Classic game. I remember watching it when I was a kid in New York. Ron Cey was an excellent player who you could always count on in a big game. I would like to see the Friday and Saturday games as well.
I haven't seen this game since it happened back in 1980. What exciting times they were in LA in those days. The city was gripped by this series. Oh if only the pitching rotation were a little deeper the Dodgers would have won the World Series that year.
Lots of heroes in this must win for the Dodgers: defensive gem by Johnstone, clutch hitting by Mota, Cey, and on a small ball level by Derrel Thomas with that beautiful drag bunt and smart baserunning. The bullpen in my opinion was the key though. After Hooton's bad outing, Castillo, Fernando, Howe and Sutton at the end were all effective in keeping Houston at bay and allowing the Dodgers to chip away at the lead and eventually get the big homer from Cey. And much credit to Lasorda for pressing all the right buttons. But if you are a Dodger fan, it didn't end well as LA's luck ran out the next day, mostly due to Dave Goltz's poor performance. Those were great times for baseball though!
I remember listening the last half of this game(Sunday, October 5, 1980) on 790 AM KABC in which Ross Porter called Ron Cey's home run! WOW!!!!! And the Dodger Stadium crowd turned this series into a rock concert in its intensity. ⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾ 😁😁😁😁😁
The fans were tremendous that series. After the loss on Monday many of the fans stayed after the game was over and were applauding the team for the three dramatic wins to force a playoff. The Dodgers never gave up and neither did the fans. They wanted the Dodgers to come back out onto the field when they finally did they applauded the fans.
What an amazing sequence of games! The Dodgers won three in a row to force a playoff game, and lost the playoff (I think) by a single run. Then, the NLCS bet. The Astros and the Phils was five nail-biters.
As starting pitcher, Fern was NL Rookie of the Year in 1981. However, he had already been a relief pitcher with the Dodgers the year before, as this vid shows. Thanks for uploading.
Another thing I remember is the St. Pete Times sports page the day after they won the first of the three games (game 160). The headline read "The Race is On," with a photo of Lasorda bounding out of the dugout at the end.
What a great series to end an insane season! So wish the Dodgers would have won. But we got that amazing preview of Fernando Valenzuela! And would win the World Series during the strike-shortened following year! And the stirrups! Did you see the stirrups? Those stirrups rocked! To the inane Houston sportswriters who gave the late J.R. Richard such unwarranted grief before his stroke... if he got the rest he needed ... if that stroke never happened ... if the (yeah we know what garbage you are hinting at with ridiculous and wrong accusations that J.R. was being "lazy") ... the Astros would have win the World Series maybe 3 years in a row with J.R., Nolan Ryan and the late Joe Niekro in the same rotation.
Fernando Valenzula was great for the Dodgers as a rookie September call up in 1980, coming out of the bullpen and not allowing a run in 18 innings in 10 games Of course, 1981 was when he became a star
Dodgers would be in a somewhat similar situation with the Giants in 2004 to end the season. Dodgers were up 3 games on the Giants with 3 to play and they both faced each other in Dodger Stadium. Giants were hoping to force a game 163. Giants won game 1. Giants were winning game 2 with 3 outs to go and up by 3 runs, but they lost that game, as the Dodgers scored 7 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning, Steve Finley grand slam. This clinched the Dodgers 2004 NL West division. Giants got disqualified the day after for the NL Wild Card, as the Astros won their game 162 against the Rockies. Ironic that Dodgers and Astros were also somewhat involved in the same situation in 2004
ABC would air Sunday afternoon pennant race MLB games in September in the late '70's and early '80's...the NFL was defense-first, running game-focused at the time and only in the first month of the season so these MLB games were much more important than early season football matchups...and the viewership would bear that out. Sort of the last gasp for baseball being the "national pastime" in terms of TV audience. Nowadays World Series games get trounced by Thursday / Sunday night regular season NFL games in October.
The strike in 94 really killed the MLB. People may forgot the 86 World Series had Super Bowl type ratings. In 88 I recall being at work with my co workers watching Gibson hit the home run of Eckersley and we were 3000 miles away. In comparison I watched virtually none of the 2022 playoffs. It’s a different sport and it’s pretty boring.
