Best World Series Moments

Hey, those are great. And it's interesting to see that umpires have been screwing up the post season since at least 1948:

"Indians ace Bob Feller had the Braves' Phil Masi picked off from second base, but umpire Bill Stewart blew the call. Masi then scored the only run in the Braves' victory. Cleveland rebounded to win the Series, the Tribe's most recent world championship."

Infielddad,

The 1954 catch by Mays is the most glaring miss. Most of these are not one moment but sometimes whole Series or game performances. What the 17 strikeout performance by Bob Gibson in the first game of the 1968 Series or the two Dean brothers winning all four Series games in 1934, or the Philadelphia A's overcoming an 8-0 deficit in the 7th inning of game six of the 1929 Series by scoring 10 runs. Roberto Clemente's incredible one man show in the 1971 Series or Pepper Martin's wrecking crew Series of 1931 are not listed. The game in the 1947 Series where Bill Blevins no hit the Dodgers for 8 2/3 innings only to lose the game 3-2 on a pinch hit double by Cookie Lavagetto with the only hit. I could name many others.

Three Bagger,
Those are some great ones.
Lew Burdette winning 3 games in the '57 series, throwing 3 complete games and 2 shutouts would be another.

How does the Billy Buckner error get included as a "best" moment?

Three Bagger/Infielddad,

Absolutely outstanding...paticularly the 1929 Series and the ball Hack Wilson lost in the sun during the rally. Pepper Martin and the Gashouse Gang; hadn't heard Cookie Lavagetto's name in years. Very few remember Burdette's effort during the 1957 Series.

Very cool posts.

Personally, Mazeroski's homer to beat the Yankees is probably my favorite. Then again, anytime or anywhere the Yankees lose I'm pretty happy.

How about personal best WS moments?

I was touring Northeast colleges with my dad in the Fall of 1980. We were on campus at Colgate University where I had a meeting the varsity Ice Hockey coach. I learned in that meeting that I would be a sure candidate for their JV "grades" team, but couldn't match up with the Canadian kids they recruited for the Varsity side. Realistically, I accepted this, but it was still disappointing.

That evening, dad took me out for dinner and we had the pleasure of watching the Phillies (our team) clinch the WS against the Royals in the restaurant where we ate. Made me totally forget my disappointment from earlier in the day.

Went on to play DIII/club ice hockey at Oberlin!

My personal top three, couched....

1. The entire '85 WS between the Royals and the Cards.
2. The epic HR by Jays Joe Carter against Reds Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams.
2. The Sox 3-0 comeback against the Yankees.

The one I remember the most, though, is Al Michaels calling GM3 of the 1989 WS, on October 17, 1989.

GED10DaD

quote:

Roberto Clemente's incredible one man show in the 1971 Series

I knew someone would beat me to that one!

Kirk Gibson's homerun - without a doubt.

Jack Morris versus John Smoltz in the 1991 World Series. Maybe the best game I have ever seen.

Gene Tenace hitting four homeruns in a World Series.

There are others...

The single best offencive, ahhhh defensive play by an on deck batter was when JT Snow saved Dusty Bakers kid from getting crunched at home plate against the Angels.

One of my elementary teachers was a huge Cardinals fan... Mickey Lolich broke her heart 3 times in the '68 series.

The Clemente and Tenace series' were also some of mine and the '79 Family of Pirates

and the Royals of 85 came back to beat the Blue Jays and Cards after trailing 3-1 (haven't played a playoff game since)

Could be wrong, like I am so often, but I believe Snow actually was crossing home plate scoring a run and swiped up Dusty's son, Darrin, all in one motion.
GunEmDown,
We were at Candlestick, 3Com as it was called then, sitting in section 22. Our daughter and I had just walked up to the concession stand. At about 5:01pm, the shaking started. The light tower immediately behind us was swaying almost like a piece of straw in a gale force wind.
Within minutes, the impact of that event started to become clear.
We had a very long drive home in near total darkness, and we were close to the first to leave.
When the first pitches were thrown out 10 days letter, the emotions and community were far more important than the game. But playing that game was very important, just as it was in 2001.

ifdad: could you get home on your normal route? I'll bet it was a surreal vision of your city????

We lived on the Peninsula so we took our normal route on Hwy 280. That took us across a section of bridge near the Crystal Springs reservoir.
The darkness was stark.
It was especially eery listening to the radio as we arrived home...that bridge had been closed to all traffic while it was checked to determine the extent of structural damage.
The Marina, the collapse of Hwy 80 in Oakland, and the cars heading into the collapsed section of the Bay Bridge:they were frightening, made even more surreal and unreal when I recognized that the catastrophy occurred within seconds.
I will never forget pushing my daughter into the frame opening of the concession stand for protection from anything overhead and then turning to see that light tower swinging like a twig.

Two other moments I thought of while driving to the ranch while ago:

The unassisted triple play by Bill Wambsganss in the 1920 World Series and the surprise opening game start by a washed up Howard Ehmke in the 1929 series after he told Connie Mack he had one more good game left in his arm. He struck out a then record 13 Cubs including immortal Rogers Hornsby 3 times.

By the way, incredible story Infielddad. You'll be talking about that for the rest of your life.

Lol.
Last year we bought used turf from the Toronto Sky Dome for our indoor. After we rolled it out, standing around with the team, I say "Guys, we are probably standing on the exact spot where Joe Carter jumped for joy after hitting the homer of Mitch Williams to win the '93 World Series!".

Total Silence.

Not one single player knew who either Joe Carter or Mitch Williams was.

