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1979 Detroit Tigers: The Arrival Of Sparky Anderson

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Baseball in Detroit entered a new era in 1978 with the rookie seasons of Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Jack Morris and Lance Parrish. The 1979 Detroit Tigers continued the transition. Veteran manager Ralph Houk retired after ’78 and an outreach was made to Sparky Anderson, recently dismissed in Cincinnati. It took until midseason for the deal to get finalized and Anderson to come aboard, but when he did, the great Tiger move into a new decade had take another step forward.

Les Moss was handling the managerial duties when the season opened and he had an offense that could steal bases and hit home runs. Ron LeFlore was the man who set the table and the centerfielder posted a .355 on-base percentage and stole 78 bags. Whitaker’s .395 OBP and 20 steals gave the offense some more spark.

Power came from Steve Kemp and the leftfielder hit 26 home runs and drove in 105 runs, to go along with an excellent .398 OBP. Jason Thompson was another good bat at a corner position and the first baseman popped 20 homers. A late May deal for Champ Summers to play right field paid off in a big way—over the final four-plus months, Summers had a .414 OBP, a .614 slugging percentage and hit 20 homers of his own.

Trammell was still developing as a hitter, but his .335 OBP was respectable. John Wockenfuss was a reliable utility player and hit 15 home runs off the bench. All told, it was good enough for Detroit to rank fifth in the American League in runs scored.

Morris had broken in as a relief pitcher in 1978 and ’79 saw his first move into the rotation. It was an unqualified success, with 17 victories and a 3.28 ERA. But there were problems behind him.

Milt Wilcox was the #2 and his ERA clocked in at 4.35. Wilcox and Morris combined to make 56 starts. Even that’s a low number for the top two in a rotation. But Moss, and then Sparky, had to do a lot of experimentation with the other starting pitchers.

Veteran Jack Billingham pitched well when he took the ball—a 3.30 ERA and ten wins—but the 36-year-old was only able to make 19 starts. Pat Underwood was too young at age 22 and finished with a 4.59 ERA in his 15 starts. Dan Petry would eventually become a reliable cog in the rotation. This season he was twenty years old and getting his feet wet, 15 starts and a 3.95 ERA. Dave Rozema, age 22, had similar numbers—16 starts and a 3.51 ERA.

Individually, there was promise. Collectively, that’s too much instability. And after Aurelio Lopez, with his 21 saves, 10 wins and 2.41 ERA, the bullpen was weak. So Detroit’s staff ERA ended up a mediocre eighth in the American League.

The season started slowly. The Tigers lost five of seven to a mediocre Twins teams. They managed to split twelve games against good divisional foes in the Brewers, Orioles and Yankees, but when Memorial Day arrived, Detroit was 18-21. They were in fifth place, eight games back of frontrunning Baltimore.

Here might be a good place to step back and remind younger readers that the baseball alignment prior to 1994 had each league split into just an East and West division and only the first-place finisher could go to the postseason. That meant Detroit and other centrally located franchises, were split up and shared with each coast.

Detroit was in the AL East, as was Cleveland and Milwaukee (an AL team prior to 1998). They joined with the East’s four current members in New York, Boston, Baltimore and Toronto. The AL East of this era was the toughest division in baseball. The Yankees were two-time defending World Series champs, the Red Sox and Orioles perennial contenders and the Brewers joining the Tigers as the up-and-comers. There wasn’t any margin for error.

Detroit came out of the holiday and went 8-5 on a road trip that ended in California.  When they returned to old Tiger Stadium, Sparky was signed and in the dugout.

The Tigers continued to chip away with wins against the AL West. But just as had been the case in ’78, it was a road trip to Boston and Baltimore that dealt a lethal blow. Detroit lost six of eight. Twice in Baltimore they lost on a walkoff when they had the lead. The Tigers dropped another game to the Orioles that was tied 5-5 in the eighth inning.

But Detroit came off the mat. They took two of three from Boston back at home, then went up to Milwaukee for a long five-game series and won three times. When Detroit closed the first half by taking four of five from the White Sox, the Tigers had reached .500.

Being .500 in the AL East still left you in fifth place, fourteen games off the pace, so there was no pennant race buzz in the air. But Detroit needed to keep improving. And they did.

The Tigers took home series from the Brewers. After taking another home series from three-time defending AL West champ Kansas City, Detroit headed west to California. The Angels were in the lead in a push to dethrone the Royals. The Tigers had a chance to play spoiler in this mid-August matchup.

Morris picked up his 10th win in the series opener, aided by three hits and three RBIs from Whitaker to lead the 5-3 win. Thompson and Parrish homered on Tuesday and Detroit won 6-3. In Wednesday’s finale, Thompson homered again, as did Summers. Petry was brilliant, tossing eight innings of two-hit ball and the Tigers won 6-1. The sweep kickstarted a 7-2 road trip through the West Coast.

California made a return trip to Detroit at the end of August. Billingham opened the series with seven strong innings to pull out Monday night’s 3-2 win. The Tiger bats unloaded on Tuesday—three hits from Whitaker and home runs by Summers, Trammell and Thompson—for a 12-2 win. Morris completed another sweep of the Angels on Wednesday with a 2-1 win.

The Angels would succeed in their quest to displace the Royals at the top of the AL West. But it was no thanks to the Tigers, who went 6-0 against the eventual division champs in the heat of August.

Detroit reached Labor Day with a record of 73-64. Baltimore was running away with the East and the Tigers were in a 16 ½ game hole. They played 19 games in September against the Orioles, Red Sox and Yankees. It’s not the kind of slate where you’re going to pile up wins, but Detroit hung in there and went 9-10. They finished the season at 85-76.

In the rigorous AL East that meant fifth place. But it was only three games off of the record the Angels posted in winning the West. Detroit had established that the winning baseball of 1978 was not a fluke. And they had a World Series-winning manager in the dugout to help them build to the next step.  

The Seasonal Narrative Of The 1986 Detroit Tigers

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Sparky Anderson had brought consistent winning baseball to Detroit. Since his arrival in 1980, the Tigers had posted a winning record every year. The highlight of the run was a dominant run to the 1984 World Series title. The 1986 Detroit Tigers were squarely in that tradition, with only the more stringent standards of the era keeping them from the postseason.

Detroit’s everyday lineup enjoyed a nice bounceback year, after offensive failures were primarily responsible for the 1985 team’s failure to make a serious bid at repeating. The collective comeback was keyed by an anticipated individual revival from Hall of Fame shortstop Alan Trammell. After a rough year in ’85, Trammell posted a stat line of .347 on-base percentage/.469 slugging percentage in 1986.

Kirk Gibson had a good all-around year in rightfield, hitting 28 homers and stealing 34 bases. Darrell Evans was a reliable power hitter at first base and he hit 29 home runs. Lance Parrish, one of the game’s better power-hitting catchers, was limited to 91 games, but still went deep 22 times. A trade to get 24-year-old Darnell Coles to play third paid off, as Coles popped 20 more dingers. The Tigers led the American League in home runs.

But they had hit home runs in 1985 and that wasn’t enough to keep the offense as a whole from being mediocre. The reason 1986 was different—in addition to Trammell’s return to form—was a more balanced attack that could score in different ways. The Tigers ranked third in the AL in walks and fourth in stolen bases.

Individually, second baseman Lou Whitaker’s stat line was .338/.437. Dave Collins was acquired to provide outfield depth. Collins got regular playing time, finished with a .340 OBP and swiped 27 bags. John Grubb, the 37-year-old designated hitter, posted a dazzling .412/.590 stat line in part-time duty .

All of which was good enough for Detroit to rank third in the American League in runs scored. But the pitching slipped a bit.

It was no fault of Jack Morris. The ace went to the mound 35 times, finished with a 21-8 record and a 3.27 ERA. But the staff behind him had problems.

Walt Terrell and Frank Tanana each made 30-plus starts and combined to win 27 games, but both had ERAs in the 4s. The normally reliable Dan Petry only went to the post twenty times and struggled to a 4.66 ERA.

Sparky tried to squeeze some starts out of everyone from highly regarded 22-year-old Eric King to Dave LaPoint to Randy O’Neal, all of whom worked in both starting and relief. But only King, with his 3.51 ERA was anywhere close to consistent. Willie Hernandez saved 24 games in the closer’s role, but his ERA was abnormally high at 3.55. Hernandez was in steady decline from his 1984 Cy Young & MVP season. And the Tiger staff as a whole, while credible, still settled for sixth in the American League in ERA.

