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AJ McKenzie
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Great list, switch 1 and 2
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Transcript
00:14Welcome to Who's Number One, I'm Trey Wingo.
00:16The baseball season, yeah it may be a marathon, but it's the sprint at the end that stirs
00:21our passion, the drive to the finish, the pursuit of the pennant, to knowing that each
00:25game becomes more important than the one before, scoreboard watching is all the rage, spitting,
00:31scratching, and chewing reach new heights of frenzy, not true, some of the suspense has
00:36been siphoned off by the realignment and the addition of wild cards, and that's reflected
00:40in the list voted on by ESPN Classic, you'll see that it's tinged with nostalgia, but then
00:45that too seems fitting for part of baseball's allure has always been its rich history.
00:50Here then, the 20 best pennant races ever.
00:58The 1914 National League pennant race was just epic, the Braves had no business being in the
01:04pennant race.
01:05It's remembered because they were in last place in July.
01:08The 1914 Braves were dead last on July 16th, floundering 11 and a half games behind the first
01:14place Giants.
01:15Then, led by left-handed slugger Joe Connolly, Boston finished the season on a 61-16 rampage
01:21to leapfrog over the entire National League and win the pennant by ten and a half games.
01:2520-20.
01:26The manager of the Braves that year was George Stalins.
01:30His slogan was, you can win, you must win, you will win.
01:35They went from worst to first, then went out and won everything, won the World Series.
01:39Those things are good for baseball, and things like that keep people interested in the game.
01:45It looked almost impossible for them to come back and win it, and they did.
01:50That is why they named them the 1914 Miracle Braves.
02:00In 1908, the American League pennant race was a three-team affair between Detroit, Chicago,
02:05and Cleveland.
02:06When the Tigers' wild Bill Donovan shut out the White Sox on the final day, Detroit won
02:10the flag by half a game over the Indians, as it benefited from not being required to make
02:14up a rainout.
02:16Yeah, my face cam died.
02:18Again.
02:19With a .324 average and 108 runs batted in.
02:23The Tigers were in the midst of winning the pennant three straight years, like 07, 08, 09,
02:26and then Ty Cobb was in his ascendancy then.
02:29He could actually point out where he was going to hit the ball.
02:32He could decide when the pitch was coming whether he wanted to go left field with it,
02:37whether he wanted to drag bun with it, whether he was going to hit it in the gap.
02:42You win no matter how.
02:44We know about Rose bumping into that catcher and knocking him out.
02:47Oh, yeah, he was like a 22-year-old second-season player.
02:51Ty Cobb would kill these guys to win a game.
02:54Day to day, those three teams were close together all season long.
02:57It was one of the great baseball seasons ever.
03:0118.
03:04The 1904 American League pennant race.
03:07The Boston Pilgrims and the New York Highlanders.
03:12That season gets lost in history.
03:14Why are these runs getting so old?
03:22By the second half of the list, we'll be in 1880 or something.
03:28Because there was no World Series.
03:30What makes the 1904 pennant race memorable is that wild pitch on the last day of the season.
03:35For the last two months of the 1904 season, Boston with Cy Young and New York with Jack Chesbrough were
03:41locked in a fierce race.
03:44The New York Highlanders nearly won a pennant in their second year.
03:48They won 92 games.
03:50They were challenging the Pilgrims for the pennant.
03:52They have a 41-game winner, which is not bad, a fellow named Jack Chesbrough.
03:55But Chesbrough is their fortune and their misfortune.
03:59On the last day of the season, the teams had a doubleheader against each other.
04:04New York would have had to sweep in order to take the pennant.
04:09In the first game, Chesbrough threw a pitch over the head of the catcher, and Boston won the pennant.
04:16It's sort of like the reverse of all the American League history to come.
04:18It's the first real American League pennant race, and look who it is.
04:23The Boston Pilgrims would become the Red Sox, and the New York Highlanders would become the Yankees.
04:28In the National League, the champion Giants arrogantly dismissed the fledgling American League as Bush and refused to play Boston.
04:35It would be the only season without a World Series until 1994.
04:39Ninety years.
04:43Seventeen.
04:44Seventeen.
04:45Seventeen.
04:45The Cardinals and the Dodgers, probably the greatest rivalry in baseball in the 1940s.
04:51The Dodgers had great ball clubs in the 40s.
