DETROIT -- The Detroit Tigers invited back members of their 1968 World Series championship team this weekend for a Saturday night ceremony. There also was one member in the park from the losing team, the Cardinals.
Catcher Tim McCarver, working the Cardinals' telecasts for Fox Sports Midwest, said the Cards' seven-game loss to the Tigers after the Cardinals had led 3-1 one of the most disappointing moments of his career. But he is getting over it. Ever so gradually.
"I was asked 30 years ago, 'When did you stop thinking about that World Series?" McCarver recalled. "I said, 'I haven't stopped thinking about it'.
"Today, that would still be a good question. Time heals all wounds and this is no different. What are you going to do? Put it on your gravestone. Mine's already full anyway. Mine is, 'Pitchers did this to me.' I don't have any room.'"
McCarver was hoping only to have to do one mass interview this weekend.
"One of the worst things about losing is you have to answer more questions than if you did if you had won," McCarver said. "I understand. I understand the questions but it's still annoying. These are pesky questions but they have to be asked.
"It doesn't mean I have to like it," said McCarver, chuckling. "And I don't."
The prevailing narrative was that if Lou Brock had slid at the plate instead of trying to step between the feet of Detroit catcher Bill Freehan in the fifth inning of the pivotal Game 5, he would have been called safe to give the Cardinals a 4-2 lead. He was out and they later would lose 5-3.
Another focal point was Cardinals center fielder Curt Flood slipping as he tried to chase a Jim Northrup drive in the seventh inning of Game 7 when the game was scoreless. The drive became a two-run triple.
McCarver said, "In my opinion, Lou made the right choice. And Flood got stuck in the mud out there in center field. It had rained overnight."
Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson had this recollection: "He came in and tried to stop and he slipped. But, you know, would that have made the big difference? Maybe. Maybe it would. But why do things like that happen? Who knows?
"We didn't do anything after that anyway. I'd have been pretty tired pitching into the 18th," Gibson snorted.
Mike Shannon homered with two out in the ninth for the Cardinals' only run in the 4-1 Detroit win. Before Flood's slip in the seventh, he and Brock had been picked off by Mickey Lolich the inning before and Brock long has said he regrets his being picked off more than not sliding in Game 5.
McCarver said, "People think I've taken up for Brock and I've taken up for Flood. 'Taking up' for them has nothing to do with it. After 50 years, your statute of limitations has run out. Nobody takes up for anybody anymore.
"You're talking about a team that was exceptional defensively and at running the bases. (Gibson) was always talking about not scoring any runs but I always told him, 'Look at all the other things we've done for you.'"
THE BIG HIT
Lolich, who was slated to be one of the Tigers to be invited back this weekend, won three games in the Series, including Game 7. But a key play not talked about much over the years was Lolich, a .114 batsman for the regular season (eight for 70) hitting for himself with one out in the seventh inning of Game 5 with the Tigers down a run and nobody on base.
Full disclosure was that he had homered against Cardinals pitcher Nelson Briles in Game 2 and Detroit manager Mayo Smith either had confidence in Lolich hitting or lack of confidence in his bullpen.
Lolich flared a single to right, where backup outfielder Ron Davis did not catch a ball that regular Roger Maris probably would have. The Tigers went on to score three runs in the inning against Briles and Joe Hoerner and turned the series around.
Maris wasn't playing because he was four for 25 against Lolich in his American League career and he had warned his Cardinals teammates that 31-year-old winner Denny McLain was not the pitcher the Cardinals had to beat (they did beat him twice).
"(Maris) had told us in August, 'Don't worry about McLain. If Detroit gets in it, McLain's not going to be the problem. Lolich is,'" McCarver said. "Roger was right again."
McCarver said that letting the pitcher hit today in that situation would not happen.
"Never," he said. "Especially in the World Series.
"After looking back over it, I guess I was a bit surprised. But at the moment, you're not thinking, 'Boy this is a surprise.'"
Gibson said he would be taken aback if that happened today.
"Most of the starting pitchers don't even get to the seventh," he said. "For some reason or another they start looking to the bullpen after the fifth.
"But, in spite of everything, I still thought we were going to win the Series. They had a better power team than we did but I thought we had a better team all the way around. They had the type of club that with one swipe could beat you. We usually had to put two, three, four hits together to beat somebody. It got to the later innings of the game, we didn't have that one guy who could hit the ball out of the park."
JUGGLING THE LINEUP
In an era just before the designated hitter, the Tigers pulled the equivalent by moving center fielder Mickey Stanley to shortstop for the Series instead of light-hitting Ray Oyler and inserted veteran Al Kaline, a future Hall of Famer in the outfield. Kaline would hit .379 over seven games.
But the Cardinals had much to celebrate in 1968, including their second straight National League pennant, Gibson's record-shattering earned-run average of 1.12, and his record 17 strikeouts in the first game of the World Series.
"The good far outweighed the bad," McCarver said. "You might ask, 'How can you say that when you lose the World Series after being up three games to one?' I remember Bob Costas interviewing Bob and me and he said, 'Doesn't it kind of get to you that you would have won three World Series in five years and it would have made you a certifiable dominant team.'
"I said, 'I don't look at it that way.' The 1968 season, because of Bob, was such a remarkable achievement that -- I know this sounds strange -- but it took some of the bad blood away from losing the Series.
"I don't know whether that makes sense or not. I don't think I've ever said that. But I feel that way."
But Gibson had the opposite take.
"I don't feel that having a good (regular) season is having a good season because I think we probably should have added that Series onto it. I don't think it took any sting away at all. That would have been the icing on the cake."
GIBSON ANSWERS FLAHERTY
Star Cardinals rookie Jack Flaherty, who was to pitch Saturday night's game here, recently sought out Gibson and Gibson related, "The first thing he said to me was, 'Have you had a chance to see me pitch?' I said, 'Yeah, about six or seven times because I've got the satellite (dish).
"And then he says, 'What would you change?' I just looked at him. I said. 'I wouldn't change a thing. Are you crazy?'
"I said, 'Are you having problems with something?
"He said, 'No.'
Then, I said, 'Why would you be looking for something to change?'"
Then, Gibson related a story about former New York Mets star Doc Gooden, who was 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA in 1985.
Gibson, asked about Gooden, said, "He can't get any better.
"So then they had in the paper that Gibson says Gooden will never get any better."
"It's the same thing now," Gibson said. "Why would you change something that's really damn good?"
There is a lot of Gibson in Flaherty and Gibson said he could see that.
"He really goes after them," Gibson said, "and he has amazing concentration for a young kid. Most young kids don't have that composure. He's got a lot of it.
"I love it. I thought the last game he threw too many sliders, but he's a got a nasty slider. I would liken his slider to the one I had."
After Gibson had told Flaherty not to change anything substantive about his pitching, Flaherty brought up the fact he was aware that Gibson also was a good hitter. Gibson replied, "I used to come to the park about 2 o'clock with (coach) Harry Walker and take batting practice.
"I told him, 'That does not just come with talent. You have to work at it. You have to work at every aspect of the game if you want to be good at it.'"
In summary, Gibson said, "We just had a common sense conversation. That's basically what it was."
Gibson said he could appreciate the fact that Flaherty did have questions, though, unlike some other players.
"I've found that to be true with the younger generation. And it's not just baseball," Gibson said. "They have the answers to the world. Maybe we ought to select one of them for a President. Whoops. . . we did.
"That's not nice," Gibson joked. "(But) I don't mind that you write that."