The 1974 American League Championship Series marked the third time in four years the Oakland A’s and Baltimore Orioles had squared off for the pennant. The A’s were looking to win a third consecutive World Series title. The Orioles were looking to get back to the Fall Classic for the first time since 1971. In […]
By their lofty standards, the 1974 Los Angeles Dodgers were in a rut. To be sure, it was a rut most franchises would have loved to be in. The Dodgers had fought in close pennant races in 1971 and 1973. They had generally played winning baseball since a 1959-65 stretch that saw them win three […]
The Big Red Machine had emerged as the dominant team in the National League in the early part of the 1970s. They won pennants in 1970 and 1972. They reached the NLCS in 1973. But they hadn’t yet won the whole thing. The 1974 Cincinnati Reds season only served to add to the frustration. They […]
The Pirates had won three straight division titles in the old NL East from 1970 through 1972, with a World Series title in 1971 included. In 1973, Pittsburgh contended to the final day of the season, but that was a sub-.500 team kept in contention by an entire division that played mediocre baseball. The 1974 […]
The 1974 Baltimore Orioles were looking for the franchise’s fifth division title in the last six years. They were hoping to get back to the World Series for the first time since 1971, and to win it for the first time since 1970. They came up short on the latter two goals, but a sizzling […]
The New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds had taken very different paths to get to the 1973 NLCS. The Mets had survived a division race that was defined by mass mediocrity and prevailed with a record of 82-79. The Reds had spent the year in a heavyweight fight with the Los Angeles Dodgers before pulling […]
The Oakland A’s and the Baltimore Orioles were the great powers of the American League in the first half of the 1970s, and they met three times in the playoffs. The 1973 ALCS was the second of those times, and what was then a best-of-five series went the distance. Oakland prevailed, en route to a […]
After their magical run to a World Series title in 1969, the Mets continued to play winning baseball over the next three years. But winning baseball was not contending baseball, and New York was well off the pace being set by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the old NL East. The 1973 New York Mets weren’t […]
The 1973 Pittsburgh Pirates came into the season looking for a fourth straight division title and to win their second World Series title in that same time period. The Pirates did indeed contend in ’73. But it took a mediocre division to keep them in the race, and in the end, they still came up […]
Baltimore was the American League’s dominant team from 1969 through 1971. Each year, they blew away the AL East and swept through the American League Championship Series. In 1970, they won the World Series. By those lofty standards, 1972 was a disappointment. The Orioles failed to win the AL East, even in a year when […]
The 1973 Cincinnati Reds were looking to take that final step. In both 1970 and 1972 they had reached the World Series, only to come up short—by a single run in ’72. In 1973, the Reds won a hot race to return to the postseason, before again just missing out on October glory. This era […]
The Pirates were riding high, having won a dramatic World Series in 1971. Pittsburgh had won the NL East each of the last two years. Even with a managerial change—Bill Virdon took over for Danny Murtaugh, who retired upstairs to the front office–the 1972 Pittsburgh Pirates were more of the same. They ran away with […]