Detroit came out of the gate playing mediocre baseball. They won a couple series with Boston, who emerged as the early leader in the AL East. But in early May, the Tigers lost six of eight against teams from the AL West. By the Memorial Day turn, Detroit was sitting on .500, in sixth place and seven games back of the Red Sox.

Here might be a good time to step back and lay out the landscape of major league baseball prior to the realignment of 1994. There were only two divisions per league, an East and a West, with seven teams apiece. Only the first-place teams went to the playoffs, advancing directly to the League Championship Series. Detroit, along with Cleveland and Milwaukee (an American League team prior to 1998) joined Boston, New York, Toronto and Baltimore in the old AL East.

The season teetered on the brink in early June, as the Tigers lost seven of ten games to the Blue Jays and Yanks, slipped to 27-32 and were staring at a twelve-game deficit. Seven games against the Orioles were the needed antidote. Detroit won six to stabilize the ship. But they were still 43-44 at the All-Star break, 13 games behind the Red Sox and still in sixth place.

Since the high of winning the World Series in 1984, the Tigers had now spent a good year and a half playing mediocre baseball. Late July of 1986 saw a turnaround. Detroit reeled off a 16-6 stretch. Boston stumbled .The Tigers rose through the ranks to third place and closed to within 4 ½ games of the lead. And the Red Sox were coming to Detroit for four games in early August.

All of baseball—to say nothing of Boston fans themselves—were just waiting for this Red Sox team to blow it and it seemed most of the AL East taking turns in fashioning themselves the challenger. This four-game set was Detroit’s chance.

It didn’t start well on Thursday night. O’Neal was knocked out early, the bats only managed five hits and Detroit lost 6-1. Tanana took the ball on Friday night and struggled, falling behind 6-1 and then 8-4. The Tigers made a stirring rally in the eighth, scoring three times and putting runners on first and second with two outs. But Gibson flied out. In the ninth, Evans hit a one-out double. But Collins and Coles both flew out. Another loss.

On Sunday afternoon, Detroit had taken a 6-4 lead after seven, thanks to a grand slam from Evans. Bill Campbell came out of the bullpen and was a train wreck. Five runs later, the Tigers were looking at a 9-6 loss. Morris was brilliant in Monday night’s wraparound finale, with a complete-game three-hit shutout. But the opportunity was missed and Detroit was 6 ½ games out.

There was still time to turn it back around, but the return trip to Fenway saw two losses in three games. On August 28, the Tigers were seven games out. There were no games left against the Red Sox, so the margin for error was thin. On a road trip out west, Detroit lost seven of ten. They came home twelve games off the pace and with a record of 71-67. Any hopes of a pennant push were over.

Detroit didn’t mail in the season though. They played some spirited baseball to wrap it up, including going 7-2 on a road trip against AL East rivals to end the season. The final record was 87-75. That was good enough be tied for fourth-best in the American League and sixth-best in the major leagues as a whole. In other words, by the standards of today, it was a playoff-caliber year.

The improvement off the disappointment of 1985 had put the Tigers back on a positive trajectory. And in 1987, they won one of the great pennant races of the decade to get back on top of the AL East.

1985 Detroit Tigers: A Repeat Bid Turns Into Disappointment

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1984 had been Detroit’s year. After four years of winning baseball under Sparky Anderson, the Tigers hit a crescendo in the manager’s fifth season, winning 104 games and rolling to a World Series title. The 1985 Detroit Tigers were looking to build on that success and start a dynasty. But in a tough division, in an era when it was much harder to make the playoffs, a late summer slump did in Detroit’s dreams of a repeat crown.

Pitching was the key for the Tigers in 1985. A balanced rotation was led by Jack Morris, Dan Petry and Walt Terrell. The trio combined to make 103 starts, win 46 games and all had ERAs in the 3s. Frank Tanana only made twenty starts, but still won ten games and posted a 3.34 ERA. Randy O’Neal did some spot starting and finished with a 3.24 ERA.

Detroit was getting consistent starting pitching and their relief corps was pretty good too. The closer, Willie Hernandez, didn’t match his 1984 run to the Cy Young and MVP awards, but he still saved 31 games with a 2.70 ERA.

The depth in the pen wasn’t great. Juan Berenguer, who did a mix of starting and relief, had a rough year in ’85. So did Aurelio Lopez, who had been a big contributor to the 1984 title run. But even allowing for this, the Tigers still finished fourth in the American League in ERA.

It was the offense that sunk Detroit. Although not for a lack of power. Detroit finished second in the American League in home runs. Lance Parrish hit 28 homers and drove in 98 runs, good number for anyone and especially so for a catcher. Darrell Evans went deep forty times at first base. Rightfielder Kirk Gibson hit 29 home runs, drove in 97 runs and scored 96. Lou Whitaker played second base and out of the leadoff spot in the batting order, popped 21 homers and scored 102 runs.

So what was the problem? From a team-wide perspective, the problem was that if the Tigers weren’t hitting home runs they weren’t doing much of anything. They ranked in the lower part of the American League in every other offensive category.

From an individual standpoint, the great Detroit shortstop, Hall of Famer Alan Trammell, had a bad year. So did Larry Herndon in left field and Tom Brookens at third. Centerfielder Chet Lemon wasn’t bad, but nor did he stand out. The depth was shaky. And in the 14-team American League, the Tigers finished eighth in runs scored.

There was nothing wrong with the way Detroit started the season. They won their first six games, including a couple over the Kansas City Royals—a rematch of the 1984 ALCS—behind gems from Morris and Petry. Even though the Tigers played up-and-down baseball the rest of the spring, they still rolled into Memorial Day with a record of 24-16.

Prior to 1994, the two leagues had just an East and a West division, with only the first-place teams advancing to the postseason. Detroit was in the AL East under this format and their division was usually baseball’s toughest through much of the 1980s. The 24-16 record had the Tigers three games back of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Detroit had slipped 6 ½ back by June 6 when they headed to Toronto for a big four-game series. On Thursday night, Petry was brilliant…but the bats only mustered four singles and wasted ten shutout innings by their starter. The Tigers eventually lost 2-0 in the 12th. On Friday, Terrell was knocked out by the fifth in a 9-2 beatdown. The gap in the AL East had soared to 8 ½ games. Detroit needed to plant their feet quickly or the race would get away from them.

Gibson and Whitaker stepped up on Saturday afternoon. Whitaker ignited the lineup with four hits. Gibson drove in five runs, including a three-run homer in the first that set the tone and keyed a 10-1 win. On Sunday, Whitaker had three more hits, Gibson drove in three more runs and the Tigers won 8-3. They were still 6 ½ back, but there was a long way to go and given the way the weekend had started, no one in Detroit was likely to complain.

Furthermore, those Saturday and Sunday wins, started a nice run. Facing the Orioles, Yankees and Red Sox, the Tigers went 11-4 and closed to within two games of the lead. But the Blue Jays were a different story. Toronto made their return trip to Detroit and the Tigers lost two of three. By the All-Star break, Detroit was 3 ½ back, with New York nestled in second place, 2 ½ games off the pace.

Everyone was anticipating a hot pennant race. But the late July period after the All-Star game went bad. Facing mostly mediocre AL West teams, the Tigers lost nine of fourteen games. The Blue Jays took advantage and pushed Detroit into a steep 9 ½ game hole as the calendar flipped to August. A nine-game road trip to Kansas City, Milwaukee and Cleveland—with only the eventual World Series champion Royals a difficult opponent—ended with a 4-5 record.

If you were looking for a reason to hope, Detroit had five September games with New York and three against Toronto. But by Labor Day, the Tigers were 10 ½ games out. A homestand with Oakland, California and Seattle—with only the contending Angels a difficult opponent—resulted in a 4-6 record.

The Tigers were on life support and on a road trip to Toronto, the Blue Jays jammed the dagger in—Detroit lost all three games, scoring just six runs in the process.

They limped home with an 84-77 record, good for third place, but 15 games out of first place. The record was sixth-best in the American League and tied for 11th-best overall, meaning that even by the more lenient standards of today, the ’85 Tigers would have still failed to make it back to the postseason.

