| 1980s |
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OCTOBER 4, 1989 -- Giants first baseman
Will Clark lived up to his nickname of "The Thrill," going 4-for-4 with six RBIs as the Giants crushed the Cubs in the opener of San Francisco's second NLCS appearance in three years. Facing 23-year-old
Greg Maddux in the right-hander's first postseason appearance, Clark launched two homers, including a massive grand slam in the fourth inning, giving the Cubs a sour start to just their second postseason trip since 1945.
OCTOBER 15, 1988 -- The Dodgers, already serious underdogs against the A's and Bash Brothers
Jose Canseco and
Mark McGwire, are given even less of a chance with injured star
Kirk Gibson on the shelf. Canseco's second-inning grand slam gives Oakland a 4-3 lead until the bottom of the ninth, when dominating closer
Dennis Eckersley comes on to finish it up. But with the tying run on first, Gibson limps up to pinch-hit and makes World Series history with a spine-tingling, game-winning two-run homer in his only at-bat of the series.
OCTOBER 9, 1988 -- Backed by homers from
Darryl Strawberry and
Kevin McReynolds,
Dwight Gooden and the Mets enjoy a 4-2 lead in the 9th and seem poised to tkae a 3-1 series lead. But
Mike Scioscia has other ideas, as his two-run homer forces extra frames. Then in the 12th,
Kirk Gibson gives a preview of his forthcoming World Series dramatics with a solo bomb off
Roger McDowell. Gibson's clutch homer gives the Dodgers the game and ties the series at two apiece.
SEPTEMBER 16, 1988 -- After a two-and-a-half hour rain delay, Cincy's
Tom Browning methodically began retiring every Dodger he faced, recalling a night barely three months earlier when he had a perfect game for 8 1/3 innings. This time, Browning's dominance was virtually matched by Los Angeles'
Tim Belcher, who took a no-hitter into the sixth inning. Would the rain hold out long enough to allow these two hurlers to make a run at history?
OCTOBER 22, 1987 - The 1987 World Series between the Twins and Cardinals brought a whole new meaning to the term "home-field advantage." It marked the first time that the home team won all of its games in a series. It was also the first time that World Series games were played indoors, at Minnesota's Metrodome. Inside were deafening crowds of more than 55,000 screaming fans. The "Homer Hanky" joined the baseball lexicon, as Twins fans waved them with frenzy.
APRIL 15, 1987 --
Juan Nieves wrote the story and
Robin Yount supplied the exclamation mark to one of the more exciting games in Brewers history. Nieves became the first Brewer and the first Puerto Rican-born Major Leaguer to toss a no-hitter when he blanked the Orioles on a cold night at Municipal Stadium, a game that ended on center fielder Yount's now-legendary catch of an
Eddie Murray line drive in right-center field.
OCTOBER 25, 1986 -- Leading 5-4 in the 10th inning, just one out away from their first Championship since 1918, the Red Sox (much to the frenzied delight of the Shea Stadium crowd) watch it all roll slowly away from them... literally.
Bob Stanley's wild pitch allows
Kevin Mitchell to score the tying run. Then, on the final pitch of a fabulous at-bat,
Mookie Wilson fights off a fastball and dribbles a grounder up the first-base line that slips between
Bill Buckner's legs and into history.
Ray Knight dashes home with the game-winning run, forcing a Game 7 and permanently adding Buckner's name to the list of notorious baseball "goats."
OCTOBER 15, 1986 -- The Mets face a must-win situation -- unless they want to face Astros ace
Mike Scott in Game 7. Astros starter
Bob Knepper shuts out New York for eight innings before the Mets break through to tie in the ninth. They finally score again in the top of the 14th, then watch as the Astros re-tie the game on a
Billy Hatcher homer. In the 16th the Mets push across three more runs, but again the Astros fight back. They score two runs before finally falling as
Jesse Orosco strikes out
Kevin Bass to send the Mets to the World Series.
OCTOBER 8, 1986 -- The '86 New York Mets were winners of 108 regular season games and the favorites to walk off with the World Series crown. Yet, for all of the accolades their outstanding pitching staff received, the best pitcher in the league that season was not on their team. He was anchoring the staff of the Houston Astros, and wielding a terrifying pitch that would seriously threaten the Mets chances at making it past the League Championship Series that autumn. And so it would be a battle of aces in Game 1:
Mike Scott vs.
