The Cleveland Indians and Seattle Mariners had histories that were both very different and yet quite the same. The Indians were one of baseball’s oldest franchise. The Mariners, founded in the late 1970s, were a comparative newbie. But when it came to be strangers to October, they had a lot in common. Prior to 1995, […]
The 1995 Seattle Mariners had some great individual talent in Ken Griffey Jr. in centerfielder and Randy Johnson, who would go 18-2 and win the Cy Young Award on the mound. But it didn’t look nearly enough when the Mariners trailed the then-named Anaheim Angels by 12 ½ games in the AL West on August 15. Nor was Seattle in the picture for the wild-card spot…
The Cincinnati Reds came into 1995 with the status of a winning franchise. They had gone wire-to-wire to win the World Series in 1990 and contended again in 1992. A brief slippage in ’93 led to the hiring of Davey Johnson as manager and immediate results followed. The Reds were leading the pack in the […]
The Atlanta Braves had come up short in the World Series in 1991 and 1992, then been upset in the National League Championship Series in 1993, before their likely playoff berth of 1994 was ended by the players’ strike. The 1995 Atlanta Braves spared the franchise and the fan base from the ignominy of constant playoff defeat by winning the World Series.
1995 was the first year the Division Series became a permanent fixture on MLB’s postseason calendar. The format had been used only once before, in the strike-split season of 1981. It was also scheduled to debut as part of baseball’s new playoff structure in 1994 before the players’ strike cancelled the postseason entirely. Thus, the […]
The Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds each ran away with their divisions in 1995, and each validated that performance with Division Series triumphs. Their battle in the 1995 National League Championship Series produced a good, exciting games. But that did not translate into a good, exciting series. Atlanta was the team who kept getting the […]
1995 should hold a special place in the memory of California Angels fans. A franchise that hadn’t enjoyed a winning season since 1989 turned itself around and became a contender. But a dramatic late-season collapse cost them a playoff spot and instead put 1995 into a regrettable pantheon of Angels’ lore that included postseason heartbreak […]
The New York Yankees entered the 1995 season poised to begin a renaissance era. The proud franchise had not reached the postseason since 1981 and gone through particularly lean years from 1989-92. Some improvement in 1993 led to a 1994 breakout when they had the best record in the American League by August 1994…and then […]
The Colorado Rockies were in just their third season of existence in 1995. In a season that was traumatic for Major League Baseball as a whole—one that started late, due to the lingering effects of the 1994 strike that canceled the season midstream—Colorado was a heartening story. The youthful Rockies franchise made the playoffs under […]