There’s no getting around the disappointment of this season after the high of 1984. But the Tigers regrouped, made some modest improvement in 1986 and by 1987, they were back on top of the AL East again.

1983 Detroit Tigers: Setting The Stage For Greatness

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The 1983 Detroit Tigers were building momentum in pursuit of their first division title since 1972 and their first World Series championship since 1968. After a string of losing seasons, the Tigers had started playing winning baseball again in 1978 and were consistently over .500 for the next five years. Sparky Anderson arrived in 1980 and they nearly made the postseason in the strike-shortened year of 1981. In this 1983 season, the Tigers took an incremental step—they cleared the 90-win threshold and set the stage for the biggest breakthrough that would come a year later.

READ GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS

Detroit’s resurgence began when the middle infield combo of shortstop Alan Trammell and second baseman Lou Whitaker both came to the major leagues in ’78. By now, they were an established and well-respected duo. In 1983, Trammell hit .319 while Whitaker hit .320. Both had respectable pop, slugging over .450.

Larry Herndon had a good all-around season in left field, batting .302 with 20 home runs and 92 RBI. Chet Lemon, a solid and underrated centerfielder, hit 24 homers. Veteran first baseman Enos Cabell hit .311 and catcher Lance Parrish popped 27 homers and drove in 114 runs.

Even though the Detroit lineup had its weaknesses, with a bad year from outfielder Kirk Gibson the most notable disappointment, they could still hit. The Tigers were top four in the American League in batting average, doubles and homers. The one problem was patience at the plate—they were only ninth in walks. But even so, Detroit scored the fourth-most runs in the American League.

The pitching staff was anchored by two horses in Jack Morris and Dan Petry. They combined to make 75 starts. Morris was a 20-game winner and finished with a 3.34 ERA. It was enough to place third in the Cy Young voting. Petry won 19 and his ERA was 3.92. Milt Wilcox was respectable at #3, going 11-10 with a 3.97 ERA.

Even though no one else started as many as twenty games, Anderson was able to piece together reliable work at the back end of the rotation. Juan Berenguer and Dave Rozema were the most prominent in shuttling between the pen and the rotation, finishing with ERAs in the 3s. Anderson’s handling of the staff and bullpen, combined with a good year from 34-year-old closer Aurelio Lopez, enabled the Tigers to finish fourth in the AL for staff ERA.

Detroit muddled out of the gates and were at .500 on Memorial Day. The good news is that no one else in the AL East caught fire and all seven teams were within six games of first place.

This is probably a good place to point out that the alignment of the major leagues prior to 1994 had each league split into just two divisions, an East and a West and only the first-place team went to the postseason. Detroit, along with Cleveland and Milwaukee (an American League team prior to 1998) were in the East along with that division’s current inhabitants from New York, Boston, Baltimore and Toronto.

The Tigers picked up the pace in early June. They went to Fenway and swept the Red Sox four straight. That started a stretch where they went 16-10 against AL East teams. By the All-Star break, Detroit was 41-35 and two games out of first place. The division remained jam-packed with only the Indians having fallen out of contention.

Tiger momentum continued in the late summer. They went 32-20 out of the break and into late August. Between July 19 and August 28 they were never more than two games out of first place and spent six days either tied for, or in sole possession of the division lead. The possibility of playoff baseball coming back to Motown was real.

Detroit split eight games leading into Labor Day, but Baltimore was heating up. The Orioles widened their lead to 4 ½ games over the Tigers and Yankees. The Brewers, the defending division champs were five back. Detroit’s remaining schedule would be against divisional rivals, including seven with Baltimore. The Tigers controlled their fate.

Over the next two weeks, Detroit went 8-5. Not bad, but Baltimore kept surging and stretched the lead to seven games. The Tigers were still in second place when the head-to-head games against the Orioles began. But any margin for error that might have remained was gone. Detroit needed to take at least three of four when Baltimore came to town on September 20.

Were the Tigers ready? Well, how does scoring 11 runs in the first inning of Tuesday night’s opener grab you? Whitaker and Herndon each homered in the barrage. The game was called due to rain after five innings, as close as MLB will ever get to a mercy rule. Detroit won 14-1.

But Wednesday’s twilight doubleheader saw fortunes go south. Morris matched up with Baltimore’s hot rookie pitcher Mike Boddicker and lost 6-0. In the nightcap, the Tiger bullpen collapsed. A 3-1 lead in the ninth inning turned into a 7-3 loss. Even though Detroit took the finale, this race was all but over and the Tigers were formally eliminated by the time their final week series in Baltimore took place.

Detroit still closed out the season on a good note. They swept the last series from the Orioles, posted a final record of 92-70 and took second in the AL East. Not only was that a playoff season by the more lenient standards of today, it was actually the third-best record in all of baseball in 1983, better than anyone in the National League.

The 1983 season was a clear sign that the Tigers were coming. And if anyone had any doubts, those were obliterated when Detroit opened 1984 by going 35-5 and ended it by winning the World Series.

2000 Oakland A’s: A Streak Of Playoff Seasons Begins

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The Oakland A’s had been the gold standard of major league baseball in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  They won four AL West titles, three American League pennants and the World Series in 1989 under the leadership of Tony LaRussa. But the costs of being a small market team forced a rebuild and LaRussa left in 1995. Art Howe took over as manager. In 1998, Billy Beane became the general manager. By 1999, the franchise returned to contention. And the 2000 Oakland A’s took the next step and started a four-year run of playoff appearances.

Jason Giambi led the way. In an era when offensive numbers were fueled by PED use, Giambi’s were the best of all in 2000. His stat line was .476 on-base percentage/.647 slugging percentage. He hit 43 home runs and drove in 137 runs on his way to the MVP award.

Miguel Tejada would win an MVP of his own two years later and the shortstop was awfully good in 2000. His OBP was .349, he hit 30 homers and finished with 115 RBI. Veteran second baseman Randy Velarde, a 37-year-old on a team of mostly young players, posted an OBP of .354.

Eric Chavez had a terrific year at third base, with a .355/.495 stat line and centerfielder Terrence Long had a line of .336/.452. Left fielder Ben Grieve popped 27 homers and drove in 104 runs.

The A’s offense, under the direction of Beane, was built on drawing walks and hitting home runs. Batting average was de-emphasized and Oakland only finished 10th in the American League in BA. But they were second in walks and second in homers and that was enough to be third in the AL in the bottom line of runs scored.

Tim Hudson won 20 games with a 4.14 ERA. In this offense-driven era, that ERA was just fine—in fact, Hudson finished second in the Cy Young voting. Gil Heredia and Kevin Appier were 15-game winners with ERAs in the 4s. Even though Barry Zito and Mark Mulder would eventually join Hudson in giving the A’s a dynamic rotation, they were still going through growing pains. But Jason Isringhausen led up a good bullpen with 33 saves and was supported by excellent work from Jeff Tam and reliable 43-year-old veteran Doug Jones. All that was enough for the Oakland staff to also rank third in the American League.

The A’s started slowly, losing 13 of their first 22 games. But they went to Minnesota and swept a bad Twins team, then won six of ten against AL West rivals. By Memorial Day, Oakland was 25-25. In an AL West where all four teams (all of the current members except the Houston Astros) were on top of each other, that was enough to be within a game and a half of the lead and only four back in the race for what was then a single wild-card berth.

The early part of the summer went well for the A’s. They took two of three on the road from the two-time defending World Series champion New York Yankees. Oakland played well during a stretch of interleague games, going 7-2 and winning a rivalry series from the San Francisco Giants—who ultimately won the NL West.

Oakland nudged out to a two-game lead in the AL West before losing seven of nine against the Rangers and Angels. By the All-Star break, the A’s were 48-38, three back of the Seattle Mariners in the division and leading the wild-card pack by a game and a half.

Late summer was up and down. Oakland lost two of three to San Francisco immediately out of the break. They lost two series to the White Sox, who were on their way to the American League’s best regular season record. The A’s lost a couple series to the Yankees. But in games against fellow wild-card contenders from Toronto, Boston and Cleveland, Oakland went 8-2. When the season hit the Labor Day stretch drive, the A’s were 71-64. They were 2 ½ back of Seattle in the West and two back of Cleveland for the wild-card.