There are several dynamics at play as to why MLB is not so much of a draw as the NFL today. For one, MLB’s stars are increasingly becoming majority Non-US born players, including very minimal Black American stars. The NFL has also done an incredible job last 20 yrs in marketing itself into the American culture, especially young culture with things like the Madden video game series, cementing itself as the true American sport, with fans almost as passionate as soccer fans in other parts of the world. Younger generations of Americans also don’t care so much about traditions and history, family values and a slower paced sport compared to football and basketball, which are more about socializing and tailgating in the sport of football and basketball is all about the highlights, the brash and cocky stars, etc which connect more with the younger gen’s. It’s sad because I’m a classic MLB fanatic, but that’s the sad reality of MLB today.
The Dodgers made a remarkable run to tie up the season on the last day only to lose game 163 because all they had to pitch was the very disappointing Dave Goltz.
Two Pitches before Ron Cey’s Winning Home Run, Bob Ueckek caught Cey’s Foul Ball? THAT’S ONE FOR THE AGES! And what was even funnier was that “The Meathead”(Rob Reiner) was ripping on Uecker for snagging it.
And Al Michaels said something like "yeah you ask him to bunt, he fails, gets two strikes has to hack away and gets a big hit." Yep. I bet Cey's foot didn't hurt anymore running around the bases.
@@bbigjohnson069 LOL! Actually, The Penguin said to a reporter later "it was the most painful HR trot I ever made, until I stepped on Home Plate, then it didn't hurt at all" 😃?? LOL! I heard him talk about it years later & he said it was the worst pain he Never Felt! 😆 Man that little guy was a steely eyed Baddass!
@@Slinger43 You could see he was hurting running around the bases. That was a great AB. He was down 2 strikes early. Kind of dumb having your clean up batter, Cey, trying to bunt.
@@biggserggproductions847 You and me both! Believe it or not, at the time of that blast, I was at Home watching the Rams play the 49’ers at Anaheim Stadium. When we heard a loud roar from the Anaheim Stadium crowd, My Dad changed the channel to the Dodger Game being shown on ABC and I saw Ron Cey high five the other Dodgers Teammates with a loud Dodger Stadium and Al Michaels explained it all.
Nice!! Well believe or not my friend I was at the Friday game with my dad on some last minute tickets and i just remember actually getting a little rattled from the roar of the crowd when Ferguson hit the game winner... I was only 7!! Lol
@@biggserggproductions847 I saw that on KTTV Channel 11. That was the game that introduced me to Fernando Valenzuela. First time I saw him pitch the 10th Inning, nearly struck out the side. Then came .the blast by Joe Ferguson
@@Jiltedin2007 how old were you then? I was 18 & watching on TV in our living room. My Father was in the garage (Pop wasn't a stick & ball guy) & came stomping in yell'n at me for yell'n in the house! LOL! He was pissed & said "they probably heard you at Dodger Stadium! 😠 LOL 😂 I told him I hope they heard me in Houston, made him even angrier, as Dad was born in Texas 🤬 oh well, Pop got over it, great memory for me anyway! 💪👍
Sutton pitched 8 innings on the Friday game, so he would have been starting on 2 days rest on game 163. If that happened and he pitched poorly, Tommy would have been fired And it wasnt like Sutton was lights out on that Friday game, as even though he allowed 2 runs, he still allowed 7 hits and 3 walks.
Of course, looking back he should have given the ball to Fernando based on how well he had pitched down the stretch, but he wouldn't have been properly rested either. However, I would have rolled the dice and gone with the rookie. But Lasorda didn't think that way at that time, he believed in going with veterans in big games even though Goltz had been a major disappointment that year. But looking back years later after Fernando became a master, I'm sure Lasorda would have admitted that he should have gone with the rookie, who was really a seasoned veteran in disguise!@@hmhm856
You are right. No magic left, but perhaps there would have been if Lasorda had gambled and started Fernando, who had just come up as a rookie and pitched great down the stretch -- a definite sign of things to come.