04:55It was always great competition to play them guys.
04:58It was a great pennant race, and they wind up in a tie.
05:02From July of 1946 to the last regular season game, the old rivals were in lockstep.
05:08When both lost their final contest, they finished with 96 wins apiece,
05:12creating the first tie in Major League history, and forcing a bet.
05:15The Cardinals won and went on to win the World Series.
05:19Best of three playoff.
05:20St. Louis beat Brooklyn in two.
05:23It was just the beginning of that Dodger post-war era,
05:27and it was the last pennant where the Cardinals would win for 18 years.
05:32We weren't supposed to win it.
05:33I think the Dodgers were supposed to win it.
05:35The Dodgers chose to start on the road, and they never got back from behind it.
05:41And the Dodgers were left with egg on their faces.
05:45The Cardinals won the 1946 pennant.
05:5316, 16, 16.
05:56The 1980 Phillies were one of those teams that you just knew they belonged in the World Series.
06:04You got Rose, you got a great pitcher, you got Schmidt.
06:09Before getting there by beating the Astros in the NLCS,
06:13the Phillies had to get past the Expos in the East.
06:15The two were tied going into the final three games of the 1980 season,
06:19and they played head-to-head in Montreal.
06:21Philadelphia won the first contest,
06:23then clinched the division in the 11th inning of Game 2.
06:26They were virtually out of it.
06:28And they, you know, they weren't talking to the media.
06:30And you had Dallas Green kind of plotting them like a jockey.
06:33There was a change of managers, and Dallas Green was our leader,
06:37and the Big Bopper was his nickname.
06:40And he was very tough, very hard to get along with.
06:44But Steve Carlton, he was the horse with the ball the whole time.
06:47You could count on not needing six, seven, eight, nine runs to win a ball game
06:52every fifth day when it was Steve Carlton's day to pitch.
06:55He was the Mike Schmidt on the mound for the Philadelphia Phillies.
06:58And I thought that Mike Schmidt's performance in 1980 was just extraordinary.
07:04I remember going into that final weekend series.
07:08In Game 2, which was the clincher, the Phillies have a runner on second base,
07:12and Mike Schmidt was at the plate.
07:14And Stan Bonson shook me three times, and he went to the fastball.
07:18And I called for the pitch away to not throw it down the middle, but he did.
07:33He was man enough to understand, I have this God-given talent,
07:36and I have the ability to strap this team on my back.
07:39And they're going to follow me.
07:50The Phillies just put it all together.
07:52They were the whiz kids, they had a bunch of young guys.
07:54Kurt Simmons was their best pitcher that year, but he got drafted in the Korean War.
07:59They left it pretty much up to Robin Roberts to carry the pitching load.
08:05And that's exactly what he did.
08:08The Cardinals lost four straight the final week of the 1949 season,
08:12and the Dodgers, with MVP Jackie Robinson and Rookie of the Year Don Newcomb,
08:18capitalized and took a one-game lead into Philadelphia on the last day.
08:23We were one game ahead with one game left.
08:27If we had lost that game, it would have been a playoff.
08:30It was ten innings, and in the top of the tenths,
08:33Cicler had a three-run homer, and I got him out in the bottom of the inning.
08:37The Dodgers had been riding Cicler all game long.
08:42Cicler had a speech impediment, a stutter.
08:45And of course, as he's running around the bases, and he's still stuttering,
08:49but now he's got a smile on his face.
08:51He's yelling to the Dodger bench in a stutter.
08:54You know, how do you like this?
08:56If you're a baseball fan, you can look back and say,
08:59it's wonderful that Philadelphia did win that one.
09:01That was their year.
09:02If you'd analyzed it, you know, player by player,
09:05it would find it hard to imagine we could win the pennant.
09:08But we did, and those things do happen.
09:1714-14.
09:19Nothing will ever equal 1969 in the Miracle Mets.
09:25The team had never had a winning season.
09:28Punched into left field, it's going to be in there.
09:31It's a face in, and the Mets win the ball game.
09:33A hundred to one shot when the season starts.
09:36This is impossible.
09:38This is impossible.
09:39For the first time in the history of the New York Mets,
09:41they have gone into first place.
09:44Ninth place.
09:45You've got to get past the Reds, too.
09:47In 1968.
09:50Who are these guys?
