Former major league Mike Ivie passed away on July 21, 2023, in North Augusta, South Carolina, at age 70. A born-again Christian, Ivie was part of the notorious God Squad of the San Francisco Giants during the late 1970s. Here is an excerpt from my book, The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978.
San Francisco’s Candlestick Park had a record crowd of 56,103 on May 28, 1978, when the Giants erased a 5-0 Los Angeles Dodgers lead and won 6–5, fueled by a pinch-hit grand slam home run from Mike Ivie. The Giants had been trailing 3–0 going into the bottom of the sixth inning. After the team scored once and loaded the bases, Ivie drilled a shot over the left-field wall to put them ahead 5–3.
From the San Francisco Chronicle: “The deafening Candlestick reception for Ivie’s home run was what Giants pitcher John Montefusco wanted to discuss. ‘I was talking to (trainer) Joe Liscio when Mike got up there and said, “Wouldn’t it be unbelievable if he hit one out?” Joe says, “He’s gonna do it on this pitch.” And sure enough, he did. The ovation Mike got was something I’ll never forget. We’re going right down to the wire with the Dodgers in every game we play.’”
Ivie, sent up to bat for left-handed Vic Harris in an against-the-percentage move [because the pitcher, Don Sutton, is right-handed], said he was “just looking for a fly ball” against Sutton with one out. “He gave me something I could pull, but I didn’t think it was going out. Then the crowd told me it was. The whole feeling is beyond words.”
Giants fan Charles A. Fracchia Jr., who was thirteen and at the game that day, said, “He [Ivie] nails that pitch over the fence . . . The whole stadium rocks like it was an earthquake. The stadium shook. It was unreal. People hugging each other . . . such excitement.”
The San Francisco Examiner reported: “I tell ya, this team has so much confidence in each other,” said Ivie . . . “If we get behind, we know we can come back. We believe so much that we can do it. It’s a feeling that no other club in the major leagues has got. We have a home-type, unity-type of feeling. It’s super. I don’t want to be anywhere else but here. I don’t want you to misunderstand this, but if we go on the road and win some games, I believe in my heart that we can win the whole thing.”
Ivie had a couple of other signature moments later that season.
On July 25 at Candlestick, Vida Blue took a shutout and a 1–0 lead into the ninth inning against the Cardinals, but the Redbirds struck for two runs to take the lead. Bob Stevens of the Chronicle described the action in the bottom of the frame: “The Little Miracle of Candlestick Park, and the Miracle Man, struck again last night. With one out in the ninth and a deeply disappointed crowd of 39,289 shuffling quietly toward the exits, Larry Herndon singled, pinch hitter Mike Ivie did his thing—a home run—and the Giants climbed over the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2. The Giants are 7020 fans short of hitting the million-mark in attendance.”
Rom Fimrite of Sports Illustrated covered a four-game series between the Giants and Dodgers at Candlestick in early August, each team winning twice. Fimrite wrote: “And as a team with more than the ordinary complement of born-again Christians—playing in a notoriously sinful city, at that—they appear convinced that the so-called Big Dodger in the Sky who watched so benignly over their opponents a year ago has come over to their side now. In the opinion of the devout Ivie, only divine intervention can account for the Giants’ penchant for turning adversity into advantage. ‘Too many things are happening our way,’ he says, ‘too many good things. You have to believe we’re being watched.’”
Later that month, Ivie pinch-hit a two-out, two-run ninth-inning home run off ace closer Tug McGraw to beat the Phillies 6–5. The victory kept the Giants one game back of the Dodgers.
Unfortunately, in sole possession of first place for much of the season, the Giants had a late-season swoon and finished in third place behind the Dodgers and Reds. Ivie hit .308 for the Giants that season and belted four pinch-hit home runs, hitting .387 as a pinch hitter. Two of his pinch-hit home runs were grand slams, a single-season record he shares with four other major leaguers. He had an even better year in 1979, smashing twenty-seven home runs and driving in eighty-nine runs to go along with a .286 batting average.
But trials awaited him that would cause emotional turmoil that even his faith was not able to subdue.
Matt Sieger has a master’s degree in magazine journalism from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications and a B.A. from Cornell University. Now retired, he was formerly a sports reporter and columnist for the Cortland (NY) Standard and The Vacaville (CA) Reporter daily newspapers.
