In which we feature a player just going about their business, because we often concentrate on the spectacular and forget the little details. This week we take you back to 1976 to tell you the story of how Phil Garner almost won a game for the A’s

The worn-out cliché tells us that baseball is a game full of quirks. There are the baseball parks of varying and inconsistent sizes, not to mention the necessity to have special rules for each ballpark for events that had nothing to do with baseball but more with shoddy architecture.

When the Twins moved to Target Field, they left behind not only one of the worst stadiums in baseball history, but they also left behind a large number of speakers hanging down from the roof that required a separate set of by-laws to deal with every conceivable eventuality.

There’s the seventh inning stretch of course and don’t forget the lack of any clock to keep to. The game goes on for nine innings, however long that takes, and if the game goes into extra innings, you could be in for a long, long night. Just ask fans of the Sox and the Brewers who, in 1984, a season where both teams just stank had to sit through 8 hours and twenty-five innings of turgid baseball.

The misery only ended when Brewers pitcher Chuck Porter took one for the team and the crowd and served up a ball that Harold Baines hit over the fences to record another ‘W’ in the win/loss column for the White Sox.

Anyway, it’s 1976 and we’re three hours into the game at the Oakland. The A’s with new manager Chuck Tanner in charge are 19 games into the season that, apart from three consecutive walk-off wins against the Orioles and Tigers, had been pretty uneventful. So, when the Indians came to town for the first of three games on Monday May 3rd, it was the start of just another series in just another season.

Oakland fell quickly behind in the first inning when Dick Bosman gave up three runs following two singles that allowed the runners on third to score, and an error allowed Indians first baseman John Lowenstein to move the score to 0-3. But the home team got the scoring started in the third inning when Joe Rudi homered off Dennis Eckersley with two men on. Cesar Tovar edged the A’s ahead in the bottom of the 5th, but a single from Duane Kuiper that allowed Alan Ashby to score in the top of the ninth pushed the game, for the third time this season, into extra innings. Incidentally, the man who blew the save that evening was Rollie Fingers, who also blew the save in the bottom of the ninth in that long, long game we were talking about earlier …

So, with the A’s behind 4-5 following George Hendricks 10th inning solo home run, Indians pitcher Tom Buskey walked Joe Rudi, then hit Cesar Tovar to fill first and second, prompting Frank Robinson to call for Dave LaRoche to shore things up. But things didn’t exactly go to plan. With no outs, next man up Sal Bando sac bunts, designated hitter Ken McMullen is walked, and Bert Campaneris flies out to Rick Manning in centre field.

With three men on base and two outs on the board second baseman Phil Garner settles over the plate, stares down at Dave LaRoche just over 60ft away and thinks about sending the first ball somewhere over in far-away right field and pinch hitter Larry Lintz poised at third base, home for the win. Grip the bat tight, he’s saying to himself, adjust the stance, wait for the wind-up and delivery and above all, above all else, don’t swing at junk you can’t hit.

The box score for the game doesn’t record whether LaRoche thought about throwing Garner something different, something he’s been working on in the bullpen when no one was watching. Something slower perhaps, something quirky to just end this game. What it does record, however, is that three swings later Phil Garner goes down on strikes and the Indians win, regardless.