Total Baseball (1994 Edition)/Total_Baseball_1994_Edition_Creative_Multimedia_1994.iso/dp/0001/00010.txt

Text File | 1994-01-04 | 77KB | 1,109 lines

$Unique_ID{BAS00010}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Team Histories:  Part 2}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Ivor-Campbell, Frederick}
$Subject{Team Histories History teams Cincinnati Reds Cleveland Indians
Colorado Rockies Detroit Tigers Florida Marlins Houston Astros Kansas City
Royals Los Angeles Dodgers}
$Log{
1906 Chicago White Sox*0000901.scf
1906-08 Cubs (A Yard of the National Game)*0001001.scf
1918 Boston Red Sox*0001401.scf
1931 Philadelphia A's*0001601.scf
1942 Detroit Tigers*0001801.scf
1950 New York Yankees*0001901.scf
1954 Cleveland Indians*0002001.scf
1977 Baltimore Orioles*0002201.scf
1983 Los Angeles Dodgers*0002401.scf
Ebbets Field, Brooklyn (1950s)*0003001.scf
St. Louis Browns*0003301.scf
Chicago White Stockings Players League*0002801.scf}

Total Baseball:  The History


Team Histories:  Part 2

Frederick Ivor-Campbell


Cincinnati Reds

     The Red Stockings was the nickname of two pioneering Cincinnati
ballclubs--the first avowedly professional team, which was undefeated in 1869,
and the charter member club in the National League of 1876-1880. After a year
on the sidelines, the reformed Reds joined the new American Association and
captured the 1882 pennant by 11 1/2 games, with a .688 winning percentage that
is still the club record. Seven Reds enjoyed career highs in batting, pitcher
Will White led the association with 40 wins, and rookie second baseman John
"Bid" McPhee proved himself already one of the game's classiest fielders. The
Reds even won one of a pair of postseason exhibition games with Chicago's
White Stockings, champions of the older and stronger National League.
     McPhee remained eighteen years with the Reds and established himself as
the finest second baseman of the nineteenth century. But the club would go
thirty-seven years before it won another pennant. Twice in their seven
remaining years in the AA the Reds finished second, and they enjoyed six
winning seasons. Transferring from the AA to the NL in 1890, they finished
fourth; at 10 1/2 games out of first, it was their closest finish in the
thirty-four years between 1884 and their next pennant-winning season, 1919.
     The Reds wound up in the cellar for the first time in 1901. The next
year club owner John T. Brush sold out to a group of Cincinnati's political
bosses, who in mid-August named August "Garry" Herrmann (formerly head of the
water works commission) to run it. Herrmann promptly acquired two outfielders
from Baltimore--Cy Seymour and Joe Kelley, who was appointed team manager--who
helped pull the Reds up to .500 and to fourth place by season's end. Three
winning seasons followed, but then came eleven years in which the Reds
finished above .500 only once (and then by only one game). Herrmann,
meanwhile had found his calling in baseball administration. He not only
remained president of the Reds for twenty-five years, but he also chaired the
three-man National Commission that oversaw organized baseball, from its
establishment in 1903 until 1920 (when his resignation brought about the
commission's demise).
     A midseason trade in 1916 brought the Reds Christy Mathewson (at the end
of his pitching career) to manage the team, plus outfielder Edd Roush. The
next year, with Roush leading the league in batting, the Reds edged above
.500 and into fourth place. In 1918 an August spurt boosted the Reds into
third place, in a season shortened by a month at the end because of the World
War. Roush enjoyed another banner year, but Mathewson left for the Army just
before the season ended.
     First baseman Hal Chase--suspected of throwing games--was traded away
after the season and replaced by veteran Jake Daubert. Southpaw Slim Sallee
was purchased from the Giants and righthander Ray Fisher from the Yankees.
Pat Moran (who had led the Phillies to a pennant in 1915) was hired to replace
Mathewson at the Cincinnati helm. Thus fortified, the Reds in 1919 won their
second pennant. Three pitchers--Sallee (21-7), Hod Eller (20-9), and Dutch
Ruether (19-7, 1.82 ERA)--reached career peaks, Fisher (14-5) enjoyed one of
his best years, Roush won another batting title and finished second in NL
RBIs, and three Reds finished in the league's top four in runs scored. The
Reds broke quickly at the start, but faltered in May and didn't pass the
Giants into first place for good until late July. But from then on, they
increased their lead to the end, finishing 9 games in front. Rumors of a
White Sox fix to throw the World Series clouded the Reds' Series triumph--and
spoiled it entirely when, a year later, the scandal became public and the
truth of the rumors was confirmed.
     In 1920 Cincinnati led the league entering September, but Brooklyn
spurted and the Reds slumped to a third-place finish, 10 1/2 games out. They
dropped to sixth in 1921, but recovered for five years in the first division,
including three second-place finishes. But only in 1926 did the Reds contend
closely for the flag. After leading the league much of the first half of the
season, they found themselves in the second half tangled in a three-way battle
with St. Louis and Pittsburgh. But after surging into a narrow lead with
seven straight wins in mid-September, they lost their next five games and
wound up 2 games back of the Cardinals in second place.
     The Reds finished the eleven years after 1926 in the second division,
hitting bottom with four straight cellar finishes in 1931-1934. President
Herrmann retired after the 1927 season, and within two years a controlling
interest in the Reds was sold to a wealthy Cincinnatian, Sidney Weil. But
Weil lost his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929 and the Depression
that followed. While he continued to run the Reds for four years, his stock
in the club was held by the Central Trust Company. In his efforts to turn the
club around, Weil acquired catcher Ernie Lombardi from Brooklyn in March 1932,
and pitcher Paul Derringer from the St. Louis Cardinals the following May.
Derringer lost 25 games in his first Red season and 21 the next, but both
remained with the club long enough to star in its return to glory. Owner
Weil, however, relinquished his control to the bank in 1933, at the depth of
the Depression and of the team's fortunes.
     The bank hired Larry MacPhail (who had rescued minor league Columbus by
introducing night baseball there) to run the Reds. MacPhail in turn hired
Frank Lane to develop a minor league farm system, and persuaded Cincinnati
