This post is not really about the Yankees. It's just hard to tell a story about baseball in the 1950's that doesn't start with them.
From 1949-53, the Yankees won five consecutive World Series; it was a record then, it's a record now, and given that the baseball playoffs seem to be growing at a rate approaching that of the expanding universe and short baseball series are little more than an exhilarating coinflip, it's probably going to be a record for the foreseeable future. The remarkable thing about the team was not just that they won all the time, but that they did it while constantly turning over their roster. Only one position player had at least 120 games played for both the 1949 and 1953 teams. (Yes, there were three others who were over 100 in both years, but still.)
In 1954, the Yankees won 103 games - more than they had won in any of the five preceding seasons. And the Indians still beat them out for the AL pennant - easily. The Indians had one of the best regular seasons ever, setting an AL record with 111 wins. As a result, the team that had finally dethroned the Yankees was a substantial favorite in the World Series against the Giants, who had won a mere 97 games.
Which brings us to the Giants' best postseason win. 1954 World Series Game 1: Giants 5, Indians 2 (10). The Giants sent Sal Maglie to the mound; he didn't have the best 1954 of any of their starters (that was Johnny Antonelli), but he probably did end up with the best career of the group. He would have had, at best, the fourth-best résumé on Cleveland's staff (you can argue either way between Maglie and Mike Garcia). He was opposed by Bob Lemon, one of the Indians' three future Hall of Fame starters.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Best Postseason Win: Nobody
No, this isn't a discussion of Odysseus's victory over Polyphemus while acting under an anonymous pseudonym, although that was a classic. It is, literally, the best postseason game that nobody won.
There were three ties in the history of the World Series. (I guess you could technically say "have been" instead of "were," since it is not utterly impossible that baseball could add to the total, but it's hardly likely, given the existence of stadium lightning and the available option to suspend a game and resume it at a later time if needed.) As ties, they were inherently close games, especially because all three of them went to extra innings. But as ties, they also lack the satisfaction of an actual result.
Even with that caveat, there was one tie in particular that I wanted to write up, and it happens to be the best of the three by a fairly healthy margin.
1912 World Series Game 2: Giants 6, Red Sox 6 (11). Boston started Ray Collins, who spent about five years as a good-to-excellent starter in what wouldn't have been considered heavy work at the time (his career high in starts was 30 and he exceeded 250 innings only once). After posting a career-high 20 wins in 1914, Collins vanished from the league after 100 terrible innings the next year. He was opposed by another pitcher whose career was about to go into decline - but Christy Mathewson preceded his slide with twelve consecutive seasons exceeding Collins's career high in wins (and usually exceeding it by a wide margin).
Monday, December 7, 2015
Best Postseason Win: Boston Red Sox
For a team that went nearly a century without winning the World Series, the Red Sox have a very large selection of outstanding postseason victories. It makes sense, given that most of their playoff losses were of the agonizing variety, and it's hard to be too torn up about getting swept out of a series. True sports misery comes from losing a series in which you had a chance - which means a close series, and you can't have a close series without winning some of the games. Indeed, the Red Sox had two extremely (and justifiably) famous postseason wins come out of years in which they did not win the World Series - and if this post was being written 15 years ago, it would most likely be about one of them, and would end with a sad disclaimer.
Happily for Red Sox fans, their postseason fortunes have shifted with the new century, and with them, the selection for this post. The famed Dave Roberts Steal Game, which came when they were down 3-0 in the 2004 ALCS, saw the Sox trade the lead with the Yankees throughout regulation, come back to tie in the ninth, strand a baseload of Yankees in the eleventh, and finally win in the twelfth on a David Ortiz walkoff homer. It surpassed all previous Red Sox postseason wins... and held the top spot for about 24 hours before being leapfrogged.
Our selection is 2004 ALCS Game 5: Red Sox 5, Yankees 4 (14). Future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez started for Boston, and was opposed by Mike Mussina, who will hopefully one day join him in Cooperstown. Both men were into their thirties and had slipped from the peak of their considerable skills, but both were still quality pitchers.
