 Welcome back to watching baseball here at John Boyd Media. We are running through Game 163s on Monday two days ago. The last video we did the 1978 tie breaking game between the Yankees and the Red Sox. I was familiar enough with that one growing up a Yankees fan watching Yes Network. Moving on to the next Game 163 took place two years later in 1980 between the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers. I know nothing about this game. I'm excited to watch it. I'm excited to find out what happened a little bit. We have some innings we've picked out a note right away. This is watching baseball. We watch we learn we react. We are not coming with any knowledge. We are the point of the show is not to give you knowledge. It's for us to react. Jake did you know about this game. I did not. And again our quick Google search to not sound like total dingbats shows that actually the three game set before this is kind of the storyline because the the Dodgers were down three games to Houston. They welcome them to town with Nolan Ryan. And there's two other pitchers that had I think better eras than Nolan at the time Vern rule and Ken for sure. Yeah. And yeah the Dodgers kind of had an awesome three game set to get them to this one sixty three which at the same time kind of a shout out to this Houston team not as too much of a spoiler but they they win this game a dominant Joe Necro performance. We need another Necro back in Major League Baseball. But yeah I mean in a lot of fun names I think this is during Fernando Mania I saw his eighth start is in here. We've got a young Joe Morgan on the on the Astros or excuse me an old Joe Morgan. Yeah I was going to say old. He started in Houston. He went to Cincinnati. He came back for this 1980 season. So yeah. Just to go back to what you said in case in case anyone didn't realize the Dodgers in their last three games of the season had to go to Houston and sweep them for a chance at a tiebreaker. So if you're a Houston fan like we just got to win one game who gives a shit. And the Dodgers win all three. So that's crazy. It's in LA. But it was in LA. Whatever. So that's the same thing though. They got to sweep them to force the playoff. So if you're Dodgers fan right now you're like hey who's fucking did it. We got all the momentum in the world. And as you see that momentum gets squandered pretty quickly. We're going to go straight to game one or the first inning because that's kind of where some action is. And this is brought to you by the shop at Johnboymedia.com shop.Johnboymedia.com you can get yourself some hats some shirts some mugs whatever you'd like to support us. We actually just put out some new sequins shirts. Zach put the sequins shirt right here. And now I'm going to go like this and now it's a new color. Same shirt. Different color. Different new color. And do the Minnesota Twins retro sequins shirts because I think those are awesome. I'm going to buy myself one. Anyway so let's get into it. The Dodgers won the season series 10 games to eight and in the last six meetings between these two teams in Los Angeles the Dodgers won all six including three this weekend. Wow. Before the leagues split into divisions there were four playoffs like Al Michaels. Interesting to note the Dodgers were involved in all of them losing to the Cardinals in 1946. And of course the Bobby Thompson home run in the 51 playoff as the Dodgers lost their first sudden death in NL history and lost in three to San Francisco in 1962. And this ABC Sports Exclusive is being brought to you by Chevrolet and your Chevy hat. There he is. Pretty cool that they let him broadcast the game in center field. Bob Uker. Just a parade montage. I'm for it. I'm into it. Some NL praise. Oh we get the eggs too. Sure. Who won in 79. Pirates. The Bears. Pirates. Baseball. Fiva. Catch it. It's it's sweeping the country. Oh the smog. Chots fired. Okay. I wanted that little build up but I don't want all of this. How about Tony to kneel. Sounded great from the snippets I heard from captain and to kneel. How come this is in LA. They won the season series. They won all the games. Yeah. So I mean if you're Dodgers fan you've won six out of six in this stadium against this team. You just won three in a row. You got the home field advantage. Everything's going to go smoothly and you just go into the playoffs. Yeah and on the other side of it it is the I think Houston you have the like damn we fucked up but also I mean we're one baseball game away from none of that matter. I wonder if they saved Negro for this potential game but I mean they had no one Ryan and all those other guys too. So yeah look at the numbers they offer you means nothing. All right. Throw this one down Joe and the Dodgers were in three elimination games in a row. So I'm sure they're throwing their best pitchers then Sutton was on the mound. Fernando. Art Howe former manager like those Astros