Tag: World Series

Carter homers to win World Series

On October 23, 1993, Toronto Blue Jay Joe Carter does what every kid dreams of—he wins the World Series for his team by whacking a ninth-inning home run over the SkyDome’s left-field wall. It was the first time the World Series had ended with a home run since Pittsburgh’s Bill Mazeroski homered to break a 9-9 tie with the Yankees in the seventh game of the 1960 series, and it was the first time in baseball history that a team won the championship with a come-from-behind home run.

The Blue Jays were leading the series three games to two, but thanks to a five-run seventh inning (punctuated by a three-run blast from outfielder Lenny Dykstra), the Philadelphia Phillies were ahead 6-5 in the ninth. It looked like the Phils would tie the series and force a seventh game—but then they brought reliever Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams out of the bullpen. Though Williams had saved an impressive 45 games that season, he’d earned his nickname by throwing wild pitches when his team was in a tight spot, and he’d already blown a 14-9 lead for the Phillies in Game 4.

Williams did just what the Blue Jays were hoping he’d do. First he walked leadoff batter Rickey Henderson in four straight pitches. Then, after Devon White finally popped out to left field after nine pitches, Williams gave up a single to Series MVP Paul Molitor. With Henderson on second and Molitor on first, Joe Carter stepped up to the plate.

Carter took two balls, then two strikes. Then he cracked a low slider hard toward the left-field pole. “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred,” he said later, “I hook that pitch way foul.” But this time, he didn’t. The ball swerved right and disappeared over the wall.

“It was the ultimate sports fantasy,” Carter said. His memorable homer won the game and the series, the highest-scoring in history (81 runs in all) and the Blue Jays’ second championship in a row. And it put Carter alongside celebrated hitters like Bobby Thomson, whose immortal “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” won the 1951 National League pennant for the New York Giants.

On that same day the next year, the French sailor Isabelle Autissier set a record in the first phase of the famous BOC round-the-world yacht race: She made it to Cape Town from Charleston in 35 days, 8 hours and 52 minutes. The second-place yacht was 1,200 miles behind her. Later in the race, a huge wave overturned Autissier’s yacht when she was nearly 1,000 miles off the coast of Australia. She was stranded in the ocean for four days until an Australian Navy helicopter rescued her from the deck of her damaged ship.

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Brooklyn Dodgers win their first World Series

Year
1955
Month Day
October 04

On October 4, 1955, the Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series at last, beating the New York Yankees 2-0. They’d lost the championship seven times already, and they’d lost five times just to the Yanks—in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953. But in 1955, thanks to nine brilliant innings in the seventh game from 23-year-old lefty pitcher Johnny Podres, they finally managed to beat the Bombers for the first (and last) time.

The Dodgers had lost the first two games of the series at Yankee Stadium–it was the first time in history, in fact, that a team came back to win a seven-game World Series after losing the first two–and then won three in a row at home. The Yanks came back in the sixth, forcing a tiebreaking Game 7 in front of 62,465 fans in the Bronx.

In the fourth inning of the last game, Brooklyn got its first run when catcher Roy Campanella hit a double and Gil Hodges sent him home with a well-placed single. In the sixth, a Yankee error helped the Dodgers load the bases. Even though veteran pitcher Tommy Byrne had only given up three hits, manager Casey Stengel pulled him and sent in right-handed reliever Bob Grim—but that didn’t stop Hodges from knocking a long sacrifice fly to center field. Pee Wee Reese made it safely home, and the Dodgers were winning by 2.

And then, the game’s defining moment. At the bottom of the sixth, Podres walked Billy Martin and Gil McDougald outran a bunt to first, putting two on with nobody out. Then Yogi Berra sliced an outside pitch hard down the left-field foul line–a game-tying double, for sure, until backup outfielder Sandy Amoros came running out of nowhere, stuck out his glove and snagged the ball as he careened toward the stands. He wheeled and threw to shortstop Reese, who tossed it to Hodges at first, who caught McDougald off the bag by inches. The Yanks’ sure thing had soured into a game-killing double play.

The final triumphant out came on an Elston Howard grounder to Reese, the 38-year-old team captain who’d been around for all five of the Dodgers’ losses to their cross-town rivals. Reese scooped up the ball and fired low and wide to first, but somehow–as John Drebinger wrote in the Times the next day, “Gil would have stretched halfway across the Bronx for that one”–Hodges grabbed it in time to send Howard back to the dugout and end the game.

