The wind was blowing out: 40 years later, the Phillies crazy 23-22 win over Cubs at Wrigley

The game came to embody the craziness that can happen at Wrigley Field.

Forty years ago, on May 17, 1979, the Phillies and Cubs traded blows in what became an unforgettable 23-22 Phillies win. Thirty-six total players were used, each starting pitcher failed to record more than one out and both teams combined for 11 home runs and only 11 strikeouts in 127 plate appearances during an epic day game that lasted 4 hours, 3 minutes. The Cubs’ Dave Kingman crushed 3 home runs and drove in 7 runs. The Phillies’ Mike Schmidt clubbed 2 homers of his own, including the eventual game-winner in the 10th inning.

Among the MLB records the game set at the time: most total runs scored (45) and most total bases in an extra-inning game (97), while the Phillies tied a franchise record with 23 runs scored. Afterward, Phillies pitcher Nino Espinosa summed up the day to The Philadelphia Daily News: “I was glad I pinch run. That meant I didn’t have to pitch.”

The Athletic spoke to players and other people who were at the ballpark that day for their insights 40 years later on the memorable game. Remarks have been edited for length and clarity.

The weather conditions in Chicago and at Wrigley Field that day immediately caught everyone’s attention. At game time, winds were officially logged as blowing out at 18 mph. For those at the ballpark, the conditions felt extreme, even for Wrigley, where the wind notoriously impacts games.

Larry Bowa, Phillies shortstop: “I remember the flag was stiff. After I left (Philadelphia) and played there (1982-85), I never saw the flag there ever blow like that. It was nonstop. Usually late in the game, it would stop a little bit.”

Ray Burris, Cubs relief pitcher: “When I would drive in to the ballpark on Addison Ave., there was a business that had a United States flag on it. I would always check that flag to see which way that wind was blowing. When it was blowing straight toward the expressway, that was good (for pitchers). That meant the wind was blowing straight in from center field to home plate. Now it was going to take a cannon to get that ball out of there, but if it was blowing toward Lake Michigan, oh my goodness. It was unbelievable. That was just the elements you had to deal with.”

Mike Schmidt, Phillies third baseman: “There were days you played at Wrigley Field you couldn’t even think about a home run, wind would be blowing straight in. You could kill a ball and it would barely make the warning track and it’d have no chance. I’ve seen home run balls get caught at shortstop before. That’s what is unique and fun about Wrigley Field. When you get up in the morning and you’re downtown, you know which way the wind is going to blow from the flags on the buildings.”

Bowa: “I was getting a little giddy in BP because I hit some out. I looked for the ball up, more so in that game than any other game because usually I’m looking down and I’m hitting down through the baseball, but that game, because of BP, I went, ‘wow.’”

Les Grobstein is one of a few Chicago reporters still working today who were at that game. Grobstein, who now works mostly as the overnight host for 670 The Score, was then working for Sports Phone, the call-in service for sports diehards and degenerate gamblers, and as a stringer for the Associated Press. Chris Wheeler was also in the press box that afternoon. Wheeler worked as the Phillies’ assistant director of publicity and public relations/broadcast at the time and was on the road trip with the team.

Les Grobstein: “The wind was blowing out and it was one of those typical, you could take a half-swing and put it on Waveland Ave., and neither starting pitcher was worth a damn. … To say the wind was blowing, it was almost impossible to pitch in that ballpark that day, as we found out.”

Chris Wheeler: “I was thinking the team with the last at-bat is going to win this thing, and that’s going to be the Cubs. It was just a typical Wrigley Field game and both teams had some firepower.”

Grobstein: “Everyone in the press box, we couldn’t stop laughing. The Philadelphia people couldn’t. The PR director, Buck Peden, he was a pretty serious guy, and even he was laughing hard. … My job was to call in at the end of the game, the entire box score. On that day, needless to say, it took a little bit longer to get that into the office in New York.”

