The Baseball Book Club discussion
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If you had a time machine
This sounds like one of my stories Harold, but for me, how about with what we know now, any game from the 1919 World Series?Mike Linn
That would have been one of my later choices
my initial response was to say the Impossible Return on 8/5/01 when the Indians came back to beat the Mariners 15-14... but I listened to the whole game on the radio and there's nothing I would trade for hearing Tom Hamilton call that game.so in lieu of that, I think I'll go with either Game 1 or Game 7 of the 1955 World Series.
How about either game sevens of 1960 or 1991 World Series? Mike Linn
Mike this is the first round-don't get greedy. There will be second and third round draft picks
Even though I have the DVD I would have loved to be at Wrigley for the Phillies 23-22 slugfest with the Cubbies. Second would probably be the Schmidt four homer ten inning win also at Wrigley.
Last bit of greed-Don Larsen?Mike Linn
Harold, I don't get the Thompson game being the most significant ever. I'm curious why you chose that game.
Because it generated so many books and so many memories for millions of New Yorkers who still talk about it with reverence. I have always been touched by the Branca/Thompson lives and how life changed for them. I know the Giants blew the WS but their comeback from I think 18 games back in July to win(even if tainted by the sign buzzer system) was one of the most amazing feats of all time. (Yankees also in 1978).It captured the city of New York which in those days was the baseball capital and it embodied two different cultures of people-the Brooklyn bums and their blue collar followers who had been perennial losers and the mighty Giants and Leo the Lip. That 3 game series and especially the come from behind win with a walk-off home run when the game looked impossible to win against Newcomb behind 4-2 in the ninth is to me the most dramatic in history.
Millions of people were glued to radios. So for me, even though not a fan of either team, I can't imagine anything more thrilling.
After all, they still have shows about the shot heard around the world. Sure Maz's walk off was heard in Pittsburgh but not round the world.
It's not that it changed baseball, but I think it elevated baseball and especially televised baseball into a different realm.
Maybe the most significant ever is an overstatement but for those NY fans, I think it was. Just hearing Russ Hodges' voice captures just how great a moment in history it was. And you had Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Newcomb, Reese, Whitey Lockman etc etc. I would love to go back in time to be there and I might not want to come back.
Harold wrote: "Very interesting choice"I was thinking Game 1 just to see Robinson steal home, and what better time to see it than a WS game (ignoring the fact that the Dodgers lost regardless of the steal); and then Game 7 because any WS where a Game 7 is played is automatically intriguing, and the Dodgers beat the Yanks to boot -- so any time that happens it's a great thing too lol
And a 2-0 shutout by Johnny Podres a 19 year old kid
Was that the Smoltz game that was a shutout for both teams?Mike G- I listened to that game 7 on radio at Rutgers and that moment when MCCovey hit the line drive I was exhilarated and then depressed in the same second
I believe that the "shot heard `round the world" is clearly the answer, and that all the ones with significance seem to be tied for secondMike Linn
And if Lonnie Smith didn`t have his head up his butt, Smoltz wins
Lonnie was in a lot of of World Series
Well, he lost the 1991 oneMike Linn
That`91 series final game had more plots than a cemetery. The game itself qualifies for your category, Smith just solidifies it. Ask Lance about the game and if Smith could and should have won it for the Braves. Knoblauch faked him out of his jockMike Linn
I don't know that there is any one game that I would like to see, but the sentence that starts "If I had access to a time machine," ends with "I'd like to go back to see Satchel Paige pitch." If I had to pick one game it would be one in which he had the rest of his team stay on the bench while he went to the mound and struck out the side without them being on the field.
Thanks, Ashley. He is my all-time favorite pitcher!
Mod
It was pretty cool watching that game while in the Persian Gulf. 8 AM out there when Larkin blooped the single. And I went crazy in a lounge full of Braves fans
Mod
Great essay on that game Harold. Sounds like that game is to baseball what the 1958 Colts-Giants game is to football...elevated the sport's appeal to a new level. I too always wondered what the fuss was about the Bobby Thompson game...now I understand a little better.
Thank you Lance and I like your analogy to the 58 Colts game that I watched with my dad and our next door neighbors.
Mod
It's like anything else Harold, if Maz hit that homer in New York it would have been the biggest ever. The thing that gets me about the Thompson game is that it wasn't a great game just a great inning. The Maz game was much more intense. That's just my opinion of course, and while it has to be considered in the top 10 of all time great games played I still don't see it as that significant. I would say that Jackie Robinson taking the field for the first time was much more significant. If anything the stranglehold that New York had on baseball in the 50s helped attendance decline and forced teams to start looking at greener pastures. Only six years later the beloved Bums packed up their truck and moved to Beverly, Hills that is , swimming pools and movie stars.
Mike I remember when there was a vote on them. I think they stated they had to be from 1970 on up.
