Summary:

In the previous 24 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 defeat in the 1976 World Series. In this segment we’ll summarize the course of their 1977 season.

 ******

Not since the 1954 Cleveland Indians were demolished by Leo Durocher’s Giants had an American League team been so thoroughly wiped out in the World Series. The Los Angeles Kings’ evisceration by the Cincinnati Reds in the ’76 Fall Classic was, in baseball terms, the equivalent of a first-round knockout in boxing. But although L.A. fans might not have thought it possible at the time, a still greater embarrassment was looming for them just around the corner. The Purple and Gold would make history during the ’77 American League playoffs... whether they liked it or not. They would come to the brink of another AL pennant only to succumb to an implosion unprecedented in American League playoff history-- or for that matter in MLB history, period.

******

     1977 was a year of transition for the Kings’ front office. Fred Haney, the team’s longtime general manager, was planning to retire at the end of the season after more than three decades’ service and the race was on for the Hearst organization to find a successor as fast as possible. Even before spring training was over the Hearsts had started quietly putting out feelers to potential GM applicants in an effort to avoid having a vacuum at the top during the off-season. Haney himself would play a key role in the search process, often personally checking out candidates’ resumés. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration-- or at least not a significant one --to suggest that the final months of his tenure as L.A. general manager were the busiest of his career.

    Things weren’t exactly quiet on the field either; the Kings opened the 1977 MLB regular season with a ten-game winning streak and were in possession of a six-game lead in the AL West by the end of April. Toby Harrah hit for the cycle twice during a doubleheader against the White Sox in Chicago in the first week of May and Doyle Alexander came within one pitch of tying the franchise single-game record for strikeouts in a 7-6 L.A. win over the Indians in Cleveland. Cesar Tovar did his part to contribute to the surge with an eleven-game hitting streak during which he recorded six home runs in twelve at-bats; he also notched four stolen bases and tied the club record for making putouts at second base during the month of May.

     By June 1st the Kings’ lead in the AL West had swelled to double digits and the question seemed to be less if they’d make the American League postseason again than who their most likely division playoffs opponent would be. Some people thought it would be the Red Sox, others the Prospectors, while still others anticipated a possible rematch of their ’76 ALCS battle with the Yankees. A few daring souls even went so far as to hazard a guess that October might see the Purple & Gold take revenge on the Cincinnati Reds for the embarrassing beatdown the Big Red Machine had inflicted on L.A. in the ’76 World Series.

     In mid-June the Kings mounted a special promotion aimed at tapping into the buzz generated by George Lucas’ sci-fi hit flick Star Wars; any fan who came into Hearst Palladium with a ticket stub from the movie got a 50 percent discount on their game tickets and a 25 percent discount on concession stand food and drinks. To further capitalize on the Star Wars hype the team invited Lucas himself to throw out the first pitch for the first game of a home doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers. The Purple & Gold made quite a respectable amount of cash from this promotion-- and in the bargain reaffirmed their long-standing bond with the movie world. The team had been linked to Hollywood almost from its earliest days as a Continental League franchise, and its absorption into the American League had only serve to tighten that link; now, as the movie industry entered the era of the mega-blockbuster and baseball moved into the era of free agency, the Kings and Hollywood would grow to have so much in common that it would sometimes be hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

*****

     July was perhaps the Kings’ best month during the 1977 season; the team sent six players to the All-Star Game and went on a torrid thirteen- game winning streak which all but assured it of making the postseason. It was like somebody had transformed the whole Purple & Gold roster into the title character from the hit TV series The Six Million Dollar Man, and by an interesting coincidence many of that show’s cast and crew were fans of the club. Two of the show’s most popular episodes, in fact, were actually shot at Hearst Palladium. One of its stars even got to do a guest spot as color commentator on a nationally telecast night game against the Yankees just after the All-Star break.

     By August 1st L.A. was a good thirteen games ahead of its nearest pursuer in the AL West standings and the question seemed to be less if the Kings would win the World Series than who they would vanquish on the road to claiming the Series championship. After they swept a three-game set with Houston at the Astrodome the week of August 12th, more than a few of the more optimistic members of Kings fandom were already beginning to think about staking out viewing spots for a World Series victory parade. Even a brief three-game skid against division archrival San Francisco in mid-August at Hearst Palladium couldn’t squelch the belief of L.A. fans that the Purple and Gold were destined to return to the Fall Classic. And when the Kings officially clinched the AL West division pennant with a 7- run shutout of the Kansas City Longhorns on September 16th, few would have been brave enough or crazy enough to dispute the conventional wisdom that L.A. was going to finish the year with a Series championship trophy.

