White recalls Chambliss, Big Red Machine

Thirty-five years have passed since the final out of Game 4 of the 1976 World Series between the Yankees and Cincinnati -- years that included seven Yankees titles and 10 American League pennants. Nonetheless that season left an indelible mark on one Yankee in particular: Roy White, the veteran outfielder who had become the face of futility during the Yankees' down years of the late 1960s and early '70s.

The Yankees were swept by the Reds in October 1976, but Chris Chambliss' dramatic, pennant-clinching home run against the Royals to get there helped usher in a new era of baseball in New York. And White, who joined the team in 1965 and waited 11 years to reach a World Series, was overjoyed to finally be a part of it.

With the current Yankees in Cincinnati for a three-game series this week, the spotlight there has been focused on the Reds' 1976 dominance. White may be watching some of those games from home in South Jersey, reminiscing about that year for a different reason.

"When Chris Chambliss hit that home run," White said, "I think I was the happiest guy on that Yankee ballclub."

White is best remembered as the star who bridged the gap between the Mantle-Maris glory days of the early 1960s with the Reggie-Thurman era of the late 1970s. In between, though, was a decade of empty attempts at rekindling the Yankees' winning tradition.

White can still remember almost every detail of watching Chambliss drive Mark Littell's first-pitch fastball just over the wall in right-centerfield to end Game 5 and send the Yankees into the World Series for the first time since 1964.

At the time, White was still stewing over his last at-bat in the eighth inning, when he scorched a line drive right into the glove of Royals first baseman John Mayberry, who was shading the line.

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"I was a little frustrated that I didn't come through in my at-bat," White said. "So when Chris came through, that was a great moment."

Once in the World Series, the Yankees met the vaunted Big Red Machine, which had swiftly handled Philadelphia in a three-game sweep. Less than 12 hours after Chambliss' home run, the still delirious Yankees were on a plane to Cincinnati.

"The next thing you know we're listening to the national anthem," White said. "I think our club really needed a couple of days to go into the Series. We weren't really prepared."

Although White went on to win World Series titles with the Yankees in 1977 and '78, he said he still sometimes wears his 1976 pennant ring out.

"This was the first World Series that I ever played in and that pennant has special meaning for me," he said.

White is completely out of baseball now -- "just a retired senior," he said with a laugh -- after serving as Yankees first-base coach in 2004. On Aug. 7, he will be the honorary starter for the third annual Damon Runyon 5K at Yankee Stadium, a charity event to help support the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.