Sport: Two Paths to Glory

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Jackson was the Yankee hitting hero of the second game as well, driving in all three Yankee runs. But Los Angeles Third Baseman Ron Cey, who came up to stay from Albuquerque in 1972, did him exactly one better. Cey is dubbed "the Penguin" by his teammates, and he runs as though he were wearing bedroom slippers. No matter; he could have walked the bases after crunching a Catfish Hunter pitch for a three-run homer. Counting an ear lier RBI, the final score was the Penguin 4, the Yankees 3.

Still, the game's best defensive play was a portent of heroics to come and a change in the fortunes of the Series. Yankee Third Baseman Graig Nettles, acquired in a trade with Cleveland before the 1973 season, made a spectacular diving catch of a line drive. In the next game, back in Yankee Stadium, Nettles showed he had the millisecond reflexes and cannon arm to be ranked with Brooks Robinson at third. When a weary-armed Ron Guidry turned shaky on the mound, Nettles stifled Dodger rally after rally. Any one of his four sprawling, crawling, flying, levitating plays would have made an ordinary third baseman's season, and together they unmade the Dodgers' hopes for the third game.

Robbed by Nettles on a bases-loaded play that would have swung the game, Lopes said with amazement and admiration: "It was the best exhibition of defense I've ever seen since I've been playing pro ball. He saved at least six runs." Enough said; the Yanks won, 5-1.

The fourth game was a searing drama of pitcher vs. hitter, mano a mano. Bob Welch came into a 3-3 game in the eighth inning and once again blew heat past the big Yankee bats. Six New Yorkers went down in order.

But the Yankees had bought some speed of their own during the winter: Reliever Rich Gossage, acquired as a free agent for a reported $2.75 million over 6 years. He finished his first season in pinstripes by saving 27 games and compiling an earned run average of 2.01, impressive figures attained by totally unsubtle yet highly effective means: throwing a baseball at better than 95 m.p.h. Facing the Dodgers, Gossage retired six hitters of his own. The Yankees finally got their bats around on Welch in the tenth inning, winning 4-3 on Lou Piniella's opposite-field single. With New York and Los Angeles tied at two games each, the 1978 World Series began all over again.