Oakland picked up steam for the next two weeks. The Red Sox and Blue Jays started to drift off the wild-card pace. We had a game of musical chairs going on between the Mariners, A’s and Indians to see which team would be left without a seat when the music stopped. Coming into final week, Oakland was one game back of Seattle and one game ahead of Cleveland.

Oakland’s excellent offense met the moment against the Angels, scoring 29 runs in a four-game series and winning three times. When Friday’s final weekend series began, the A’s were plus-two on the Indians to get in the playoffs and a half-game back of the Mariners for the division.

On Friday night, Velarde stepped up with three hits. Giambi also homered and Oakland beat Texas 7-5. While Cleveland also won, good news came elsewhere—Seattle had lost and the A’s were in first place.

On Saturday afternoon, the Indians won their game so the A’s needed to answer in order to at least wrap up the wild-card. How did Oakland respond? With nine runs in the first inning, five in the fifth and eight more in the seventh. A 23-2 win seems like a pretty decisive way to lock up a playoff spot.

Seattle also won, so the division was still up for grabs. The A’s and Mariners had played an unequal number of games—Oakland was 90-70, while Seattle was 90-71. But prior to the 2012 playoff expansion, the difference between the division title and wild-card was accurately seen as less than substantial, so no makeup games or one-game playoff would apply. The only thing up in the air for the A’s was their seeding.

All of that makes the decision to pitch Hudson in the season finale a curious one. The ace was brilliant—eight shutout innings, a 3-0 win that sealed the AL West and his 20th win. But the reward for winning the division and the 2-seed was a Division Series date with New York. A September slump from the Yankees dropped them to the 3-seed, but this was still a team that was in the midst of a dynasty run.

Being the wild-card would have meant a trip to Chicago. The White Sox might have won 95 games, but had nowhere near the playoff experience of the Yankees. Going on the road to play the less-experienced team with your ace ready for Game 1 would have seemed like the better play.

The results in the Division Series played out like you might expect. Seattle went to Chicago and swept the White Sox out of the playoffs. The A’s played a tough five-game series against the Yanks, but came up short.

Debate over end-of-season management aside, this was an unequivocally outstanding season. The A’s were back and for the next four years they would be a fixture of the Division Series. Unfortunately they would lose all four in a decisive fifth game, but they were on the national radar. The run that made Billy Beane famous started in 2000.

2000 Chicago White Sox: A Division Title That Came From Nowhere

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The South Side of Chicago had seen mostly mediocre baseball since winning a division title in 1993 and then being a contender in 1994 at the time the players union went on a season-ending strike. The White Sox weren’t awful, but they were rarely relevant and the one time they were—in 1997 when a mediocre division kept them in contention—ownership cut the legs out from under them with a fire sale. So there was no reason to expect anything special from the 2000 Chicago White Sox. But the ’00 Sox surprised everyone with an AL Central title.

The most prolific offense in the American League was the reason and the great DH, Frank Thomas, was the heart and soul of the lineup. Thomas put up another dazzling season in his Hall of Fame career. His stat line was an out-of-this world .436 on-base percentage/.625 slugging percentage. He hit 43 home runs, drove in 143 runs and finished second in the AL MVP voting.

Magglio Ordonez, the up-and-coming rightfielder wasn’t far behind. Ordonez’s stat line was .371/.546. He homered 32 times and finished with 126 RBI.

And the White Sox didn’t stop there. Paul Konerko, a 24-year-old first baseman with a bright future put up a .363/.481 stat line and drove in 97 runs. Ray Durham sparked the lineup with a line of .361/.450 and the second baseman stole 25 bases. Carlos Lee in left field hit 24 homers and slugged .484.

An offseason trade with the Milwaukee Brewers was a huge success. The White Sox gave up two pitchers—the washed up Jamie Navarro and young John Snyder, who never panned out. In return, they got veteran starter Cal Eldred. And the offense got a further boost with shortstop Jose Valentin who slugged .491 and matched Lee’s 24 homers and 107 RBI.

And any surprise turnaround story needs a nice out-of-nowhere individual story as a part of it. The White Sox got that from third baseman Herbert Perry. In mid-April, having been waived by lowly Tampa Bay, Perry came to the South Side and put up a .356/.483 stat line.

The pitching numbers of this era don’t look great, with offenses driven by PED use. But in context, the White Sox staff was good. Mike Sirotka was the ace, winning 15 games with a 3.79 ERA. Jim Parque and James Baldwin combined to win 27 more games and each had ERAs in the 4s. So did Eldred, who made 20 starts and went 10-2.

That was manageable in the baseball world of 2000 and the Chicago bullpen was even better. Keith Foulke was the closer and saved 34 games. Bob Howry, Bill Simas and Kelly Wunsch were all steady relievers in front of him. Their ERAs ranged from the high 2s to the low 3s and was key to making the White Sox fourth-best in the American League for staff ERA.

Chicago got out fast and won 17 of 25 games in April. May was a little rougher. A road trip to Kansas City and Boston saw the White Sox lose five of six. They stabilized the balance of the month and heading into Memorial Day weekend were a half-game up on the Cleveland Indians.

The Indians were the pre-eminent power of the AL Central, having won five straight division titles and two American League pennants since 1995. And they came to the South Side for the holiday weekend.

On Friday night, Thomas got the party started with a two-run shot in the first. Eldred pitched well and into the seventh. Foulke cleaned up the last two innings of a 5-3 win without incident. When the two teams traded blowouts on Saturday and Sunday, Chicago had hit the season’s first turn with a 1 ½ game lead.

Seven wins in nine games during early June’s run of interleague games nudged the lead out to two games. June 12 would begin a critical two-week stretch. The White Sox would first go to Cleveland and then on to New York, where the Yankees were merely the two-time defending World Series champs. The Indians and Yanks would then make return trips to the South Side. This two-week schedule stretch against the American League’s most accomplished teams of the late 1990s had the potential to make or break the entire season…and a White Sox pessimist could be forgiven if they thought “break” was more likely.

On Monday night in Cleveland, Thomas and Durham each homered and drove in three runs. Chicago took an 8-3 lead into the seventh and then held off a late Indians rally to win 8-7. Parque pitched well on Tuesday and handed a 3-1 lead over to the bullpen in the eighth. The Tribe again rallied, this time tying the game. Durham bailed out the pen in the 10th with a solo blast that won it 4-3.

On Wednesday, the White Sox came out and scored five times in the top of the first. When the Indians answered with four in the bottom half, there was no problem—Chicago just added five more runs in the top of the second. And they got some relief pitching, as Kevin Beirne worked 3.2 IP of shutout ball and the Sox cruised home to an 11-4 win and a series sweep.

There was no time to celebrate with the first of four games in the Bronx on deck for Thursday night. Konerko and Ordonez each had three hits and a home run to key a 12-3 rout. Baldwin was brilliant on Friday night, getting his 10th win in a 3-1 decision.

On Saturday, Ordonez’ early three-run blast jumpstarted a late afternoon where he drove in four runs and Chicago took an 8-0 lead by the third. New York came roaring back, but Durham also had three hits and the White Sox won 10-9. And this offense wasn’t done. On Sunday, Valentin’s first-inning grand slam keyed a 12-0 lead by the second inning. There was no comeback this time and Chicago won 17-4.

It was an astonishing 7-0 road run through two excellent teams. And Chicago made it stand up the following week, splitting four with Cleveland and then taking a weekend series with New York. The latter included a Friday night rally off Mariano Rivera. Trailing 3-2 in the ninth against the greatest closer in history, Lee homered to tie the game. Perry singled, was bunted up and then scored the winning run on a two-out hit from Valentin.

By the time it was all over, Chicago was eight games ahead of Cleveland and had the American League’s best record. And this race would never get tight. Even though the Indians stayed in the wild-card race until the final day of the season, the AL Central was never close. Chicago coasted home and clinched both the division and their playoff spot with eight days to go. Their final 95-67 record was the AL’s best.

With the Yankees coming into the playoffs on a slump and the Indians narrowly missing, the American League pennant was seen as up for grabs. Chicago, as the top seed, certainly had more reason than anyone else to be excited. But the Division Series against Seattle just didn’t go well.

