MLB Classic: Wrigley Field unconfined – Phillies 23, Cubs 22
By Jeff Kallman
Much remembered: MLB classic 45-run game. Sometimes forgotten: the Phillies blowing a twelve-run lead. Never forgotten: The ill winds out of Wrigley Field.
Maybe May 17, 1979, does or doesn’t qualify as having the wildest game in baseball history. It certainly qualifies as one of them. Not to mention qualifying as one of the most powerful of MLB classic games of all time, with 45 runs between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs, the Phillies winning, 23-22.
*Watch the game in its entirety on the next page.
It’ll do when you need a baseball fix desperately during the coronavirus shutdown. And it actually had to go to extra innings to decide it.
You can thank the ill winds blowing out from the plate to the bleachers in large part. When the winds blow out of Wrigley Field like that, the Friendly Confines can become your best friend and your worst enemy in the same shaft.
“When we got up by twelve,” cracked Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Larry Bowa, “I figured we could win if we could hold them under two touchdowns and could block a couple of extra points.”
It proved a little tougher than that. Name the team that blew a twelve-run lead they’d taken after five innings? Why, the Phillies, who did just that before finally beating the Cubs in the Wrigley windsock.