09:51In the last two months of the 1969 season,
09:54the Cubs lived up to their angst-ridden history and wilted.
09:57They lost 11 of 12 in one key stretch
10:00and finished eight games behind the Mets.
10:02Cy Young award winner Tom Seaver won nine times after August 15th,
10:06on his way to a 25-7 record to spark New York.
10:10It was unbelievable.
10:13Whenever I think of the 69 race,
10:15I think of the black cat coming out on the field
10:17in front of the Cubs dugout at Shea Stadium.
10:19Given the Cubs' history, you couldn't disregard it.
10:23Leo DeRocha was the manager of the Cubs.
10:26They played only day baseball in Chicago in those days,
10:30and I think the Cubs were a very tired team.
10:34They were a better team than the Mets.
10:36They probably should have won that year.
10:38The Mets just had a certain magic about them.
10:40But nobody believed the Mets at that time.
10:43They had been so bad for so long,
10:45and Gil Hodges gave them a sense of confidence.
10:49To me, they're the ultimate underdog.
10:51If you're talking about any sport,
10:53or you want to make any analogy of a life
10:56of a person facing long odds,
10:58the baseball analogy to me is the 69 Mets.
11:10The Dodgers, of course, had won their only World Series
11:13in 55 against the Yankees.
11:15They come back in 56.
11:17It turns out it's Jackie Robinson's last season.
11:20The feeling was, you know,
11:22some of these stars we have are getting a little older.
11:25This might be the last crack.
11:27Going into the final week of the 1956 season,
11:30three National League teams were bunched
11:32within a game and a half of each other.
11:34On the last weekend, the Dodgers swept the Pirates
11:36to overtake the Braves, who lost 2 of 3 to St. Louis,
11:39and finished a game back.
11:41Cincinnati's 8-1 finish wasn't enough.
11:45The Reds had been building.
11:46The Reds had a slugging team.
11:48They had 221 home runs that year.
11:50They tied the Giants' record that had been set in 1947.
11:53But Milwaukee is building as a team.
11:57Warren Spahn is the best left-hander internationally.
12:00They have the great Eddie Matthews,
12:02and of course they have a young kid by the name of Henry Aaron.
12:06It looked like Milwaukee was going to bust this thing up
12:09and really run away from the Dodgers.
12:11Henry Aaron, I'm sure that was the last we've heard of Henry Aaron.
12:16But somehow the Dodgers were able to hang on
12:19and win this very close pennant race.
12:22It was as great and dramatic a season
12:24as they had in their entire history in Brooklyn.
12:27It was very clear that they were still the dominant team
12:30of the last year of Dodger greatness in Brooklyn.
12:39The Dodgers had a 10-game lead in August
12:42and let it slip away.
12:47They won a...
12:48Is it 1941 or 51?
12:52It's got to be the 1940s.
12:55104 games, which ordinarily would be enough
12:59to run away with the pennant,
13:00but the young Cardinal team won 106 games.
13:03From out of nowhere they came, the Cardinals of 1942.
13:07On August 7th, they...
13:08Young Stan Musial.
13:10...were nine and a half games
13:11behind first-place Brooklyn.
13:13St. Louis thundered home from there,
13:15going 43-8,
13:16including winning 12 of the last 13
13:18to take the pennant by two games over the Dodgers.
13:20And rookie Stan Musial led the charge.
13:23Twelve.
13:24Twelve.
13:25Those Cardinals were not going to lose.
13:29There was one point down the stretch in September
13:32where the Dodgers won nine or ten games in a row
13:35and lost ground.
13:38That 42 club was voted one of the best Cardinal clubs ever.
13:44We had a great spirit among the Cardinal players.
13:46We were together.
13:48Musial was a rookie in 1942,
13:51and he had 315,
13:52which was third in the National League.
13:55Without him, the Dodgers would have had another pennant.
13:57The Cardinals would not.
14:031962 was really a fascinating pennant race.
14:07That was the very peak time
14:08for the San Francisco-Los Angeles rivalry.
14:10I mean, the Giants were a very, very, very strong team,
14:12and probably were all around a better team than the Dodgers.
14:15We never thought they were better than we were.
14:17We had McCovey, Cepeda, May, Marichal.
14:21There were four guys right there
14:23that were voted in the Hall of Fame.
14:25After chasing them for the last...