Dwight "Doc" Gooden.
OCTOBER 12, 1986 -- The Angels needed only one more out to earn their first World Series appearance, but it was the Red Sox who had destiny on their side. Angels closer
Donnie Moore pushed
Dave Henderson and the Red Sox one strike away from elimination, but Henderson earned redemption for an earlier fielding miscue by hitting Moore's second 2-2 pitch over the left-field fence to give the Red Sox a 6-5 lead. The Angels tied the game in the bottom of the ninth, but Henderson's sacrifice fly off Moore in the eleventh gave the Red Sox the lead and they went on to win the series in seven games.
APRIL 29, 1986 -- A 23-year-old legend-in-the-making strikes out the side in the first inning to set the tone for the chilly evening, as he becomes the first man in Major League history to strike out twenty batters in a single game.
OCTOBER 26, 1985 -- The 1985 World Series had all the ingredients to make it a memorable one: tough pitching, clutch hitting, and even a blown call by an umpire that almost certainly cost the St. Louis Cardinals the Series. Indeed, if it wasn't for the judgment of umpire
Don Denkinger in the final inning of Game 6, then the Kansas City Royals would likely still be looking for their first Championship in franchise history.
SEPTEMBER 11, 1985 --
Pete Rose raps a first-inning single to center off Padres' starter
Eric Show to pass
Ty Cobb as baseball's all-time hit king with 4,192 base knocks. Rose earned his nickname of "Charlie Hustle" over his 24-year career, topping the 200 hit plateau seven times, recording the longest hitting-streak in baseball since
Joe DiMaggio's 56-game streak in 1941 with a 44-gamer in 1977 and playing in six World Series.
OCTOBER 7, 1984 -- It was the decisive Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. The Cubs had posted the NL's best record that season, and they had stormed out to a 2-0 series lead. But because of an old Major League Baseball rule at that time, the Padres had the home-field advantage and would play the final three games in San Diego because then the advantage simply shifted every other year. So the Padres had proceeded to win the next two at home, and now there was a full house to watch this final act that would send someone completely different into a Fall Classic.
OCTOBER 5, 1984 -- After cruising to victories in Games 1 and 2 of the 1984 ALCS, the Tigers returned home in hopes of clinching a Series berth in front of 52,168 fans. It would take everything they had; however, as Kansas City's
Charlie Leibrandt matched Detroit's
Milt Wilcox and
Willie Hernandez pitch for pitch in a game that saw each team round up just three hits. In the end, an early inning score would be all Wilcox and Hernandez needed as they shutout the Royals 1-0, allowing the Tigers to advance to the World Series.
SEPTEMBER 30, 1984 -- The last day of the 1984 regular season saw
Mike Witt of the Angels use just 90 pitches to become the tenth man in major league history to pull off baseballs rarest individual feat - the perfect game. Witts gem came at the expense of the Texas Rangers before a small crowd at Arlington Stadium and the 1-0 game took just 1:49 minutes to complete.
OCTOBER 16, 1983 --
Eddie Murray hit a pair of homers and
Rick Dempsey added a solo shot to back the five-hit pitching of
Scott McGregor as the Orioles wrapped up their first World Series title in 13 years with a 5-0 shutout of the Phillies. Murray and Dempsey hit solo homers off
Charles Hudson in the 2nd and 3rd innings, and Murray's two-run shot in the 4th broke the game open.
Al Bumbry drove in Dempsey in the 5th to set the final margin, and McGregor took over from there. Picking up where he left off in Game 1, when he allowed only two runs in eight innings despite taking the loss, McGregor went the distance, striking out six, as the Orioles wrapped up the championship.
OCTOBER 4, 1983 -- A first-inning homer by
Mike Schmidt is all the scoring
Steve Carlton needs in his pitchers' duel against Dodgers lefty
Jerry Reuss.
Al Holland comes on in the eighth to wiggle out of a bases-loaded jam, and the Phillies -- who with
Pete Rose,
Joe Morgan and
Tony Perez resemble the Big Red Machine of the '70s -- take Game 1 on their way to the World Series.
