“I’ll do anything to win a game,” Lankford said. “It’s not that I want to hurt anybody or anything, but I’ll do whatever I have to do to score.”[i]

Lankford’s decisive score capped a five-run Cardinals comeback as starting pitcher Ken Hill lasted just 2 2/3 innings. In a five-run third, three of the Phillies’ four singles failed to reach the outfield, but those hits combined with a walk, an error, a wild pitch, and two sacrifice flies to give Philadelphia a 5-0 lead.

After the Cardinals got on the scoreboard in the third, Phillies shortstop Dickie Thon made the score 6-1 with an RBI double. For the Phillies, who had won just four of their first 12 games of the season, it felt like a bright spot in an otherwise dismal start to the season.

However, after starting pitcher José de Jesús walked Ozzie Smith to lead off the seventh (it was his sixth walk of the game), the Phillies’ bullpen failed to hold the lead. Lankford, who already singled in the first inning and doubled in the fifth, greeted lefthanded reliever Joe Boever with an RBI triple. Felix Jose followed with an RBI single, and Perry drew a walk to chase Boever from the game.

“I felt I had my best stuff all year,” Boever said. “The pitch I threw to Lankford was up, but then I broke Felix Jose’s bat, and he ends up with a base hit. Then I threw four pitches to Perry, all down, and none were called strikes. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, have a nice day. I just didn’t catch a break.”[ii]

Enter the Phillies’ next reliever: Roger McDowell. With runners on first and second, McDowell was looking for a double-play ball and he got it when Craig Wilson hit a grounder to Randy Ready at second base. However, the ball skipped under Ready’s glove, allowing Jose to score and cutting Philadelphia’s lead to 6-4. By the time McDowell got the third out of the inning, the Phillies held a one-run lead.

That slight advantage disappeared in the ninth. With Phillies closer Mitch Williams on the mound, Jose singled and Perry drove him home with a triple into the right-field gap. That crucial run tied the game 6-6 and forced extra innings.

With one out, Williams (who wasn’t known as “Wild Thing” for nothing) walked Lankford. After Williams nearly picked him off, Lankford stole his third base of the year. The Phillies countered by intentionally walking Jose, bringing Perry to the plate.

On the fifth pitch of the at-bat, Perry hit the ball hard between first and second. John Kruk made a nice pick and threw smoothly to second to force out Jose. However, when Thon looked to throw to first, neither Kruk nor Williams were there. He paused for a moment before he realized that Lankford had never stopped at third and was barreling home.

“Lankford was hustling,” Phillies second baseman Randy Ready said. “He never stopped at third. I started screaming at Dickie to throw home, but he was still looking toward first.”[iii]

“From the start, I just decided I was going,” Lankford said. “I’m not sure if the third base coach (Bucky Dent) was waving me on or not. I was going whether he was or not.”[iv]

Thon’s throw reached Daulton before Lankford, but the former running back lowered his shoulder and slammed into the Phillies catcher at full speed. Daulton flew backward from the impact and the ball rolled out of his glove. Lankford celebrated with his teammates as Daulton remained on his knees and tried to regain his bearings.

“Your first instinct is to go for the double play,” Thon said, “but when I looked over there, I only saw the coach and (Perry). Then I saw the runner and threw to the plate. He made a good play. He never stopped, but he would have been out if (Daulton) had been able to hold onto the ball. We just didn’t execute, and that’s the name of the game.”[v]

Daulton was still woozy when he spoke to reporters afterward.

“I was left out to dry, and he got me pretty good,” he said. “I saw him out of the corner of my eye and then I don’t remember. They tell me I had the ball and it fell out of my glove.”[vi]

From the on-deck circle, Wilson had a good view of the play.

“Daulton wasn’t really in too good of a position and Ray just put his shoulder down and ran right into his sternum,” Wilson said. “Ouch! Daulton is going to be sore tomorrow.”[vii]

“He doesn’t have to wait until tomorrow,” Cardinals outfielder Bernard Gilkey added. “He’s sore right now.”[viii]

With the win, the Cardinals improved to 7-6 on the young season. The Phillies, meanwhile, fell to 4-9.

“When it rains, it pours,” Ready said. “We’re not getting away with anything, and when that happens, there’s nothing you can do. You just have to try to play through it.”[ix]

The Phillies did play through it, but they did so without the services of manager Nick Leyva, who was fired ahead of Philadelphia’s next game and replaced with Jim Fregosi. Under Fregosi, the Phillies recovered enough to finish third in the NL East at 78-84.

