reds were peaking at precisely the right time-- for them, anyway. For the Purple & Gold, on the other hand, it was exactly the wrong time. Their pitching staff abruptly self-destructed, coughing up fifteen hits in the Series opener alone, and their bats were stopped cold by Cincinnati’s starting rotation; the Reds cruised to a four-game sweep of the Kings, with Pete Rose getting at least one RBI in every one of the four games and homering in three of those games-- including a fifth inning grand slam in Game 4 that effectively clinched the Series championship for the Big Red Machine.

Although they’d been happy to see the Reds beat Boston in the Fall Classic the previous year, Cincinnati fans were even more ecstatic over this Series victory. Not only had the Redlegs avenged their 1972 defeat in the Fall Classic against Los Angeles, but they’d done so in convincing fashion. The mood among Kings fans was grim to say the least-- and would have even more so had they known the humiliation that awaited the Purple and Gold the following year in the postseason...