Was it that Chicago hadn’t played hair-on-fire baseball for a few months and couldn’t snap into playoff mode? Was it that a magic run had just taken its course? Or was it just the vagaries of baseball in a short series? Probably the latter—a Game 1 loss was in 10 innings and a Game 3 defeat was in the bottom of the ninth. The White Sox were swept out in three straight.

The 2000 Chicago White Sox were a rare historical anomaly. They weren’t at the beginning, middle or end of any kind of run. It was just a magical season that sort of jumped out of nowhere and they went back to mediocrity until a run to the World Series title in 2005.

But here’s the thing about magical seasons—they might not last, but they’re fun and they produce some great storylines. The excellence of Thomas and Ordonez, the surprise year of Perry and, most especially, those incredible two weeks in June, deserve to be a part of the lore of this franchise.

1988 Milwaukee Brewers: A September Surge Comes Up Short

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Tom Trebelhorn ushered in a new era of baseball in Milwaukee when he led the Brewers to a 91-win breakout season in 1987. Hopes were high in ’88. The final verdict depends on your perspective—the 1988 Milwaukee Brewers slipped a bit and weren’t quite as good. But the AL East they then resided in wasn’t quite as good either, so the Brewers stayed in contention to the final weekend of the season.

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Milwaukee was an American League franchise prior to 1998. And prior to 1994, each league was split into just an East and West divisions with only the first-place team advancing. The Brewers had finished behind Detroit and Toronto in ’87. And, just like today, Boston and New York could be counted on to contend. The seven-team division was rounded out by typically lowly Cleveland and included Baltimore, who would have an awful time of it this season.

In their ’87 campaign, the Brewers had finished second in the American League in runs scored and ninth in staff ERA. They reversed those rankings for ’88. Teddy Higuera continued to be the staff ace and he won 16 games with a 2.45 ERA. The young arms behind Higuera in the rotation all made significant strides forward. Chris Bosio and Don August finished with ERAs in the low 3s. Bill Wegman’s ERA was at 4.12.

All four starters stayed reasonably healthy and gave the rotation a steadiness that had been missing in 1987. The fifth starting job rotated between Mike Birkbeck, Tom Filer and Juan Nieves, all varying degrees of average.

Nieves also did some work out of the bullpen, an indication that this highly touted young starter wasn’t going to reach his full potential. Chuck Crim was an effective reliever with a 2.91 ERA and Odell Jones was respectable. The pen ultimately came to closer Dan Plesac, whose nasty slider led him to 30 saves and a 2.41 ERA.

But the offense let the arms down this year. It was no fault of this franchise’s two great Hall of Fame players. Robin Yount posted a stat line of .369 on-base percentage/.465 slugging percentage in centerfield. Paul Molitor played third and his stat line was .384/.452. Molitor also stole 41 bases and scored 115 runs.

The problem was that there was no one besides Yount and Molitor having a good year. Highly regarded young players in catcher B.J. Surhoff and outfielder Glenn Braggs did not hit. Neither did an old-school veteran at second base, Jim Gantner. Nor did first baseman Greg Brock. Power-hitting rightfielder Rob Deer saw his numbers slip, as did young shortstop Dale Sveum. Up and down the lineup there was disappointment.

A 2-6 start on the East Coast to open the year didn’t exactly match the thrills of 1987’s 13-game winning streak out of the chute. But the Brewers started to play better. They went 5-2 when those Eastern teams made return trips to Milwaukee’s old County Stadium. At the Memorial Day turn, the Brewers were 25-23. The Yankees were setting the pace in the AL East, with the surprising Indians and defending division champion Tigers close behind. Milwaukee was in fourth, 7 ½ games out and narrowly ahead of Boston.

The early portion of the summer was more of the same pedestrian baseball and the Brewers hit the All-Star break at 44-43. They were tied for fourth with Boston, nine games back and Detroit was now in the lead.

A schedule stretch against the AL East from July 25 to August 18 saw the Brewers go 10-15. They fell as many as 10 ½ games back. For all intents and purposes they were done. Even when they nudged back to within eight games, a four-game series in Detroit over Labor Day weekend was absolute must-win—and probably must-sweep.

The Brewers stunned everyone by doing exactly that. They won Thursday’s opener 6-2 on the strength of five runs in the fifth. Wegman tossed a complete-game four-hitter to win Friday’s game 5-zip. Jeffrey Leonard, acquired in June to boost the ailing offense, hit a two-run blast in the first inning on Saturday night to jumpstart a 7-3 win. In the Sunday finale, Surhoff broke up a scoreless tie in the sixth with a three-run blast and the Brewers won 6-1.

In the blink of an eye, they were73-67 and just four games back in a race where the Tigers were now tied at the top with the Red Sox. The Indians had long ago faded, while the Yankees and Blue Jays were still in the mix.

Nobody was really taking control of this race, at least by the standards of what it typically took to win a division. So the opportunity was there. Milwaukee kept playing reasonably well and nudged their record to 84-73. The problem was that Boston was keeping pace. Even as Detroit came back to the pack, Milwaukee was still five out with a week to go.

They also had a light schedule with only two games from Monday to Thursday. It turned out that on the sidelines was a pretty safe place to be. The Brewers swept their two games while the Red Sox messed around and lost three of four. Going into the final weekend, Milwaukee was three games out with three to play.

The problem was that the Brewers were finishing the season in Oakland where the A’s were on their way to the best record in baseball. Milwaukee got a break on Friday evening when Boston, with Roger Clemens on the mound, lost. But facing Oakland ace Dave Stewart, so did the Brewers. They only managed four hits, fell 7-1 and the race was over. The fact the Red Sox lost on Saturday and Sunday as well would not matter.

Milwaukee’s final record was 87-75 and they were one of five teams to finish with 3 ½ games of first place. It was a good year. The unfortunate thing is that in what was a respectable five-year run under Trebelhorn, it was the closest they would get to first place.

The Streaky Season Of The 1987 Milwaukee Brewers

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After a strong six-year run of contention ended in 1983, the city of Milwaukee saw losing baseball for the next three years. The 1987 Milwaukee Brewers returned to contention under first-year manager Tim Trebelhorn and gave the fan base a roller-coaster ride of excitement, fraught with several notable streaks on both a team-wide and individual basis.

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The second-most prolific offense in the American League was the key to Brewer success in 1987. Robin Yount had made the shift from being an MVP shortstop in 1982 to playing centerfield due to shoulder problems. The future Hall of Famer and greatest player in franchise history put up another good year, with a stat line of .384 on-base percentage/.479 slugging percentage. Milwaukee’s other future Hall of Famer, Paul Molitor, posted a dazzling .453/.566 stat line, stole 45 bases and finished fifth in the MVP voting.

Yount and Molitor were joined by some up-and-comers who had not been around during the previous era of success. B.J. Surhoff, the 22-year-old catcher and highly touted prospect, finished with an OBP of .350. Shortstop Dale Sveum hit 25 home runs and drove in 95 runs. Rob Deer hit 28 homers and finished with 80 RBI. Greg Brock played first base and had a stat line of .371/.438.

So even though other holdovers from the earlier era—like Cecil Cooper and Jim Gantner—were fading and other up-and-comers, like Glenn Braggs weren’t quite there yet, the Brewers had no problem scoring runs.

Pitching was more problematic. Teddy Higuera was the staff ace, went to the post 35 times, won 18 games and finished with a 3.85 ERA. It was a good year, but not the same as 1986 when he finished second in the Cy Young voting. Bill Wegman and Juan Nieves were promising young arms. They combined to win 26 games and finished with ERAs in the 4s. But they weren’t ready to be #2 and #3 starters in a competitive division and the rotation was a mess at the back end.

The bullpen suffered from a similar lack of depth. There was no problem at closer, where Dan Plesac saved 23 games and posted a 2.61 ERA. Chuck Crim was adequate, saving 12 games of his own and finishing with an ERA of 3.76. But with young Chris Bosio getting hit to the tune of a 5.24 ERA in a year he toggled between the rotation and bullpen, there was no one else. And the Milwaukee staff’s collective ERA was ninth in the American League.

It wasn’t until 1998 that this franchise made the move to the National League. The other unique aspect of this era was that each league was split into just two divisions, an East and a West. Only the first-place team qualified for the postseason. The AL East, where the Brewers resided, had been the stronger of the two divisions during the late 1970s and much of the 1980s. And this year would be no different.

