Johnny Majors inherited a moribund Pitt Panthers program when he arrived in 1973. The Panthers last winning season was ten years ago. It didn’t take long for Majors to turn things around. He brought in a huge recruiting class in his first year and immediately began winning. Over the next three years, Pitt went 19-12-1 […]
The Washington Redskins had entered a new era just one year earlier—that of Daniel Synder’s ownership. And that era had gotten off to a splendid start. In 1999, the Redskins had won their first division title since the great Super Bowl year of 1991, and reached the playoffs for the first time since 1992. It […]
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 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 […]
The Los Angeles Dodgers are a playoff mainstay in our own day. But in 1974, they were in the postseason for the first time since 1966, and the first time since the leagues split into divisions. In our own day, the Pittsburgh Pirates are a small-market underdog. But in 1974, the Pirates were one of […]
The Oakland A’s came to the 1974 World Series looking for a third straight championship. The Los Angeles Dodgers were in the Fall Classic for the first time in nine years. In one sense, it was a close Series—each game was tightly contested. But in the bigger sense, it was decisive—the veteran A’s were the […]
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 […]