Category: ARCHIVE

Sept 30: Not amicable

SEPTEMBER 30, 1971 | WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Washington Senators can’t beat the “Damn” Yankees even when they outscore them. The last American League game played in the nation’s capitol ended in a forfeit on this date in 1971 when hundreds of fans stormed the field at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium with two outs in the 9th. Many had run onto the field in the 8th, but this time they wouldn’t leave so the umpires called the game.

It gave the Yankees a 9-0 win even though the Senators were one out from a 7-5 victory. Fans were upset that owner Bob Short was moving the club to the Dallas-Forth Worth area for the 1972 season to become the Texas Rangers.

The “Senators” had been in D.C. for 71 years as an American League team, but under two different franchises. One franchise, owned for most of that time by the Griffith family, called Washington home from 1901 to 1960. Calvin Griffith moved the team to Minneapolis in 1961, where they remain, and changed the name to the Minnesota Twins. D.C. got a new “Senators” franchise in ’61, but it only lasted until 1971 when they left for Texas.

In the 62 years the Senators were in Washington, D.C. they only had 15 winning seasons. They did win the World Series though in 1924. To pour salt into the wounds of the original Senators’ fans, a change of scenery helped. The Minnesota Twins made it to the World Series in 1965, won it in 1987 and 1991.

Contributing sources:
Washington Post
New York Times, October 1, 1971, Pg. 49
Associated Press, October 1, 1971, by James Polk

Sept 29: Where they’re from

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013 | EVERYWHERE – Major league baseball players come from all over the world these days, not just the United States and Latin America.

Here’s a list of the states/territories/countries that have produced the most major league players, including some surprises, as of December 20, 2019:

United States…………….16,940

Top ten states:
California………………….2,304
Pennsylvania…………….1,408
New York………………….1,157
Illinois……………………..1,060
Ohio…………………………1,031
Texas…………………………944
Massachusetts……………665
Missouri…………………….611
Florida………………………564
Michigan……………………432

North & South America (outside the United States):
Dominican Republic…….759
Venezuela……………………407
Canada……………………….254
Puerto Rico………………..269
Cuba………………………….212
Mexico………………………129

Elsewhere:
Japan………………………….67
Panama………………………48
Ireland……………………….43
England………………………33
Australia…………………….31
Germany…………………….30
South Korea………………..23
Columbia……………………23
Curacao……………………..15
Nicaragua…………………..15
Netherlands……………….11
Russia…………………………8
Scotland……………………..7
Sweden……………………….4
Czechoslovakia……………3
Afghanistan…………………1
Lithuania…………………….1

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Baseball-Almanac: Major League players by birthplace
https://www.baseball-almanac.com › players › birthplace
The Emerald Guide to Baseball 2009, The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)

Sep 28: RBI from the grave

SEPTEMBER 28, 1930 | CINCINNATI, OHIO – On this date in 1930 the Chicago Cubs‘ Hack Wilson drove in his 189th and 190th runs of the season to set the single season RBI record that stands to this day – more than 80 years later. His RBI helped the Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds 13-11 on the last day of the season.

Wilson was such a prolific run producer that he could deliver from the grave. In 1999, more than 50 years after his death, it was discovered that one run batted in back in 1930 had been incorrectly credited to another Cub player. It should have gone to Wilson, so the official record stands at 191.

Wilson didn’t look the part of a slugger, he was 5′ 6″, 190 lbs, but he was such a prolific run producer that he drove an extra run in long after he stopped playing, in fact long after he died.

The single season RBI record is seldom mentioned as one that will never be broken, but no one has come close in decades, in fact the closest anyone has come was the year after the record was set. The closest anyone has come in the last 50 years was Manny Ramirez‘ 165 RBI in 1999 – hardly a serious threat.

Here are the top ten, eight of which are from the 1930’s, none more recently than 1937:

1. Hack Wilson 1930 Cubs – 191
2. Lou Gehrig 1931 Yankees – 184
3. Hank Greenberg 1937 Tigers – 183
4. Jimmie Foxx 1938 Red Sox – 175
5. Lou Gehrig 1927 Yankees – 175
6. Lou Gehrig 1930 Yankees – 174
7. Babe Ruth 1921 Yankees – 171
8. Hank Greenberg 1935 Tiger – 170
9. Chuck Klein 1930 Phillies – 170
10. Jimmie Foxx 1932 Red Sox – 169

Contributing sources:
RBI Leaders, BASEBALL-REFERENCE 
More on: Hack Wilson

SEP 6: The AL race of ’67

SEPTEMBER 6, 1967 | CHICAGO, DETROIT, BOSTON, MINNEAPOLIS – Splitting the National and American Leagues into divisions in 1969 brought more teams into the postseason, but it pre-empted some great pennant races, one of those was the American League race of 1967.

The “Pennant” winner, do they even use that term anymore, used to be decided by regular season games.There were no division champions or wildcard teams. The only postseason was the World Series and only two teams made it. Every regular season game was crucial.

On this date in ’67 4 teams were tied for 1st place – not to get to the American League Divisional Series (ALDS) or American League Championship Series (ALCS) – to get to the World Series. This is what the American League standings looked like at the end of the day – September 6, 1967:

American League
—————–W–L– -Pct.–G.B.
Minnesota……78  61  .561    –
Chicago……….78  61  .561    –
Boston…………79  62  .560    –
Detroit…………79  62  .560   –
California……72   67 .518   6
Washington….66  74  471  12
Cleveland…….65  76  .461  14
Baltimore……..62 75  .453  15
New York……..62 78  .443  16
Kansas City…..57 82 .410  21

The Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers all went down to the last weekend of the season to decide the pennant. From August 19th on none of the four teams was ever more than 3 games out. Minnesota and Boston were still tied for the lead on the last day of the season and were playing each other. The Red Sox won 5-3. They went on to play St. Louis in the World Series.

If the original divisional alignment had been in play that year there would have been two 2-team races in the Eastern Division (Boston and Detroit) and the Western Division (Minnesota and Chicago). Four teams is a little more dramatic.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
1967 AL pennant race
Red Sox-Twins final game of the season

Oct 20: Back from the brink

OCTOBER 20, 2004 | THE BRONX, NEW YORK | By defeating the New York Yankees 10-3 on this date in 2004, the Boston Red Sox became the first MLB team to win a best of seven playoff series after losing the first three games. Every game after the third was an elimination game for the Red Sox, and games four and five were not for the faint of heart.

It was the bottom of the ninth in game 4. The Red Sox were three outs from going home, down 4-3. Kevin Millar walked to lead off. Brian Roberts ran for Millar and proceeded to steal second. Roberts scored the tying run on a base hit by 3rd baseman Bill Mueller. The Red Sox were unable to bring the winning run around, so extra innings it went.

No one scored in the 10th or 11th. The Yankees went down in the 12th without scoring, but the Red Sox wasted little time putting the game away. Manny Ramirez singled to left and David Ortiz followed with a walk-off home run.

The Red Sox trailed late in game 5 too. They tied the Yankees in the bottom of the eighth. Again, it went into extra innings, and again, David Ortiz drove in the winning run with a walk-off single in the 14th.

The Red Sox had to win the next two in Yankee Stadium, which they did, 4-2 and 10-3. The next stop – the World Series. The Red Sox swept the St. Louis Cardinals in four games to win their first World Series since 1918.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Game 4 box score/play-by-play
Game 5 box score/play-by-play
MLB postseason