'I get letters every week': How Monday earned a save

Fifty years ago, Rick Monday was minding his own business, tending to center field for the Chicago Cubs in a game at Dodger Stadium.

- By Bill Shaikin

What happened in the fourth inning of a Sunday afternoon game on April 25, 1976, and what impression those events left on him and on America, have defined his life in a way the back of a baseball card never could.Rick Monday, in his own words:

On what happened in that fourth inning:

There had already been one or two pitches thrown in the bottom of the fourth inning. From center field, there is a rhythm to the game. Well, there was a sound that did not match the rhythm of the moment. That sound was to my right, down the left-field line.

I turned, and I saw there were two guys on the field. They were running in my general direction, somewhere from the left-field foul pole. I don’t know where they get on the field from, but somewhere in that area.

I saw that one of them had something under his arm. I couldn't see what it was. And they ran past José Cardenal, who was playing left field that day.

They went to shallow left-center. I was irritated to begin with because they stopped the game. They shouldn't be on the field.

Are they on the field because they are trying to get with somebody? Because they had too much to drink? Do they not like a certain player? Are they going to make some kind of a statement? Don’t know. At that point, didn’t care. Because, now, they are in my office.

I'd seen other people run onto the field over the years, for whatever reason. People run out and shake your hand and continue running.

But I saw these guys. When they came to stop, one guy pulled out an American flag.