@@svetcovladich9996 Goltz got lit up. It's easy now to say "Start Fernando." But he wasn't "Fernando" yet. He was just a 19 y/o kid with less than 20 innings under his belt, been there 3 weeks. Yes shutout innings but you don't throw that inexperienced a kid out to start a playoff game. His opening day startin '81, was an "emergency" because there was no one else available.
@@svetcovladich9996 Naw, Tommy loved that 19yr old kid from the get-go & he wasn't about to have him eat'n alive by the baseball wolves, err..Media if he sucked 🤷🏻♂️
@@MaximusNV yes, the white is more an off-white or very light gray. Go to the dressed to the nines website to see more. From 1975-80, they only had uniform for both home and road
Back then it was only because Gibby hadn't hit his yet. But for sure Cey's and Gibson's were the two most memorable of my lifetime. BTW, were you as f'd up as I was when the Dodgers lost game 4 of the '78 Series? I could have used sedation, definitely mad at the whole world from then on.
@@brettshepherd5240 That's the one. The "sacrifice thigh" he called it. Was watching the game live with the family, saw Reggie stick his ass out and went berserk in the livingroom. Oh well, memories can't all be good.
@@ShaneisRight I was a Dodger die-hard fan (a fifteen-year-old in the stands for this 1980 Fan Appreciation game) and a lesser, but still devoted fan of the Angels in that "other" league. I still could not forgive or root for Reggie when the Angels acquired him. The play makes me think of the Marty McSorley "curved stick" incident, when Los Angeles later played against the Montreal Canadiens for the Stanley Cup in 1993. Everything was going the Kings' way, but after that incident, they collapsed both in that game and during ensuing games. Reggie Jackson's interference did not end the game. Just as Game 2 ended in an overtime loss for the Kings, I recall Game 4 ending in an extra inning loss. Then, despite still maintaining home-field advantage, the Dodger's collapsed during the following games. Both championship series ripped my heart out. We were hoping to win the 1978 World Series in Jim Gilliam's honor. I remember Bill Russell's intentional/unintentional drop of Lou Piniella's hit also being a factor. Even an infield-fly-rule call would have been less damaging. At least Graig Nettles screwed us fairly and honestly the year before.
@@Oobaglunk And the Dodgers were down in every series in 81, (2-0) to the Astros, winning 3 straight. (2-1) to the Expos, winning two straight. Then (2-0) against the Yankees, winning 4 straight, including one-run wins in games 3,4, 5.
Classic game. I remember watching it when I was a kid in New York. Ron Cey was an excellent player who you could always count on in a big game. I would like to see the Friday and Saturday games as well.
I haven't seen this game since it happened back in 1980. What exciting times they were in LA in those days. The city was gripped by this series. Oh if only the pitching rotation were a little deeper the Dodgers would have won the World Series that year.
Since the Dodgers arrived in the late 1950's until the end of the 1988 season, this was the greatest era of Dodgers baseball, those 30 years.
Lots of heroes in this must win for the Dodgers: defensive gem by Johnstone, clutch hitting by Mota, Cey, and on a small ball level by Derrel Thomas with that beautiful drag bunt and smart baserunning. The bullpen in my opinion was the key though. After Hooton's bad outing, Castillo, Fernando, Howe and Sutton at the end were all effective in keeping Houston at bay and allowing the Dodgers to chip away at the lead and eventually get the big homer from Cey. And much credit to Lasorda for pressing all the right buttons. But if you are a Dodger fan, it didn't end well as LA's luck ran out the next day, mostly due to Dave Goltz's poor performance. Those were great times for baseball though!
Wow! I was really looking for a a 1980’s Fernando’s appearance.. thank you..
I remember listening the last half of this game(Sunday, October 5, 1980) on 790 AM KABC in which Ross Porter called Ron Cey's home run! WOW!!!!! And the Dodger Stadium crowd turned this series into a rock concert in its intensity. ⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾ 😁😁😁😁😁
Dario Witer actually it was Jerry Doggett on the call. Vin was doing NFL on CBS. Ross Porter did TV broadcast inn. 1-3 & 7-9.
The fans were tremendous that series. After the loss on Monday many of the fans stayed after the game was over and were applauding the team for the three dramatic wins to force a playoff. The Dodgers never gave up and neither did the fans. They wanted the Dodgers to come back out onto the field when they finally did they applauded the fans.
