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