     The Kings made short work of the wild card entrant Baltimore in the AL divisional playoffs, steaming over the Orioles like a runaway train in three straight; the final nail was hammered in Baltimore’s coffin when Orioles infielder Mark Belanger pulled a calf muscle late in the fourth inning of Game 3 while attempting to turn a double play. With Earl Weaver’s club disposed of, the Purple & Gold switched their focus towards taking care of business in the 1977 ALCS and finalizing what most sportswriters figured would be an inevitable triumph over the Yankees...

                               ******

     ...and the first three games of the ALCS didn’t do much to dispel the conventional wisdom that Los Angeles would steamroller New York. In the course of those three games the Kings outscored the Bronx Bombers by a combined total of 21-5 while getting seven hits for every hit the Yanks got. Going into the ninth inning of Game 4 with the Purple and Gold ahead 6-2 and the Yankees just two outs away from being sent home for the year, it looked like the only question about the Kings’ playoff performance was what brand of champagne they were going to drink to celebrate winning the American League pennant.

     Then, with a 2-2 pitch count on New York infielder Bucky Dent, the wheels started coming off the truck. Dent lined a blazing double deep to center field; three pitches later Dent surprised the crowd-- and the Los Angeles infield --by pulling off a steal of third base. That single play would not only change the momentum of the game, it would radically alter the complexion of the entire series. Stunned by this unexpected gambit by a player not customarily known for dramatic steals, the Kings were left in the dust as the Bronx Bombers rallied to win 8-6 in extra innings and avert a sweep by Los Angeles.

    In Game 5 Reggie Jackson would vividly demonstrate the aptness of his nickname “Mr. October” by robbing Cesar Tovar of a seemingly sure RBI double in the second inning and blasting a two-run homer to center in the sixth; in the ninth inning the New York bullpen snuffed an L.A. comeback attempt to preserve a 4-3 Yankees victory, and from that point on the original narrative of a preordained Los Angeles victory in the ALCS faded more and more rapidly. It vanished altogether when the Bronx Bombers demolished the Purple & Gold 9-1 in Game 6. New York starting catcher Thurman Munson lit the match for the Game 6 rout by blasting the game’s first pitch deep to right and concluded it with a perfectly timed force play on Los Angeles utility player Dan Briggs with two outs in the ninth.

    Now the Purple & Gold found themselves in a heretofore unimaginable position: facing a Game 7 after having put themselves in position for a sweep of the ALCS and in danger of gaining the dubious accolade of being the first team in MLB history to lose a best-of-seven league championship series after winning the first three games. Whatever pressure that Billy Martin and company had been under before was peanuts compared to what they were experiencing now; if they lost, they would be remembered for having committed the biggest choke job in baseball history. And Martin and his players certainly weren’t alone in their anxieties; in the time between the end of Game 6 and the start of Game 7 pharmacies in the Los Angeles area experienced a seventy percent spike in antacid sales, and psychiatrists’ couches all over Beverly Hills were booked solid in the wake of the Kings’ Game 6 defeat.

    An air of impending disaster shrouded Hearst Palladium as the two teams were introduced prior to the start of Game 7 of the ALCS. By all rights the Kings should have already had the American League pennant in hand by now and starting to prepare for a World Series rematch against their old cross-town rivals the Dodgers; instead, they found themselves hanging off the proverbial cliff and in danger of falling to the rocks of baseball infamy below. This was definitely not the way Fred Haney had pictured ending his career as Los Angeles general manager.

    But if the Purple and Gold were anxious about Game 7, the Yankees were elated. After being, in baseball terms, at death’s door they were in the midst of a Lazarus-style resurrection-- and if they won the game they would be immortalized as having achieved the greatest comeback in American League(if not baseball) history. All across the five boroughs New Yorkers gathered around their TV sets and radios in hopes of being witnesses to a miracle.

     Their anticipation would be rewarded and then some. The Yankees jumped out to a commanding early lead and never looked back. By the end of the third inning New York had not only chased L.A.’s starting pitcher back to the showers but also gained a six-run advantage over the Kings; during the sixth inning a Los Angeles pinch runner, in a desperate and ultimately counterproductive attempt to break up a force play at second, made the mistake of trying to knock the ball out of a Yankee infielder’s glove and succeeded only in getting himself ejected from the game; by the seventh inning stretch at least half of the seats in Hearst Palladium sat empty as heartbroken Kings fans began to make their way to the exits.

      Final score: Yanks 14, Kings 6. The dream of a cross-town World Series rematch with the Dodgers had been put on hold for another year-- and to add insult to injury the Purple & Gold now had to live with the stigma of having committed the biggest flop in baseball history. Billy Martin’s job security, which had already started to look tenuous after the Kings lost the 1976 World Series, was now hanging by the proverbial thread...