Happily for Red Sox fans, their postseason fortunes have shifted with the new century, and with them, the selection for this post. The famed Dave Roberts Steal Game, which came when they were down 3-0 in the 2004 ALCS, saw the Sox trade the lead with the Yankees throughout regulation, come back to tie in the ninth, strand a baseload of Yankees in the eleventh, and finally win in the twelfth on a David Ortiz walkoff homer. It surpassed all previous Red Sox postseason wins... and held the top spot for about 24 hours before being leapfrogged.
Our selection is 2004 ALCS Game 5: Red Sox 5, Yankees 4 (14). Future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez started for Boston, and was opposed by Mike Mussina, who will hopefully one day join him in Cooperstown. Both men were into their thirties and had slipped from the peak of their considerable skills, but both were still quality pitchers.
Friday, December 4, 2015
Best Postseason Win: Boston Braves
The last post was about the Atlanta Braves, who had one of baseball's longest runs of regular-season success in the 1990s and early 2000s. The Braves of a century earlier were like them in essentially no ways.
First, they weren't in Atlanta; they were in Boston. Second, they weren't the Braves; they started the 20th century as the Boston Beaneaters, then went through such imposing nicknames as the Doves and the Rustlers before settling on Braves in 1912 (with a brief detour to Bees in the late '30s). And third, they were straight-up awful. The World Series was first played in 1903, and it featured the Beaneaters' Boston counterparts (then known as the Boston Americans, because they were in the American league... subtlety was not an omnipresent feature of early baseball nicknames). Meanwhile, the Beaneaters themselves, who had been reasonably successful in 1902 (a 73-64-5 record, good for third in the NL), slipped significantly to 58-80-2, and fell to sixth in the standings. (The last number in those records, of course, represents ties, because ties were a relatively common feature of formative baseball. If the sun went down and neither team was winning, there weren't a lot of options.)
That .420 winning percentage and sixth-place finish both represented the franchise's high point for the next decade. From 1904-12, the team that would eventually be known as the Braves came in last in the eight-team NL five times, and seventh in three other years. And they weren't merely a bad team; they tended to be a dreadful one, as six times in the nine years, they failed to win even 35% of their games. By comparison, the only team in the last decade to dip below 35% has been the abysmal Astros of recent vintage; they fell that far three times, bottoming out at .311 in 2013, their first AL season. Boston's NL franchise came in below that decade-worst winning percentage twice in the early 20th century: .294 in 1909, and .291 in 1911.
The recently-christened Braves turned things around a bit in 1913, finishing in fifth, with a 69-82 record. But in 1914, business as usual seemed to be resuming, as the team started off 3-16 and found themselves 10.5 games out of first after a month of play. The team started to play better from there; it would have been nearly impossible not to. But after getting swept in a July 4 doubleheader, they were 26-40, 15 games out and still in last.
After that... things turned around. The Braves won four straight, then three, then six. On August 1, they climbed back to .500, at 45-45, for the first time since they hadn't played a game yet. That was in the middle of an eight-game winning streak; once that was broken, they won seven more in a row (with the exception of a tie). On July 18, the Braves had been in last; 30 days later, they were in second, three games behind the Giants. They had gone 22-3 over the intervening month.
Much like their abysmal beginning, that pace was unsustainable, and the Braves did start to lose a bit more often - but so did the Giants. Boston pulled even for the first time on August 25, and two days later, started a 10-3 run that moved them from 1.5 games back to 1.5 games ahead. Then they really took off, unleashing a 20-2 sprint that emphatically ended any semblance of a pennant race.
The Braves, arguably the National League's worst franchise, were going to the World Series, making them the first team other than the Giants, Cubs, and Pirates to represent the Senior Circuit. Their opponents? The Philadelphia A's, owners of the storied $100,000 infield and winners of three of the previous four Series.
Naturally, the Braves went into Philadelphia and beat up on the A's just like they had on everyone else they'd faced for the last three months. They knocked Chief Bender around to take the first game 7-1, then had their young ace, Bill James (no, not that one), outduel future Hall of Famer Eddie Plank 1-0 in Game 2. The Series shifted to Fenway Park (the Braves played about a third of their home games there) for the third game, which doubles as our entry here.
