Oct 25: Through the legs

OCTOBER 25, 1986 | NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Today is the day in 1986 a seemingly routine grounder went through Bill Buckner‘s legs prolonging the Boston Red Sox agony of not winning a World Series since they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919.

It wasn’t all Buckner’s fault though. When the day started the Red Sox had a 3 games to 2 lead over the New York Mets. It was the tenth inning of game 6. Boston had a 5-3 lead with 2 outs and nobody on base for the Mets.

The Mets started a rally, scored two runs to make the score 5-5. If Buckner had made the play it would have been the third out with the game still tied. Instead the Mets scored the winning run on that play, and won the Series in the next game.


Did you notice Buckner had high-top cleats on that night because he had a sore ankle? He’s the first player I ever saw wearing high-tops. It’s surprising they became so popular. Does anyone wear low-cut cleats anymore?

CONTRIBUTING SOURCE:
1986 World Series Game 6 box score & play-by-play

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Bill Grimes

I'm from Chicago. I worked in broadcast journalism for much of the 1970's and 80's. In 1990 I became a litigation consultant, retiring in 2017. Around 2005 I recall flipping through the sports section of the newspaper coming across "On this day in baseball history Willie Mays hit his 600th home run." I enjoyed the one-liners, but I wanted more. I wanted a story. I took my news reporting skills and started researching and telling baseball stories, one for every day of the year. TodayinBaseball.com is the result.