JULY 24, 1983 -- When the Royals visited Yankee Stadium in late July of 1983, everyone assumed that the Independence Day celebrations were over. However,
George Brett provided some fireworks of his own with a controversial game-winning home run off of Yankee closer
Goose Gossage. When home plate umpire Tim McClelland declared Brett out due to an excessive amount of pine tar on his bat, the Royals superstar flipped his lid and ignited a brouhaha that took nearly a month to settle. When the dust cleared, Brett's home run was allowed, although it wasn't until August that the two teams could finally complete the contest and make the "Pine Tar Game" part of history.
OCTOBER 20, 1982 -- Clutch hits by
Keith Hernandez and
George Hendrick backed the gutsy pitching of
Joaquin Andujar in Game 7 of the 1982 World Series. When
Bruce Sutter recorded the last out to close the door on the Milwaukee "Harvey's Wallbangers" Brewers, St. Louis had won its first World Series title since the Bob Gibson-led 1967 squad.
OCTOBER 23, 1981 -- The Dodgers and Yankees were meeting for the 11th time in the World Series, with the Yankees having won nine of those series and already holding a two-games-to-none lead as the series headed to Dodger Stadium. But
Ron Cey's first-inning homer jump-started the Dodgers, and Rookie of the Year
Fernando Valenzuela outdueled fellow rookie
Dave Righetti as L.A. took Game 3, 5-4. Valenzuela survived allowing nine hits and seven walks, but held the Yankees scoreless after the third inning to help the Dodgers get back into the Series.
OCTOBER 19, 1981 -- Needing only three outs and one run to earn the first World Series appearance in their franchise history, the Montreal Expos instead watched in stunned disbelief as
Rick Monday and the Dodgers took the National League Pennant with a dramatic ninth-inning home run. With two out, Monday shattered the tie and the Expos' dreams with a homer to center, giving the Dodgers a 2-1 lead going to the bottom of the ninth. The Expos got the potential tying run to second base, but reliever
Bob Welch got
Jerry White to end the game and send the Dodgers to the World Series, which they would win in six games over the New York Yankees.
OCTOBER 6, 1981 --
Nolan Ryan hooks up with rookie sensation
Fernando Valenzuela in this classic pitchers' duel. Ryan allows only two hits, but one of them is a home run by
Steve Garvey that knots the score at 1-1. That is, until the bottom of the ninth, when the Astros'
Alan Ashby -- who had been given a surprise start that day -- belts a game-winning homer off a young
Dave Stewart.
MAY 15, 1981 - The Indians big right-hander
Len Barker made baseball history as he tossed the ninth perfect game in Major League history, dominating the Toronto Blue Jays before a small crowd of just 7,290 on a cold, rainy day at Clevelands Municipal Stadium.
OCTOBER 21, 1980 -- With the Phillies just one tantalizing out away from a Championship,
Tug McGraw got ahead on
Willie Wilson, then struck him out swinging at a 1-2 fastball. McGraw threw his arms up, his teammates jumped all over each other, and the franchise had its first baseball championship.
OCTOBER 12, 1980 -- With
Nolan Ryan on the hill, the Astros appear to have the advantage in the deciding fifth game against the Phillies and rookie starter
Marty Bystrom. But Ryan fails to close the door on Philly, and the series goes to extra innings for the fourth game in a row. Leading off the 10th,
Manny Trillo triples and
Garry Maddox doubles home the go-ahead run.
Dick Ruthven then closes it out, as the Phillies win the closest LCS of all time and return to the World Series for the first time since 1950.
OCTOBER 10, 1980 -- History remembers that the Philadelphia Phillies won the 1980 World Series, but few remember how staggeringly close they came to succumbing to the Houston Astros in a tightly contested NLCS. Game 3 typified how evenly matched these two ballclubs were, as neither team was able to make a dent against the starting pitching of
Joe Niekro and
Larry Christenson. It took an eleventh inning triple off the bat of October Warrior
Joe Morgan to finally make the difference, as Houston was able to claw their way to a thrilling 1-0 victory.
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