CINCINNATI -- It was a play you won't see in today's game of baseball. It's a play lost to a day-and-age where regards for player safety and long-term health across sports is heavily scrutinized. Player safety and long-term health is a good thing.
Sometimes, however, the game just needs a good old-fashioned home plate collision. Sometimes it needs a relief pitcher bowling over a two-time All-Star who is the heart-and-soul of a division rival. It needs an unforgettable moment for an unforgettable season.
Norm Charlton should never have scored on the double Joe Oliver hit down the left field line on June 24, 1990, against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Riverfront Stadium. Billy Hamilton of today's Reds can score on this play. Not Norm Charlton.
Yet that's exactly what Charlton did. He ran through the stop sign of third base coach Sam Perlozzo. Whatever poor aerodynamics caused by the red warm-up jacket Charlton was wearing was countered by sheer determination to achieve one goal: get Mike Scioscia.
The second most-famous home plate collision in Reds history was more than just a run scored with two outs in the seventh inning of a mid-season Sunday night game. It was a play that epitomized Charlton. It was a play that epitomized that Reds team, a team that at the start of the season no one expected to contend for the National League Western division title let alone win a World Series championship.
Yet that's exactly what they did.
"You look at the videotape and you see Sam Perlozzo at third stopping him, trying to hold him, and he's oblivious to that," said Oliver of Charlton. "He's got the triple major from Rice but when he crosses the lines he's about as focused or gets lost in the moment as anybody. We kind of called him an idiot when he crosses the white line, but he just plays with his hair on fire."
The Reds are celebrating the 25th anniversary of that World Series championship team this weekend at Great American Ball Park.
Charlton was one of the Nasty Boys. Current Reds manager Bryan Price likes to talk about "two-headed monsters" in a bullpen. That's when a manager can call on any two relievers to do the same job; that way you don't have to always rely on one arm to always be the answer.
The Nasty Boys were a three-headed monster in a bullpen that keyed the 1990 Reds to a wire-to-wire championship. Charlton was the lefty set-up guy. Rob Dibble was the righty set-up guy. Randy Myers was the lefty closer. They all threw hard. They all threw with the attitude that they commanded the plate, that the hitter was a mere nuisance standing next to it.
That trio is still legendary in franchise annals. The thing about legends is sometimes the big picture, the big story, overshadows the smaller details that makes the story more compelling.
People remember Norm Charlton the fire-brand reliever. They don't remember Norm Charlton the fire-brand reliever-turned-starter who took the ball 16 times from July 15 to Sept. 29 that year to begin games instead of coming out of the bullpen. It was a temporary solution that proved vital to that season.
"It's the leadership," said Jose Rijo, who would become the World Series MVP in the four-game sweep of Oakland but who battled injuries in the regular season and was in and out of the rotation. "Players take over and push other players to do better than they do, and Norm Charlton is one of those players. Norm Charlton was nasty on and off the field for the benefit of the game."
Manager Lou Piniella came to Charlton prior to the All-Star break with the idea of moving him to the starting rotation. Charlton was a starter throughout his minor-league career after Montreal had picked him in the first round in 1984. The Reds acquired Charlton in a 1986 trade that sent Wayne Krenchicki to the Expos. Charlton made his debut with the Reds in 1988, going 4-5 with 3.96 ERA in 10 starts, but was used exclusively out of the bullpen in 1989 because that's where the Reds needed him most.
Now they needed him most in the rotation. Danny Jackson was dealing with a partially torn left rotator cuff. Rick Mahler was beginning to scuffle as a starter but Piniella loved him in a bullpen role. An article in the Cincinnati Post written by Jerry Crasnick, now a lead national baseball writer with ESPN.com, quoted Charlton saying: "I'll do anything they ask. If they can promise me a World Series ring, I'll carry the water jugs."
Charlton threw three innings of relief against Philadelphia the Sunday before the All-Star break. He would fail to finish at least six innings just twice in his 16 starts. Charlton went 6-5 as a starter with a 2.60 ERA in 103 2/3 innings. He tossed a three-hit shutout against San Francisco on Aug. 10 in a 7-0 win, a moment he called his proudest start.
"It's what was expected back then," said Charlton. "It wasn't five innings (and) look to get out of there, six innings (and) look to get out of there. It's just take the ball and you were expected to finish the game. It didn't always happen that way but that's what you looked for. You took the ball expecting that. I don't know that they were expecting you to do it but as a starter you took the ball and you're like 'my job is done when I walk off the field in the ninth inning and we've got a win.'"
Charlton went back to the bullpen for the postseason as Piniella chose to go with a three-man rotation of Rijo, Tom Browning and Jackson. Charlton appeared four times against Pittsburgh in the NLCS and then once in the World Series.
"I talked to Lou and I said 'Are we going to put Norm back in the bullpen to get ready?'" said Myers. "They said he might be starting. I said 'Do you want him available for one game every four days or do want him for four games every four days?'
"We knew we had five-inning games. If we're ahead after six, the game was over."
Dibble and Charlton were roommates for seven years, starting in the minor leagues and then with the Reds.
"He's just one of the best people ever, and one of the meanest and nastiest Texans you'd ever want to cross," said Dibble. "When he was put in the bullpen with us he assumed whatever role he was given, just like I did. Randy was the closer and we just tried to go out there and win games."
Which takes us back to June 24, 1990. Two nights previously the Reds trailed the Dodgers 6-5 going to the bottom of the ninth inning. Jay Howell of the Dodgers got Chris Sabo and Barry Larkin out to leave the Reds down to their final out. Paul O'Neill singled to keep the inning alive and Eric Davis walked, bringing up Todd Benzinger.
Benzinger doubled to right field, scoring O'Neill to tie the game but Davis was thrown out at the plate by Hubie Brooks. The Reds ended up losing 7-6 in 10 innings.
That stuck with Charlton.
Mahler started this Sunday game and went six innings. The Reds built an 8-4 lead off of Fernando Valenzuela when Charlton entered the game in the seventh. It was still 8-4 when Charlton came to the plate against reliever Mike Hartley with two outs and Benzinger on first base. Hartley hit Charlton with a 0-2 pitch. That brought up Oliver, who drove a 0-1 pitch down the line in left field.
Benzinger scored easily. Charlton was running on the pitch. Sam Perlozzo never had a chance. Mike Scioscia had less.
Scioscia was blocking the path to plate, awaiting the relay throw from shortstop Alfredo Griffin. Charlton lowered his right shoulder and barreled through Scioscia, who never was able to secure the ball even though it beat Charlton to the plate. It's hard to not to notice an idiot with his hair on fire heading right for you with bad intentions.
"(Davis) slid and Scioscia blocked the plate on him, and Eric got up and limped a little bit. I said if I ever get a chance to get that guy I'm going to get him," said Charlton. "It was clean, and I got him. It was clean, but that's the way we did it. That's the way everybody on our team was. That's just the way we did it."
