Carlton Fisk Waved It Fair

Game 6 of the 1975 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds is widely considered the greatest baseball game ever played. It went 12 innings. It featured lead changes, spectacular catches, controversial calls, and a walk-off home run that produced the most iconic image in baseball history.

The Reds led the Series 3 games to 2 and were trying to clinch at Fenway Park. The game was delayed three days by rain. When it finally started on the night of October 21, the Red Sox took a 3-0 lead before the Reds came back to lead 6-3 by the eighth inning. In the bottom of the eighth, with two runners on and two outs, Red Sox pinch-hitter Bernie Carbo hit a three-run home run to tie the game 6-6. Carbo had been a reserve outfielder acquired in midseason. His home run was the third pinch-hit homer of the Series, tying a record.

The game continued into extra innings. In the 11th, Dwight Evans made a leaping catch at the right field wall to rob Joe Morgan of a home run, then doubled up Ken Griffey at first base to end the inning.

In the bottom of the 12th, Carlton Fisk led off against Pat Darcy. Fisk swung at Darcy's second pitch and hit a high fly ball toward the left field foul pole. As the ball rose, Fisk began waving his arms to the right, urging the ball to stay fair. It did. It hit the foul pole for a walk-off home run. Red Sox 7, Reds 6.

The camera angle that captured Fisk's body language, from behind the left field wall through a gap in the Green Monster's manual scoreboard, became the defining image of the game. The shot was captured by NBC cameraman Lou Gerard. The widely repeated story is that Gerard stayed on Fisk instead of following the ball because a rat had run across his foot inside the scoreboard and he was too startled to track the flight of the ball. Whether the rat story is true or apocryphal, the result was a camera angle that no director would have planned and that produced the most reproduced moment of body language in sports history.

The Reds won Game 7 the following night, 4-3. They were the better team. But nobody remembers Game 7. They remember Fisk, standing at home plate in the midnight fog, waving a baseball fair with his hands.