14:27I think they got a fifth guy in the Hall of Fame,
14:29but I don't know who it is.
14:32Three months of the 62 season,
14:35the Giants finally caught the Dodgers on the last day,
14:37forcing a best-of-three playoff.
14:39They split the first two,
14:40and L.A. took a 4-2 lead
14:42in the top of the ninth of Game 3,
14:44but walks and Dodger mistakes
14:46aided San Fran's comeback.
14:48Ilana, Ilana.
14:50Stan Williams was a relief pitcher for the Dodgers,
14:54and he came into the game.
14:56And the most memorable thing there
14:57is that Stan Williams walked home for winning runs.
15:00The Dodgers, once again, found ways to not win,
15:03and it was just a classic collapse.
15:06I mean, we Dodger fans thought that we led the league in that.
15:10Two down, Giants six, Dodgers four,
15:12bottom of the ninth.
15:13Here's one.
15:14Here's the pitch.
15:15A line drive to center.
15:16This could be it.
15:17May is waiting.
15:18He's got it!
15:20For them to win that series was dramatic,
15:23and I think what made that pennant race
15:25was that the Giant-Dodger rivalry was still alive.
15:34Seattle just fell in love with the Mariners that year.
15:38They tied it up on the last day of the season,
15:40forcing a one-game playoff.
15:42That's one of the races people point to now
15:44when a team is far back late in the season.
15:46They say, well, you know, the Mariners came back in 95.
15:50The Seattle Mariners are the champions of the American League West.
15:55Fueled by Ken Griffey Jr.'s electric smile
15:58and the solid professionalism of Edgar Martinez,
16:01the Mariners made an amazing comeback.
16:03In a pivotal September stretch,
16:05Seattle won 10 of 11,
16:06while the collapsing Angels lost 10 of 11.
16:08In a one-game playoff,
16:10the M's had Randy Johnson on the mound.
16:12When the Angels blew the...
16:14They should have won a championship or two with those guys.
16:18The 13-game lead in 1995.
16:20I mean, that's tough.
16:22That is tough to do in August.
16:23Here is a team that has had a reputation through the years
16:27with, you know, Donnie Moore and other things that had happened.
16:30The Angels had been known as a team that collapsed.
16:33This franchise, up until they finally got their win,
16:35but they were sort of a mini version of the Cubs and the Red Sox for a long time.
16:40When you look back at the way that the Angels played
16:42in those last weeks of the 1995 season,
16:45when they finally got to that game,
16:47the Angels had absolutely no chance.
16:48I only remember one play from that game.
16:51It was Louis Soho,
16:51who would become a folk hero for the Yankees in later years,
16:55had a measly little hit.
16:57Now the broken back.
16:59It's fair!
17:00Goes underneath one of the benches in the bullpen there.
17:03Guys are circling the bases like a track meet.
17:05And here comes Soho!
17:08Chase!
17:10Seeing Mark Langston face down the home plate
17:14and thinking if he could just dig his way down through the dirt
17:17and disappear that he would have.
17:20And if you could pick one person to give the ball to for one game,
17:24who better than Randy Johnson?
17:26Strike three!
17:27If people didn't understand who Randy Johnson was before that game,
17:32they really understood after the game.
17:35To me, there's nothing like it when a team wins for the first time.
17:38Just a great moment for Seattle baseball.
17:40That really put baseball on the map.
17:52Justice beats the catch!
17:54What a play!
17:55You're never going to have two teams that are that good.
17:57200-win teams that won't both make the playoffs.
18:00Mitch DeBond's hit high and deep to right field.
18:03David Justice back to the wall.
18:05It's gone.
18:07If a team could win 103 games and finish second,
18:11you know, maybe we need to do something to allow them to get into the postseason.
18:16The Giants fortified themselves with the acquisition of Barry Bonds,
18:20a free agent, before the 93 season.
18:22Surely they thought that would be enough to overtake the Braves.
18:26The Braves still had their pitchers.
18:29The Giants are going to sign Bonds.
18:31No, really.
18:34Wow!
18:36Wow!
18:36Barry Bonds!
18:39We had a core of a very, very, very good team.
18:42And then Barry came and gave us like a heck of a lift,
18:46not only offensively, but defensively too.
18:48Bonds with a backhanded catch!
18:50Nice job!
18:51It really wasn't much of a race for most of the year
18:54until Atlanta picked up Freddie McGriff.
