Transcripts

SPEAKER: What a war. It was unbelievable. These guys didn't quit. The Braves didn't quit. It's unfortunate that somebody had to lose.

BILL WAREHAM: Yes, somebody had to lose, and it was largely through the effort of Jack Morris that it was the Atlanta Braves and not the Minnesota Twins. Morris, with help from the Twins defense, put in a spectacular nine innings, striking out 7 in that span. Then he turned a merely great performance into a legendary one when he convinced manager Tom Kelly to send him back to the mound for the 10th.

JACK MORRIS: I just flat out told him, I said, I'm not losing anything. Said, those guys down there have pitched a lot and we don't have a game tomorrow, so forget the pitch count.

BILL WAREHAM: Pitch count forgotten, Morris went out and yielded nothing in the extra inning. The Braves couldn't even get the ball out of the infield. Atlanta first baseman Sid Bream couldn't help but be awed by Morris's performance.

SID BREAM: How many opportunities do we have to get guys in? I mean, we had, I think, three, four opportunities with guys on three base with less than two outs, and we didn't get any of them. And not that they were all in the later innings, but I mean quite a few of them were. And he got out of them, and that's a credit to his experience in the game of baseball and a credit to the way he pitches.

BILL WAREHAM: Who knows how long Morris could have gone? Common sense says he'd have to weaken somewhere along the line, although what fans saw in the late innings seemed to defy that notion. Fortunately for Morris, and those nerve-wracked fans, Gene Larkin stepped up to the plate with one out and bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th. With one swing, Larkin put an end to this gut-wrencher as his hit floated over an outfield that had been pulled in to prevent a score from third.

GENE LARKIN: I was relaxed and fastball is the easiest pitch to hit. So I knew he was going to come right at me. So it's just a matter of me making a good swing. And that's what happened.

BILL WAREHAM: If Larkin sounds almost cavalier about his opportunity to do what several others failed at earlier in the game, consider the circumstances. Like most Twins partisans, Larkin spent all but three at bats watching the series from outside the foul lines. Unlike the rest of them, he suddenly had been given a constructive outlet to relieve the tension.

GENE LARKIN: Watching the game is miserable. Your stomach's in knots the whole game. It's a lot easier to play the game than watch it on the bench. And once I got in the batter's box, I was real relaxed. When I was walking up to the box, I was nervous, but once I was in the box, I was relaxed.

BILL WAREHAM: Larkin, like most of the participants in the 1991 Fall Classic, seemed a bit overwhelmed by it all immediately following the game. He expected the achievement to start sinking in sometime today. I'm Bill Wareham.