The Cardinals, meanwhile, finished second with an 84-78 record. Lankford, who hit .301 with nine homers, 69 RBIs, 44 stolen bases, and a league-leading 15 triples, placed third in that season’s NL Rookie of the Year balloting behind Houston’s Jeff Bagwell and Pittsburgh’s Orlando Merced.

Lankford went on to play 14 major league seasons, including 13 with St. Louis. His 1,479 hits as a Cardinal rank 16^th in franchise history. He also ranks fifth in homers (228), eighth in stolen bases (250), ninth in runs scored (928), 10^th in doubles (339) and RBIs (829), and 20^th in triples (52). He was elected to the Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2018.

For his career, Lankford hit .272 with 238 homers, 874 RBIs, and 258 stolen bases.

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[i] Dan O’Neill, “Cards Win In Crunch Time,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 22, 1991.

[ii] Dick Polman, “Phils stumble to another loss,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 22, 1991.

[iii] Dick Polman, “Phils stumble to another loss,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 22, 1991.

[iv] Dan O’Neill, “Cards Win In Crunch Time,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 22, 1991.

[v] Paul Hagen, “Leyva looks to be on the way out,” Philadelphia Daily News, April 22, 1991.

[vi] Paul Hagen, “Leyva looks to be on the way out,” Philadelphia Daily News, April 22, 1991.

[vii] Dan O’Neill, “Cards Win In Crunch Time,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 22, 1991.

[viii] Dan O’Neill, “Cards Win In Crunch Time,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 22, 1991.

[ix] Paul Hagen, “Leyva looks to be on the way out,” Philadelphia Daily News, April 22, 1991.

The post Ray Lankford runs over Darren Daulton: April 21, 1991 first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.

The trade centered on the highly athletic 27-year-old Jose and Jefferies, the two-time Baseball America minor league player of the year and former first-round draft pick.

“We like the versatility of this guy,” Maxvill said of Jefferies. “We feel he’s a more consistent and more disciplined hitter. He’s a fine hitter, and we think he’ll be a fine run producer. We think he can win a batting championship.”[1]

Trade talks began at the winter meetings in Louisville when the Royals asked about Jose’s availability to fill their need for a right fielder. The Cardinals asked about getting Jefferies in return, but the Royals were concerned about their infield depth if they lost Jefferies and moved utilityman Keith Miller to third base.

The trade finally gained traction when the Cardinals agreed to include Wilson, who hit .311 while appearing at second base, third base, and right field in 1992. In exchange, the Royals added Gerald, a 21-year-old who had spent the past two seasons in Class A.[2]

Jose and Jefferies each recently avoided arbitration. Jose had signed a one-year contract for $1.525 million,[3] while Jefferies had signed for $2.65 million.[4]

“It wasn’t settled on the courthouse steps, it was actually in the courtroom with the judge sitting there,” said Jefferies’ agent, Seth Levinson.[5]

Jefferies’ career had begun with the Mets, who made him their first-round pick in 1985 (20^th overall). He quickly established himself as one of the top prospects in baseball. After winning minor league player of the year honors in 1986 and 1987, Jefferies got his first extended look as a major leaguer as a 21-year-old in 1989, batting .258 with 12 homers, 56 RBIs, and 21 stolen bases.

In five seasons with the Mets, however, Jefferies never lived up to the high expectations established in his days as a prospect. As St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz described it, the Mets’ clubhouse atmosphere and the New York media proved to be a poor combination for the young hitter:

I was at Shea Stadium on a Friday afternoon in 1991 when Jefferies snapped before a Cardinals-Mets game. He was struggling at the plate and playing soccer at second base. The fans were booing him. Jealous teammates considered Jefferies a pampered pet of management and agitated him through the tabloids. That morning, an unnerved Jefferies had faxed an open letter to WFAN, New York’s sports station, to urge the fans to ignore the media and support him. A feeding frenzy ensued. At least 20 reporters interrogated the poor soul for 30 hostile minutes. It was awful. The next day, the New York Daily News ran a cartoon in the sports section. It depicted Jefferies – big head dressed in a baby’s bonnet – screaming “WAAAAH” as manager Bud Harrelson tried to burp him. Who can play baseball in such conditions?[6]

In December 1991, the Mets mercifully traded Jefferies and Kevin McReynolds to the Royals for Bret Saberhagen and Bill Pecota.