uniforms. Really good for the time period. It's a strike Jake but Joe didn't even catch it. Moving balls. Sinker balls dancing today. Second bad sign of things. I know cameras are different in frame rates and all that stuff but that just looks like such a shitty pitch. There you go. That's the game. That's when. Yeah they were too. They were too hot. Catcher can catch the ball. Second baseman can't feel to play. Yeah I'm over the catcher. I think that's the catcher hyping up the pitcher like dude your stuff is moving today. Yeah I can barely squeeze it. When you see a good move by boots at first play the game. I mean there goes the crowd. I mean that guy's wearing one of those fake glasses and those things and by that guy I mean the player that you're going to get upset. I didn't call him by his name. It's Davey Lopes. Also hopes they just said it. He knows Cabell need to keep him at bay. Oh I mean we're in prime hit and run. Yeah yeah two pick offs and a pitch out Dodgers playing scared from the jump that error shook him first pitch pitch out love to run gold six players this season including this guy he looks so uninterested in pitching in this game right now the thinking is as far as catcher Joe not good energy hitting run on of course automatic automatic slow runs like a robot if he has to get you out he gets in a tough situation you'll go to a good sinking fastball. I don't know if it needs to be said but this is Al Michaels and Bob Euker calling a game 40 years ago. Yeah I like I like what they're bringing to the table so far but we like we like them throughout. That's our life plus another third of our life. You've lost the game. Yeah if you can't pitch without worrying about this dude you've lost the if the first base runner was going to ruin your day this much another pitch out Oh this is ugly man. It's this tough. The kids aren't going to like this one. What's that the kids aren't going to like this one. This is this. I mean this is as mentally beat as I've seen a team that was went in with so much do stuff like scared. Oh smoke doesn't want to throw home. I mean scared of giving up one run a dangerous territory a game was such important if they do and I mean they can't do another pick pitch out because they did two already. Oh they could the game yesterday. I'm not down with them at this point. They do another pick off I don't know about the pitcher making I won't be surprised. Euker definitely turned to Michael's in mouth like what. Yeah the game was the game was lost after the fourth pick off. I mean if his body language was bad with a man on and no out what's this pitchers body language going to be now. I think he's calling. He's calling for the reliever. They're saying get Rick's uplift. Loose Dave Galtz Dodgers use six pitchers in this game. This guy wasn't long for it. That's for sure. He had the longest performance of that day. He does. Jim I got bad news for you. He does this for three in it. Oh shit. Go get the batters dude. It's the first inning. Enos can run Jim. Bob you've told us about the same thing fastball so much. I understand you got to fill a lot of air because he's just throwing pick off after pick off because they're not playing baseball currently. Bob if next time Euker talks I hope he says his number one pitch is a pick off. That's a good joke. Do it Bob. See I say you keep hammering the sinker. Well they called the check swing there. Yeah get someone up. And I think Sutcliffe's an interesting asterisk in this because I think he was good the year before but terrible this year. There you go. Yeah. Sutcliffe Sutcliffe won the rookie of the year the year before and then this year he had a five five six ERA. Jim he's crafty. He'll get it out any way he has to pick off step offs. I hate to be harsh but he's a scared old man. He's got nothing man. I know his stuff doesn't even look. He strained his calf three days before. He right now he knew he was in a bad spot to start. I mean he told himself like his pump up speech was don't let the first runner on you get through that first runner and you got it in cruise control. That's what he was looking himself and then that first runner gets on and he's just like it just turns into the key and peel like sweat pouring so scared like I didn't plan for that. I only planned for I wasn't supposed to let it was the only thing that I didn't plan for. Yeah. Do you. Do you honestly think he's done more pick offs than pitches at this point. Yes. Yeah right. Easily. Hold up. Hold up. I look like he was out. I looked like he was out. And that's something this pitcher doesn't need right now. Let's see. He's barely running. That was better. Might have been safe. Good run. Guess there's a hit and run. I don't know. I'd love to see like an HD actual camera looks very close. Left arms close. I wonder if he was kind of cruising to get the run home. Or a hit and run because he did swing and miss the pitch