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 […]
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 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 […]
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 were the defending champions and looking to repeat. The New York Mets had a recent title themselves, from 1969, but had also been in last place as recently as August. These two teams, taking different routes to get here, played an exciting Fall Classic. The A’s ultimately prevailed in seven games. You […]
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 1972 postseason had already given baseball fans plenty of drama. Both League Championship Series rounds had gone the distance and were marked by individual games that were tensely fought. The 1972 World Series was more of the same. The Oakland A’s and Cincinnati Reds took the full seven games, with six decided by one […]
The early years of the American League Championship Series had been somewhat anticlimactic. A playoff round that was founded in 1969 as a best-of-five series, the first three editions had seen the Baltimore Orioles blow through with sweeps each time. The 1972 ALCS was different. The Oakland A’s and Detroit Tigers provided heart-stopping excitement throughout, […]