- [Narrator] It's October 23rd, 1993.
We're in Toronto for Game Six of the World Series.
The visiting Phillies lead the Blue Jays six to five,
needing two more outs to push this series to a Game Seven.
Before this next pitch,
we need to understand how a perennial runner up
reached the precipice of a dynasty.
We need to relive the drama that's got Philly
so close to turning this thing around.
We need to meet the Wild Thing on the mound,
the new faces on base,
and the familiar face in the batter's box.
We need to rewind.
(mysterious music)
The vibes in this SkyDome crowd are intense.
These 50,000 fans are anxious about a potential Game Seven,
but also ready to explode since one big swing here,
could crown a little dynasty, finally.
The Jays only recently busted a trend
of agonizing collapses.
In '85, Toronto won 99 games and their first division title.
Then blew a 3-1 series lead in the ALCS against the Royals.
Toronto held a comfortable division lead
in the final weeks of the '87 season,
then lost seven brutal games in a row
to plummet out of contention.
In '89, Cito Gaston rose from batting coach to manager
and led Toronto back to the top of the A.L. East,
but no luck in the ALCS.
Similar story in '91.
But last year, the Jays made history.
Toronto won their division,
finally overcame the A's in the ALCS,
then took down the titans of the National League, Atlanta,
to become World Champions.
MLB had its first World Series winner from outside the US,
its first black manager to win at all.
The Jays did it with a strong pitching staff,
boosted by the in-season addition of David Cone,
and with a really scary lineup.
Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar were both All Star starters
who stayed hot in the postseason.
40-year-old Dave Winfield had a bounce back year
and catcher Pat Borders broke out to win World Series MVP.
And the Jays did not rest on their laurels,
satisfied with this bunch of champions.
Cone moved along but Juan Guzmán took over as ace.
And veteran pitcher Dave Stewart came over from Oakland.
And while the lineup lost Winfield,
it added free agent Paul Molitor,
who had a career year in a bruising top of the order
known by the acronym, WAMCO
Devon White, Alomar, Molitor, Carter and John Olerud.
An incredibly productive parade of bats
only improved when the Jays added veteran speed demon,
Rickey Henderson as a lead off hitter.
Giving us permutations like HWAMCO and HWACOM and so forth.
These guys absolutely raked all season long
and kept raking in the ALCS against the White Sox.
Although, we'll forgive you if you got distracted
by another unrelated story breaking out of that series.
In this World Series? Still raking.
The new guy, Molitor in particular,
has swung his way into the hearts of these Canadians.
Molitor opened the Jays' three run first inning
with an RBI triple,
then got Toronto their most recent run
with a fifth inning homer
that helped drive Phillies starter,
Terry Mulholland off the mound.
Molitor is the first player to record multiple doubles,
triples, and dingers in one World Series.
And now he's on first base, the potential winning run.
But hey, the other side of things
hasn't gone so hot, has it?
All that scoring, yet the defending champs
sit a miscue or two away from facing a Game Seven tomorrow.
(rewind noise)
Dave Stewart was the Blue Jays starting pitcher tonight,
and he hoped to break an individual streak
of three straight World Series losses.
Dating back to when he was with the A's in the 1990 series.
The drought continued in Game Two of this series.
When the typically strong Stewart fell apart
against the heart of the Phillies lineup.
That lineup is no joke.
Just ask Atlanta, who looked like a sure thing
to reach their third straight Fall Classic,
when they pulled ahead, two games to one in the NLCS.
But after Danny Jackson out pitched John Smoltz
to win Game Four, the Philly bats came alive in big moments.
Lenny Dykstra saved them from collapse
in the 10th inning of Game Five,
then a combo attack of Mickey Morandini,
Dave Hollins and Darren Dalton battered Greg Maddux
to win Game Six.
It was a shocking upset,
but the Phillies have been known to shock.
Tonight, Stewart had them under control.
He took a no hitter into the fourth inning,
then got out of a bases load jam in the fifth
to maintain Toronto's lead.
And then the seventh inning happened.
A 10 pitch walk, a Morandini single,
- [Announcer] Line drive, base hit.
- [Narrator] And boom, more clutch hitting from Dykstra.
There went most of the lead and there went Stewart.
The Jays perhaps misplayed their relief from there.
Left-hander, Al Leiter stayed in the bullpen
while righty Danny Cox, gave up the game-tying RBI single
to Dave Hollins, batting lefty.
Then let lefty, Jim Eisenreich load the bases
with this weirdness.
- [Announcer] Bases full of Phillies,
with one out.
- [Narrator] Leiter came in too late and surrendered
a sac fly and sixth run before he got out of the inning.
Damage done, lead gone, announcers flummoxed.
- [Announcer] And I do not understand Cito Gaston's use
of Al Leiter in this game.
- [Narrator] The Phillies once looked doomed,
but rallied again.
The Jays looked secure, but had one nightmare inning.
That push and pull led us to here.
The World Series hangs on this inning, this moment.
So who's going to decide how it goes?
Look around and you'll see Henderson and Molitor
already on base.
The guy who put them there,
the guy entrusted with protecting this lead
to force a Game Seven is him.
Mitch 'Wild Thing' Williams.
(rewind sound)
Mitch Williams is a good pitcher.
He's had a solid, if erratic, career.