18:56Goes deep this time.
18:58He sends Gilkey back to the wall!
19:00He killed it!
19:01And it's a home run!
19:02Fred McGriff!
19:03Their entire season changed around once Fred McGriff got aboard.
19:07It's the greatest second half comeback in history.
19:09You see 25 guys who are really having fun playing baseball
19:13and are committed to putting all the other stuff aside
19:16and working toward catching the Giants.
19:18But when you look back at it, I mean, it's incredible to think you've got Maddox,
19:22who's this real control master.
19:24You've got Glavin, who's the lefty, who's the ice water and the veins guy.
19:28And Smoltz is the power pitcher.
19:30The pennant race came down to the last day.
19:33And I remember the Braves were actually, they had won their last game
19:37and they were watching on the Jumbotron.
19:40Down the left field line, Martinez fly ball.
19:43This season is over!
19:46The Atlanta Braves win it as the Dodgers take the final game 12-1 against the Giants.
19:52It was a great season.
19:54We had a lot of fun.
19:56And it ended really, really hard.
20:03Probably the greatest series I played in was the final three games of the regular season,
20:07in which we were three games behind Houston as they came into Dodger Stadium.
20:12That season was 1980, and the Dodgers swept the Astros
20:16to force a one-game playoff for the NL West crown.
20:20But then what happened?
20:26I don't remember anybody in Dodger Stadium being in their seat.
20:30They were on their feet.
20:31And the Dodger crowd again rising.
20:34The Dodgers had to win all three to force a playoff.
20:39And we did just that heroism by Joe Ferguson and Ron Say
20:44with extra inning and late inning home runs.
20:47I beat Nolan Ryan on Sunday.
20:49That forced a playoff on Monday.
20:52But a big question.
20:53Who was Lasorda going to pitch on Monday?
20:58If Fernando hadn't relieved it a couple of days prior to that, I would have started him.
21:03And I started Dave Gold's.
21:04But it wasn't Gold's day.
21:07It was Art Howe's day.
21:084-0 on Howe's 10th home run of the season.
21:11He used to win it 7-1.
21:13The 1-1 pitch.
21:14A bouncing ball to the right side.
21:16Bergman has it.
21:17Sips on first.
21:18And the Astros have won the National League West.
21:21That broke my heart.
21:23And of course, on the other side, you've got Tommy Lasorda,
21:26who's tasted the bitter and the sweet as the Dodgers remain in the dugout.
21:31But still, the question remains, what if Fernando had pitched that game?
21:36One game.
21:37Had to tell it all.
21:41Fernando, we just lost Fernando recently.
21:44You know, RIP Fernando.
21:487-7-7-7.
21:51It's September 23rd, 1908.
21:53The Cubs and the Giants at that time were the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry of our time.
21:58They're playing in the Polo Grounds in New York.
22:001-1, bottom of the ninth.
22:02Moose.
22:03Merkle Boner.
22:05Uh, not like that.
22:07Like, Boner is in a screw-up.
22:11And he screwed up.
22:12He didn't touch the base.
22:14And he thought he hit a home run.
22:17Or batted in a run.
22:19I forgot.
22:21McCormick was on third base.
22:23And Fred Merkle was on first.
22:26Al Bridewell, single to win the game.
22:29The winning run scores from third.
22:30And Merkle, as was the complete custom of the times,
22:34did not touch second base.
22:37Johnny Evers, the Cubs' second baseman,
22:39he calls to the outfielder.
22:41He says, give me the ball, give me the ball.
22:44Evers went and jumped up and down on the bag
22:46and waved his arms around so the umpire would see him.
22:48And he called Merkle out.
22:50His knowledge of the rules helped win the Cubs a pennant.
22:54Fred Merkle was 19.
22:56And in his second season with the Giants,
22:58when he made dubious history,
23:00NL president Harry Pulliam ruled the game a tie.
23:02And the contest was replayed at the end of the season.
23:05The Cubs defeated Christy Matthewson 4-2 to earn the pennant.
23:087-7.
23:10Everyone remembers it for one thing,
23:12the so-called Merkle's boner,
23:13which is one of the most unfair designations in the history of sports.
23:16Baseball's a game of rules,
23:17and if you don't abide by the rules,
23:19then you usually get called out.