industrialist Powel Crosley, Jr., to invest in the club. On May 24, 1935,
Crosley and MacPhail brought night ball to the major leagues (the Reds, with
Derringer pitching, beat the Phillies 2-1), and with it a sharp upswing in
attendance at Crosley Field. By June 1936, Crosley's increased investment in
the Reds had made him the majority owner. The temperamental MacPhail quit
suddenly in mid-September 1936, but the Reds replaced him with another
successful minor league executive, Warren Giles, who ran the club until his
selection in 1952 as president of the NL.
     After rising to sixth place in 1935 and fifth the next year, the Reds
dropped back into the cellar in 1937. But the following year, under new
manager Bill McKechnie, they rose into the first division once again--even
holding second place briefly in September before slipping to fourth.
Derringer enjoyed the first of three peak seasons, young Johnny Vander Meer
contributed 15 wins (including two consecutive no-hitters) and Bucky Walters,
after his acquisition from the Phillies in June, compiled his first winning
season since converting from third baseman to pitcher in 1935. Catcher
Lombardi led the NL in batting, and first baseman Frank McCormick, in his
first full season, led the team in RBIs and the league in hits. The stage was
set for the club's first back-to-back pennants.
     Several Reds reached the apex of their careers in 1939, among them
Walters (27-11) and Derringer (25-7), who between them topped most of the
league's pitching stats, and Frank McCormick, who led the league in RBIs and
hits and finished second in batting. The club pulled out of the pack to the
front before the end of May and held the lead to the end, although St. Louis
closed the gap with a late-season surge before slipping 4 1/2 games back.
     Cincinnati's sweep by the Yankees in the World Series was something of a
shock, but the club had recovered its poise by the next spring. Starting
strong and--except for a small dip in August--pushing steadily upward
throughout the season, the Reds shook off the persistent Dodgers in midseason
and finished 12 games in front with their first 100-win season. McCormick and
Lombardi powered the offense, and Walters for the second year in a row took NL
crowns in wins and ERA. This time the team's triumph carried through the
World Series as Walters and Derringer won two games apiece to edge the Detroit
Tigers in seven games.
     The Reds' pitching remained strong in 1941, but their hitting and run
production fell off and the team struggled to finish third. They remained in
the upper division through 1944, but then dropped into an eleven-year trough
of losing seasons in which, while they never sank into the cellar, they never
rose above fifth.
     Ted Kluszewski was in his ninth season as the Reds' slugging first
baseman when Cincinnati next offered a serious run for the pennant in 1956
under manager Birdie Tebbetts. Kluszewski led the club in hitting and RBIs,
but his 35 home runs were good enough only for third behind rookie Frank
Robinson's 38 and Wally Post's 36 on a team that hammered 221 during the
season to tie the major league record set nine years earlier by the Giants.
The Reds' offense (they led the league in runs scored) kept them in the thick
of a three-team race throughout the season, and they finished only 2 games
out. That same year, for the first time ever they drew more than a million
fans at home.
     The Reds dropped out of a tight race in August 1957, and suffered losing
seasons the next three years. After the 1960 season, Gabe Paul, who had
succeeded Warren Giles as club president and general manager, left to help
organize the new Houston club, and the following spring owner Crosley died.
Bill DeWitt, who replaced Paul as president (and ultimately purchased control
of the club), acquired pitcher Joey Jay from the Milwaukee Braves and third
baseman Gene Freese from the White Sox. Jay in 1961 won twelve games more
than his previous season high--tying for the league lead with 21, and Freese
homered 26 times and drove in 87 runs--both career highs. Most of the team
improved on their 1960 stats, and despite a poor start that saw them enter May
in last place, the Reds had risen to the top by mid-June. The streaking
Dodgers caught them briefly in August, but then fell away as the Reds pushed
their pennant-winning margin to 4 games. In the World Series, though, it was
the Yankees in five games.
     The Reds next threatened in 1964 when, in a wild three-way finish, they
won nine straight in late September to take first place for a day before
slipping into a tie for second, one game behind St. Louis. In 1965 a young
Pete Rose recorded the first of his ten 200-hit seasons as the Reds battled
among the leaders through much of the summer before dropping off to fourth.
     That December, after a decade of standout offense in Cincinnati, Frank
Robinson was traded to Baltimore. The next year, while Robinson won the
Triple Crown in assisting his new team to the world championship, the Reds
suffered their first losing season in six years and sank to seventh place.
That winter, owner DeWitt completed the sale of the team to a group led by
Cincinnati newspaper publisher Francis Dale, and including brothers James and
William Williams who later acquired a controlling interest in the club.
     In 1969, the first year of divisional play, the Reds rose, after a slow
start, into the thick of a five-way race in the NL West before stumbling as
Atlanta and San Francisco surged in the final three weeks. But the season
provided a foretaste of the decade to come as the team captured league crowns
in slugging and home runs.
     At midseason in 1970 the Reds moved out of Crosley Field--their home for
fifty-eight years--into the new Riverfront Stadium. Catcher Johnny Bench and
third baseman Tony Perez, with the finest seasons of their long careers, paced
an overwhelming Red offense as the team hammered out a new club-high 102 wins
to reward rookie manager Sparky Anderson with victory in the NL West by 14 1/2
games, and gain the appellation "Big Red Machine."  In the League Championship
Series the Reds continued their triumph with a three-game sweep of East winner
Pittsburgh. But mighty Baltimore humbled the Reds in the World Series, 4-1.
     Cincinnati's hitting and run production fell off sharply the next year,
and the club dropped to fourth with their only losing season of the decade.
But in 1972--spurred on after a slow start by Johnny Bench's recovery of
power, Gary Nolan's finest season on the mound, and the all-around mastery of
newly acquired second baseman Joe Morgan--the Reds rebounded after a slow
start to take a lead in June and pull away from everyone in July for an easy