Dang, I'm getting old.

quote:

Originally posted by infielddad:
We lived on the Peninsula so we took our normal route on Hwy 280. That took us across a section of bridge near the Crystal Springs reservoir.
The darkness was stark.
It was especially eery listening to the radio as we arrived home...that bridge had been closed to all traffic while it was checked to determine the extent of structural damage.
The Marina, the collapse of Hwy 80 in Oakland, and the cars heading into the collapsed section of the Bay Bridge:they were frightening, made even more surreal and unreal when I recognized that the catastrophy occurred within seconds.
I will never forget pushing my daughter into the frame opening of the concession stand for protection from anything overhead and then turning to see that light tower swinging like a twig.

My wife was attending a conference at a small four story hotel in the City. That days meeting adjourned a little early and she and a friend were in a cab when it hit. They went back to the hotel and found that it was now a one story.

InFieldDaD - Wow, I had just moved back to Texas, after living in the Monterey and Salinas areas. I had lived thru three moderate quakes from '83 to '85, so I felt a connection to the event as it unfolded thru Michaels. I was a huge A's fan, but I remember feeling attached to both teams so that WS was a significant part of my baseball life. I can only imagine being there in person. Thanks for sharing that story.

GED10DaD

Al Michaels did a good job with a tough situation. He had the advantage of having lived in San Fransico thus his commentary was poingant.

Back on this topic, I think tonight's game could be an all-time classic. Both of these teams have been disrespected in one form or another and both want to show what they can do. The very two best pitchers in the game might be going at it tonight.

It don't get any better than that!

The ball rolling through Buckner's legs. And I'm not a Mets fan

I think they have the wrong moment in the 1969 Mets v. Orioles World Series (some of my earilest baseball memories .) Game 4 was much more pivotal. The Mets were up 2 games to 1 in the series, Seaver vs. Cuellar, Mets winning 1-0 top of the 9th, one out, runners on 2nd and 3rd, Brooks Robinson hits a screaming, sinking line drive that Ron Swoboda makes a sliding catch. The ball easily could have gotten by him allowing both O's base runners to score. The runner on 3rd did tag up and tie the score.
In the bottom of the 10th the Mets get their first 2 runners of the inning on, at 1st and 2nd. They pitch hit for Seaver. Little known, JC Martin, bunts down the first base line, and is hit in the back on the way to first, while running outside of the running lane. The ball skips into right field and the winning run scores from 2nd. Seaver ends up getting the 10 inning complete game victory. (Can you tell I liked Seaver a lot, as a 7 year old?)
Either of these moments qualifies as a better 1969 moment then the one picked by SI. Had the Orioles won this game, the series would have been tied 2-2. Who knows how this would have changed things?

Kirk Gibson's HR.

I was at a Joe Wladyka showcase in NJ, laying down on the pull out sofa. My best friend had fallen asleep and I went crazy when he hit it.

InfieldDad:

Sounds like you and I were racing out of the same parking lot!!!

My wife and I were seated up in the left field second deck. She had just found out that she was pregnant with 08Son - so we were fired up for more than one reason.

We were awaiting the national anthem and felt the vibration. My first thought was that the flyover had come too early - so I looked up and saw the little roof shaking up and down. Both my wife and I looked over at the right field upper deck at the same moment - and saw a chuck of concrete, probably the size of a football, bouncing down the steps and onto field. That was one time when not having a lower deck probably saved someone's life. Then everything stopped... a nervous cheer went up... and we all settled back to wait for the game.

A fan in front of us had a portable TV - quite an innovation at the time. It was the size of a shoebox and had a screen the size of a playing card. We were watching over his shoulder when the announcement came on that the bay bridge had been closed. With that, my wife said "I want to go" and we got the heck out of there. We had just left the stadium when we heard the announcement that the game was cancelled - so we were just ahead of the traffic jam.

It was still a long, long drive home. First through Hunter's Point - always a bit of a scary drive - then onto 101 South. We lived in Fremont at the time - normally a 45 minute drive home across the San Mateo bridge - but the bridges were all closed so we went all the way south through San Jose and then turned back north on the other side of the Bay. All the way home, for 3 hours, we listen to the radio. We kept hearing of the damage in Oakland to the Cypress Structure and to the damage in Los Gatos. The assumption we were making was that the Hayward fault had erupted - which ran less than 100 yards from our house. Everywhere around us was dark - power outages everywhere. We were assuming that the house would be demolished - and that we were heading home to nothing.

As we got off the 680 freeway in Fremont, we looked around and the lights were on. We got to the house - and there was nothing wrong. A few pictures hanging sideways and that was it. I opened a cabinet to get a glass - and one fell out on the counter... that was the sum total of the damage at our house- a broken glass.

The other historical oddity for the younger generation - none of us had cell phones. No way to call anyone to tell them we were OK until we got home...

Ah the memories... definitely one that will stay with me forever...

08

Actually, the best World Series moment was not in a true World Series, it was the Dave Roberts steal in an ALCS leading to the worst embarassment of a major league team in the history of sports..

I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to game 5 of 2008 Phillies/Rays series. When I think back what I remember first about that night was moving from our outfield seats to behind home plate as the celebration began..Then Harry Kalas came on the field and sang "High Hopes"..I will never forget the whole stadium standing and singing along with Harry..But the best thing I will take away from that is being able to share that night with my son. The look on my son's face that night will be etched in my memory for ever.

quote:

Originally posted by RedSoxFan21:
Actually, the best World Series moment was not in a true World Series, it was the Dave Roberts steal in an ALCS leading to the worst embarassment of a major league team in the history of sports..