World Series Game 1: The 10 most decisive moments in MLB history
Kirk Gibson's iconic 1988 pinch hit home run is the most decisive of many decisive moments from Games One in the history of the World Series. Here are the 10 most decisive.
The World Series is the oldest national team sports championship in the world. Contested since 1903 and this year in its 119th iteration, that span of experience has given the Series plenty of time to develop a legendary history.
The Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers will try to write some of that history for themselves starting this week. But as they do, it might be fun to look back on the best moments from past Series.
This article focuses on the 10 most decisive moments from World Series Games One.
The standard of measurement is Win Probability Added, a relatively new statistic that calculates the extent to which any play influenced the game’s outcome.
On subsequent days, you can keep an eye open for installments looking at the 10 most decisive moments from World Series Games 2, 3, 4 and right on through to Game 7. For tonight, here are the 10 most decisive moments of Games One of the past.
t-9. Glendon Rusch, 2000 New York Mets. An odd candidate for heroism, Rusch was a middle reliever who worked only four innings of that 2000 Mets-Yankee series. In its place, however, his work in that opening Series game was critical.
The fifth pitcher summoned by Mets manager Bobby Valentine, Rusch got the call in the bottom of the 10th inning of a 3-3 tie at Yankee Stadium. There was trouble afoot; his predecessor, Dennis Cook, had walked David Justice and Bernie Williams, presenting Rusch with the potential winning run in scoring position and none out.
Just to compound matters, Rusch’s first pitch sailed to the screen, advancing Justice and Williams to second and third. Then he steadied, getting Tino Martinez to pop out to shortstop Kurt Abbott on the outfield grass.
Rusch walked Jorge Posada intentionally to load the bases and set up a double play with Paul O’Neill due up. It was exactly what he got, O’Neill grounding to second baseman Edgardo Alfonso who turned it to kill the threat.
The Yankees eventually won the game in 12 innings and took the Series in five games. But Rusch had done his part. Rusch Win Probability Added: 39 percent.
t-9. Bill Bruton, 1958 Milwaukee Braves. Bruton was a quality center fielder but an easy-to-overlook threat in a Braves lineup that also included Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews and Joe Adcock. Against the New York Yankees in the first game of the 1958 World Series at Milwaukee County Stadium, however, Bruton played as menacing as any of his teammates.
The game was tied at 3-3 when the defending champion Braves took their shot against fireballing reliever Ryne Duren in the bottom of the ninth. Duren fanned Aaron, but allowed ground singles to Adcock and Del Crandall sandwiched around Wes Covington’s fly ball. With two on and two out, that left the issue to Bruton.
He delivered the biggest hit of his life, a line single into the right-center gap that allowed Adcock to race home from second with the winning run. Alas for Braves fans, Bruton’s Game One heroics were not enough to prevent a 4-3 Yankee series victory. Bruton Win Probability Added: 9 percent.
8. Boss Schmidt, 1907 Detroit Tigers. Schmidt, a veteran catcher for the American League champion Tigers, had the misfortune to screw up at the worst possible moment. The Tigers led the National League champion Chicago Cubs 3-2 with two out in the bottom of the ninth, but the Cubs had managed to push the tying and lead runs to second and third as light-hitting pinch hitter Del Howard came to the plate, batting for Joe Tinker.
Tiger pitcher Bill Donovan needed only to subdue Howard to put Game 1 in Detroit’s victory column, and he thought he’d done so when Howard whiffed at strike three. But the pitch eluded Schmidt and rolled to the backstop, allowing Johnny Evers to carry the tying run across.
Three innings later, with darkness intervening, the game was halted and declared a 3-3 tie. The Cubs swept the next four games to take the Series in five. Howard Win Probability Added: 40 percent.
7. Casey Stengel, 1923 New York Giants. The 1923 World Series not only represented the third consecutive meeting of the Giants and Yankees, but also the climactic moment in the playing career of the great future Yankee manager. Stengel was in center field for the Giants as Game 1 proceeded into the ninth inning at the brand new Yankee Stadium deadlocked at four runs a side.
Yankee starter Bullet Joe Bush dispensed with his first two foes, Ross Youngs and Irish Meusel, leaving only Stengel standing in his way. But Casey caught a Bush pitch he liked and smacked it into the deepest recesses of the new stadium’s center field. Before Whitey Witt could run it down out there, Stengel had raced all the way around the bases, sliding into home with an inside-the-park home run. Stengel Win Probability Added: 41 percent.
6. Rudy York, 1946 Boston Red Sox. The first post-war World Series featured the St. Louis Cardinals of Stan Musial and the Boston Red Sox of Ted Williams. But it was York, a veteran slugger, who would emerge as the Game 1 star.
At Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, the Cardinals carried a 2-1 lead into the top of the ninth only to see the Red Sox tie the game on Tom McBride’s pinch hit single. One inning later, left-handed starter Howie Pollet, who had given up that McBride hit, remained in to face the heart of the Boston order.