division win. Victory in the LCS came harder, as powerful Pittsburgh carried
the series to the full five games before handing the Reds the pennant with a
wild pitch in the last of the ninth inning of the final game. Cincinnati's
defeat in the World Series was also close: the Reds won three, and Oakland's
four wins were each achieved by a margin of just one run.
     The Reds repeated as division titlists in 1973 with a second-half surge
from fourth place that carried them past front-runner Los Angeles in
September. But the much weaker New York Mets ended Cincinnati's pennant hopes
in the LCS, 3-2.
     In 1974 the Reds trailed the Dodgers all season and finished 4 games back
in second place. But over the next two years the Big Red Machine flattened
all opposition. In 1975, after hovering around .500 through mid-May, the Reds
began an ascent that carried them to what are still club records: 108
victories and a winning margin of 20 games. The team featured balanced
pitching (six starters won ten or more games), a balanced offense in which
every regular drove in more than 45 runs (averaging nearly 77 apiece), the
best fielding in the majors, and a big NL lead in stolen bases. After a
three-game sweep of Pittsburgh in the LCS, the Reds subdued the stubborn
Boston Red Sox in seven games for their first world title in thirty-five
years, and their third overall.
     They won their fourth the next year. Joe Morgan, at the peak of his
career, led the NL in slugging, finished second to teammate George Foster in
RBIs, and stole 60 bases. Balanced pitching and offense again put the Reds in
front to stay in June, carrying the team to 102 wins and a 10-game lead over
Los Angeles at the finish. The LCS produced another sweep--of Philadelphia
this time. The World Series was also a sweep as the Reds dispatched the
Yankees, outscoring them nearly three to one.
     Two years of second-place finishes followed, and the Reds replaced Sparky
Anderson at the helm with John McNamara, who led the club back to the top of
the NL West in 1979. Pete Rose, after sixteen years in Cincinnati, had signed
with the Phillies as a free agent, but Ray Knight (who replaced Rose at third
base) minimized the loss with a team-high .318 batting average. Houston led
the division much of the summer, but a sustained Reds' surge in August brought
them even, then pulled them ahead in early September, where they hung on to
take the title by just 1 1/2 games. But that was the end of the Reds' decade
of splendor, for Pittsburgh swept past them to the pennant in the LCS.
     Joe Morgan left the club after the season, returning as a free agent to
Houston, whence he had come eight years earlier. In 1980 the Reds dipped in
midseason, recovering to make a race of it in August, only to fade a bit and
finish third. The next year, in a season shortened and split in two by a
players' strike, the Reds compiled the best overall record in the majors. But
they came away empty-handed by finishing half a game behind Los Angeles in the
first half-season and 1 1/2 games back of Houston in the second half, losing a
chance at postseason play when the powers that be decided to pit the
half-season winners against each other for the right to play in the LCS.
     As a penurious front office continued to trade away its stars or lose
them to free agency, the dispirited Reds dropped to the bottom of the NL West
in 1982 with a club-worst 101 losses. Manager McNamara yielded in midseason
to coach Russ Nixon, who was himself replaced by Vern Rapp after another
last-place finish in 1983. Robert Howsam, Sr., whose shrewd trading as
general manager had been instrumental in building the mighty Reds of the
1970s, was called out of semiretirement to restore the club to respectability.
Howsam signed free-agent slugger Dave Parker from Pittsburgh, and late in the
1984 season brought Pete Rose back as player-manager. Early in 1985 the NL
approved the sale of the Reds to Marge Schott, a Cincinnati automobile dealer.
With Parker enjoying his most productive seasons in several years, and
newcomers Eric Davis and John Franco developing respectively into one of the
league's leading run producers and one of its best relief pitchers, owner
Schott's public enthusiasm for her team was rewarded with four straight
second-place finishes (and a return in 1987 to a home attendance over two
million for the first time in seven years). In 1987 the team even spent two
months at the top of the NL West, until an August slump dropped them into a
hole from which a late-season rally could not extricate them.
     Turmoil ruled the Reds in 1989. Disabling injuries to no fewer than
twelve players, including such 1988 standouts as pitcher Danny Jackson (whose
23 wins tied for the league high) and infielders Barry Larkin and Chris Sabo,
contributed most to the team's drop to fifth place. But baseball's
investigation of manager Pete Rose on charges of gambling on baseball games
and other offenses--an investigation which resulted in Rose's lifetime
banishment from the game in August--did nothing to bolster Cincinnati's play
on the field.
     The distress of 1989 was all but forgotten in 1990 as the Reds, under new
manager Lou Piniella, leaped to a 9-0 start and, surviving threats from San
Francisco in August and Los Angeles in September, held on to first place
through the entire season. Larkin and Sabo--whole again--anchored a balanced
offense, while pitchers Randy Myers (acquired from the Mets in a trade for
John Franco) and Rob Dibble provided All-Star relief to a solid core of
starters. In the LCS, the Reds overcame an opening-game loss to capture the
pennant from Pittsburgh in six games, then startled Oakland's heavily favored
Athletics with a four-game sweep.
     The Reds remained in the thick of the 1991 race through mid-season,
despite a 10-game losing streak in July. But as Atlanta rose to battle early
leader Los Angeles, Cincinnati settled into a long decline that at the end
left them 20 games back, in fifth place. Barry Larkin and Bip Roberts sparked
the league's strongest offense in 1992, as the Reds rebounded to win 90 games.
But they let a 6-game midseason lead get away from them and finished 8 games
behind repeat champion Atlanta.
     Manager Piniella was replaced by Cincinnati hero--but managing
novice--Tony Perez for 1993. Perez lasted only until May 24, when veteran
manager Davey Johnson took his place. Meanwhile, Marge Schott's fellow NL
owners banned her for the season from active participation in club affairs for
making racial slurs. With their season further marred by injuries and
backbiting, the Reds finished fifth, 31 games out.