23:20There's no question that Fred Merkle was the victim
23:24of overzealous adjudication, if you will.
23:27Fred Merkle was a haunted man after this,
23:30entirely undeservedly so.
23:38The Cardinals lost four straight in the final week of the 49th season.
23:42And the Dodgers, with MVP Jackie Robinson and rookie of the year Don Newcomb,
23:47capitalized and took a one-game lead.
23:51We had to win the last game of the season in Philadelphia,
23:56or we would have been in a tie with the Cardinals.
23:59At Philadelphia Shai Park for that final game with the Phils,
24:02you'd think you were in Evans Field.
24:04All Flatbush teams to be represented.
24:06They were all Dodger fans,
24:07and they were all pulling for the Dodgers.
24:09That manager bird shot with a slightly partisan headline.
24:14Late in the game, I got a base hit off Kenny Heintzelman
24:17to center field to throw in the winning run.
24:20From the 10th inning, Captain Timmy Reed
24:21rides home with the tally that puts the books ahead for Keith.
24:25They had this knack for inducing coronaries
24:28in their most devoted fans,
24:30and the Dodgers won on the last day of the season.
24:35Five, five, five.
24:38Every 15 years, you're rewarded with a pennant race
24:41that is like a marathon,
24:42and 67 may have been the best in the modern era.
24:48Until Friday night of the final of the regular season,
24:50there were four teams involved,
24:52and the White Sox were eliminated on Friday night.
24:54This left three teams involved over the weekend.
24:56As we went into Fenway Park,
24:59the last series with a one-game lead and two games to play,
25:03I hurt my arm on Saturday, had to leave that game.
25:06I think Yaz hit a three-round homer.
25:09So we win that game.
25:10Detroit and the Angels split.
25:13So whoever wins our game on Sunday
25:17between Minnesota and Boston,
25:18they'll be the champions unless Detroit wins a doubleheader,
25:21and then there'll be a playoff.
25:23On the season's last day,
25:24the Red Sox, with Yaz going 4-4-4,
25:26beat the Twins,
25:27with whom they'd been tied for first.
25:29Hey there, we'll score.
25:30And when Detroit lost the second game of a doubleheader,
25:33Boston had its impossible dream.
25:35The 1967 race, in my mind, comes down to one player,
25:41Karl Yastrzemski.
25:42Not only did he wind up winning the Triple Crown,
25:45but just of those 126 RBIs,
25:48it seemed in your mind that I'll get out of the one-game.
25:51Taking a team that had finished in ninth place the year before
25:53and putting it on his back,
25:56his strengths, he seemed to turn the model on at his head
25:58and make it more like basketball,
26:00like Will Chamberlain scoring 100 points.
26:03The amazing thing was that they kept pitching to him
26:07almost as they didn't believe that he was doing what he was doing.
26:12There was never a more valuable player to a team in any season.
26:16He was a real leader on the team.
26:18He had a knack of pumping the guys up.
26:21I've been here for seven years,
26:23and this is one out of the greatest ball club that ever has done a fair.
26:31I can remember doing interviews in 67 in the last month of the season
26:34and national media coming up to me after the game
26:37saying, how can you take this pressure?
26:40I said, pressure?
26:41I said, for the first time, I've enjoyed the game again.
26:44The 67 team, even though...
26:46There's not really pressure.
26:48I mean, there is, but there isn't.
26:51Pressure is when you lose so much
26:53and you don't think you're going to have a job next year.
26:59They didn't win the World Series, I think.
27:01Began this modern era of Red Sox baseball.
27:05And the fact that no one expected this team to do anything
27:07when the season started made it a Cinderella story.
27:10Like they called it the impossible dream, I believe it was.
27:18There's never been a season as exciting as 1948.
27:2234,000 watched the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox battle it out
27:26in the first postseason pennant playoff in American League history.
27:31With nine days left, the 1948 American League pennant chase
27:35was a three-way deadlock between Cleveland, Boston, and New York.
27:38On the final weekend, the Indians lost two of three
27:41while the Red Sox swept the Yankees in a two-game series,
27:44setting up the playoff.
27:46The Red Sox were feeling confident because they'd won the coin toss.
27:50One of the stories is don't be the winner going into the playoff.
27:57You want to be the loser going into the playoff
28:00because every time the loser going into the playoff,
28:04like the last two, three games, seems to win.