The 1955 series turned out to be the only one the Brooklyn Dodgers would ever win. They lost to the Yanks again the next year. The year after that, the team’s owner decided he’d rather play in a swank stadium in a nicer neighborhood, so he moved the team to California. The Los Angeles Dodgers have won the championship five times.

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Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner lets ground ball roll through his legs

Year
1986
Month Day
October 26

In the wee hours of the morning on October 26, 1986, Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner lets an easy ground ball dribble between his legs and roll down the right-field line. It was just a routine fielding error, but it was a disaster for the Boston Red Sox: It was the 10th inning of the sixth game of the World Series; the game was tied; and, thanks to Buckner’s mistake, the runner on third had time to score, winning the game for the Mets and forcing a tiebreaking seventh—which, in the final innings, the Mets also won. Even though Game 6 was tied because Boston’s pitchers couldn’t hold a two-run, two-out lead, and even though the Sox managed to fritter away a three-run lead in Game 7, people still blame Buckner for losing the championship. “I can’t remember the last time I missed a ball like that,” he said, “but I’ll remember this one.”

Ever since team owner and Broadway producer Harry Frazee sold the great Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920, the Sox had been tragically unable to win the World Series. People said that the team was cursed. Before 1920, the Sox had won five championships; after the Babe left, Boston’s well ran dry. Over and over, the hapless Sox almost won—and over and over, they didn’t. In 1946, they were winning Game 7 with two outs in the eighth—until shortstop Johnny Pesky held onto a relay throw just long enough for Enos Slaughter to score the winning run (from first base). They lost in 1967 and 1975. Three years after that, in a one-game playoff for the AL championship, they lost when Yankee shortstop Bucky Dent, not exactly a reliable slugger, cranked one over the Green Monster with two men on base. The Bombers won the game and went on to win their 22nd World Series.

And then, just one out away from the championship in the sixth game of the 1986 series against the Mets, the Sox defense managed to bungle a series of easy plays so badly that they lost the game. At the bottom of the 10th, Boston had a 5-3 lead. Pitcher Calvin Schiraldi retired the first two Mets who came to the plate. But then Gary Carter hit a single; so did Kevin Mitchell; and then Ray Knight did, too. The score was 5-4. Bob Stanley came in from the Red Sox bullpen and immediately fired off a wild pitch. Mitchell scored, and the game was tied. Then outfielder Mookie Wilson stepped to the plate. On the 10th pitch of the at-bat, after he’d knocked six pitches foul, Wilson poked a ground ball right to Buckner at first. Buckner bent to field the ball, but it bounced right over his glove and kept rolling down the right-field line. Knight headed gleefully for home. The Mets had won.

Two nights later, the Sox weren’t any luckier: They were winning 3-0 until the sixth, when the Mets tied the game. In the seventh, New York scored three more runs. With that, the Mets were the champs. The Curse of the Bambino, it seemed, would never die.

Buckner tried to stay in Boston, but fans heaped so much abuse on him and his family that he decided to move to Idaho. The Red Sox would not win the World Series until 2004. Buckner died in May 2019, at the age of 69.

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Babe Ruth sets a World Series record

Year
1926
Month Day
October 06

On October 6, 1926, Yankee slugger Babe Ruth hits a record three homers against the St. Louis Cardinals in the fourth game of the World Series. The Yanks won the game 10-5, but despite Ruth’s unprecedented performance, they lost the championship in the seventh game. In 1928, in the fourth game of another Yanks-Cards World Series, Ruth tied his own record, knocking three more pitches out of the same park.

The 1926 championship promised to be an exciting one. The AL champs had a powerful lineup, later called the “Murderer’s Row,” that included the great Babe, the young “Columbia Lou” Gehrig, and the leadoff man Earle Combs. For their part, the Cardinals had the intimidating Rogers Hornsby along with ace pitchers Flint Rhem and Bill Sherdel.

But the Yanks were heavily favored, and they won the first game easily. They lost the second, though, thanks to an outstanding full-game performance from St. Louis pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander. The next day, Cardinal Jessie Haines pitched the whole game–and hit the only home run–in his team’s 4-0 Game 3 victory.