What an amazing sequence of games! The Dodgers won three in a row to force a playoff game, and lost the playoff (I think) by a single run. Then, the NLCS bet. The Astros and the Phils was five nail-biters.
@@NYNick49 They we’re beaten 7-1 in the one game playoff or tie breaker game
I’m glad Al Michaels is still with us in sports. I feel a little younger..
As starting pitcher, Fern was NL Rookie of the Year in 1981. However, he had already been a relief pitcher with the Dodgers the year before, as this vid shows. Thanks for uploading.
Another thing I remember is the St. Pete Times sports page the day after they won the first of the three games (game 160). The headline read "The Race is On," with a photo of Lasorda bounding out of the dugout at the end.
This was the greatest year of playoff baseball in the national league in my life. Great teams! HOU, LA and PHI.
Also the Expos who played it tight till the end with the Phillies.
Thanks Bay Area and also the Yankees and Royals!
1986 would give them a run for their money. The regular season was nothing to brag about, but the postseason oh my!!!
Alot of people don't realize that Valenzuela was called up from the minors in late eighty.He came in from the pen in this series way cool footage
isn't it amazing that those two announcers are still going today after more than 41 years?
Wow good point 😊
What a great series to end an insane season! So wish the Dodgers would have won. But we got that amazing preview of Fernando Valenzuela! And would win the World Series during the strike-shortened following year! And the stirrups! Did you see the stirrups? Those stirrups rocked! To the inane Houston sportswriters who gave the late J.R. Richard such unwarranted grief before his stroke... if he got the rest he needed ... if that stroke never happened ... if the (yeah we know what garbage you are hinting at with ridiculous and wrong accusations that J.R. was being "lazy") ... the Astros would have win the World Series maybe 3 years in a row with J.R., Nolan Ryan and the late Joe Niekro in the same rotation.
I was 8 years old back then. I sure do miss my daddy. The cycle of life is so sad. Rip Tommy Lasorda .
What magic with Manny Mota 👏👍!!
I went 2 the Friday game I've been 2 a lot of games but that one was the best.
DAMN! the Astros only had to win one game to win the National League West Division. Dodgers sure made the Astros earn it by forcing a wild card game.
Not a wild card game but a tie breaker to determine the champion.
Fernando Valenzula was great for the Dodgers as a rookie September call up in 1980, coming out of the bullpen and not allowing a run in 18 innings in 10 games
Of course, 1981 was when he became a star
Dodgers would be in a somewhat similar situation with the Giants in 2004 to end the season. Dodgers were up 3 games on the Giants with 3 to play and they both faced each other in Dodger Stadium. Giants were hoping to force a game 163.
Giants won game 1.
Giants were winning game 2 with 3 outs to go and up by 3 runs, but they lost that game, as the Dodgers scored 7 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning, Steve Finley grand slam. This clinched the Dodgers 2004 NL West division.
Giants got disqualified the day after for the NL Wild Card, as the Astros won their game 162 against the Rockies.
Ironic that Dodgers and Astros were also somewhat involved in the same situation in 2004
ABC would air Sunday afternoon pennant race MLB games in September in the late '70's and early '80's...the NFL was defense-first, running game-focused at the time and only in the first month of the season so these MLB games were much more important than early season football matchups...and the viewership would bear that out. Sort of the last gasp for baseball being the "national pastime" in terms of TV audience. Nowadays World Series games get trounced by Thursday / Sunday night regular season NFL games in October.
The strike in 94 really killed the MLB. People may forgot the 86 World Series had Super Bowl type ratings. In 88 I recall being at work with my co workers watching Gibson hit the home run of Eckersley and we were 3000 miles away. In comparison I watched virtually none of the 2022 playoffs. It’s a different sport and it’s pretty boring.