“In New York, I pretty much had to get traded,” Jefferies said. “I realized it was a no-win situation.”[7]

In his lone season in Kansas City, Jefferies started slow before recovering to finish the season with a .285 batting average, 10 homers, and 75 RBIs. In 604 at-bats, he struck out just 29 times.

“I enjoyed playing with Gregg,” Royals first baseman George Brett said. “You hear all the stories in New York about how hard he was to get along with, but he was a great guy over here.”[8]

Where Jefferies had fallen short was in the field. With the Royals, his 26 errors at third base led the American League.[9] The year before, with the Mets, he committed 17 errors – 11 in 51 games at third base and six in 77 games at second base. The Cardinals hoped the shift to first base might limit his defensive shortcomings.

“I played it, so I know it’s possible,” said Cardinals manager Torre, who played 903 games at catcher, 787 games at first base, and 515 games at third base during his career. “I’m more worried about throws in the dirt than anything going over his head. Ozzie (Smith) is not going to throw it over anybody’s head, and when (third baseman Todd) Zeile threw it over somebody’s head, it didn’t matter if we had Wilt Chamberlain over there.”[10]

If Jefferies couldn’t stick at first base, Torre said the team’s next option would be to look at him in the outfield, where he could possibly take the right field position vacated by Jose. With Jefferies at first base, Brian Jordan, Ozzie Canseco, and Rod Brewer were expected to compete for playing time in right field.

“A lot depends on Jordan, Canseco, and Brewer,” Torre said. “Can (Jefferies) play first? You’re asking me a question I can’t answer. We won’t know until we get there. Everybody is concerned about his height. He’s 5-10, but Steve Garvey was only 5-10.”[11]

Jefferies’ defense could only be helped by his recent weight loss. The Kansas City Star reported that he had trimmed down from 196 to 185 pounds thanks to an offseason diet.

“I was a blimp,” he admitted. “It was so easy to stop at Taco Bell after the game.”[12]

In Jose, the Cardinals gave up a highly regarded right fielder who had ranked fourth in the National League with 11 assists the previous season.[13] Acquired in the trade that sent Willie McGee to the Athletics, Jose earned an all-star nod in his first full season in St. Louis, batting .305/.360/.438 with eight homers, 77 RBIs, and 20 stolen bases.

“Jose is a great athlete,” said Royals newcomer David Cone, who had pitched against Jose in the National League. “Physically, he can do it all. He has power, he can run, and hits for average because of his speed. He’s gotten better every year. He was probably the toughest hitter in their lineup for me.”[14]

In 1992, Jose batted .295/.347/.432 with 14 homers, 75 RBIs, and 28 stolen bases. However, Torre and the Cardinals were looking to get more contact from Jose, who struck out 100 times in 509 at-bats. After batting .343 with runners in scoring position in 1991, Jose’s average dropped to just .261 with runners in scoring position in 1992, and he drove in just 13 of 35 base runners from third base with fewer than two outs.[15]

“That killed us more than anything last year,” Torre said. “Swinging and missing, getting in the runs that they gave us.”[16]

In assessing the trade, Miklasz wrote, “We’ve probably seen Jose’s peak performance. He turns 28 in May. He has erratic work habits and power numbers that don’t quite match his muscular frame. Jose should be more of a force, and manager Joe Torre found it difficult to get through to him. The Cardinals never knew which Jose would show up: (A) an aggressive, mentally locked-in Jose; (B) a loafing Jose; (C) a surly, unapproachable Jose.”[17]

“He will be a good player if you surround him with a lot of good players,” Torre said. “He could do a hell of a job. But I really covet (Jefferies). I liked him when he was with the Mets, but then he got caught in that whole New York thing, which will drive you nuts anyway.”[18]

The Royals planned to insert Jose into their lineup as the team’s cleanup hitter behind Brett.[19]

“We just felt it completed the puzzle we had,” Royals general manager Herk Robinson said.[20]

Dick Kaegel with the Kansas City Star wrote that the move not only filled the Royals’ need for a right fielder, but also created a vacancy for Miller, who hit .284 the previous year off the bench.