Wheeler: “In those days, you had to look up (at the scoreboard) and you had to add. We didn’t have graphics on TV that were telling you (the score). So you had to look up there and see, OK, what is it? Schmidt told me the Cubs had a guy, (second baseman) Mick Kelleher, and they both wore No. 20 so Schmidt looked over at Kelleher one time in the dugout and they both pointed at their number, laughing, like, we’re headed for this. And damn it if it wasn’t 23-22.”

The first inning set the tone for a wild afternoon at Wrigley. Neither team’s starting pitcher survived the inning. The Phillies opened the game by scoring 7 runs in the top of the first, including six off Cubs starter Dennis Lamp, who went 1/3 inning and faced seven Phillies hitters. Chicago countered with 6 runs of their own in the bottom half, with five coming against Phillies starter Randy Lerch. The left-hander homered in the top half of the inning, but like Lamp, recorded just one out in the first.

Bowa: “We had a good team, but we didn’t score many runs and the start before, (Lerch) got the loss. He came out in the paper after and said it’d be nice to get some runs. So, obviously you put that in your hat. After we score six in the top of the first, as I’m running by him, I went, ‘Is that enough for you?’ And I just kept running. He didn’t get out of the first inning. I remember that part of it like it was yesterday.”

After a scoreless second inning, the Phillies regained control of the game, momentarily, in the third, scoring 8 runs. By the end of the top of the fifth, Philadelphia’s lead had swelled to 21-9. But the Cubs wouldn’t go away, scoring 7 runs in the bottom half of the inning and adding three more in the sixth. The Phillies suddenly found themselves clinging to a 21-19 advantage. By the end of the eighth inning, the game was tied at 22. Relievers Tug McGraw and Ron Reed combined to allow 13 runs in four innings (the fifth through the eighth).

Bob Boone, Phillies catcher: “I just laughed. I’ve tried everything I know and that ain’t working.”

Burris: “There weren’t very many strikeouts (11 combined), even the pitchers are putting it in play. Here was the uniqueness of that game: We (the Cubs) are going to hit in the bottom of the fifth, we were down 21-9. Now, when you think about that, for the next five innings, we only gave up 2 runs to the Phillies and we scored 13. That is amazing.”

Schmidt: “It seemed like everybody in both lineups had 2 home runs. Any fly ball you hit ended up being a home run.”

Wheeler: “I can still see one of (Kingman’s) homers hit the street out there and bounce and bounce and head for a gray house. I can still see it going down the street.”

Boone: “I was good friends with (Bill) Buckner, (Dave) Kingman. They’d come up and I’d ask them, ‘What do you want? What do you want to hit? Just tell me what you want to hit.’ There’s nothing I’m doing to get anybody out. They were just laughable. They were hitting everything we were throwing. It was like, well, I can’t trick you. Tell me what you want (laughs). It was quite a game.”

Burris: “As the game progressed, I think there were a lot of pitchers thinking, oh man, I’m going to be in this game today and I’ve got no choice so I better figure out what’s going on with the pitchers ahead of me if I’m the next pitcher and vice versa. I think it was like that on both sides of the diamond. You could see everything. You could see the pitches, you were right there by the crowds. It was electric that day.”

Longtime Chicago beer vendor Lloyd Rutzky remembers the day fondly, because the four-hour game meant it was possible to sell a lot of beer, even for an announced crowd of around 15,000. With the anniversary last week, he had recently gone back to his vending journal to see what he wrote after the game.

Rutzky: “It was back when we had pre-poured beer in cups. I remember selling a lot. All of a sudden it was 3:30 and it was only the third inning. The people were drinking pretty good. It was what we called a ‘pass-out.’ A pass-out is when we just have to pass the beer out. It was about as good as good can be. I sold 42 trays of beer. I ran to the bleachers and it took me three minutes to sell my whole load. … I sold eight trays in less than an hour. The game might’ve had something to do with it. The first inning took 45 minutes. … After I did 10 loads in the right-field section, we started ‘flying’ loads to the bleachers. Fans were lined up there waiting for the beer man.”

