Joe Paterno came to Penn State in 1966. In 1968 and 1969, Paterno’s teams capped off undefeated seasons with major bowl victories. Both times, they came up short in the final national championship voting. The 1973 Penn State football season was more of the same—undefeated, but unrecognized. Although this time, they produced one of college […]
Bear Bryant had arrived in Tuscaloosa back in 1958. In his first eight seasons, he finished #1 in the AP poll three different times and had an unbeaten, but uncrowned team in 1966. He hadn’t been back on top since, but the 1973 Alabama football team came into the season with some momentum. They had […]
Ara Parseghian had come to Notre Dame in 1964 and immediately revived a program that had suffered through a miserable two-win campaign in 1963. Over Ara’s first seven seasons in South Bend, he finished in the national top 10 every year and won a national title in 1966. There was some slippage in 1971 and […]
The 1971 World Series was the first time the Fall Classic played even a single game at night. The Series as a whole was one worthy of prime-time. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles staged an epic seven-game battle that was decided by a single run. The Pirates prevailed in a World Series that saw […]
The Pittsburgh Pirates were a team with unfinished business, having reached the 1970 NLCS before being swept out of the then best-of-five round in three straight. The San Francisco Giants were making their first appearance in a League Championship Series round that was in just its third year of existence. When the Pirates and Giants […]
The Dodger franchise, long the most consistent in the National League, had experienced boom times after moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958. Previously known for winning pennants, but experiencing World Series frustration (save one glorious moment in 1955), the Dodgers rattled off World Series championships in 1959, 1963 and 1965. They won another […]
The move west had been good for the Giants franchise. After two losing seasons ended their tenure in New York, the team began playing winning baseball as soon as they arrived in San Francisco in 1958. They consistently contended over the next decade-plus and won a National League pennant in 1962. The 1971 San Francisco […]
The 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates were coming off a season where they won a division title and reached the National League Championship Series. In this ’71 season, the Pirates were even better—they again reached the postseason. This time, they won the NLCS. And at World Series time, the great Roberto Clemente secured his baseball legacy in […]
The League Championship Series round was only in its third year of existence in 1971, but the Baltimore Orioles were already old hands at it. The Birds had swept what was then a best-of-five series the previous two years and won the World Series in 1970. The Oakland A’s were the newcomers. The difference in […]
The 1971 Cincinnati Reds came into the season with high hopes. A core group of young players had won a breakthrough pennant in 1970. From the perspective of history we know that this core group would do great things throughout the coming decade. But 1971 proved to be a year where nothing really clicked. The […]
Success had been a long time coming for the A’s. The franchise’s last pennant had been forty years earlier, in 1931, when they resided in Philadelphia and Connie Mack was the manager. An interim period spent in Kansas City was marked by losing. A subsequent move to Oakland though, saw improvement. The A’s had played […]
The 1971 Baltimore Orioles came into the season riding high. They were fresh off winning their second World Series title in five years. With a lineup in its prime, they were poised for a repeat effort. The ’71 Orioles came awfully close to doing just that. An excellent team that again rolled the rest of […]