Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Tonight we get a chance to have a memorable all-or-nothing winner-take-all game 7 in the World Series. There have been many great ones in history, here are some of them ...

1924 - Washington 3, NY Giants 2 (12); In the 12th inning, Muddy Ruel doubled after a dropped foul popfly by Giants catcher Hank Gowdy. Ruel scored on a walk-off RBI double by Earl McNeely.

1926 - Sr Louis 3, NY Yankees 2; Grover Cleveland Alexander strikes out Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded to end the seventh and preserve the Cardinals lead. Two innings later Babe Ruth is caught stealing to end the game.

1946 - St Louis 4, Boston 3; Enos Slaughter's famous mad dash scored the deciding run to win the game and the series.

1960 - Pittsburgh 10, NY Yankees 9; Bill Mazeroski hits a walk-off home run to win the Pirates the championship.

1962 - NY Yankees 1, San Francisco 0; Ralph Houk leaves Terry in to pitch to McCovey with runners on second and third and two out. McCovey rips a line drive to Bobby Richardson, who stumbles but makes the last out.

1965 - Los Angeles 2, Minnesota 0; Sandy Koufax tosses a 3-hit complete game shutout on two days rest.

1991 - Minnesota 1, Atlanta 0 (10); Jack Morris pitches 10 shutout innings and pinch-hitter Gene Larkin wins it with a bases loaded walk-off hit.

1997 - Florida 3, Cleveland 2 (11); The Marlins rally to tie in the bottom of the 9th off Jose Mesa and win it in the 11th on an Édgar Rentería RBI single.

2001 - Arizona 3, NY Yankees 2; Arizona rallies for two runs in the 9th off Mariano Rivera, Luis Gonzalez gets the game winning walk-off hit.

2014 - San Francisco 3. Kansas City 2; Madison Bumgarner pitches five scoreless innings in relief on two days rest to save the final game.

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I'm hoping tonight's game is another 3-2 classic, a real nail-biter to the end.

As a lifelong Pirate fan who remembers the 1960 World Series vividly, I will hunt down and maim anyone who votes for any other game. And you're all invited on any October 13th to visit the section of the LF wall of Forbes Field that Maz's HR cleared, to listen to a tape of the radio broadcast and generally go nuts with the rest of the crowd.

No, I haven't done that yet. 2018, I think, when it will be a Saturday. But I do have a DVD of the game and watch it from time to time. Amazing, Game 7 of a World Series, 10-9, multiple pitching changes, game time 2:38 if I recall correctly.

As the only World Series victory by my lowly Washington Senators, I have to go with 1924. The single sentence explaining the weird 12th inning of that game was accurate, but very small on details. Gowdy indeed dropped Ruel's pop fly, but only because he stepped on the face mask he had discarded and stumbled. And McNeeley's "double" was actually a routine grounder to Freddie Lindstrom that hit a pebble and bounced high over his head.

Some 30 years later, I watched a pre-game attempt to recreate that inning with some of the few old-timers still alive. it was hilarious. Ruel could not hit a popup and, after several tries, someone behind the catcher threw a ball in the air and Gowdy kicked his mask and never touched it. Ruel's double was a pop fly to shallow right that any of three fielders could have caught. And then they put a pebble the size of a large boulder in front of Lindstrom, but, again, nobody could hit it. And when somebody threw the ball at it, it ricocheted to SS.

In 1924 after the game, Lindstrom told a reporter, "I guess the good lord just couldn't stand to see Walter Johnson lose again." Sir Walter pitched all 12 innings and it was his first of three Series wins.

Picked '91 as it was the best game that I saw. Senators fan growing up so I wanted to go '24 or '60 with the walkoff HR but I pitched when I was little so the pitchers duel in '91 got my vote.

It (can be / should be) just as big as the Super Bowl, the only real difference is you only have less than one day to hype it up and prepare for it instead of two full weeks, and the site of the big game is selected years in advance.

Baseball does not have the same sort of urgency that football does. That's its charm, and its curse. As our pace of life gets faster and faster, baseball becomes less and less real to us.

But this game has been great, and I sure hope it doesn't suffer from the rain, since there's no way in hell they halt play at this point.

2016

Baseball became "stratified" during the world series, at least in regards to the rise of super relievers. Which was effective through six games...
I didn't have a rooting interest but found it to be thrilling last night.

The one takeaway I have from last night's game is, thank God MLB doesn't drag out their finals with 2 or 3 days between 5, 6 and 7 like the NBA. The 2-3-2 format is a proven perfect way to test champions. Francona tried to squeak through with a 3-man rotation, and Maddon relied on his closer too much in 5 and 6. Game 7 exposed the overworked parts in the pitching staffs and questionable strategy of both teams.

Of course, in SOM online we play can play 14 games in a row with no "days off".

supertyphoon wrote:The one takeaway I have from last night's game is, thank God MLB doesn't drag out their finals with 2 or 3 days between 5, 6 and 7 like the NBA. The 2-3-2 format is a proven perfect way to test champions. Francona tried to squeak through with a 3-man rotation, and Maddon relied on his closer too much in 5 and 6. Game 7 exposed the overworked parts in the pitching staffs and questionable strategy of both teams.

Of course, in SOM online we play can play 14 games in a row with no "days off".

Great post.
I realize both managers were looking for an excuse to go to the pen, but Maddon taking Hendricks out last night was puzzling to say the least.