Mostly as a closer, they call him Wild Thing
because much like Charlie Sheen's character in Major League,
Williams has occasional control issues.
My dude pitches like he's covered in scorpions,
throwing so vigorously that his follow through
often drops him to the dirt.
In entertaining fashion,
William's saved a career-high 43 games for the Phillies
this season.
When it came time to close out the NLCS upset in Game Six,
it was Williams on the mound,
retiring three Braves to push Philadelphia
into the World Series.
Watching Wild Thing pitch in said World Series
has been an experience.
He got the save in Game Two,
but Game Four was another story.
That game in Philly was an offensive Bonanza.
Mostly for the home team,
who led 14-9 entering the eighth inning
poised to tie the series.
But then Larry Anderson got in trouble
to start that eighth inning,
so Philly's manager Jim Fregosi sent in Williams
to stop the bleeding.
Instead, Williams gave up an RBI single to Tony Fernandez,
and RBI single to Henderson and a two run triple
to White that ended up winning the game.
- [Announcer] 15-14 Toronto.
- [Narrator] Rather than stop the bleeding,
Williams ripped open the wound.
People did not take the loss well.
Phillies ace, Curt Schilling, could be seen covering
more and more of his face with a towel
while Williams pitched.
Then Schilling addressed media wearing a pin
that said, 'I Survived Watching Mitch Williams Pitch
in the '93 World Series'.
He said Williams gave it to him.
Even jokey, lack of support wasn't the coolest way
to handle a struggling teammate
who'd get death threats for his Game Four performance.
Nevermind that Schilling himself ate shit
and surrendered seven runs in Game One of the series.
Anyway, Schilling finally did his job
in a complete game victory two days ago,
which is why we're watching Game Six.
And now Williams is on the mound trying to protect
another late lead in hopes of tying the series.
His quest for redemption has been shaky so far.
(rewind sound)
The first guy Williams faced, Henderson,
told everyone in earshot, he was going to walk.
And indeed, after a strange moment
in which Williams didn't notice time was called
and almost hurled anyway while everyone fled the scene,
he delivered Henderson balls, one, two, three, and four.
So the best base stealer in human history took first.
Not great.
Next up was White, the guy who'd finished off
the Game Four disaster.
He worked a full count, but flew out.
One out.
Next up was the guy who will probably be MVP
if Toronto wins this, Molitor.
Trusty as ever, Molitor cracked a single.
Two on, one out, and we've got all manner
of nervous mouth stuff taking place.
Williams is spinning up a storm.
Fregosi looks like he's gonna choke.
Schilling has been faced deep in his towel all evening.
But all is not lost,
if Williams can find at least one out here,
the man on deck is Alfredo Griffin,
who came in earlier to pinch run for Olerud.
Griffin is a fine player, but also 36 years old
without a single plate appearance to his name
this whole post season.
Get to him, and you might just get the save,
the win, and a Game Seven tomorrow.
First, Williams will need to handle the fellow
at the plate, Joe Carter.
On one hand, Carter has never before
gotten a hit off Williams, so that's encouraging.
On the other hand, Carter's got kind of a knack
for these moments.
In his twenties, Joe Carter hit quite well.
Since joining the Jays in 1991 as a 31 year old,
Carter's become a superstar.
An Ironman and regular MVP candidate
among the best in the Majors at driving in runs.
And Carter's made a habit of sealing victories.
In '91, Joe hit the RBI single that clinched
Toronto's division win.
Toronto's '92 World Series victory
wrapped up in Joe's glove.
Same with the ALCS a couple of weeks ago.
I know a couple of those are gimmes,
but the point is Carter's plenty familiar with big moments
and he's produced in this series,
including three hits in Game Four
and a sac fly to drive in a run tonight.
Now he could make history, a hit would be enough.
A trophy winning walk-off homer,
would be something else entirely.
It'd be the first since Pittsburgh's Bill Mazeroski did it
in Game Seven of the 1960 World Series.
Carter's facing a pitcher's count.
Two and two.
Because his last swing was this hideous flat-footed strike.
One more cut like that and he's probably going to have to
cancel the Sunday plans he told us about.
- I plan on watching some football tomorrow,
have a great day watching some football.
- [Narrator] But if Joe Carter can make some more magic,
then he'll turn this crowd,
once so accustomed to falling short,
into a 50,000 person party.
They already got to see one World Series
clenched on the road.
To watch the Jays win another with an even mightier squad
and at home would be a whole new level of euphoria.
Or this could all go south.
Thanks to Curt Schilling's Game Five dominance
and tonight's remarkable seventh inning,
the Phillies just need two outs to win this game
and carry momentum into a do-or-die Game Seven.
That all depends on Mitch Williams, the Wild Thing.
The pitcher who has been brilliant at times,
baffling at others and who could really use a win right now.
One great pitch to Joe Carter would get him most of the way
out of the jam he just created.
Let's see who wins this battle
and let's listen to radio announcer, Tom Cheek, call it.
Welcome to a moment in history.
- [Tom Cheek] It's a pitch on the lay up, swing and a ball.
Left field! Way back! Blue Jays win!
The Blue Jays are World Series Champions.
As Joe Carter hits a three run home run in the ninth inning
and the Blue Jays have repeated as World Series Champions.
Touch 'em all, Joe.
You'll never hit a bigger home run in your life.
(sound of TV shutting off)
(mysterious tone)