Pollet got Dom DiMaggio on a grounder and Williams on a weak pop fly. But York, a 32-year-old slugger with 256 home runs including 17 that season, drilled a Pollet pitch into the left field grandstand to give Boston a 3-2 lead. When reliever Earl Johnson set down the Cardinals in the bottom of the ninth, that’s how the game ended.
The Cardinals did recover to win the series in seven games. York Win Probability Added: 42 percent.
5. Damon Berryhill, 1992 Atlanta Braves. Hardly one of the stars of what would become the Braves juggernaut, Berryhill nonetheless got the start at catcher for Game 1 of the 1992 World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.
Hitless in his first two at bats, Berryhill got a third shot at Jays starter Jack Morris with two out in the bottom of the sixth. Morris had held the Braves scoreless in a 1-0 game to that point, although a walk and base hit left two potential RBIs for Berryhill when he came up a third time.
Berryhill wasn’t much of a slugger; his 10 home runs that season were a career high. But in a 1-2 hole he caught hold of a Morris offering and pulled it deep into the right field seats for a three-run blast. It was all the support Braves starter Tom Glavin needed to wrap up a 3-1 victory, although the Jays would capture the Series in six games. Berryhill Win Probability Added: 44 percent.
4. Solly Hofman, 1908 Chicago Cubs. The Tigers and Cubs, both repeat champions from 1907, squared off in a rematch of that year’s World Series, which the Cubs had won 4-0 with one tie. Hofman, part of a center field platoon, got the call against Detroit left-hander Twilight Ed Kilian, but was hitless in three at bats when Chicago came up in the top of the ninth at Detroit’s Bennett Park.
The Tigers led 6-5 only to see three of Chicago’s first four batters single off Ed Summers, who had taken over for Kilian back in the third inning.
With the bases loaded, Hofman capitalized on his chance to redeem his lackluster showing to that point. He sent Summe’s pitch bounding into center field scoring both Frank Schulte from third base and Frank Chance from second with the tying and go-ahead runs. Before Summers could escape Chicago had added three more runs for a 10-6 victory on the way to a four games to one Series victory. Hofman Win Probability Added: 46 percent.
3. Alex Gordon, 2015 Kansas City Royals. The New York Mets were two small outs away from winning game One of the 2015 World Series when Gordon produced an alternate reality.
Leading 4-3 entering the bottom of the ninth inning at Kauffman Stadium, Mets reliever Jeurys Familia retired the first batter he faced, catcher Salvador Perez, on an easy ground ball. But Gordon lined a 1-1 pitch into the seats in right, tying the game 4-4 and sending it into extra innings.
That tie wasn’t broken until the bottom of the 14th, when Eric Hosmer’s sacrifice fly scored Alcides Escobar with the winning run. The Royals used that momentum to take the Series in five games. Gordon Win Probability Added: 47 percent.
2. Roger Peckinpaugh, 1924 Washington Senators. On the rare occasions when Peckinpaugh’s name is recalled today, it is usually as the goat of the 1925 World Series, when his eight fielding errors sabotaged the Washington Senators’ chances at a repeat of their World Series title. And even when Peckinpaugh did well, as he did in Game One of the 1924 World Series, things still didn’t work out.
In his usual spot at shortstop for the Senators against the New York Giants at Washington’s Griffith Stadium, Peckinpaugh came up in the bottom of the ninth with his team trailing 2-1. With one out and Ossie Bluege at first, Peckinpaugh drove an Art Nehf pitch into the gap in left field for a double, allowing Bluege to tally the tying run.
The Giants came back to win the game in 12 innings, although Washington prevailed 4 games to 3 in the Series. Peckinpaugh Win Probability Added: 48 percent.
1. Kirk Gibson, 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers. Gibson’s swing that night at Dodger Stadium is among the most memorable hacks in U.S. sport.
Out of the lineup with two injured knees and not expected to play, Gibson watched from the bench as his Dodgers, trailing 3-2, flailed against ace Oakland closer Dennis Eckersley in the ninth inning.
First Mike Scioscia popped harmlessly to short, then Jeff Hamilton was caught looking at an Eckersley pitch. Only Mike Davis, pinch hitting for Alfredo Griffin, stood between Eckersley’s A’s and a Game One victory, and Davis somehow managed to wait out Eckersley for a walk.
That’s when Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda played his desperate hole card, summoning Gibson to pinch hit for pitcher Alejandro Pena.
Famously, Gibson hobbled to the plate on those two bad knees, nearly fell over swinging at and fouling off pitches, and working a full count. His only chance was to hope Eckersley would make a mistake in the strike zone, and eventually that’s what Eckersley did. Virtually throwing his upper body at the pitch, Gibson connected and watched the ball sail into the right field pavilion for a game-winning home run.
The Dodgers rode the momentum from that stunning moment to a five-game Series victory over the heavily favored Athletics. They did it without Gibson, whose home run swing came on the only appearance in that World Series his body would allow him to make. Gibson Win Probability Added: 87 percent.
Author's Note: Had events from this year's Game 1 been folded into the historical Game 1 item, Corey Seager's ninth-inning home run, with a 47 percent Win Probability Added, would have tied for third all-time. The Adolis Garcia walk off, with a 43 percent Win probability Added, would have tied for seventh all-time.
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