Milwaukee wasted no time in coming out of the gate. The swept the Boston Red Sox, fresh off their 1986 pennant run but headed for a hangover year in 1987. The Brewers went to Baltimore and Nieves threw a no-hitter on a rainy night. Milwaukee couldn’t lose and the fan base—I was a high school junior in southeastern Wisconsin at the time—was on fire.

The most legendary game in what would end up a 13-0 start to the season came on Easter Sunday. The Brewers trailed 4-1 in the ninth inning at home against the Texas Rangers. With one out, Deer hit a three-run blast to tie the game. With two outs and a man aboard, Sveum won it with another home run.

Milwaukee’s record soared as high as 20-4 and their lead in the AL East got out to 4 ½ games. Then another streak came…they gave it all back with twelve losses in a row.

It was a bizarre turn of events and the Brewers continued to muddle through June. They went 10-15 in a stretch of games against the key AL East teams along with eventual AL West and World Series champ Minnesota. By the time the All-Star break arrived, Milwaukee was 42-43 and in fourth place. They were 11 games off the pace in a division race led by the New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays and Detroit Tigers.

The first game out of the break was against California. The Brewers won 6-4 thanks to a four-run second inning. Most notable though, was that Molitor doubled in that rally. It was time for another streak.

Molitor got at least one hit in 39 straight games. It was the longest hitting streak baseball had seen since Pete Rose got to 44 games in 1978, and fans were talking about Joe DiMaggio’s record 56-game streak back in 1941. It’s no exaggeration or overly romanticizing the past to say that each evening, anyone remotely interested in baseball in the state of Wisconsin wondered whether Molitor had gotten his hit.

The streak didn’t stop until August 26 when a hitless Molitor was on deck when the winning run scored—and he didn’t hesitate to celebrate the team win, even as the individual achievement came to an end. And, not coincidentally, the streak paralleled some improved play on the field. The Brewers might still be in fourth place on Labor Day, but the record was 74-62.

If they had had been in the AL West, where Minnesota would win the division with 87 wins, Milwaukee would have still had a shot. As it was, Detroit and Toronto would have the two best records in baseball and fight an epic race to the wire. But the Brewers kept playing well. They went 5-2 in a homestand with the Tigers and Blue Jays. Milwaukee won two series with New York and moved past the Yankees into third. And in the final week, the Brewers went to Toronto and won three straight, a pivotal point in the pennant race.

The final 91-71 record marked the start of a respectable five-year run for Trebelhorn. He never won the AL East, but he posted three winning seasons and another right at .500. He is still remembered well in Milwaukee and so is that streaky season that was 1987.

1983 Kansas City Royals: A Mediocre Outlier Season

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The ten-year period from 1976-85 was a great one for the baseball fans in Kansas City. The Royals won the old AL West six times, the American League pennant twice and the World Series in 1985. The 1983 Kansas City Royals were the outlier in this otherwise outstanding era, finishing under .500 and unable to make a serious run at the division crown.

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Kansas City’s offense fell hard. The Hall of Fame third baseman George Brett, posted his numbers—stat line of .385 on-base percentage/.563 slugging percentage, but missed time with injuries. The same was true with first baseman Willie Mays Aikens, who hit 23 home runs. The only player who had a strong season and was regularly in the lineup was veteran DH Hal McRae, whose stat line clocked in at .372/.462.

Otherwise, the lineup was marked with disappointments. Willie Wilson, the speedy centerfielder who won a batting title in 1982, saw his production fall off. Wilson still stole 59 bases, but he wasn’t on base enough for it to be impactful. Frank White and U.L. Washington had bad years at the middle infield spots. So did Pat Sheridan in the outfield.

The biggest falloff though was the effective end of the career of veteran centerfielder Amos Otis. A terrific all-around player who had been vital to this franchise’s best teams, Otis’ numbers drastically tailed off. He left KC after this season and only played one more year in the majors before hanging it up.

All told, the offense ranked 12th in a 14-team American League for runs scored. And the pitching wasn’t a whole lot better.

Larry Gura was the only starter to make at least thirty starts and the veteran lefty finished with an ERA of 4.90. Bud Black and Paul Splitorff were each respectable in a left-handed heavy rotation. But they only combined to make 51 starts and the back end of the rotation had absolutely no one who was consistent.

You simply couldn’t win with a rotation this ransacked with inconsistency. So Dan Quisenberry’s 45 saves and 1.94 ERA were terrific for him individually, but they weren’t going to impact a staff ERA on its way to ninth in the AL.

The season didn’t start badly. Kansas City won 9 of 15 against competitive teams from the AL East. They continued to play mostly outside their division through May and the second month of the season was a little shakier. On Memorial Day the Royals were playing .500 ball at 20-20.

In the alignment of the pre-1994 era, each league had just an East and West and only the first-place team went to the postseason. The good news for KC in 1983 was that no one else was really coming out strong. They were in second place as the calendar flipped to early summer and within 4 ½ games of a packed divisional race that had the A’s, Rangers, White Sox, Twins and Mariners all in striking distance.

Kansas City’s schedule shifted to playing these teams through June and early July and the results didn’t change much. By the All-Star break, the Royals were 37-36 and still within 4 ½ games. Although now they were in fourth place, with Texas, California and Chicago ahead of them.

A general ho-hum pattern of baseball was interrupted by some excitement in New York. On July 24, the Royals trailed the Yanks 4-3 with two outs in the top of the ninth. Brett came to the plate with a man aboard. He homered. 

Billy Martin, in New York for one of his many managerial stints here, was sitting on a hole card. Martin had noticed that the pine tar on Brett’s bat went slightly past the legal limit. The Yankee manager chose now to point it out to the umpires. They ruled Brett out. The subsequent imagery of a furious and red-faced Brett storming out of the dugout and needing to be restrained remains a hilariously iconic image of the incident. 

And the drama wasn’t done. The Royals filed a protest. American League president Lee MacPhail ruled that while Brett indeed violated the rules, the punishment did not fit the crime. He restored the home run and ordered the teams to complete play on Thursday, August 18, a mutual off-day. Kansas City ended up winning 5-4. 

August 18 marked a key benchmark date in the pennant race for other reasons. What both divisions had in common was that one team was starting to pick up steam. The Orioles were humming in the East. And closer to home, the White Sox had a six-game lead over the Royals. The Royals would begin a stretch of games against both division leaders the very next night. Kansas City had to make a move now or this season would get away

The Royals went to Baltimore for a weekend series. They led 4-0 in the first game of a Friday doubleheader, but Quisenberry blew the lead and lost 5-4. In the nightcap, and again on Saturday afternoon, the offense mailed it in. Ten hits and two runs in both games combined led to two more losses. Finally, McRae gave the team a boost on Sunday with three hits, a home run and four RBI to lead an 8-3 win.

But the urgency of the coming home series with Chicago was heightened even further. And the bats retreated into silence again, wasting a good Monday outing from Splitorff in a 3-1 loss. White stepped up on Tuesday with two hits and 3 RBI to lead the way to a 10-2 win. But in the Wednesday night finale, Quisenberry came on in a 3-3 game and gave up the lead run.

By the time this stretch was over, Kansas City was under .500 and nine games back. They played both teams in two-game sets right after this and lost all four games. In a division where everyone except the White Sox was fading, KC still finished the season in second place. But the final record was 79-83 and they were twenty games behind the leader.

It was a rough season, but it was an aberration. The Royals started getting some new pieces and in 1984 they won the AL West again, setting the tone for the franchise’s ultimate triumph in 1985.

1982 Kansas City Royals: A Contending Season Comes Up Just Short

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The mid-1970s through the mid-1980s were a great time to be a baseball fan in Kansas City. The Royals were a perennial contender. They won division titles in 1976, 1977 and 1978. They ran second in 1979 and won the American League pennant in 1980. Even though 1981 saw them slip, the strange dynamics of that strike season still got them in the playoffs. The 1982 Kansas City Royals mostly fit the mold—they were a good team and they contended to the final weekend, although this edition came up just short.

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An offense that ranked fourth in the American League in runs scored was the engine behind the success. Hal McRae, the veteran DH, hit 27 homers, drove in 133 runs and finished fourth in the AL MVP voting. Willie Wilson, the speedy centerfielder, stole 37 bags and won the batting title with a .332 average.