There are several dynamics at play as to why MLB is not so much of a draw as the NFL today. For one, MLB’s stars are increasingly becoming majority Non-US born players, including very minimal Black American stars. The NFL has also done an incredible job last 20 yrs in marketing itself into the American culture, especially young culture with things like the Madden video game series, cementing itself as the true American sport, with fans almost as passionate as soccer fans in other parts of the world. Younger generations of Americans also don’t care so much about traditions and history, family values and a slower paced sport compared to football and basketball, which are more about socializing and tailgating in the sport of football and basketball is all about the highlights, the brash and cocky stars, etc which connect more with the younger gen’s. It’s sad because I’m a classic MLB fanatic, but that’s the sad reality of MLB today.
Astros played four nailbiting games against the Dodgers, and then they played five nailbiting games against the Phillies in the NLCS
The Dodgers made a remarkable run to tie up the season on the last day only to lose game 163 because all they had to pitch was the very disappointing Dave Goltz.
Goltz was garbage as a Dodger! One of the worst free agent signings in team history.
@@paolo-n2000....don't forget STANHOUSE.
Two Pitches before Ron Cey’s Winning Home Run, Bob Ueckek caught Cey’s Foul Ball? THAT’S ONE FOR THE AGES! And what was even funnier was that “The Meathead”(Rob Reiner) was ripping on Uecker for snagging it.
And Al Michaels said something like "yeah you ask him to bunt, he fails, gets two strikes has to hack away and gets a big hit." Yep. I bet Cey's foot didn't hurt anymore running around the bases.
@@bbigjohnson069 LOL! Actually, The Penguin said to a reporter later "it was the most painful HR trot I ever made, until I stepped on Home Plate, then it didn't hurt at all" 😃?? LOL! I heard him talk about it years later & he said it was the worst pain he Never Felt! 😆 Man that little guy was a steely eyed Baddass!
Meathead was pissed Yuk caught it & it didn't fall down so he could have! 😂
@@Slinger43
Lol hilarious 😂.
@@Slinger43 You could see he was hurting running around the bases. That was a great AB. He was down 2 strikes early. Kind of dumb having your clean up batter, Cey, trying to bunt.
The Ron Cey Game!
Cant stop watching Ron Cey's 2run blast in the 8th... Memories!!
@@biggserggproductions847
You and me both! Believe it or not, at the time of that blast, I was at Home watching the Rams play the 49’ers at Anaheim Stadium. When we heard a loud roar from the Anaheim Stadium crowd, My Dad changed the channel to the Dodger Game being shown on ABC and I saw Ron Cey high five the other Dodgers Teammates with a loud Dodger Stadium and Al Michaels explained it all.
Nice!! Well believe or not my friend I was at the Friday game with my dad on some last minute tickets and i just remember actually getting a little rattled from the roar of the crowd when Ferguson hit the game winner... I was only 7!! Lol
@@biggserggproductions847
I saw that on KTTV Channel 11. That was the game that introduced me to Fernando Valenzuela. First time I saw him pitch the 10th Inning, nearly struck out the side. Then came .the blast by Joe Ferguson
@@Jiltedin2007 how old were you then?
I was 18 & watching on TV in our living room. My Father was in the garage (Pop wasn't a stick & ball guy) & came stomping in yell'n at me for yell'n in the house! LOL! He was pissed & said "they probably heard you at Dodger Stadium! 😠 LOL 😂
I told him I hope they heard me in Houston, made him even angrier, as Dad was born in Texas 🤬 oh well, Pop got over it, great memory for me anyway! 💪👍
5:27 Fernie screwballing. A harbinger of things to come.
anyone know the name of the song that Dodgers played after LA HRs like after the Cey shot 2:54:00
Damn Dave Goltz the next day
Tommy should’ve gone with Sutton and another starter in game 163, Especially facing Joe Niekro.
Sutton pitched 8 innings on the Friday game, so he would have been starting on 2 days rest on game 163. If that happened and he pitched poorly, Tommy would have been fired
And it wasnt like Sutton was lights out on that Friday game, as even though he allowed 2 runs, he still allowed 7 hits and 3 walks.