Cleveland Indians

     Cleveland is the only club in the American League East without at least
one divisional title. Since the advent of divisional play in 1969, the
Indians have enjoyed only four winning seasons, finishing last in the East
seven times. Their record was not always this dismal. Though no other major
league club with their longevity has won as few pennants, the Indians before
1969 ranked consistently among the league's better teams. They finished in
the top half of the league nearly 70 percent of the time through their first
sixty-eight years, and only once (in 1914) wound up in the cellar.
     The Indians (who were at first called the Blues because of the color of
their uniforms) succeeded Cleveland's National League Spiders, who in 1899,
their final season, lost a major league record 134 games. When the NL dropped
the Spiders at the end of the season, Ban Johnson, president of the emerging
American League, grasped the opportunity to move into this major market. In
1901, when Johnson proclaimed the AL a major league, Cleveland lured several
players from NL clubs and played much better than the Spiders had, but still
finished next-to-last in their first big league season. The next year the
Bronchos (as they decided to call themselves) languished in last place through
June. But during the season they acquired several players through trade and
purchase--most notably star second baseman Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie and pitcher
Bill Bernhard--who turned the Bronchos around in midseason and lifted them
above .500 (and into fifth place) by season's end.
     With Lajoie sparkling in the field and dominating the league at the
plate, the fans soon settled on another nickname for the club--the Naps--that
lasted as long as Lajoie remained in Cleveland. Late in the 1904 season,
Lajoie was named manager. After enjoying moderate success in two of the next
three seasons, the Naps in 1908 experienced their best year yet, and one of
the team's most exciting finishes ever.
     With a ten-game winning streak near the end of the season, they moved
from fourth to first, only to be surpassed by Detroit's ten-game streak. Both
teams won their season finale, but the Tigers, because they had not made up an
earlier rainout, took the pennant by half a game. Cleveland protested that if
Detroit had played the missed game and lost, Cleveland would have gained a
tie, forcing a playoff that might have brought them the championship. The
dispute led to a rules change requiring ties or washouts to be replayed if
their outcome could determine the pennant winner.
     Poor seasons alternated with good the next few years. Lajoie quit as
manager but remained as player. Pitching ace Addie Joss pitched a second
no-hitter (he had hurled a perfect game at the height of the 1908 race), but
before the start of the 1911 season, Joss was dead of tubercular meningitis.
Outfielder Joe Jackson--acquired from the Athletics--hit .408 in his first
full big league season. The club reached bottom in 1914 with a last-place
finish that found them 18 1/2 games out of seventh place, 48 1/2 out of first.
After the season Lajoie was waivered to Philadelphia (the fans then voted to
rename the club the Indians), and the next August Jackson was sold to the
Chicago White Sox as attendance dropped to its lowest level since 1901.
     By the time the 1916 season began, though, new ownership had acquired the
great Tris Speaker from Boston and brought up from the minors a pair of
promising pitchers, Jim Bagby (Sr.) and Stan Coveleski. The club rose only
one place that year, to sixth. But they stayed in the pennant fight through
July and wound up winning 20 games more than they had the previous year.
Attendance more than tripled over 1915.
     Sparked by the three newcomers, the Indians rose to third in 1917, and to
close second-place finishes the next two years. In 1920 everything came
together. Speaker, who had taken over as manager the previous July, hit .388
and enjoyed one of his best years, as did Coveleski with 24 wins. Bagby, in
the finest season of his career, led the league with 31 victories, and veteran
pitcher Ray Caldwell (picked up from the Boston Red Sox the previous summer)
added another 20. Six regulars hit over .300; the club as a whole hit .303.
     Involved from mid-June in a close race with the Yankees, joined in August
by the White Sox, Cleveland saw its home attendance climb above 900,000 for
the first time, to set a club record that would last twenty-six years. The
Yankees dropped back a bit in mid-September, but the White Sox hung close
until the final week, when eight of their players were indicted and suspended
as suspects in the Black Sox scandal of 1919. The Sox lost two of their final
three games and all hope of tying Cleveland to force a playoff. The Indians
defeated Brooklyn in a World Series that is best remembered for second baseman
Bill Wambsganss' unassisted triple play in Game Five. Cleveland led much of
the way in 1921 before a late slump and a New York surge gave the Yankees
their first pennant. Through the next quarter century the Indians came close
to a pennant only twice. In 1926, with two veteran Georges--pitcher Uhle and
first baseman Burns--enjoying their finest seasons, the Indians came to life
in midseason and drew within three games of the Yankees by season's end.
Fourteen years later, in 1940, behind the 27 wins of twenty-one-year-old Bob
Feller and the inspired play (in the field and at the bat) of second-year
shortstop Lou Boudreau, Cleveland made an even closer run for the flag.
Throughout the summer the Indians were in or near first place, but six losses
in nine games with a resurgent Detroit in late August and September left them
a game back at the finish. Two years later Boudreau, at age twenty-four, was
named to manage the Tribe. His team stirred little interest through the war
years. But in 1946, with Feller back from military service and pitching his
best ever, Cleveland fans boosted home attendance above a million for the
first time, even though the team's won-lost record was its worst in eighteen
years. The next year, their first full season under new president Bill Veeck,
the Indians climbed to fourth. More significantly, Veeck hired the league's
first black player, Larry Doby, who became a mainstay of the Indians for the
next eight years.
     In 1948 the Indians began a nine-year era of excellence with a victory in
one of the closest pennant races ever. Through June they ran a three-way race
with the Yankees and the surprisingly lively Philadelphia Athletics; in July
the Red Sox rose out of nowhere to make it a four-way struggle. In September
the A's fell behind, but the three remaining clubs stayed close, and on
September 24 found themselves in a three-way tie. Cleveland moved ahead with
a four-game win streak, but Boston, after a pair of losses, won their final
four (including two to eliminate New York). Cleveland's final-day loss to
Detroit left them tied with Boston. In a one-game playoff in Boston the next
day (the first playoff in AL history), manager-shortstop Boudreau capped his
MVP season with two home runs to help give rookie Gene Bearden his twentieth
win and the Tribe their second pennant. The exciting race drew more than 2.6
million Cleveland fans to Municipal Stadium, a new major league record and
still Cleveland's season high. By contrast, the World Series against the
Boston Braves was anticlimactic--a Cleveland triumph in six games.
     By 1951 both owner Veeck and manager Boudreau had moved on, but under new
manager Al Lopez the Indians fashioned a six-year stretch in which they
finished second to the Yankees five times, and in 1954 they won their third
pennant with 111 victories--the most in AL history. The Lopez years,
1951-1956, were punctuated by the power of players like Doby, Luke Easter, Al
Rosen, and Vic Wertz. But it was pitching that gave the team its consistency.
Bob Lemon and Early Wynn won between 17 and 23 games in every one of the six
years, as did Mike Garcia through 1954. As Garcia and Feller (who won 22 in
1951) faded, Art Houtteman was acquired from Detroit for a couple of good
years, and Herb Score came along for his two explosive seasons.
     The 1954 season--Cleveland's year to break the Yankee grip on the AL--was
in fact New York's best season in the eighteen years from 1943 through 1960, a
period in which they won twelve pennants. The Yankees kept the race close
until the end of July, and finished with 103 wins. But the Indians won an
AL-record 111 games to beat New York by 8. Wynn and Lemon tied for the league
lead with 23 wins apiece, and Garcia copped the ERA crown. Doby led the
league in homers and RBIs, and second baseman Bobby Avila took the batting
title. Heavily favored to defeat the Giants in the World Series, the Tribe
and their fans were shocked when the NL champs swept them in four games.
     After Lopez left to manage the White Sox in 1957, the Indians slipped
below .500 for the first time in a decade. Rocky Colavito's power and Cal
McLish's pitching brought them back in 1959, when they finished second to
Lopez's Sox. Their next highest post-Lopez finish came nine years later, in
1968, when Luis Tiant and Sam McDowell pitched them into third.
     From 1969 through 1989 the Indians completed every season in the bottom
half of the AL East, rising above .500 in only four seasons while finishing
seven years in the division cellar. In 1990, though, with three straight wins
at season's end, they passed Baltimore by half a game to wind up a
middle-of-the-division fourth.
     The effort proved too much. In July 1991, the Indians dropped into the
cellar to stay, and spiraled on-down to a club-record 105 losses. With
nowhere to go but up, the 1992 team, spurred by the offense of Carlos Baerga
and Albert Belle, and the impressive pitching of Charles Nagy, played the best
ball in the AL after the All-Star break, lifting themselves out of the cellar
into a fourth place-tie with the Yankees.
     The tragic preseason deaths of relievers Tim Crews and Steve Olin--and
severe injury to starter Bob Ojeda--in a boating accident cast a pall over the
team's final season in Cleveland Stadium. With Nagy also out much of the
season, the Indians' pitching was among the league's worst. Offensively,
though, they ranked among the better clubs, paced by Baerga, Belle, and
sophomore Kenny Lofton, whose league-leading 70 stolen bases set a new club
record. The team finished sixth.

