It’s Hall of Fame consideration season. For the rest of the calendar year, Connections will be looking at some of the names on the 2025 ballot. It’s July 21, 2004, and the Indians are hosting Mark Buehrle and the White Sox. Through six-and-a-half innings, Chicago has erupted […]
When he was all done menacing pitchers, Ty Cobb was the all-time leader in hits and runs, total bases, extra-base hits and times on base. A few years later, he would even get to claim pole position among the inaugural Hall of Fame class, with his 98.2% of the […]
On October 27, 1991, before more than 55,000 fans in the Metrodome and another 50-plus million enthralled by their televisions, Jack Morris accomplished the unprecedented: an extra-inning shutout in a winner-take-all World Series game. As difficult as it would have been to predict such an exceptional and striking showcase, it’s […]
Later today, before Jack Flaherty delivers the first salvo of the 120th Fall Classic, presumptive NL MVP Shohei Ohtani will be a central focus during one set of lineup introductions. AL MVP favorite Aaron Judge will absorb the same sort of attention in the other roll call. Before a single […]
Fernando Valenzuela made only one World Series appearance in his career: a complete game in Game 3 of the 1981 World Series to, for all intents and purposes, save the Dodgers season. It’s fitting that the left-hander’s rescue effort came in front of the Dodger Stadium crowd in 1981, for […]
See Here for Part 1 On the morning of October 3, 2000, the set of batters who could proclaim they ended their postseason careers with a .300/.400/.500 line (“ahem,” they might cough, “with at least 100 plate appearances”) numbered six: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Hank Greenberg, Gene Woodling, […]
The 2024 postseason has been a canvas calling to the artists who hold a bat in their hands, an invitation to paint thunderous and striking images of what can occur when a pitch nears the plate. The World Series alone will feature seven hitters coming off a 1.000-OPS line drawn […]
It’s Saturday, October 12 – Game 5 of the ALDS pitting Detroit against Cleveland – and the Tigers have just used up the first three of their 27 allotted outs, leading to Steven Kwan leading off the first for Cleveland. Entering this do-or-die contest, Kwan has posted a .500/.556/.563 line […]
Collectively, the 20 most recent postseasons (2005-2024) have produced 85 examples of a starting pitcher finishing his work with at least seven innings and no runs allowed. Strolling through the list, one finds that Giants’ hurlers have the most such efforts, with 11. The Dodgers, Phillies and Tigers come next […]
There’s something extra special about a postseason home run: a big blast on the biggest of stages. Mazeroski and Carter won the World Series with one. Chambliss, Boone, Ordóñez, Ishikawa and Altuve sent their respective teams to the Fall Classic with one. Ruth (maybe) called one and Fisk desperately waved […]