After a combined 44 runs and 49 hits, the game needed extra innings to decide the outcome. Both teams had the heart of their lineups due up in the 10th. Although Schmidt loved hitting at Wrigley, where at that point he had belted 20 home runs with a .315 average, he entered the game 1 for 16 with a single in his career against Bruce Sutter. In a battle between future Hall of Famers, Schmidt’s solo home run onto Waveland, the 50th hit of the game, would be the difference. Phillies right-hander Rawly Eastwick, facing the Cubs’ 3-4-5 hitters, got Buckner to line out, struck out Kingman and forced Steve Ontiveros to ground out to record the 23-22 win. Eastwick and Burris were the only pitchers who did not allow a run in the game, which Burris attributes to both effectively pitching inside to hitters.

Schmidt: “We’d had plenty of baseball by that point that day.”

Boone: “It was like, oh jeez, we’re going to extra innings too? How many runs do we have to score? When you score 7 runs in the first, you’re supposed to win the game.”

Schmidt: “(Sutter) had run as a pitcher, he was very hard to hit. He threw a split-finger, which back then was called a forkball, and he was the first guy — very much like (the Phillies’ Héctor) Neris, almost mirrored him except Neris throws a lot harder with his fastball — to go fastball-splitter. He could throw the split-finger forkball at any time. I most likely hit a splitter that was left over the plate.”

Bowa: “If we had lost, I would have really had the ass. Not the fact that we lost it, but the fact we had two big leads. You’ve got to give them credit, man, they just kept battling and battling.”

Bill Buckner, Cubs first baseman: “We were so far behind it was crazy. And then we had the best reliever in baseball in to pitch the last inning, and of all people, Sutter gave up a run.”

Barry Foote, Cubs catcher*: “It was very deflating. I had played with the Phillies before coming over to the Cubs, so I knew those guys real well. It was one of those things that you’re almost thinking the way Schmidt liked to hit in that ballpark, you’re almost better just walking him. But we got two strikes on him. We’re way ahead in the count and unfortunately Bruce just hung a splitter up in the zone a little bit. The one thing about it, it wasn’t a cheap home run. It was going to go out whether the wind was blowing out or blowing in. It didn’t matter the way he hit that ball.”

Burris: “You’ve got Bruce Sutter on the mound and he gives up the run. You think, OK, we’ve got a chance to win this ballgame. That was what took the sail out from beneath us. We had a chance to win that ballgame with the meat of our order coming up.”

Bowa: “When we went out there and had the lead after Schmidt hit the home run, in my mind, I said, ‘I hope they don’t get more than one.’ Both teams were scoring at will.”

Boone: “It was a relief when we won.”

Phillies first baseman Pete Rose celebrates after the last out in the 10th inning of the 23-22 win. (Bettmann Archive / Getty Images)

Wheeler: “(Phillies players) were kind of exhausted, and it was hard to enjoy it. That was a getaway day, and I can remember getting on the buses and then the plane and everybody looking at each other like, you know what, someday we’re going to talk about this, that we were there, that we were lucky enough to see this.”

Burris: “Donnie Moore and I were the last ones to leave the ballpark that day. We didn’t talk about the game going home. I had ridden in with him. Donnie had allowed 7 runs on one of the worst days a pitcher could pitch. We went out to dinner that night, Donnie and I with our wives. I was just trying to be supportive of him as much as I could, but I had never been in a game like that in all my life.”

Bowa: “It was one of those games where you won, but you feel like you got beat up. If they had won that game, it would’ve been like the World Series. I’ve been there as a manager and a coach, when you keep blowing leads and you eventually win, you feel like, damn, I don’t feel good about this. I’m glad we won, but it wasn’t like, ‘yeah!’ It was more, ‘I’m glad that’s over.’”

*From an interview with WBBM 780 AM

— The Athletic’s Jon Greenberg contributed to this report.

(Top photo of Schmidt’s game-winning home run: Bettmann Archive / Getty Images)

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