Baseball History Today: October 14th

Jayne Kamin-Oncea – USA TODAY Sports

A year ago, the St. Louis Cardinals jumped out to a 1-0 in the NLCS against the San Francisco Giants. The Cards gained an early 6 – 0 lead over the Giants in Game 1 of the NLCS and forced Madison Bumgarner out of the game in the 4th inning. Home runs by David Freese and Carlos Beltran (go fig those two having a hand in this) helped fuel the four-run 4th inning.

After three and a half innings, St. Louis held a 6-0 lead.

The Giants would claw their way back in this one as they reached Lance Lynn for four runs of their own in the bottom of the 4th. Joe Kelly relieved Lynn and stems the tide. St. Louis manager Mike Matheny would then use five more pitchers (Marc Rzepczynski, Trevor Rosenthal, Edward Mujica, Mitchell Boggs and Jason Motte, to completely shut down the Giants bats for the remainder of the game.

After Lynn’s exit, the Cards ‘pen allowed only two hits and two walks.

2003 – Entering the top of the 8th inning, the Chicago Cubs hold a 3-0 lead over the Florida Marlins. Here’s the inning. I’m sure you know what’s going to happen.

If you haven’t watched the 30 for 30 feature Catching Hell, I highly suggest doing so.

1992 – The Toronto Blue Jays become MLB’s first Canadian team to advance to the World Series. The Jays beat the Oakland A’s 9-2 in Game 6 of the ALCS behind seven strong innings from Juan Guzman.

1975 – Maybe the most controversial play in World Series history…

The call would go in favor of the Cincinnati Reds as they won Game 3 of the World Series, 6-5 in 10 innings. Now everyone knew the name Ed Armbrister as it would now be etched in World Series history.

1927 – Walter Johnson retires. During his career, the Big Train would post nine consecutive season of 300+ IP, win 2 MVP awards, and would hold the MLB career record for strikeouts until 1982 when he was passed by Steve Carlton. Johnson would later be one of five players, along with Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner, enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame as its inaugural class.

Notable Birthdays

Joe Girardi (1964)
Carlos Marmol (1982)
Seth Maness (1988)