1914 World Series Game 3: Braves 5, A's 4 (12). The pitching matchup was a pair of youngsters: Boston's 24-year-old Lefty Tyler, who two years earlier had led the NL in losses while pitching for a lousy Braves team, and Philly's 21-year-old Bullet Joe Bush, who two years later would lead the AL in losses while pitching for a lousy A's team. There's probably a full blog post in discussing each of their careers, and there's a full-length book in laying out the story of how the A's went from being great to terrible, but we've done enough lead-in already.
First, they weren't in Atlanta; they were in Boston. Second, they weren't the Braves; they started the 20th century as the Boston Beaneaters, then went through such imposing nicknames as the Doves and the Rustlers before settling on Braves in 1912 (with a brief detour to Bees in the late '30s). And third, they were straight-up awful. The World Series was first played in 1903, and it featured the Beaneaters' Boston counterparts (then known as the Boston Americans, because they were in the American league... subtlety was not an omnipresent feature of early baseball nicknames). Meanwhile, the Beaneaters themselves, who had been reasonably successful in 1902 (a 73-64-5 record, good for third in the NL), slipped significantly to 58-80-2, and fell to sixth in the standings. (The last number in those records, of course, represents ties, because ties were a relatively common feature of formative baseball. If the sun went down and neither team was winning, there weren't a lot of options.)
That .420 winning percentage and sixth-place finish both represented the franchise's high point for the next decade. From 1904-12, the team that would eventually be known as the Braves came in last in the eight-team NL five times, and seventh in three other years. And they weren't merely a bad team; they tended to be a dreadful one, as six times in the nine years, they failed to win even 35% of their games. By comparison, the only team in the last decade to dip below 35% has been the abysmal Astros of recent vintage; they fell that far three times, bottoming out at .311 in 2013, their first AL season. Boston's NL franchise came in below that decade-worst winning percentage twice in the early 20th century: .294 in 1909, and .291 in 1911.
The recently-christened Braves turned things around a bit in 1913, finishing in fifth, with a 69-82 record. But in 1914, business as usual seemed to be resuming, as the team started off 3-16 and found themselves 10.5 games out of first after a month of play. The team started to play better from there; it would have been nearly impossible not to. But after getting swept in a July 4 doubleheader, they were 26-40, 15 games out and still in last.
After that... things turned around. The Braves won four straight, then three, then six. On August 1, they climbed back to .500, at 45-45, for the first time since they hadn't played a game yet. That was in the middle of an eight-game winning streak; once that was broken, they won seven more in a row (with the exception of a tie). On July 18, the Braves had been in last; 30 days later, they were in second, three games behind the Giants. They had gone 22-3 over the intervening month.
Much like their abysmal beginning, that pace was unsustainable, and the Braves did start to lose a bit more often - but so did the Giants. Boston pulled even for the first time on August 25, and two days later, started a 10-3 run that moved them from 1.5 games back to 1.5 games ahead. Then they really took off, unleashing a 20-2 sprint that emphatically ended any semblance of a pennant race.
The Braves, arguably the National League's worst franchise, were going to the World Series, making them the first team other than the Giants, Cubs, and Pirates to represent the Senior Circuit. Their opponents? The Philadelphia A's, owners of the storied $100,000 infield and winners of three of the previous four Series.
Naturally, the Braves went into Philadelphia and beat up on the A's just like they had on everyone else they'd faced for the last three months. They knocked Chief Bender around to take the first game 7-1, then had their young ace, Bill James (no, not that one), outduel future Hall of Famer Eddie Plank 1-0 in Game 2. The Series shifted to Fenway Park (the Braves played about a third of their home games there) for the third game, which doubles as our entry here.
1914 World Series Game 3: Braves 5, A's 4 (12). The pitching matchup was a pair of youngsters: Boston's 24-year-old Lefty Tyler, who two years earlier had led the NL in losses while pitching for a lousy Braves team, and Philly's 21-year-old Bullet Joe Bush, who two years later would lead the AL in losses while pitching for a lousy A's team. There's probably a full blog post in discussing each of their careers, and there's a full-length book in laying out the story of how the A's went from being great to terrible, but we've done enough lead-in already.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Best Postseason Win: Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves of the 1990s and early 2000s are one of baseball's longest-lasting dynasties (non-Yankee edition). They famously won 14 consecutive division titles (in completed seasons; the Expos led them in the NL East when the strike hit in 1994). You can argue that this record was enabled by the changes in baseball's playoff format - but that argument doesn't hold up terribly well, because if you lump the NL together as one giant league (and make the same exception for '94 that's already made for the division title streak), the Braves would have won seven consecutive pennants from 1992-99. That would also have been a record, and one set in a larger league than any of the Yankee dynasties it surpassed.
