Back in 1987 I was watching the Cardinals get blown out by the Phillies when Manager Whitey Herzog decided to have some fun with his bottom-of-the-8th inning lineup. I kept this newspaper clipping of that lineup and a portion of the article that called out some of the unique changes: Oquendo making his debut as a pitcher, Rick Horton playing right field and Willie McGee at shortstop:
There is no reference to the date of the game on the clippings, but thanks to the internet I was able to quickly identify the contest as August 7, 1987. Here was the starting lineup:
To see all the game’s details, go to baseball-reference.com here. Maybe the most interesting part was that the score heading into the bottom half of the 8th was 12-4 – definitely a large margin, but by today’s standards maybe not quite large enough to start playing guys out of their natural position. On the flip side, it was the dog days of summer and the Cardinals were more than 20 games over .500 at the time.