It seems, it feels remarkable that the final contest of the 2025 Fall Classic echoes so many of the beats that were produced in the final World Series game in 1912. 113 years ago. The remarkable-ness comes from opposite poles. How in the world can two events separated by so […]
During the 1995 regular season, the Cleveland Indians averaged 5.8 runs per game while winning 69 percent of their contests. This combination had last been seen (and perhaps ducked away from) in 1939, when the Yankees of Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Keller, Bill Dickey, Red Rolfe, Joe Gordon and George Selkirk […]
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 […]
In an easy-going, 20-4 rout of the St. Louis Browns on May 21, 1925, Philadelphia Athletics backstop Mickey Cochrane erupted for three home runs. The verb is useful here, as Cochrane entered the game with one four-base hit on his career ledger; then again, he had only played 27 games […]
Jacob deGrom started attacking (and silencing) big league hitters for the official accounting on May 15, 2014, when he allowed a single run over seven innings (and took the loss in a 1-0 affair). The right-hander was 25 years old for this debut and with four hits and two walks […]
In every campaign from 1995 through 2002, Mike Piazza withstood the rigors of catching to emerge, by the end of the regular season, with at least 30 homers as part of his show and tell demonstration of what he did for the spring, summer and early part of fall. That’s […]
A number of candidates could have vied for top 2024 honors when it came to “wow” – those elevated, extra-magnetic, enchanting, exciting, entrancing individuals who commanded the highlights, flirted with the record books and treated baseball fans to six months filled with daily performances that made one joyous and awed […]
The very first time the Mets faced the wrenching possibility of postseason elimination – Game 5 of the 1973 NLCS against the defending pennant-winners, the Reds – the club received an imposing harmony of contribution. The NL’s ’73 Cy Young Award winner, Tom Seaver, gave the club an ace-like line, […]
The grandeur of postseason baseball is that with the condensed number of games and expanded importance of each contest, the moments turn to MOMENTS and more easily cast us back to “remember when.” A swing in the bottom of the ninth in Cleveland can instantly be a teleporter to Wrigley […]