DETROIT (7/8/2020) -- Game six of the 1975 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds will be remembered as one of the best games in baseball history and for one Titan, he had a front-row seat to it all in Dick Drago.

It's hard to have a better seat than in the dugout of the Red Sox after pitching three scoreless innings of relief, one inning away from earning a win, and entering in a tie game in the ninth inning when your team is trailing the series, 3-2, to the "Big Red Machine". 

Drago, who was the hard-luck pitcher of record in a 3-2 setback in game two, had the task of facing some of the best hitters of all time in a tie game in the ninth inning in Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez, all of whom would find themselves in the MLB Hall of Fame. He retired the side on 10 pitches as Morgan and Perez fouled out to first base and Bench grounded out to third.

"That Reds team was really good, just look at all those players," Drago said. "They were such a good team and it went seven games, that series. Five of them were one-run games, so close, and a couple were extra innings."

In the 10th inning, Dave Concepcion hit a one-out single to center field and later stole second, but he struck out Cesar Geronimo and got Dan Driessen to fly out. In the 11th, he hit Pete Rose to start the inning, but Ken Griffey's bunt retired him at second before Morgan flew out to deep right with Dwight Evans making a great catch and then throwing it back in to double off Griffey at first. 

It was in the bottom of the 12th inning with him now in the dugout where the magic happened as Carlton Fisk took a 1-0 pitch over the green monster, jumping and making sure the ball stayed fair and giving us one of the most iconic shots in sports history in Boston's 7-6 win. 

"You can see me in the background jumping up and down on top of him with my hat off and my black hair, which I use to have flowing all over the place," said Drago. "It was voted the best World Series in history, I believe. That year, we had a great team and we were young. You had Jim Rice who unfortunately got hurt and didn't play in the postseason. Maybe he is the difference in a series that ended 4-3. You had Fred Lynn who won Rookie of the Year and MVP. Fisk, Carl Yastrzemski, Luis Tiant, Bill Lee, we had a real good team, a lot of good ball players."

Drago, a native of Toledo, Ohio, pitched 13 years in the majors for Boston, Kansas City, California, Baltimore and Seattle. He pitched in 519 games making 189 starts and was 108-117 with 58 saves and a 3.62 ERA. 

His career record at U-D stands at 0-0 as he never made an official appearance in his lone season in 1964. Freshmen were not allowed to play due to NCAA rules so all he did was practice with the team that went 21-6 and following the season, he signed with his favorite team while growing up in Toledo, the Detroit Tigers. 

"The Tigers were the reason I ended up at U-D," said Drago. "There wasn't a draft back then, the draft started in 1965, and there was a local scout for the Tigers and they were interested in signing me, but my dad kind of liked the idea of me going to school. So the Tigers basically arranged for me to have a full ride at U-D."

"It was a lot of fun, staying in the dorms, but I was itching to play ball and in the fall of 1964, I decided to sign with the Tigers and start my career."

Drago would spend four seasons in the minors for the Tigers and had the opportunity to pitch for two years in his hometown Toledo. He started out in Class A with Daytona Beach and Rocky Mount (N.C.) in 1965 and 1966, going 15-9 with a 1.79 ERA in the Carolina League with Rocky Mount in 1966, where he was part of a historic feat. He threw a seven-inning no-hitter against Greensboro (N.C.) in game one of a doubleheader and in game two, Darrell Clark, who was actually his roommate, also tossed a no-hitter and it is believed to be the only time in professional baseball history where no-hitters were thrown in both games of a doubleheader.

In 1967, he moved up to Double A with Montgomery in the Southern League, where he went 15-10 and posted a 2.41 ERA. He then got a chance to pitch in his hometown of Toledo appearing in a game in 1967. In the Tigers' championship season of 1968, he was one of the last cuts in spring training and ended up back in Toledo where he was 15-8 with a 3.36 ERA in 1968, helping the Mud Hens win a championship. That Tigers team featured a rotation led by Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich to go with former 20-game winner Earl Wilson as well as a young hard thrower in Joe Sparma, who beat out another former Titan in Pete Craig to stay with the franchise a few years earlier. 