Colorado Rockies

     Denver was one of two cities awarded a National League franchise in June
1991 (Miami was the other), in the league's first expansion since Montreal and
San Diego were added in 1969. The new teams took the field for the first time
in 1993, their rosters stocked primarily with players selected from the other
major league clubs in a special expansion draft. Denver, which chose to call
itself the Colorado Rockies, drew nearly 4.5 million fans to cavernous Mile
High Stadium (its home until new Coors Field is completed in 1995), the
highest season attendance in the history of sport.
     Though their 5.41 ERA was by far the worst in the majors, the Rockies,
under rookie manager Don Baylor, not only avoided the NL West cellar, but set
a new record for wins by a first-year expansion team, with 67. Andres
Galarraga, Charlie Hayes, and Dante Bichette headed a solid offense, with
Galarraga hitting more than one hundred points above his previous major league
career average to lead the NL in batting at .370.


Detroit Tigers

     One of the more successful clubs in the American League, the Tigers have
enjoyed winning seasons nearly 70 percent of the time. In eighteen of their
sixty-one winning seasons, they have remained in contention into the final
days, eleven times emerging triumphant as league or division champions. They
have finished last in the league or AL East only four times, and have never
had more than four losing seasons in a row.
     Detroit was one of the clubs from Ban Johnson's Western League that
(renamed the American League) raised itself to major league status in 1901
with a talent raid on the long-established National League. In their first
six big league seasons, the Tigers displayed little bite, finishing four times
in the second division and never threatening for the league lead.
     In 1907 all that changed. Sparked by a young right fielder, Ty Cobb (who
in his first full big league season led the league in batting, slugging, hits,
RBIs, and stolen bases) and led by a dynamic new manager, Hugh "Eeyah"
Jennings (who knew enough not to try to tell Cobb how to play the game), the
Tigers clawed their way to the pennant in a four-way race. The outcome might
have been different if two late-season games with second-place Philadelphia
had not been rained out and tied. Today's rules would require that the games
be made up.
     The 1908 race was even closer, with four teams contending into late
September. The race wasn't settled until the final day, when Detroit beat
Chicago to edge Cleveland by half a game. Once again the pennant hinged on a
rainout that had not been made up. And once again Cobb dominated the league's
hitters (though he slipped to fourth in stolen bases).
     The Tigers had a slightly easier time of it the next year. It was a
three-way race into September, but Detroit then pulled away to finish 3 1/2
games ahead of Philadelphia. Cobb, in his best season yet, took the Triple
Crown and returned to the top in stolen bases. But the Tigers were unable to
win a World Series. In 1907, after an opening-game tie, the Chicago Cubs
swept the next four. The Cubs lost Game Three the next year, but won the
other four. And in 1909 Pittsburgh and Detroit alternated victories, with the
Pirates emerging world champions in seven games.
     Jennings managed Detroit for eleven more seasons; then Cobb took the
reins for six years before leaving for Philadelphia. But the Tigers won no
more pennants in the Cobb era. Cobb himself continued to dominate the league
offensively through 1919. In 1911 he achieved career highs in most offensive
categories, including a batting average of .420, but the Tigers managed no
better than a distant second to the Athletics. In 1915 they started strong
and remained in the race throughout the season. Cobb stole what was for
forty-seven years a modern-record 96 bases, and the team's 100 wins proved to
be the highest total in their first thirty-three years. But after running
neck and neck with the Red Sox through most of August, the Tigers slumped a
bit in early September--just enough for the Sox to take the flag by 2 1/2
games. A close third-place finish the next year marked the Tigers' last
serious challenge for eighteen years.
     In 1934, after six straight years in the second division, and only three
years after their most distant finish ever (47 games out), the Tigers turned
themselves around to win the pennant with a 101-53 record and a .656 winning
percentage, the highest in Tiger history. Two newly acquired
veterans--manager/catcher Mickey Cochrane and outfielder Goose Goslin--enjoyed
fine seasons at the bat, as did first baseman Hank Greenberg (.339, 139 RBIs)
in his first full season, and long-time Tiger second baseman Charlie Gehringer
(.356, 127 RBIs). The two other infielders, third baseman Marv Owen and
shortstop Billy Rogell enjoyed their finest seasons at the plate for a club
whose batting average led the league at .300. It took the Tigers a month to
get going, but by mid-July they had shot ahead of the Yankees, pulling farther
away through August and September to win by 7 games. But once again, victory
in the World Series eluded them as the St. Louis Cardinals blew them away 11-0
in Game Seven.
     The Tigers' hitting fell off ten points in 1935, but their slugging
jumped eleven points. Paced by Greenberg's 170 RBIs, Detroit--after another
slow start--shot up so sharply in July and August that even a September slump
gave the Yankees no opportunity to catch them. And finally, in their fifth
try, the Tigers won a world championship, overcoming Chicago in six games
despite the loss of Greenberg, who broke his wrist in Game Two. Part-owner
Frank Navin, who had run the club for three decades, had finally seen his
Tigers reach the very top. A month later, after falling from a horse, he
suffered a heart attack and died.
     Del Baker had replaced Cochrane as manager when Detroit next made a run
for the pennant in 1940. In a tight race the Tigers caught up with Cleveland
in early September and traded the lead with them for two weeks before pulling
ahead to stay with two wins in a three-game series. In the pennant clincher,
