Sure, I watched the World Series this year. Enjoyed it, too. What baseball fan didn’t? But was it really “the greatest that was ever played,” as Sports Illustrated’s 25-year-old Minnesota native Steve Rushin proclaimed? Was it, in fact, “the best sustained sporting event anyone has ever seen,” as noted columnist Ira Berkow declared?
First Series to have four games decided on the last pitch (previous: two).
Second to have a 1-0 seventh game.
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Now, let’s get right to 1986 and 1975, the two greatest Series in my lifetime. The 1986 postseason as a whole remains the greatest since baseball went to a playoff system in 1969–there was not only a great seven-game Series, but also a thrilling six-game National League Championship Series and a seven-game American League series in which the Boston Red Sox came from down 3-1 to win–but don’t let the playoffs overshadow the Series. It’s true, the first four games were all won by the visiting team, stifling crowd excitement, but the first game was a doozy–Boston’s Bruce Hurst defeating the New York Mets’ Ron Darling 1-0 on an unearned run–and the Mets had to win twice in Boston to set up their becoming the first team to lose the first two games at home and still win the Series. Hurst won game five to put the Bosox up, then there was game six.
Everyone remembers Bill Buckner’s game-losing muff, but what about Roger Clemens leaving the game in the seventh, up 3-2, with a blister on his throwing hand? What about Dave Henderson’s two-run homer in the top of the tenth to apparently give Boston its first championship since 1918? And remember, the entire New York rally in the bottom of the tenth–from first man on to winning run scoring–came with two out.
Game six, back in Boston–Fisk’s game–of course challenges 1986’s sixth game as the greatest in Series history. After Tiant failed to hold a 3-0 lead and the Reds went ahead 6-3, Bernie Carbo tied it with a three-run homer in the eighth. Dwight Evans (the same) saved the game in the 11th with a great catch at the wall, and Fisk won it in the 12th.
The 40s had Enos Slaughter scoring the winning run from first in the bottom of the eighth of the seventh game between the Saint Louis Cardinals and (not again!) the Boston Red Sox in 1946. The 30s had Babe Ruth’s called shot in 1932 and the seven-game duel in ’31 between Saint Louis base stealer Pepper Martin and Philadelphia Athletics catcher Mickey Cochrane, won by the Cards. There were three great Series in the mid-20s: Grover Cleveland “Pete” Alexander winning game six in 1926, going out to get loaded that night, and then coming in hung over to save game seven the next day, with Ruth thrown out stealing second for the final out; the Pittsburgh Pirates coming from behind 4-0 and 6-3 against the Washington Senators in game seven of ’25; and ’24, a wonderful, overlooked match-up between the Senators and the New York Giants, with four one-run games, three won in the last at-bat, and a 12-inning seventh game. That game is renowned for two almost identical bad-hop grounders past New York third baseman Freddie Lindstrom: one instrumental to Washington’s two-run, game-tying rally in the eighth, the other allowing the winning run to score in the 12th, giving Walter Johnson his first championship in his 18th season (and you thought Michael Jordan suffered long with an inferior supporting cast).