right. Yeah. The ball beat him by a good amount. Very close. Could have been in. Either way this pitcher doesn't need that right now. I mean he just struck out Joe Morgan. Like Hall of Famer Joe Morgan. Lock in. Joe Morgan was trying to he's get too crafty with his hit and run. That's all. 36 year old Joe Morgan. Jose Cruz looks like a big dude. He's a ball player. His I think his son came up and played with the Asteris too. Jose Cruz Jr. So where are the runners now second and third. Second and third. Nobody scored. One out. He can get out of it but he's defeated. I mean they called that runner out at second. You're an out of way. Yeah. That was that would have been huge. It would have been huge for his his mentality. I love this strike call. Hard for me not to like your strike. Right across. Yeah. Show them shoulders. It's like when someone asks you what direction something is and you have a mouthful of food but you're very confident in your answer. The Dodgers are a mess. I mean if he squeezes that he's out right. We have a Jake. We saw this from the first pitch of the game. Glove one broken in not catching things today. I think they said that they've been going with him at catcher recently before. I think Al Michael said that so we've that is as unacceptable as it comes. What even happened. So yeah Jim I mean our guy Steve Yeager was a catcher on this Dodgers team but he was having a terrible year. Did you see that pick off immediately. I think that the runner like ripped it out of his hands in the middle of that slide. Legal back there. There we are. What a nightmare. Nightmare and hey we've been pretty tough on our pitcher. I mean he's on out number four out number five. The only thing that he's done poorly Jake is completely bore his fielders to death by throwing more pick offs than pitches. Hey second baseman kicks the first ball. That should have been a ground out. I mean we had the close play at second. We had the throw home that should have been an out. He struck out Joe Morgan. This is you were being tough on our guy. I think he's pointing the finger and he's right. I think everyone can point the finger at everyone. I mean like his pace pitcher sets the pace and the feel of the inning and he just brought it to a screeching like this sucks feel all around. You tell you said it. The energy was bad. The play was bad. Everything's been bad. Make that play Davey Lopes. Play should have been made. That was a hell of a stop. That's a great snack. Hard half flying down the line. Could you have done the old fake aroo fake throw to first and then tag the runner who takes the lead. Nope runners. No he slid into third. Good base running. This is a huge at bat. Not really because they were already done. It's emotional roller coaster. Alan Ashby is a great name though. I feel like that's a character from California. Some show. Still picking people off with bases loaded. What's the point of that getting it out doing anything to get now. Lou Ashby. All right. So the funny thing is Necro comes out and gets a one two three inning and our guy Golds has to come right back out. But we're going to skip forward. I actually we want to see a little bit of Necro who throws a complete game. Zero earned runs might be hard to find here Jake. I want to go to the seventh inning because he seems to just dominate those batters. I don't know where this is. I don't know who's up. Tough to not like Joe Necro. Yeah. How old is Joe Necro. 1980. Joe Necro is 35 years old. Second in the Sion the season before fourth in the Sion this year. It sounds like something's happening in the crowd. There's been riots. There's been throwing something. That butterfly dance. So that was Ferguson who he struck out. What the hell is this. What the hell's going on out there. This is the fourth inning. No way. It can't be. We're like we're almost over the unless the this isn't the full game on YouTube or the last couple of things are like two minutes long each. Does that make any sense to you. I don't know. I mean yeah I guess it could right because I mean Houston puts up all seven runs in the first four innings and we saw how slow our guy was working. So yeah maybe it does make sense. So that's the middle of the eighth inning. OK that's what I want to see. I want to see I want to see bottom eight because it seems like Necro is just mowing him down at this point. The Dodgers don't care. We'll see. Score at this point is seven to one Dodgers. I mean they just pounced right away. They made the Astros or no no the Astros made the Dodgers depressed. Dusty Baker with looks like two hats. The helmet looks looks like one of those ice cream helmets you eat at are so small in his head. You got the beach balls going crowd believes and there's like riots. How many pitches did Necro throw. It's a nice fastball. I mean how many different pitches. Is that just a fastball. Is that a knuckleball. It looks like a