Detroit's Floyd Giebell outdueled Cleveland great Bob Feller 2-0 for his
third--and last--big league victory. In the World Series the Tigers lost once
again, as Cincinnati came from behind in Game Seven for a 2-1 win.
     Two losing seasons followed, and Steve O'Neill replaced Baker at the
helm. In 1944, the wartime Tigers, behind the splendid pitching of workhorses
Dizzy Trout and Hal Newhouser (one-two in ERA and innings pitched, and winners
of 27 and 29 games), joined the race in late August and found themselves tied
with the St. Louis Browns for first going into the last game of the season.
But the Browns beat the Yankees and Detroit lost to Washington as Trout failed
in his try for a twenty-eighth win.
     Hank Greenberg's release from military service in mid-1945 sparked
another Tiger run for the pennant. They held the lead from mid-June through
August, but in September a surging Washington caught up with them. The race
once again went down to the final day, and the final inning, when Greenberg's
grand slam overcame a St. Louis lead to give Detroit the flag over the idle
Senators. Newhouser, with 25 wins and a 1.81 ERA, was named AL MVP for the
second straight year. In the World Series his ERA shot up to 6.10, but he
still managed to win two games (including the finale) as the Tigers took the
Cubs in seven for their second world title.
     In the twenty-three years that passed before their next pennant, the
Tigers came close only twice. In 1950 they led the race through the middle of
the season, but were caught by the Yankees late in August. After retaking the
lead in early September, the two clubs ran neck-and-neck for a while before
Detroit fell away to second.
     Two years later the Tigers reached their nadir:  their first cellar
finish, their most losses ever (104), and their lowest winning percentage
(.325). After a decade in which they finished no higher than fourth, they
rebounded in 1961 as first baseman Norm Cash and left fielder Rocky Colavito
both enjoyed the most explosive seasons of their careers. Compiling their
best season record since 1934, Detroit led the league through parts of June
and July. But this was the year of Maris and Mantle and 109 Yankee victories;
when the season ended, the Tigers' 101 wins had earned them only second place.
     They came much closer six years later in the great four-way race of 1967
that saw three clubs still contending on the final day, when the Tigers split
a doubleheader to tie with Minnesota for second. If 1967 was a scramble, 1968
was all Detroit's. In what is now known as the year of the pitcher, Tiger
Denny McLain won 31 games (the last major leaguer to win 30) to lead the team
to a 103-win finish, 12 games ahead of Baltimore. Down 1-3 to the Cardinals
in the World Series, the pitching of McLain in Game Six and Mickey Lolich in
Games Five and Seven brought the Tigers back and gave them their third world
championship.
     A strike at the start of 1972 contributed to the Tigers' first divisional
title, which culminated a four-way race in the AL East. Detroit defeated
Boston two games out of three at season's end, to edge the Sox by half a game.
But if the strike had not wiped out an unequal number of games, the end of the
season could have seen the two clubs tied.
     The Tigers lost the pennant to Oakland with a 1-2 loss in the finale of a
close League Championship Series, and dropped out of contention for a decade.
In 1974 they finished at the bottom of the division, and the next year lost
102 games to post the worst record in the majors.
     Finally, after seven seasons in the second division, Detroit put together
a strong second half in strike-divided 1981, fading only at the end to tie for
second. Three years later the Tigers were back on top with one of their best
years. Opening the season with 9 wins, they ended April at 18-2, stretched
their mark to 35-5 by late May, and were never headed, finishing a team-record
15 games in front, with 104 wins, their most ever. Their balanced pitching
staff led the league in ERA, even though none of their starters finished among
the top ten. Tiger newcomer Willie Hernandez (who with Aurelio Lopez compiled
a 19-4 record from the bullpen, with 46 saves) earned both Cy Young and MVP
awards. After sweeping Kansas City in the LCS, the Tigers took the world
championship--their fourth--from San Diego in five games.
     In 1987 the Tigers caught Toronto's Blue Jays in the season's final
series, tying them for the lead in the first game, moving to the front with a
twelve-inning win in the second game, and clinching the division crown in the
finale, 1-0. In the LCS, though, Minnesota stopped the favored Tigers, four
games to one.
     Injuries sidelined veteran keystoners Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker more
than a month each and derailed the season of starter Jeff Robinson in August
just as he was emerging as ace of Detroit's pitchers. All the same, the
Tigers led the AL East much of the 1988 season before falling back and rallied
at season's end to finish second, one game behind Boston.
     The next year, though, as new waves of injury broke over an aging lineup,
the Tigers dropped into the division cellar in June and kept sinking,
finishing with 103 losses and the worst record in the majors. But in 1990
Trammell rebounded from one of his worst seasons with one of his best and,
with newly acquired first baseman Cecil Fielder, sparked a Tiger recovery to
third place. Fielder, back in the AL after a season in Japan, topped the
majors in home runs (with 51, the most in the AL since 1961), slugging
percentage, and runs batted in.
     The 1991 Tigers clawed their way back from an 8-game deficit in mid-July
into a tie with first-place Toronto seven weeks later. But their grip wouldn't
hold, and they finished tied for second with Boston. In 1992, for the third
year in a row, Detroit led the AL in home runs, but this time their big bats
couldn't lift the club above sixth place. Texas edged the Tigers for the home
run crown in 1993, but Detroit challenged for their division lead through
August and, after a dip in September, surged to tie Baltimore for third place.