After the 1968 season and due to the depth the team had in its pitching, he went unprotected in the expansion draft and was selected by the Kansas City Royals. 

"Going in the expansion draft to a new team was interesting," said Drago. "I was disappointed at first. I always wanted to play for the Detroit Tigers, they were my team growing up and it was a dream to play for them. I wasn't protected by them in the draft and I was disappointed in that, not only was I not going to play for them, I was going to a place that I didn't know a lot about."

He pitched five years with the Royals and helped the team become competitive rather quickly, going from 68 wins in 1969 to a winning record in their third year at 85-76 and an 88-74 mark in 1973. He is currently top 10 in Royals history in innings pitched, walks-per-nine innings, complete games, games started, shutouts and ERA. He also holds the club record for most complete games without issuing a walk with five in his 1971 season. 

He was 11-13 as a rookie with a 3.77 ERA, appearing in 41 games with 26 starts, and recorded the first complete game in team history in his first start, a five-hit, 3-2 victory over the California Angels. A week later in his second start, he hurled another complete game in a 4-2 triumph over Baltimore, where he struck out a season-high eight batters in a line-up that featured Paul Blair, Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson. 

"My first year with the Royals, I had a bit of a dead arm in spring training because I pitched about 180 innings with Toledo the year before and then went to Puerto Rico to play after the season and threw another 110 innings and that ended in January and spring training was just two months away," said Drago. "I was sent to the bullpen for the first few weeks and that really helped me get my arm back and then after that Baltimore start, I earned a spot in the rotation for the rest of the year. We then dropped our next 23 in a row against Baltimore, we didn't beat them for two years. I lost a couple of good games to Jim Palmer in that time."

In 1971, he finished fifth in the Cy Young award voting putting together a 17-11 campaign with a 2.98 ERA, starting 34 of his 35 appearances and tossing 15 complete games. In his five years with the Royals, he won 61 games and tallied 53 complete games, still fifth in the Kansas City record book. 

"I probably could have won 20 games that year, except I had such bad luck down the stretch that season."

In 1972, he was 12-17, but with a 3.01 ERA and 11 complete games. You have to take into account that he lost six-straight starts where his team scored just nine total runs and in his 17 setbacks, the Royals mustered just 30 runs. Against the Minnesota Twins, he lost a 1-0 game to Jim Kaat in which he went 12 innings and struck out 13 batters, retiring the side in order in eight frames. Later that season, a line drive by Carl Yastrzemski went off his jaw and he suffered a hairline fracture, but missed just one start before coming back to throw a complete game in a 4-1 win over the Twins, striking out six and scattering just four hits. 

"My luck just continued to be bad that year with run support," said Drago.  

He was traded to Boston after the 1973 season and won seven games in 1974, splitting time as a reliever and starter, and in 1975, he was the closer for the Red Sox, collecting 15 saves to lead the team, and another two in the ALCS sweep of the heavy favorite and three-time defending champion Athletics, in a year that went down to seven games in the World Series. 

"In 1974, they said that because my arm was strong and I could bounce back a lot, I would be in the bullpen," said Drago. "It was hard because I had about 180 innings and that was between being a starter and reliever. I started 18 games and a lot of the time, I would show up to the ballpark and someone was hurt and I had to start and then I was up and down warming up as a reliever in other games so when 1975 came, I told Darrell Johnson our manager, I need to do one or the other. My arm actually came back really strong, I was throwing harder, in fact that year, I was clocked with the third or fourth fastest pitch in the league and I became an important part of that team out of the bullpen as a closer. And let me say, those days, the closers pitched more than one inning."