speedy one. One two three. That looked like Necro hurt himself on shaking his hand. I think that's a that's like flexing on him. Like those knuckleball nails man Loading the bases Steve gov. He popped up struck out fly it out. So Necro sat down five in a row at this point. We struck out six and the shadows have come to play. It's a nice play. Camerangas too. Shortstop. Three got a flap off his glasses flap way back in the hole. That's a nice little scoop. It's a nice play. Still not a good hit. Rick Monday. Look at that. I love the way Necos just chomping and looking Monday. Yeah that full the full lean over by the pitcher. That's a strong move. Yeah. It's like what you're doing. You're playing against your kids. We're trying. It's not an intimidation. It looks like exhaust. It looks like boredom to me. Like forearms on the knees. Maybe that's how he saved himself. I don't know. I like it either way. Oh you see the guy in the dugout like holding a knuckleball. Oh so that's how those two teams this season the Phillies won nine. Of course the Phillies veterans of the playoffs so they haven't won. They were there in 76, 77 and 78. Houston of course has never been there. It is interesting. It's not intimidating. No easy peasy lemon squeezy Jay. Watch the last out. So if you guys are curious because we saw the first two runs in the fourth inning the the Astros put up two more with when Rick Sutcliffe was on the mound or they put up two more against Dave Golds. Art Howe had a home run and then and then they put two up against. It looks like Rick Sutcliffe came in and just walked people and then then Joe Beckwood came in and gave the hits that led the runs. At first I was thinking kind of they were going to come in lackluster celebration because they kind of controlled the game the whole time but hey those last four days must have been daunting as all hell. Stressful as shit like they could have done it a lot. They had three chances to do this. Wait until their backs were against the wall. So much hair. Crazy fluffy. Any interviews. We care. Oh yeah it's a Bob Uker interview. So I do kind of having interest. Coming through the tunnel area here. We're trying to get Joe Necrow of course who did such an outstanding job today. The unassuming guy with the four big RVIs today. Bettle them here as you can well understand in the Houston clubhouse as Al told you 19 years has been a long time since way back in 1962 and the first four of the Houston Astros. As we've told you throughout the series a tough tough battle and they have finally hung on to win it. Mel right come on up here. Let me get Mel right up here. I get Mel right up here to start things out. Mel no talking about the big win today a big victory but an outstanding performance by Joe Necrow. Yes he did an outstanding job. He was keyed up but we kept him on keyed down just enough that he did a heck of a job. Mel I want to ask you Joe talked about this. Interesting. The game today that later in the ballgame he goes to a fast ball and slider to start hitters off and then comes back with a knuckleball and evidently that's been working well for it. Well Joe has a tendency sometimes to overthrow his pitches his fastball and stuff and once he wears the edge of it gets a little bit well I say keyed down and a little bit tired and he threw all of it pretty well and that's what he's been trying to do. Now you've been around here a long time. I know you're very very satisfied. Oh I just had to say this is what we fought for. I will try to get Joe Necrow. I liked it. A little key. He's too keyed up. Got to get him keyed down. Keyed up. Got to get keyed down. Oh OK. Yeah it adds up. That'll make sense. Sorry about Dodgers but yeah you have terrible first inning and it was bad. Game 163 can't have that first inning. Can't do it. Can't do it. So what what what happens here. They I think we have it. The Astros go on to lose to the Phillies in the NLCS but they take them to five games three to two. Doodle man. Dude this Houston team. Dude are you looking at this NLCS for the Houston versus Phillies. Philly one game one three to one. Sure 10 in in game Houston wins 11 in in game Houston wins one nothing 10 in in game Philly wins five to three game five Philly wins eight to seven in 10. That's a hell of a series. That's not so serious. Get me in there. Maybe when we do after we do 163 maybe we'll just choose like DS is CS is and watch like like we can watch the extra innings of every one of those games. The final four games of a five game set all went extra. And game one was kind of a late comeback by the Phillies a six and seventh inning runs. How about that. That's crazy. Did the Phillies go on to win that year. I forget baseball. The Phillies look like they won the World Series over the Kansas City Royals. So yes. Michael Jack Schmidt. Good job. Thank you guys for watching. We'll be back in a couple of days with the next game 163