Frank White slugged .469 by using the alleys of Royals Stadium, to the tune of 45 doubles. The great George Brett was at third base, with an on-base percentage of .378 and a slugging percentage of .505. And on this fast team, even the catcher could run—John Wathan stole 36 bases.

It was pitching that caused the ’82 Royals to come up a bit short. Kansas City sought to address this area in the offseason when they traded four players to San Francisco in exchange for veteran lefty Vida Blue. The deal worked out—Blue won 13 games with a 3.78 ERA and none of the players dealt made a major impact. But Blue was the best they had and those numbers for an ace weren’t going to cut it.

Larry Gura won 18 games, but his ERA was a touch over 4. The same went for 10-game winner Paul Splitorff. Dennis Leonard was only able to make 21 starts and he ended with a 5.10 ERA. Gura, Splitorff and Leonard had all been instrumental on this franchise’s best teams. Now they were sliding to mediocrity and no one else was stepping up.

Dan Quisenberry continued to be a reliable closer, one of the game’s best and the submarine-style pitcher saved 35 games and logged 136 innings. Mike Armstrong also put on a lot of mileage for a reliever, with 112 innings with a 3.12 ERA. Veterans Don Hood and Bill Castro were respectable. But the bullpen shortcomings couldn’t cover for the rotation and the KC staff ERA ranked 10th in the American League.

The first couple months of the season were up and down. The Royals swept the Milwaukee Brewers, the eventual American League pennant winner (the Brewers were in the AL prior to 1998) and scored 29 runs in the three games. Kansas City was also swept by a subpar Toronto Blue Jays team, scoring five runs in three games. These two contrasts captured the spring pretty well. Kansas City was 24-21 on Memorial Day. They were 5 ½ games out of first place.

The pre-1994 alignment of divisions was that both leagues had just an East and West and only the first-place team went to the playoffs. Kansas City was in the AL West. The California Angels were out in first place and the Chicago White Sox were in second. KC pulled in third as we headed into early summer.

A three-game series at home with the White Sox offered a chance to get some momentum. The Royals took advantage. They won the opener 11-4 behind three hits apiece from Wilson and Wathan in the top two spots of the batting order. Kansas City won the second game 4-3 behind a nice outing from Blue and three shutout innings from Quisenberry to close it.

In a wild finale, they led 5-4 in the ninth before Quisenberry gave up the tying run, and then the lead run in the 10th. Down to their last out in the bottom of the tenth, first baseman Willie Mays Aikens worked a walk and then scored on a triple from White. Kansas City broke the 6-6 tie in the 11th on consecutive singles from Wathan, Brett and veteran centerfielder Amos Otis. The sweep was complete and it kickstarted an eight-game winning streak in June.

But the ups and downs continued. Kansas City went west and lost three of four to the Angels. In early July they bounced back by sweeping California when the Halos made the return trip, behind brilliant starts from Blue, Gura and Bud Black. Kansas City took the lead in the AL West by as many as three games. But then they slid again and lost three straight to Milwaukee to go into the All-Star break.

We had a jam-packed race in the AL West. The Angels, Royals and White Sox were all tied in the loss column. The surprising Seattle Mariners were only four games back.

Kansas City often heated up in the late summer during this era of success and 1982 was no different. They went 12-4 during a stretch of games that started in late July. A schedule that was jam-packed in August saw the Royals play 32 games and win 21.

Within that stretch KC went 6-1 against Chicago, pushing the White Sox into third and 5 ½ games out on Labor Day. Seattle faded. The Royals led the Angels by two games as we headed into the stretch.

The first two weeks of September were so-so and California pulled even. The penultimate week of the season opened with the Royals in Anaheim for a three-game set.

Gura got the ball for Monday’s opener and he pitched well. But the bats went silent, going 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and KC lost 3-2. The offense continued to stay quiet on Tuesday and even though Leonard was terrific, the game was still tied 1-1 in the ninth. Quisenberry came on and gave up the winning run. The trend finally broke on Wednesday’s finale and the KC bats put up five runs. But Blue was chased in the second inning and they still lost 8-5.

The devastating sweep left Kansas City 3 ½ games back with a week to play. They nudged the lead down to 2 ½ by the time the lowly Oakland A’s came to town for a four-game set to end the regular season.

There was no margin for error. Aikens homered twice on Thursday, drove in seven runs and led the way to an 11-4 win. With the Angels idle, the Royals were within two games.

More offensive fireworks came on Friday night. McRae homered and drove in five runs. Aikens homered again. KC won 12-7, but California held serve. Still two games out and only two games to play.

In an early Saturday afternoon start, the Royals were down 4-3 in the eighth. Then Aikens singled. White dropped a bunt and reached on an error. Another bunt moved the runners to second and third. A Wathan single tied the game, a sac fly brought in the lead run and Kansas City won 5-4. They had hope when the Angels took the field out west later that afternoon. But by nightfall, California had clinched.

It was a good season by any reasonable measure—the 90-72 record was fourth-best in the American League and would be a playoff season by the standards of today. But the Royals of this era were used to playing in October. And the shortcomings did indicate that changes needed to be made. Kansas City took a sharper step back in 1983 before turning back upward, with a division title again in 1984 and then finally winning the World Series in 1985.

1982 Philadelphia Phillies: A Pennant Drive Comes Up Short

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The 1982 Philadelphia Phillies were coming off a stretch where they won four NL East titles in six years and the World Series in 1980. Even 1981, a non-division title year, still saw them make the playoffs under baseball’s strange split-season format in a strike year. Thus, even though the ’82 Phils were a contender and would have made the playoffs by the standards of today, their season was a mild disappointment.

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There was a new manager in town. Dallas Green, architect of the ’80 champs, was gone and Pat Corrales was in charge. Other notable changes took place in the lineup. Bob Boone, the veteran catcher, was sold to the California Angels. The Phils then worked a three-team deal with Cleveland and St. Louis that netted them a solid catcher in Bo Diaz, but came at the cost of Lonnie Smith.

Larry Bowa was another mainstay of the championship team and dealt to the Cubs for Ivan de Jesus in a swap of shortstops. Bake McBride, a good rightfielder was shipped to the Indians in a deal for relief pitcher Sid Monge. Neither of those trades worked out and holding back on either one might have made the difference in 1982.

Diaz had a nice year at the plate and slugged .450. Pete Rose, now 41-years-old, had a .345 on-base percentage. Gary Matthews’ OBP was .345. And the batting order always came around to Mike Schmidt. The Hall of Fame third baseman had another vintage year with a stat line of .403 on-base percentage/.547 slugging percentage and 35 home runs. But the offense, the hallmark of the Phils’ success in this era, only ranked ninth in the National League in runs scored.

Pitching was often up and down for the Phils during this period of success, but one man you could always count on was Steve Carlton. The 37-year-old lefthander was on his way to the Hall of Fame and he won the fourth Cy Young Award of his career in 1982. Carlton made 38 starts, went 23-11 and posted a 3.10 ERA.

The rest of the rotation was respectable. Larry Christensen and Dick Ruthven each made 30-plus starts and finished with ERAs in the 3s. So did Mike Krukow, who the Phils had picked up in the offseason from the Cubs. Ron Reed saved 14 games with a 2.66 ERA. The problem was depth. Philadelphia pitching was respectable, but ranking sixth in the 12-team National League for staff ERA wasn’t going to make up for the unexpected offensive shortcomings.

The Phillies started slow and didn’t win a series until early May. They were heavy on losses to key NL East rivals in the Montreal Expos (today’s Washington Nationals) and the St. Louis Cardinals (an NL East team prior to the realignment of 1994). Philadelphia faced a quick 8 ½ game hole and the rules of the time did not allow for a wild-card team. You had to win the division to go directly to the League Championship Series.

A change in the schedule to face teams from the NL West brought a quick change. The Phils went 14-2 in a stretch that included games with contenders from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Philadelphia chipped the margin down to 4 ½ games by Memorial Day. The Cardinals were out in front, the Phils were in fourth and the Mets and Expos were in between.

The Mets were not a good team and the Phils facilitated their downfall by sweeping a five-game series. Philadelphia won four of seven games in a pair of series with St. Louis. The Phils grabbed two of three from the Dodgers.

