1976 World Series: Reds Sweep the Yankees

October 16, 1976. Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati. The New York Yankees are in the World Series for the first time in twelve years.

That's the thing everyone forgets to say. Before the first pitch -- before Joe Morgan even stepped in against Doyle Alexander -- the Yankees' presence here was already the story. Twelve years without a pennant. The longest drought in franchise history to that point. They'd gotten here two days earlier on Chris Chambliss's walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth against Kansas City, a swing so electric the fans swarmed the field before Chambliss could touch the bases. The whole city was still trembling. Billy Martin had taken a team picked to finish third and driven them to the Fall Classic. The drought was over.

Then the Cincinnati Reds got their turn.

The Biggest Lineup in Baseball

The 1976 Reds had won 102 games that season and hadn't lost a postseason series in two years. They'd swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1975 NLCS, beaten the Red Sox in seven games in one of the great World Series ever played, swept the Philadelphia Phillies in three to get back here, and now they were looking at the Yankees with the calm, professional certainty of men who knew exactly what they were doing. Joe Morgan won back-to-back NL MVP awards. Johnny Bench was the best catcher in baseball -- maybe the best who'd ever put on the gear. Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Ken Griffey Sr., George Foster, Dave Concepcion. Sparky Anderson didn't have a lineup; he had a machine.

The Yankees were good. The Reds were historic.

Game 1: A First in History, and a Statement

Morgan came up with two outs in the bottom of the first -- batting third, behind Rose and Griffey -- and hit a solo home run off Alexander. That was the tone. By the end of six innings, Alexander had allowed nine hits and five earned runs -- a pasting. Don Gullett threw 7⅓ professional innings before an injury to his calf ended his night, and Cincinnati won 5-1.

What got lost in the box score: Game 1 was the first World Series game ever played under the designated hitter rule. Dan Driessen -- batting fifth in the Cincinnati lineup -- became the first National League player in history to serve as a DH in a World Series game. He didn't make a big deal of it. The Reds rarely made big deals of anything. They just played.

Game 2: Hunter Doesn't Get Help

Catfish Hunter was magnificent in Game 2. He retired twelve consecutive Reds at one stretch and was still on the mound in the bottom of the ninth, protecting a tie game. Then Fred Stanley, the Yankees' shortstop, threw away a ball -- Griffey took second on the error. Anderson walked Morgan intentionally to get to Tony Perez, a move that Sparky made often enough in those years that you'd think people would've stopped being surprised. Perez lined the first or second pitch into left field. Griffey scored. Walk-off. Reds win 4-3.

Two games in Cincinnati, two Reds wins. The series moved to New York.

Games 3 and 4: The Stadium Couldn't Save Them

The Yankees hoped home field would shift something. It didn't. Pat Zachry started Game 3 and held New York to two runs. Dock Ellis started for the Yankees and couldn't survive the fourth inning. Foster had an RBI double. The Reds won 6-2 and arrived at Game 4 one win from the sweep, playing in front of 56,667 people at Yankee Stadium who hadn't watched their team play a World Series game since 1964.

Gary Nolan pitched six and two-thirds innings for Cincinnati, Ed Figueroa for the Yankees. Bench hit a two-run home run off Figueroa in the fourth inning, just inside the left-field foul pole. The Reds carried a 3-2 lead into the ninth.

And then Bench ended it. Dick Tidrow came on in relief and Bench met his second fastball of the inning with everything he had -- a three-run shot that made it 6-2. The Reds scored four runs in the ninth in all; the final was 7-2. Yankee Stadium fell into a kind of quiet disbelief that large crowds sometimes produce. In the same inning, Billy Martin -- frustrated, cornered, unable to change anything through force of will -- rolled a baseball toward umpire Bruce Froemming and was ejected.

The Reds had swept the World Series. Their postseason record: 7-0.

The Comparison That Stung

Thurman Munson batted .529 in the series -- nine hits in seventeen at-bats, the highest average for a Yankee in the entire four games. He was legitimately exceptional. He also drove in two runs.

Bench hit .533 with two home runs and six RBI. He was the World Series MVP.

After the series was over, at the press conference following Game 4, a reporter asked Sparky Anderson to compare Munson to Bench. Anderson's answer was brief: "Don't ever embarrass nobody by comparing him to Johnny Bench." He later wrote Munson a personal letter -- he hadn't meant it as a slight against a fine catcher; he'd meant it as the highest praise for an incomparable one. But the quote stuck. It became the defining sentence of a series that had, in four games, demonstrated exactly where the two franchises stood in October 1976.

What Came After

Don Gullett's calf injury in Game 1 turned out to be his last appearance in a Reds uniform. That winter, he signed a multi-year free agent deal with the Yankees -- the team he'd just swept -- and was part of the 1977 club that came back and won it. (His arm was never quite the same after the injury, but the irony stands: the pitcher who ended the Yankees' World Series in four games spent the next two seasons in pinstripes.)

The Reds' dynasty peaked in 1976. Tony Perez was traded after the series. Morgan, Rose, and others departed over the following seasons. The machine wound down.

The Yankees came back in 1977. The drought was over, and they'd learned what they needed to learn.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who won the 1976 World Series?

The Cincinnati Reds swept the New York Yankees four games to zero, October 16-21, 1976. It was Cincinnati's second consecutive World Series championship, following their 1975 title over the Red Sox.

Who was the 1976 World Series MVP?

Johnny Bench of the Cincinnati Reds was named MVP. He hit .533 (8-for-15) with two home runs and six RBI across the four games, including a dominant Game 4 performance of two homers and five RBI in the clinching win.

What did Sparky Anderson say about Thurman Munson?

At the post-series press conference, Anderson was asked to compare Munson to Bench. His response: "Don't ever embarrass nobody by comparing him to Johnny Bench." Anderson later wrote Munson a personal letter of apology, clarifying it was meant as praise for Bench, not a put-down of Munson -- who hit .529 in the series and had nothing to be ashamed of.

How long had the Yankees been out of the World Series before 1976?

Twelve years. The Yankees' last World Series appearance before 1976 was in 1964, when they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. The 1976 pennant -- won on Chris Chambliss's walk-off homer against the Royals two days before the series opened -- ended the longest drought in franchise history to that point.

Was the 1976 World Series the first to use the designated hitter?

Yes. Game 1 on October 16, 1976 was the first World Series game ever played under the DH rule. Dan Driessen of the Reds batted fifth in the Cincinnati lineup as a designated hitter, becoming the first National League player in history to serve in that role in a Fall Classic game.