Mod
Phillies in 64 had a 6 1/2 game lead with 12 left to play and lost 10 in a row. They could have went 3 and 9 and still won. That would be a collapse.
Mod
Well Fisk hit his in Boston against the Reds....doesn't seem too many people have forgotten it.
In 51 the dodgers played .500 ball in September while the Giants went nuts. Could the Dodgers have played better? Yep but they didn't fall apart. Chalk that one up to comeback.
They haven't forgotten Maz either. That was just the example Harold used so I mentioned it.
Mike wrote: "Harold,I'm in agreement with you about the Thompson game. But, just for the heck of it I wanted to see some list naming the top 10 games ever played. The following is off of MLB.com. None of..."
I saw most of them as they happened
Yeh they restricted the vote to the last 40 years.
Let's not forget the comeback of the Rockies in 2007 when they won 21 of their last 22 games. That is a comeback like the Giants and Yankees.To me the 51 game had more tension. Pirates Vs. Yankees= no history or rivalry of any consequence. The games were lopsided for the Yankees in terms of runs scored.
In 51 you had the great comeback and a 3 game series which was even going into the last game. You had the Dodgers best pitcher being yanked in favor of a guy who had given up a homer to Thomson a day or two earlier. You had the history of one of the greatest rivalries of all -time. To me, it's not even close. The 61 series was boring except for the last game IMHO
Thompson, Maz, Fisk, are big ones. Gibson's 17 ks in the 68 series I'd put right up there.
Lance makes a good point. I think that the Red Sox of 78 played over their head as did the 64 Phillies so it was more a collapse for both.The Giants were stealing signs and went on a tear while the Dodgers collapsed as they did in 50.
To me the Phillies in 2007 were nowhere as good as the Mets but the Mets folded. I can't remember the 95 race except the final game which was one of the best ever played
Here's my 2nd round pick. I would love to have been in the stands in 1908 to see the Cubs/Giants game in which Fred Merkle made his "boner" by failing to touch 2nd base after a single which would have been the walk off hit and given the Giants the pennant.It was a near riot that day on the last or next to the last day of the season in a 3 way race to the end with Honus Wagner's Pirates.
This is considered by many the most controversial game of all time. I would have loved to see Christy Matthewson pitch and watch Tinkers, Evers, and especially Frank Chance. Talk about history-wow
I was just looking at game 7 in 60 which had a bit of everything. Besides the walk off homer, you had the play Mantle made diving back to first to avoid a series ending double play. Hal Smiths 3 run bomb after Kubek gets hit in the throat with a double play ball.jim Coats forgetting to cover first on a ground ball to allow a hustling Clemente turn what would have been the third out into a rally. The first game of the playoff in 51 was a good one, but the second was a 10 to 0 blowout, before the big one .
All true Mike but it's the rivalry that makes it count for me.When I moved in NJ last year all my saved programs including the game 7 of 1960 were erased as well as Koufax's two hit shutout against Lance' Twins in 65.
Still mourning the loss
Mod
i'd be altruistic and go back and say look out for that drain Mickey!
Didn't DiMaggio dog that ball and fail to go for it which led mickey to go all out and ultimately blow his knee out?
stengle told mickey to cover as much ground as possible to help out the aging Dimaggio, which he did. whatever the reason, not stepping on the drain would have made for a different career. hard to say better. how much better can one be?
Lance wrote: "I think this the list that was used for that countdown show MLB Network had for the greatest games. Maybe only later games because some older ones didn't have film or TV footage?"You are probably right. Up until the 70's it was common practice to wipe the tapes from sporting events. It was presumed that no one would want to see them again in the future so there was no point using up storage space hanging on to them.
The 78 Sox were stacked, no way they played over their head. Don Zimmer blew that pennant by not using Bill Lee because he was pissed off at him. Instead they bring up the immortal Bobby Sprowl who in 2 starts gives up 9 earned runs on 12 hits and 10 walks in only 12 innings
Each of us has some impactful games and times we all rate the best, however, the category as Harold stated it, was going back to see ONE GAME- PERIOD. We`ve given our opinions, and given a few more games, whether the whole game was impactful or just a great inning or 2 of another. History has given us a great list to choose from, but the choosing is ours, and so are the memories, the heroes, and the debates. That`s why I`m here, and of course, to argue with Mike.Mike Linn
Considering how VIP knees are for a power hitter, I think he would have played longer,stolen more bases, certainly hit for a better average especially in the mid 60's, and probably hit 600 plus HR
IF YOU HAD A TIME MACHINE AND COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND SEE JUST ONE GAME, WHICH WOULD YOU PICK? We can do our second and third choices later. Since I started it, I'll take my first round pick.
Game 3 of the 1951 Dodger/Giant playoffs on October 3, 1951. The Shot heard round the world. To me the most significant game in history