Florida Marlins

     One of two new clubs to join the National League in 1993, the Florida
Marlins were formed after the selection, in June 1991, of Miami and Denver as
cities for the league's first expansion teams since 1969. Headed by
entertainment magnate H. Wayne Huizenga, the Marlins played in Joe Robbie
Stadium (which Huizenga partially owns). In their first season the Marlins
featured one of the game's premier relievers in Bryan Harvey, whose 45 saves
ranked third in the NL and contributed to seventy per cent of the club's 64
victories. Though the Marlins lost their final six games, they finished ahead
of the New York Mets for sixth place in the NL East.

Houston Astros

     The Colt .45s (as the Astros were originally known) had hoped to begin
their history in the Harris County Domed Stadium, but when the start of the
vast project was delayed, a temporary outdoor park was built for them next
door in time for their 1962 inaugural. Heat, humidity, and giant mosquitoes
held Colt home attendance below a million in each of their three outdoor
seasons, but when, in 1965, they brought big league baseball indoors for the
first time, the fans arrived--more than two million the first year. The
original grass under the dome was real, but when the skylight panels were
coated over so fielders wouldn't lose sight of high flies, the grass died. In
1966 the club (now known as the Astros) and the stadium (now called the
Astrodome) brought to baseball yet another innovation--AstroTurf.
     The Houston franchise, conceived as an entry in the abortive Continental
League, first took the field instead (along with New York's Mets) in the
National League, as part of the league's first expansion since shrinking from
twelve teams to eight in 1900. Shrewd player selection by general manager
Paul Richards kept the new team from being as bad as the Mets. Although they
suffered just as long playing below .500 (seven years), they finished only
once below New York in the standings.
     When the NL added two more teams in 1969 and split into two divisions,
the Astros for the first time made a serious title run. Though they wound up
fifth in the West (ahead of only the expansion San Diego Padres), they rose to
within two games of the top in August, and again in September, before a
six-game losing streak dropped them out of contention. With an 81-81 record,
they finished out of the ranks of losers for the first time.
     After dropping below .500 again in 1970 and '71, the Astros made their
second run for the division title in 1972. At the end of June they were neck
and neck with Cincinnati for the lead, but the Reds pulled away over the rest
of the season while Houston leveled off for an eventual second-place finish 10
1/2 games back. With a record of 84-69, the Astros had fashioned their first
winning season.
     In 1975 they endured their worst year ever, losing 97 games to finish at
the bottom of the West, 43 1/2 games behind the Reds. But the next year
pitcher J.R. Richard, with the first of several fine seasons, brought the
club up to third with his 20 wins. By 1979 Richard was the NL's most
overwhelming pitcher, leading the league with 313 strikeouts and a 2.71 ERA.
His 18 wins and teammate Joe Niekro's 21 sparked a team that spent much of the
summer in first place before falling to 1 1/2 games behind Cincinnati at the
end.
     Houston and Los Angeles battled back and forth for the division lead
throughout 1980. Richard began strong and seemed headed for his finest year.
With a 10-4 record, he was starting pitcher in the All-Star Game. But shortly
after midseason he suffered a stroke that ended his big league career. Led by
Joe Niekro and Vern Ruhle (who replaced Richard in the rotation and finished
12-4), the best pitching staff in baseball kept the Astros in the race to
season's end, although three straight losses to the Dodgers had left the clubs
tied for first. In a one-game playoff, Houston rebounded with a 7-1 win
(Niekro's twentieth) to capture the division title. In the League
Championship Series, the Astros took the Phillies to the tenth inning of the
final game before bowing two games to three.
     When a player strike cut the middle out of the 1981 season,
intradivisional playoffs were scheduled between the winners of the two halves.
Houston, the second-half champion, defeated first-half victor Los Angeles in
the first two games, but lost the next three, and with them the division
title.
     After four years in the middle of the division, the Astros stormed back
in 1986 with their best season ever, winning fifteen of their last nineteen
games to conquer the West by ten games. Pitcher Mike Scott, who had developed
a deceptive split-finger fastball, won 18 to pace a strong Astro staff,
leading the league in strikeouts and ERA. On September 25 he clinched the
division crown with a no-hitter. In the LCS the Astros lost to the Mets, two
games to four--but they held the New Yorkers at bay for fifteen innings of the
final game before falling by a run in the sixteenth.
     In each of the next three seasons the Astros drew within 1/2 to 1 1/2
games of first place in August, only to tumble out of the race in the season's
final weeks. While the team never challenged for the division lead in 1990,
they overcame--with a winning second half--the worst first half in the league
to tie for fourth in the NL West.
     Rookie first baseman Jeff Bagwell's strong performance at the plate gave
Astros fans one of their few reasons to cheer in 1991 as their team plummeted
to last place. Bagwell's continuing offensive leadership, plus strong relief
pitching (especially a career-best season from newly acquired Doug Jones)
ignited a fiery final two months that lifted the Astros from sixteen games
below .500 to an unexpected 81-81 fourth-place finish.
     The offense set club records in batting average and home runs in 1993,
and the pitching staff compiled the second lowest ERA in the majors, as ace
Mark Portugal concluded his brilliant 18-4 season with 12 straight wins. But
the Astros couldn't approach powerful Atlanta and San Francisco, and finished
third in their division, 19 games out.