Given their constant presence in the postseason for a decade and a half, it should come as no surprise that the Braves won quite a few October games - 65 since the move to Atlanta, nearly all of them within their stretch of dominance. Some of those games were quite noteworthy - the clinching sixth game of the 1999 NLCS was an utterly wild 11-inning seesaw affair, the seventh game of the 1992 NLCS featured probably the most dramatic pinch hit single in baseball history, and the 1991 World Series, while best-known for dramatic victories by the opposing Twins, had a pair of spectacular wins by the Braves as well.
I am picking none of those games. Instead, the selection is (probably) the first NLDS game played under the new playoff format, Game 1 of the 1995 NLDS: Braves 5, Rockies 4. The Rockies started their ace, Kevin Ritz, who attained that status by being their only pitcher to qualify for the ERA title. (The Rockies actually had a pretty good pitching staff once you adjust for Coors Field, but it was very bullpen heavy.) The Braves countered with their ace, Greg Maddux, who earned that billing by winning the ERA title. For the third year in a row. And his fourth straight Cy Young award. And coming in third in the MVP voting. And winning his sixth straight Gold Glove, because the other stuff didn't make him ridiculous enough.
Greg Maddux was good. You all know this, and I'm not going to do a second consecutive multi-paragraph digression about a Hall of Fame Braves starter. Let's get to the game.
Given their constant presence in the postseason for a decade and a half, it should come as no surprise that the Braves won quite a few October games - 65 since the move to Atlanta, nearly all of them within their stretch of dominance. Some of those games were quite noteworthy - the clinching sixth game of the 1999 NLCS was an utterly wild 11-inning seesaw affair, the seventh game of the 1992 NLCS featured probably the most dramatic pinch hit single in baseball history, and the 1991 World Series, while best-known for dramatic victories by the opposing Twins, had a pair of spectacular wins by the Braves as well.
I am picking none of those games. Instead, the selection is (probably) the first NLDS game played under the new playoff format, Game 1 of the 1995 NLDS: Braves 5, Rockies 4. The Rockies started their ace, Kevin Ritz, who attained that status by being their only pitcher to qualify for the ERA title. (The Rockies actually had a pretty good pitching staff once you adjust for Coors Field, but it was very bullpen heavy.) The Braves countered with their ace, Greg Maddux, who earned that billing by winning the ERA title. For the third year in a row. And his fourth straight Cy Young award. And coming in third in the MVP voting. And winning his sixth straight Gold Glove, because the other stuff didn't make him ridiculous enough.
Greg Maddux was good. You all know this, and I'm not going to do a second consecutive multi-paragraph digression about a Hall of Fame Braves starter. Let's get to the game.
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Best Postseason Win: Milwaukee Braves
The Milwaukee Braves are, I believe, the shortest-lived team to have an entry on this list. The Braves are one of the two franchises to have moved twice; the other, the Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland Athletics, did not make the playoffs in their middle iteration. But the Braves had something going for them that the A's didn't: Hank Aaron. And Eddie Mathews. And... well, let's forgo listing all of their players and just say they were a highly talented team - one that arguably should have won more than they did.
But here at Best Postseason Win, we're focused on the positive. And the positive in this case is a good one: 1957 World Series Game 4, Braves 7, Yankees 5 (10). New York's starter was Tom Sturdivant, who spent most of his career as a reliever; '57 was his only all-starting season, and it was a good one. He went 16-6 in a career-high 28 starts, with a 2.54 ERA.
The Braves replied with the guy who would have been next on the above list of great players: Warren Spahn, who in 1957 had essentially an average season - for Warren Spahn. Which means that he went 21-11, 2.69.
