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This is a challenge to summarize all that happened during the Rose-Harrelson brawl. I spent at least a month crafting this part of Swinging ’73 and talked to as many Mets as I could find, from Jerry Koosman, who was the mound and remembered little of it, to Rusty Staub, who was running in from right field and saw the commotion out of the corner of his eye, to Ron Hodges leading the bullpen charge, to Jon Matlack, who was in the bathroom and came out wondering what the hell was going on! I got some input from George Theodore, Wayne Garrett, and Buzz Capra, who were in the middle of the action—Theodore, still recovering from a broken hip, was just trying to break it up and not break something else.
Somehow, no players were ejected. Fans pelted the field with debris when Rose came out to left field for the next inning. WFAN’s Bob Heussler was a college freshman in the front row in the loge: “When you saw the whiskey bottle come flying onto the field, you knew this was pretty much out of control.” Sparky Anderson pulled the Reds off the field. A contingent of Mets—manager Yogi Berra, Willie Mays, Tom Seaver, Cleon Jones, and Staub—came out to left field to calm the fans and avoid a possible forfeit. And a full scale riot.
I went out to the Long Island Ducks ballpark to talk to part-owner Bud Harrelson in 2012. What a gentleman! We talked in between him pitching batting practice to the Ducks and he provided the back-story of the bad blood that ensued after Matlack limited the Reds to two hits in Game Two in Cincinnati. Like Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner years later, the autograph circuit actually brought Rose and Harrelson closer together as time wore on. Not friends—like Mook and Billy Buck became—but accomplices in a long ago time.