During the 1973 postseason, Mets right-hander Tom Seaver fanned 13 Reds in the first game of the NLCS and then sat down a dozen Athletics in the third game of the Fall Classic. Exceptional strikeout tallies for the time, but probably not that surprising. After all, the 28-year-old had already […]
There’s exhilarating footage of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig taking batting practice before the 1927 World Series – a kind of perfect encapsulation of the knockout combination these two provided. Watching one finish and the other begin, there is a sense and acknowledgment of the devastation about to be wrought: […]
A brief history of the timeline connecting the dots between teams repeating as World Series champions begins in 1908, when the Cubs of Tinker, Evers and Chance (along with Steinfeldt and a quartet of pitchers) took down the Tigers in five games. Soon after, the Athletics (1910-1911), Red Sox (1915-1916) […]
One of the reflective joys of the postseason comes in the echoes and reverberations, the links to the past that are constructed, seemingly, on the fly. Something happens in the present, or a series of somethings, and almost instantly, moments and performances and names from the past – often having […]
Down by a run, down to their three final outs, the Dodgers start to rally back and conclude the surge with a swing that makes World Series history. Before the momentous swing, an intentional walk hits pause in the tension while also ratcheting the tightness. And then the history-making swing […]
Imagine a postseason résumé that contains the following numbers for a single year: 10 games played, 15 hits with seven going for extra-bases, 12 RBI, a .341/.370/.750/1.120 slash line. Looks and feels like a middle of the order guy, right? Maybe Jay Buhner in 1995 or Bernie Williams in 1996 […]
By the time Sandy Alomar established a new Indians postseason record with his 10 RBI in the 1997 World Series, the 31-year-old catcher was a long established member of the team. He had pre-dated Manny and Lofton and Vizquel and Thome and had represented Cleveland in five All-Star Games; he […]
League Division Series play has produced 39 winner-take-all contests – those ultimate, tension-filled testing grounds that have a way of squeezing out all of the possible drama. The very first year of this round – 1981 – was especially generous in its largesse, serving up three Game 5’s on the […]