28:07They're playing at Fenway Park.
28:10The feeling was the Red Sox were really going to romp in this game.
28:14Home field, Ted Williams.
28:17Turned out Cleveland had that one-game magic and did it.
28:21We had some very good, real, professional players
28:24that didn't mind the pressure, and Boudreau was a great leader.
28:27Lou Boudreau, player-manager of the team,
28:29went four for four in this game with two home runs and two doubles
28:32and led his team to an 8-3 victory.
28:35Without him, they would not have won the 1948 pennant,
28:38and that was the first pennant the Indians had won in 28 years.
28:41The Indians were a great team, and they went on to win the World Series,
28:45but what it denied was a chance for not a Subway Series,
28:48a Kenmore Square Series,
28:50because, of course, the Braves were a half a mile away over at Braves Field.
28:58Yeah, they could have walked.
28:59They didn't have to take the Subway.
29:04There will never be another collapse, I think, in any sport that will ever rival the 1964 Phillies.
29:13With a dozen games to play in 1964, the Phillies owned a six-and-a-half-game lead.
29:19Manager Gene Mock went for the jugular and overworked ace pitchers Chris Short and Jim Bunning.
29:24The strategy failed.
29:25The Phillies lost 10 straight and wobbled home, tied for second with Cincinnati,
29:30a game behind the Cardinals.
29:32What was Gene Mock thinking?
29:34Pitching Bunning and Short and Bunning and Short and Bunning and Short?
29:38I think all Gene had to do was let one of the other pitchers pitch.
29:43Well, I think...
29:44Tommy John.
29:45You know when Tommy John says you're overworking your pitchers,
29:49you're overworking your pitchers, because they named an injury after him.
29:53What Gene was trying to do is he was trying to win and give everybody a rest.
29:59I can't recall another situation where the manager really bore so much personal responsibility.
30:05The manager actually got playing.
30:07The manager got a lot of credit when they won.
30:09He was the boy wonder, and that's part of being the headband.
30:13I think Gene's basic problem was sometimes he would overmanage.
30:18Maybe I overdid it.
30:19I don't really know.
30:20I did everything the way I did everything during my life.
30:23I did everything by the seat of my pants.
30:25One man on first base, one man out.
30:27Get these two hitters out.
30:28That's all we want.
30:28Come on.
30:29We didn't want to have to win the game for him.
30:32He's the manager.
30:33We're the players.
30:34I bring to the players two hosts.
30:37You know what really hurt more than anything else, I think,
30:39is when Chico DeRuiz stole home with Mahaffey pitching and Robinson up at the plate.
30:44We had Art Mahaffey pitching a nothing-nothing ball game against the Cincinnati Reds.
30:50All of a sudden, Ruiz, on his own, breaks from third,
30:54and Mahaffey fires a ball to the backstop.
30:57Now, if he'd have thrown the ball at Frank or inside where Frank couldn't swing it,
31:03he's a dead bird.
31:05They lose the game 1-0, and that was how the 10-game losing streak started.
31:08That's a little easier said than done with Frank Robinson.
31:14But when you go back and start thinking about the Cincinnati Reds on the St. Louis Cardinals,
31:18they won 10 games in a row, too.
31:21Cardinals were a hell of a team.
31:22They really were.
31:23But they should have never been allowed to be acclaimed as a hell of a team.
31:28We should have gotten it over with, where they would have to be a hell of a team later on,
31:32not in 1964.
31:352-2-2-2.
31:40Back to throws.
31:42There's a long time.
31:43I can't believe I believe.
31:44The Giants have the pellet.
31:46The Giants have the pellet.
31:48The Giants have the pellet.
31:49A pennant was won on...
31:52What's number one, then?
31:5586?
31:56The very last swing of the bat.
32:00It was the most famous walk-off home run in the history of baseball.
32:06Going into the second game of a doubleheader on August 11, 1951,
32:10the Dodgers led the Giants by 13.5 games.
32:14New York then launched a 37-7 closing run,
32:17and Brooklyn needed a 14th-inning home run from Jackie Robinson
32:21against the Phillies on the season's final day
32:23to force a best-of-three playoff.
32:26We played over 500 ball, and they still tied us at the end of the season.
32:31Then they went into this playoff series, best-of-three,
32:33where the Giants won the first game, the Dodgers won the second one,
32:36and then it moved to the third game in the Polar Grounds,
32:39where, of course, Bobby Thompson hit the home run.