Of course, looking back he should have given the ball to Fernando based on how well he had pitched down the stretch, but he wouldn't have been properly rested either. However, I would have rolled the dice and gone with the rookie. But Lasorda didn't think that way at that time, he believed in going with veterans in big games even though Goltz had been a major disappointment that year. But looking back years later after Fernando became a master, I'm sure Lasorda would have admitted that he should have gone with the rookie, who was really a seasoned veteran in disguise!@@hmhm856
do you have game 160 the friday night game?
do you have game 161 the saturday game that you can upload?
astros fan here
Look at that smog
2:54:13 Biggest Dodger hit of season. They didn't have any magic left for the next day, though.
You are right. No magic left, but perhaps there would have been if Lasorda had gambled and started Fernando, who had just come up as a rookie and pitched great down the stretch -- a definite sign of things to come.
@@svetcovladich9996 Goltz got lit up. It's easy now to say "Start Fernando." But he wasn't "Fernando" yet. He was just a 19 y/o kid with less than 20 innings under his belt, been there 3 weeks. Yes shutout innings but you don't throw that inexperienced a kid out to start a playoff game. His opening day startin '81, was an "emergency" because there was no one else available.
@@svetcovladich9996 Naw, Tommy loved that 19yr old kid from the get-go & he wasn't about to have him eat'n alive by the baseball wolves, err..Media if he sucked 🤷🏻♂️
ABC should have miked the Dodger dugout instead of Houston's(talk about ABC being biased against the Dodgers!).
silly question: how were houston white uniforms okay for the road in that era?
off-white
@@pmsfar-outgrooviness8025 please educate me- because it had other colors? off white?
@@MaximusNV yes, the white is more an off-white or very light gray. Go to the dressed to the nines website to see more. From 1975-80, they only had uniform for both home and road
@@pmsfar-outgrooviness8025 you know your unis! .... disclaimer.... hate the astros more then the giants
@@MaximusNV lol
The magical moment occurs at 2:54:10
My dodgers may have lost the playoff game but those 3 games were crazy exciting. Ceys hr is still better than Gibson's
Put down the crack pipe.
Back then it was only because Gibby hadn't hit his yet. But for sure Cey's and Gibson's were the two most memorable of my lifetime. BTW, were you as f'd up as I was when the Dodgers lost game 4 of the '78 Series? I could have used sedation, definitely mad at the whole world from then on.
@@ShaneisRight
The game where reggie got in the way? Hell yes
@@brettshepherd5240 That's the one. The "sacrifice thigh" he called it. Was watching the game live with the family, saw Reggie stick his ass out and went berserk in the livingroom. Oh well, memories can't all be good.
@@ShaneisRight I was a Dodger die-hard fan (a fifteen-year-old in the stands for this 1980 Fan Appreciation game) and a lesser, but still devoted fan of the Angels in that "other" league. I still could not forgive or root for Reggie when the Angels acquired him.
The play makes me think of the Marty McSorley "curved stick" incident, when Los Angeles later played against the Montreal Canadiens for the Stanley Cup in 1993. Everything was going the Kings' way, but after that incident, they collapsed both in that game and during ensuing games.
Reggie Jackson's interference did not end the game. Just as Game 2 ended in an overtime loss for the Kings, I recall Game 4 ending in an extra inning loss. Then, despite still maintaining home-field advantage, the Dodger's collapsed during the following games. Both championship series ripped my heart out.
We were hoping to win the 1978 World Series in Jim Gilliam's honor. I remember Bill Russell's intentional/unintentional drop of Lou Piniella's hit also being a factor. Even an infield-fly-rule call would have been less damaging. At least Graig Nettles screwed us fairly and honestly the year before.
Astros probably shut it down
So They can win on Monday afternoon
Hmmm... 3:11:50 ... Walling was 0-7 off of Sutton at that point in his career.
Ron Cey
Then there was Blue Monday🙄
Cobalt Blue. I was thinking, why did Lasorda pitch Goltz?
And then the next day came...
CutterHistorical and then the next year came..and they beat the Astros, Expos, and Yankees and won the World Series.
@@Oobaglunk And the Dodgers were down in every series in 81, (2-0) to the Astros, winning 3 straight. (2-1) to the Expos, winning two straight. Then (2-0) against the Yankees, winning 4 straight, including one-run wins in games 3,4, 5.
Sutton didn't bust a Kershaw *exhale*
Terrible image resolution. Not entertaining at all to watch. 👎🏼