He saved games two and three against the A's, celebrating on the field in the ALCS clincher. In that game three win, he took over for Rick Wise in the bottom of the eighth with Oakland down 5-3, but mounting a comeback with two runs in and runners on first and second with just one out, but he was able to induce an inning-ending double play. In the ninth, Billy Williams led off the frame with a line drive off the shin of Drago, which left him bleeding in what will be the first known bloody sock in Red Sox history, but he was able to recover and race to first to record the putout. With two outs, he walked a batter and was 3-0 on Jim Holt, who represented the tying run, before working the count back to 3-2 and forcing him to ground out. 

"I always pitched better when the game was on the line. I love pitching when it meant a lot. Give me those situations and to be on the field to clinch it was a big moment for me and something I will always remember," said Drago. 

Drago then spent the 1976 and part of the 1977 season with the Angels before being traded in 1977 to the Baltimore Orioles, where he was managed by the great Earl Weaver. 

"I wasn't happy out there in California after being traded from a first-place team to a last-place team," said Drago. "That kind of effects you, just not pitching in key games and pressure situations. Now going to Baltimore was a real treat. Earl Weaver was a lot of fun to play for. I used to carry around a notebook, I don't know why I started it, but we use to watch and listen to him make his comments and I filled a notebook with all of his stuff."

In 1976, Drago was part of some more baseball history as Hank Aaron hit the last of his then MLB record 755 homers off Drago on July 20. 

"Who would have known it would be his last. I got ahead of him 0-2 and hung a slider and he did what he had done 754 times before, he hit it good," added Drago. 

He then signed back with Boston in 1978 and pitched for the Red Sox for three more years, winning 10 games and saving 13 in 1979, but was part of another historic baseball moment in the one-game playoff with the New York Yankees for the East Division in 1978, the famous Bucky Dent home run game, where he pitched 1/3 of an inning getting Thurman Munson to ground out in the ninth and keeping it a one-run game at 5-4. 

"That 1978 season was just unbelievable," said Drago. "Both teams were good. They had some injuries early on in the season and we were beating people really good all year, but we ran into some injuries. Maybe Don Zimmer (manager of the Red Sox) should have rested people when we had a big lead, but we had some people get hurt. In that game, there were some little things that went on when you look back at it. Dent right before he hit the home run, fouled a pitch off his foot and there was a delay and Mike Torrez never threw any warm-up pitches. Lou Pinella, who is not the greatest outfielder and believe me I know, I played with him in Kansas City, well he made a couple of really good plays, one off Lynn that saved some runs and another in the ninth to stop a line drive that he never saw get by him which would have put runners on second and third in the ninth."

He would wrap up his major league career with Seattle in 1981, where he registered four wins and five saves. 

For a pitcher that spent 13 years in the majors, you would think that would mean he was a big strikeout pitcher. Well in 1,875 innings, he struck out just 987 batters, but he also didn't walk many hitters, just 558, as he was known for his control and throwing a heavy ball. To illustrate his control, at one stretch in his career, from 1969 to 1973, he only threw 12 wild pitches in 921 innings. 

"I threw hard, but I was able to develop a slider early in the minors and that helped me," said Drago. "I threw the fastball a couple of different ways, I had a four-seamer and two-seamer. A lot of the hitters told me that I threw a heavy ball, it didn't sink, it ran in on you and was just hard to hit. But, I always had good control and I didn't strike out many batters. From little league, I always had good control and I could throw the ball where I wanted to. My thought was to try and get a lot of guys out inside, but I didn't try to do that early in the count. If I wanted to get ahead in the count and then come inside because a lot of those pitches were not strikes, but get ahead, and I was able to get in there and jam people and I was able to break a lot of bats."

Drago once said to a reporter on his philosophy: "I want to give seven strong innings every time out. I'm not trying to walk anybody. When I get to a 3-1 count, I didn't try to finesse anyone. I won't just lay the ball in there, but I might give up more of the plate and try to throw a little bit harder. I give up some singles that way, but not many long balls. Singles are no worse than walks. When they're hitting the ball your defense at least has a chance to get the hitters out."

For someone who never played a game for the Titans, his 13 years playing in the MLB is the most ever by a U-D baseball student-athlete and we have the Tigers to thank for that.