32:42I got to a home plate, and I looked out.
32:45If there was a break, I hadn't even known that they'd changed pitches.
32:50One out, last of the night, back of pitches.
32:52And he threw the first pitch right through the middle, and he took it.
32:55And the next pitch, I tried to throw up in the end.
32:57Back of throws.
32:58There's a long strike, and it's going to be, I believe!
33:00I didn't get it in enough, I guess.
33:02So he hit it down the line in the Polar Grounds, which was not too far.
33:05Bobby Thompson hits into the right back of the left field stand.
33:09The Dodgers won the parrots.
33:10I didn't realize what had happened.
33:12I was the last guy to get the home plate, and I'm on deck.
33:16And they're going crazy! They're going crazy!
33:19Hey-hoo!
33:21I got within leaping distance of home plate,
33:24and I'd never done that before, and I took one big jump.
33:29I don't remember going from the mound to the clubhouse, and that's a long walk.
33:34I still think it's the greatest.
33:35He probably touched home plate before the ball touched anything else,
33:40because Polar Grounds, that side of the field was so low.
33:45It's a game of all time.
33:46I think 100 years from now, you're going to be hearing,
33:49the Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!
33:51I can't tell you whether I heard it then,
33:53or I've heard it so many times now that I think I did.
33:55The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!
33:58The Giants win the pennant!
34:02Ad nauseum, you know.
34:04He said it like nine times.
34:06And they're picking Bobby Thompson up, and they're going to rock the field!
34:10New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers.
34:13I always thought of it as a fierce rivalry and great era in baseball.
34:20Welcome back to Who's Number One in the 20 Greatest Pennant Races of all time.
34:24They moved them out to California, and they didn't even have the decency
34:27to keep them on the same side of California.
34:31One moved to the north, and one to the south.
34:35It's the best pennant race ever.
34:40One, one, one, one.
34:42In 1978, the Yankees did what the New York Giants had done 27 years earlier.
34:50Like a summer breeze, the Red Sox rippled through the 1978 season.
34:54Their front-running success all the sweeter because their detested rivals, the Yankees,
34:59were in turmoil.
35:00But New York rallied and took over first place.
35:03Then Boston re-rallied, and it all came down to a one-game playoff.
35:10The last time we saw the Yankees on the field in 77,
35:13Reggie Jackson hit three home runs off three pitchers on three different pitches.
35:18The team fell apart early in 78.
35:21Boston got off to an incredible start.
35:26We had a 12-13, 14-game lead,
35:29and I never once thought we were 13 games better than the Yankees that year.
35:34Don Zimmer, who is manager, was a terrific third-base coach.
35:38It's not easy to blow a 14-game lead after July 20th.
35:43We went into Boston, had to play four games in Fenway,
35:46and we swept them all four.
35:48And it was known as the Boston Massacre,
35:51and it allowed us to catch them.
35:53We came out of that series tied up with maybe three weeks of the season remaining.
35:58We had to win the last eight games of the season to wind up in a tie.
36:05The one-game playoff in 1978, best game I ever saw.
36:10One game to settle for the whole season.
36:13Bucky then hit the home run, and we lost.
36:21Deep to left, Yastrzewski will not get its home run!
36:26A three-run home run for Bucky Dent.
36:28The Yankees now in it by his court.
36:30If it had been Reggie Jackson or somebody else,
36:33they would have been able to deal with it,
36:35but to have Bucky Dent hit a home run like this.
36:37So shocking.
36:38So out of nowhere.
36:40So Bucky f***ing dead.
36:43But here's the thing.
36:45The guy's name is Bucky f***ing dead.
36:49It feels good because they remember.
36:53Goose Godson faced Yastrzewski for the final out of the game.
36:58The last guy that I as a pitcher probably would want to face in that situation,
37:02a left-handed hitter, me being a right-handed pitcher.
37:05Popped up! That might be it!
37:06Netto's over his third base!
37:08We had the game won about two or three different times,
37:11and it was a very tough loss.
37:13And the Yankees win the 1978 American League Eastern Bennett.
37:18It just didn't seem fair that there had to be a loser that day
37:22because there was so much respect up from us toward the Red Sox and vice versa.
37:30No doubt about it, a baseball season is a great season.
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