“Jose and Jefferies are switch hitters who might provide similar production,” Kaegel wrote, “but from the Royals’ standpoint, Jose played a position they needed to fill, and they had a guy who could replace Jefferies. The Royals felt Miller, who hit just one point less than Jefferies, was their best batter in the leadoff slot. But, as Robinson noted, “We had a leadoff hitter out of the lineup.” The deal puts him back in it.[21]

Unfortunately for the Royals, 1992 proved to be Miller’s best season. Given the opportunity for a starting role in 1993, he hit just .167 in 108 at-bats. In June, the Royals signed Gary Gaetti and installed him at third base.

Jose hit .253/.303/.349 with six homers, 43 RBIs, and 31 stolen bases in 1993. He improved on those numbers in 1994, batting .303/.362/.475 with 11 homers and 55 RBIs despite appearing in just 99 games. However, he appeared in just nine games before the Royal released him in 1995.

Jose’s playing career took him from the minors to both the Mexican and Korean baseball leagues before he reappeared for short stints with both the Yankees and Diamondbacks.

Wilson played one season for the Royals, batting .265 in 49 at-bats.

Jefferies was an all-star in both his seasons with the Cardinals. In 1993, he .342/.408/.485 with 16 homers, 83 RBIs, and 46 stolen bases. The following year, he hit .325/.391/.489 with 12 homers, 55 RBIs, and 12 stolen bases.

After turning down a four-year, $20 million offer from the Cardinals because it did not include a no-trade clause, Jefferies signed an otherwise identical contract with the Phillies.[22]

The Phillies traded Jefferies to the Angels in August 1998, and he played the final two seasons of his major league career with the Tigers. In 1,465 major league games, Jefferies finished his career with a .289 batting average, 126 homers, and 663 RBIs.

Gerald, the other player the Cardinals received in the trade, played one season for the Cardinals’ High-A affiliate in St. Petersburg. He never reached higher than Double-A before bouncing around independent baseball for more than 10 years. He retired at age 34 in 2005.

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[1] Rick Hummel, “‘First Is Fine,’ Jefferies Says,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 13, 1993.

[2] Rick Hummel, “‘First Is Fine,’ Jefferies Says,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 13, 1993.

[3] Dick Kaegel, “Royals work on trade,” Kansas City Star, February 12, 1993.

[4] Rick Hummel, “Cards Near Deal For Jefferies,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 12, 1993.

[5] Dick Kaegel, “Jefferies accepts last-second deal,” Kansas City Star, February 11, 1993.

[6] Bernie Miklasz, “Will Jefferies Find An Identity With Cardinals?” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 14, 1993.

[7] Rick Hummel, “‘First Is Fine,’ Jefferies Says,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 13, 1993.

[8] Dick Kaegel, “Slugger carrying minuses,” Kansas City Star, February 14, 1993.

[9] Rick Hummel, “Cards Near Deal For Jefferies,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 12, 1993.

[10] Rick Hummel, “Lankford Thinks $650,000 Pact Would Be ‘Reasonable’ For Him,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 22, 1993.

[11] Rick Hummel, “‘First Is Fine,’ Jefferies Says,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 13, 1993.

[12] Dick Kaegel, “Slugger carrying minuses,” Kansas City Star, February 14, 1993.

[13] Dick Kaegel, “Royals work on trade,” Kansas City Star, February 12, 1993.

[14] Dick Kaegel, “Slugger carrying minuses,” Kansas City Star, February 14, 1993.

[15] Rick Hummel, “Cards Near Deal For Jefferies,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 12, 1993.

[16] Rick Hummel, “‘First Is Fine,’ Jefferies Says,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 13, 1993.

[17] Bernie Miklasz, “Will Jefferies Find An Identity With Cardinals?” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 14, 1993.

[18] Rick Hummel, “‘First Is Fine,’ Jefferies Says,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 13, 1993.

[19] Dick Kaegel, “Royals acquire Jose from Cards,” Kansas City Star, February 13, 1993.

[20] Dick Kaegel, “Royals acquire Jose from Cards,” Kansas City Star, February 13, 1993.

[21] Dick Kaegel, “Royals acquire Jose from Cards,” Kansas City Star, February 13, 1993.

[22] Dan O’Neill, “Refusal To Give Up No-Trade Clause Dooms Cardinals,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 15, 1994.

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