By the All-Star break, Philadelphia was 47-38 and had pulled into a first-place tie with St. Louis. Pittsburgh, a contender who had won the World Series as recently as 1979 had gotten back into the race and was 2 ½ back. Montreal was four games out.

The Phils kept playing well out of the break, going 8-4 on a road trip that included San Francisco, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. Philadelphia took three of four from Montreal and nudged out to a two-game lead in the NL East.

A trip to Wrigley Field to play the lowly Cubs resulted in a three-game sweep and three losses in a five-game series with the Expos brought the Phils back to earth. But on September 12 they were only a half-game behind St. Louis. Montreal was in close pursuit at 2 ½ back, with Pittsburgh 3 ½ off the pace. It was time for a decisive stretch of games with the Cardinals.

Carlton took the ball for a Monday night home game and spun a 2-0 shutout for his 20th win. Philadelphia was in first place. But little did anyone know that it was downhill from here.

Krukow pitched well the next night, but lost 2-0. Another shutout loss followed, this  one 8-0. In those two games the Phils mustered just eight hits and all were singles. The Pirates came into town over the weekend and took two of three, including a loss where Carlton pitched. Philadelphia was reeling when they made a return visit to St. Louis the following Monday.

The offense picked up where they left off—aimlessly hitting scattered singles—and lost 4-1. The Philly stars stepped up the next night—Schmidt homered and Carlton pitched a complete game to win 5-2. But the two-game split was too little too late. The Phils were 4 ½ out. The Pirates and Expos had also fallen by the wayside. The Cardinals cruised home to the playoffs and eventually won the World Series.

Philadelphia rebounded and played well enough to down the stretch to finish 89-73 and take second place. It was a good season. But it wasn’t what this organization had become accustomed to. More personnel changes followed, Corrales was replaced midway through 1983 and by the end of that season, the Phils were back in the World Series.  

1981 St. Louis Cardinals: The Whitey-Era Revival Begins

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The St. Louis Cardinals are one of baseball’s most consistently successful franchises, but the period immediately following baseball’s realignment in 1969 weren’t standout years. With both leagues split into a just an East & West division and the winners moving straight to the League Championship Series, the Cardinals went twelve years without winning the NL East. Only once did they win as many as 90 games and there were six losing seasons. The 1981 St. Louis Cardinals started a new era when they hired Whitey Herzog and a decade of success began.

READ GREAT 1980 SPORTS MOMENTS

Herzog had spent a year out of baseball after turning the Kansas City Royals into a winner and he wasted no time in turning the roster upside down. It started by bringing in free agent Darrell Porter, his catcher in KC. Herzog then shipped six players to San Diego, the most notable of which was catcher Terry Kennedy and got a haul back that included Hall of Fame closer Rollie Fingers.

So you would think Whitey was set in his bullpen, right? One day later he pulled the trigger on a deal with the Chicago Cubs for another Hall of Fame closer in Bruce Sutter. This one cost the Cardinals corner infielders Leon Durham and Ken Reitz.

Great closers were a lot harder to come by in the early 1980s, when the position was still coming into vogue and you didn’t have every team with a ninth-inning guy that saved 30 games a year. Herzog now had an abundance of riches and he reached out to a team in desperate need of bullpen help.

St. Louis moved Fingers, along with Hall of Fame catcher Ted Simmons and future Cy Young Award winner Pete Vuckovich to Milwaukee. The Brewers sent back two of the most prized prospects in all of baseball, outfielder David Green and pitcher Dave LaPoint, along with a reliable starter in Lary Sorensen and a proven rightfielder in Sixto Lezcano.

It was a dazzling array of moves and to be fully candid, the trades don’t look incredibly great on paper from the vantage point of history. But Herzog had shaken up his roster and positioned himself for an even bigger trade that would come after this season was over.

For now, the offense was built around rightfielder George Hendrick and first baseman Keith Hernandez. Hendrick posted a stat line of .356 on-base percentage/.485 slugging percentage. Hernandez’s stat line was .401/.463. He also hit 27 doubles in a strike-shortened season that saw the Cardinals play just 112 games.

Ken Oberkfell was a solid third baseman with a .353 OPB and Porter’s OBP ended up at .364. Lezcano’s power fell off sharply playing in the more expansive Busch Stadium, but he still ended up with a .376 OBP. Gene Tenace, a part of the package that came from San Diego was on base consistently with an OBP of .416.

Even with a bad year from shortstop Garry Templeton, St. Louis put enough runners on the base paths. The Cardinals finished second in the National League in on-base percentage and second in the bottom line of scoring runs.

The pitching was a little dicier. There were no obvious weak points. Sorensen, Bob Forsch, John Martin and Silvio Martinez all finished with ERAs in the 3s. But none got below 3. So the Cardinals lacked an ace and they also lacked depth, with Sutter being the only consistent arm out of the bullpen. St. Louis’ staff ERA ranked 8th in the 12-team National League.

The Cards came blazing out of the gate. An early eight-game winning streak keyed a 12-3 start and included a 5-0 mark against the Cincinnati Reds, who were on their way to the best record in baseball. St. Louis was rolling along to a narrow early lead in an NL East that included the Cubs and Pirates, along with the New York Mets, the defending World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies and the contending Montreal Expos (today’s Washington Nationals).

Between May 22 and May 27, the Cardinals lost five of six in a series against the lowly Mets and the Expos. On the final weekend in May, St. Louis played a three-game set in Philadelphia.

Hendrick got the party started on Friday night with a three-run jack, the Cards took a 7-0 lead and cruised home 11-4. But Sorensen was hit hard in a 10-2 loss on Saturday and the offense could only get five singles in a 6-1 loss to the great Steve Carlton on Sunday.

In a normal year this would be a disappointing stretch, but a blip on the radar. In the strange baseball world of 1981 it would be decisive. Even though St. Louis won their next three series, they were a game and a half back of the Phils when the strike hit on June 12.

Two months were ripped out of the season. When play resumed in August, MLB decided to adopt a split-season format to rejuvenate fan interest. The teams in first place as of June 12 were declared “first-half champions.” Everyone would reset and the “second-half champion” would meet the first-half winner in the first installment of the Division Series come October.

So Philadelphia was in and St. Louis was starting from scratch. If nothing else, there was less competition. There was no reward for a team winning both halves—if that happened, the second-place team in the second half would qualify. So the Phils had nothing to play for and played like it. The Cardinals and Expos were the only teams in the NL East that played winning baseball in the second half.

For much of the second half, St. Louis looked on their way to a date with Philadelphia in the Division Series. But losing to bad teams would be a problem. The Cardinals lost three straight at home to the Cubs and saw a 2 ½ game edge over Montreal be wiped out. St. Louis responded by going north of the border to Quebec and winning three times in a five-game set. They nudged their lead over the Expos back out to 3 ½ games by September 18.

Then the Cardinals lost three in a row in New York. They lost three straight in Philly. The lead was gone. St. Louis was able to open the final week by sweeping a two-game set from Montreal. If only the Cards could have played as well against the bottom-feeders as they did against their principal rival.

The two-game sweep gave them a 26-21 record, with Montreal at 26-22 and five games to play. But in this strange year, that extra game the Expos had played would prove decisive. St. Louis split their next four games. Montreal won their next four. By the last day of the season, the Expos were a game and a half up and the race was over.

Even though Montreal lost and St. Louis won on the final day to close the final margin to a half-game there was no extra game scheduled in to make sure each team played the same number of games.

The injustice the Cardinals suffered is even worse when you consider that their 59-43 composite record over both halves was the best in the NL East. The strange circumstances of 1981 had denied them the playoffs. And if you want to make matters even worse then that they aren’t even first on the list of teams that got robbed in 1981—the Reds, of the aforementioned best record in baseball, suffered the same fate in the NL West, including losing one half by a half-game. The Cardinals don’t even get the dignity that comes with historical martyrdom.

Unlike Cincinnati, who collapsed after this season, St. Louis fans can look back and hopefully laugh about the circumstances a little. Because the good times under Herzog were just getting started. In the coming offseason they leveraged Lezcano in another deal with San Diego, whose centerpiece was swapping Templeton for Ozzie Smith. On this trade, St. Louis crushed it, getting a Hall of Fame shortstop who anchored their defense. And in 1982, they won the World Series.

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