(No, seriously, this was almost exactly his average, in all respects. Spahn's full numbers were 21-11, 2.69 ERA (130 ERA+), 35 starts, 18 complete games, 271 innings, 111 strikeouts, 78 walks, 23 homers allowed, and 4.7 WAR per Baseball-Reference, His averages over a 17-year span, from 1947-63, were (with some rounding): 20-12, 2.96 (124 ERA+), 35 starts, 21 complete games, 278 innings, 138 strikeouts, 75 walks, 22 homers allowed, and 5.4 WAR. Eleven times in those 17 years, Spahn's total WAR was between 4 and 7. Ten seasons of the 17, he won either 21 or 22 games.)
(We'll get to the game in a minute, I promise, but one more Spahn note first: His 1957 was probably not quite as good as his average season - and he won the Cy Young. And this was in the early days of the Cy, when they only gave out one award for all of MLB.)
But here at Best Postseason Win, we're focused on the positive. And the positive in this case is a good one: 1957 World Series Game 4, Braves 7, Yankees 5 (10). New York's starter was Tom Sturdivant, who spent most of his career as a reliever; '57 was his only all-starting season, and it was a good one. He went 16-6 in a career-high 28 starts, with a 2.54 ERA.
The Braves replied with the guy who would have been next on the above list of great players: Warren Spahn, who in 1957 had essentially an average season - for Warren Spahn. Which means that he went 21-11, 2.69.
(No, seriously, this was almost exactly his average, in all respects. Spahn's full numbers were 21-11, 2.69 ERA (130 ERA+), 35 starts, 18 complete games, 271 innings, 111 strikeouts, 78 walks, 23 homers allowed, and 4.7 WAR per Baseball-Reference, His averages over a 17-year span, from 1947-63, were (with some rounding): 20-12, 2.96 (124 ERA+), 35 starts, 21 complete games, 278 innings, 138 strikeouts, 75 walks, 22 homers allowed, and 5.4 WAR. Eleven times in those 17 years, Spahn's total WAR was between 4 and 7. Ten seasons of the 17, he won either 21 or 22 games.)
(We'll get to the game in a minute, I promise, but one more Spahn note first: His 1957 was probably not quite as good as his average season - and he won the Cy Young. And this was in the early days of the Cy, when they only gave out one award for all of MLB.)
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Best Postseason Win: Milwaukee Brewers
There have been two genuinely good Brewers teams in the history of the franchise - Harvey's Wallbangers in the early '80s, and the NL Central contenders of roughly 2007-12. The Wallbangers were clearly better; their six consecutive winning seasons from 1978-83 are easily the franchise's high-water mark, and they won the only pennant in team history. They are also likely to be more fondly remembered. Their two best players were Robin Yount, who spent hist entire Hall of Fame career with the Brewers, and Paul Molitor, who stuck with Milwaukee for all but the end of his career as well. Molitor struggled with drug use early in his career, but cocaine has to this point not been considered nearly as serious an offense in baseball circles as steroids, which got current Brewer star Ryan Braun suspended for half a season. Meanwhile, the recent squad's other signature player, Prince Fielder, left town in his prime to sign a large (one might even say Prince Fielder-sized) contract with the Tigers.
All of that is to say, most fans would probably opt for a postseason win from the 1980s Brewers here, rather than the more recent version. Naturally, WPL does not care, and in this case, at least, I agree with it.
Game 5, 2011 NLDS: Brewers 3, Diamondbacks 2 (10). The decisive game of the series matched up the two aces, pitting Milwaukee's Yovani Gallardo against Arizona's... Ian Kennedy? Man, it's only been four years and it's still hard to remember that Kennedy had a 21-4 season.
All of that is to say, most fans would probably opt for a postseason win from the 1980s Brewers here, rather than the more recent version. Naturally, WPL does not care, and in this case, at least, I agree with it.
Game 5, 2011 NLDS: Brewers 3, Diamondbacks 2 (10). The decisive game of the series matched up the two aces, pitting Milwaukee's Yovani Gallardo against Arizona's... Ian Kennedy? Man, it's only been four years and it's still hard to remember that Kennedy had a 21-4 season.
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