By the fourth game in the series, the underdog Cards were up two games to one. The Yanks needed to pull it together, and for one game, they did. Veteran Waite Hoyt pitched all nine innings while St. Louis shuffled through its entire bullpen. And the Babe–the Sultan of Swat, the Caliph of Clout, the Wali of Wallop–hit his three homers and led the Yanks to a 10-5 victory. Unfortunately for the Bombers, that game didn’t decide the series. Though they won the next game in 10 innings, they lost the next one by eight runs. And they were losing the seventh game by one run in the ninth inning when the Bambino stepped to the plate again. With a 3-2 count, Ruth drew his eleventh walk of the series and trotted off to first base. The Yanks’ hopes plummeted as quickly as they’d risen, though, when second baseman Hornsby nabbed him as he tried somewhat ploddingly to steal second. The game was over. Thanks to the magical Bambino, the Bombers had lost.

On October 18, 1977, Yankee Reggie Jackson became only the second player to hit three homers in a single Series game.

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World Series parachutist sentenced


Updated:
Original:
Year
1986
Month Day
December 19

Michael Sergio, who parachuted into Game Six of the 1986 World Series at New York’s Shea Stadium, is fined $500 and sentenced to 100 hours of community service. On October 25, Sergio, a 37-year-old actor and Mets fan, landed on the infield with a “Let’s Go Mets” banner in the first inning of the sixth game between the Mets and the Boston Red Sox. Over 55,000 stadium spectators witnessed the sky diver’s arrival and cheered him on. Sergio, who was quickly removed from the field by police, claimed he was an experienced parachutist who made the jump to show support for the Mets.

Prosecutors in Queens, New York, home of Shea Stadium, claimed that Sergio’s actions could have injured fans and players and interrupted air traffic from nearby LaGuardia Airport. They charged him with reckless endangerment and criminal trespassing. Sergio spent a night in jail and was released without bail. On October 27, the Mets came from behind to win the World Series.

On December 10 of that year, Sergio, who claimed that several Mets players helped him get a lawyer, pled guilty to a criminal trespass charge in exchange for prosecutors dropping a more serious charge of reckless endangerment. On December 19, he was sentenced to community service and fined. However, Sergio was later held in contempt of court for refusing to reveal the name of the pilot who flew the plane from which he jumped. As a result, in May 1987, he was sentenced to six months in federal jail.

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Chicago White Sox accused of throwing World Series

Year
1921
Month Day
July 05

After Judge Hugo Friend denies a motion to quash the indictments against the major league baseball players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series, a trial begins with jury selection. The Chicago White Sox players, including stars Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver and Eddie Cicotte, subsequently became known as the “Black Sox” after the scandal was revealed.

The White Sox, who were heavily favored at the start of the World Series, had been seriously underpaid and mistreated by owner Charles Comiskey. The conspiracy to fix the games was most likely initiated by first baseman Chick Gindil and small-time gambler Joseph Sullivan. Later, New York gambler Arnold Rothstein reluctantly endorsed it. The schemers used the team’s discontent to their advantage: Through intermediaries, Rothstein offered relatively small sums of money for the players to lose some of the games intentionally. The scandal came to light when the gamblers did not pay the players as promised, thinking that they had no recourse. But when the players openly complained, the story became public and authorities were forced to prosecute them.

The trial against the players was actually just for show. After a tacit agreement whereby the players assented not to denigrate major league baseball or Comiskey in return for an acquittal, the signed confessions from some of the players mysteriously disappeared from police custody.

The jury acquitted all of the accused players and then celebrated with them at a nearby restaurant. But the height of the hypocrisy surrounding the entire matter came when Shoeless Joe was forced to sue Comiskey for unpaid salary. During this trial, Comiskey’s lawyers suddenly produced the confessions that had disappeared during the criminal trial, with no explanation as to how they had been obtained.

Arnold Rothstein never even faced trial, and Comiskey hoped to go back to business as usual. However, all did not end well for everyone. Other baseball owners, hoping to remove any hint that the games were illegitimate, hired Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis to be the new commissioner of baseball. Landis was a hard-liner (and also a racist—he prevented blacks from playing in the major leagues during his reign into the 1940s) who then permanently barred the implicated Black Sox players from baseball.

Landis’ decision has come under considerable criticism for its unfairness to a few of the players. Buck Weaver, by all accounts, had refused to take any money offered by the gamblers. He was purportedly banned from baseball for refusing to turn his teammates in. And although Shoeless Joe Jackson probably accepted some money, his statistics show that he never truly participated in throwing the games—he had the best batting average of either team in the series.

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