Kansas City Royals

     Two years after the Athletics abandoned Kansas City for the West Coast,
patent-medicine millionaire Ewing Kauffman bankrolled an expansion club for
the city. Where the A's had been unable in thirteen years to fashion even one
winning season, the Royals did it in 1971, their third year (when, ironically,
they finished second in the AL West to the newly invincible Oakland A's). One
of the most successful of all expansion clubs, the Royals in their first
twenty years have finished either first or second in their division fourteen
times.
     In their fifth season, 1973, the year they moved into new Royals Stadium,
the Royals also made their first serious run for the division title. A
midsummer spurt carried them into first place in August before they leveled
off to another second-place finish behind Oakland.
     After a third second-place race with Oakland in 1975 (during which
manager Jack McKeon was replaced by Whitey Herzog), the Royals won the
division crown in 1976, taking the lead two months into the season and holding
it to the end. Third baseman George Brett won his first AL batting
championship and carried his hot bat into the League Championship Series, but
the Yankees snatched the pennant on Chris Chambliss' home run in the bottom
of the ninth inning of the final game.
     For two more years the Royals dominated the AL West but failed to stop
the Yankees in the LCS. In 1977, with a pitching staff that led the league in
ERA and a balanced offense that included four players with more than 20 home
runs and 80 RBIs, the Royals compiled a record of 102-60--their finest to
date. Though they didn't move into the division lead until mid-August, they
were nearly unstoppable the rest of the way. In the LCS they once again
battled New York all the way, only to lose the Series and pennant for the
second time in the final inning of game five.
     The divisional race was a bit tighter in 1978, as California hung close
to K.C. through much of August and into September, before the Royals finally
pulled away. In the LCS, the Royals tied the Series with a big win in Game
Two, but the Yankees came back to take the next two by one run each for their
third straight flag.
     The Royals slipped to second place in 1979, but the next year (led now by
rookie manager Jim Frey) they overwhelmed the rest of a weak division.
Despite a month-long decline in September, K.C. finished the season 14 games
ahead of Oakland for their fourth divisional title. This was the year Brett
chased .400 (ending at .390, the highest major league average since Ted
Williams hit .406 in 1941), reliever Dan Quisenberry enjoyed his first big
season (12 wins, 33 saves), and starter Dennis Leonard came back from an
off-year to record his third 20-win season in four years. It was also the
year the Royals finally beat the Yankees to capture their first pennant--with
a three-game sweep in the LCS. In the World Series, though, it was
Philadelphia in six games.
     The player strike of 1981 divided the season into two halves. In the
first half the Royals finished fifth, but part way through the second half
Dick Howser (who had managed the Yankees to the East title the previous year)
replaced Frey as Royals manager and brought the club in first, a game ahead of
Oakland. But in the special playoffs, the A's (who had won the first-half
race) beat K.C. for the division title with a three-game sweep.
     Two more second-place finishes in 1982 (a close race with California) and
1983 (20 games behind the Chicago White Sox) were followed in 1984 by a fifth
division championship in a three-way race with California and Minnesota. But
Detroit swept away the Royals' pennant hopes in the LCS, in the minimum three
games.
     For Kansas City, 1985 was a season of catching up. Few picked the Royals
to win the West, but with starters Charlie Leibrandt (17-9) and Bret
Saberhagen (20-6) finishing two-three in the league ERA race, reliever
Quisenberry leading the league in saves for the fourth straight year, and
veteran George Brett healthy and enjoying one of his best seasons ever, the
Royals chased California throughout the summer and caught them in the final
week to take their sixth division crown by a single game. In the LCS against
Toronto, K.C. fell behind 1-3, which would have eliminated them in earlier
years. But, saved by the expansion of the Series from five games to seven,
they came back with three straight wins for their second pennant. Repeating
the suspense in the World Series, the Royals again fell behind 1-3, to St.
Louis, before rallying once again to win three straight for their first world
championship.
     During the 1986 season, manager Howser left the club after he was found
to have a brain tumor. The Royals dropped below .500 and finished third,
their lowest rank in a dozen years. Howser was unable to return to the helm
in 1987 as he had hoped and died during the summer. The Royals rallied at
season's end to pull themselves above .500 and finish (for the eighth time)
runner-up in the West, 2 games behind Minnesota. Although they improved on
their 1987 won-lost record in 1988, they finished in third place.
     In 1989 Bret Saberhagen, with his most sparkling season yet (23-6, 2.16
ERA), hurled the Royals to their best record since 1980, but their 92 wins
earned them only a ninth second-place finish. Confounding predictions of
another strong season, following free agent acquisitions Mark Davis and Storm
Davis, the Royals in 1990 floundered in the division cellar much of the
summer. They wound up in sixth place, 27 1/2 games out.
Thirty-seven-year-old George Brett, though, rallied from the worst start of
his career (.200 BA in early May) to hit .329 and capture his third AL batting
title.
     Slugging outfielder Danny Tartabull enjoyed a peak season in 1991, and
helped lift K.C. back above .500. But in the strong AL West no club suffered
a losing season, so the Royals again had to settle for sixth. When Tartabull
left for the Yankees in 1992, the Royals faltered again. But as the West was
now the weaker division, the club's 72-90 record was good enough for a
fifth-place tie.
     In the twenty-first--and final--season of his playing career at Kansas
City, George Brett led his team in RBIs in 1993, and Kevin Appier led AL
pitchers in ERA, as the Royals returned above .500 to finish third.


Los Angeles Dodgers

     When the Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles, an era ended. From
baseball's earliest days Brooklyn had been prominent; the city's Atlantics
were the nation's best in the mid-1860s, and since 1884 Brooklyn had been home
to major league ball. But before the start of the 1958 season, its link to
the big time was severed by an owner who saw greener fields to the west. He
was right: the Dodgers in Los Angeles are one of the game's most profitable
franchises, regularly attracting more than three million fans per year to
Dodger Stadium.
     The club's origins were modest. After winning the championship of the
minor Inter-State League in 1883, Brooklyn moved up to the major league
American Association in 1884 and endured three losing seasons in its first
four years. But in 1888, after signing three regulars from New York's newly
defunct Mets and buying pitching/hitting stars Bob Caruthers and Dave Foutz
from the AA champion St. Louis Browns, Brooklyn finished second to St. Louis,
and the next year dethroned the Browns for their first big league pennant. In
a projected ten-game World Series against the National League champion New
York Giants, the Bridegrooms (as the Brooklyns had been nicknamed) won three
of the first four games, but lost the next five.
     Before the start of the 1890 season, Brooklyn transferred from the AA to
the more prestigious NL. Many NL clubs performed below par that year,
weakened by the loss of players to the outlaw Players League. But Brooklyn
held on to most of its players and swept to its second straight pennant. In
postseason play, poor weather and lack of fan support caused the World Series
against AA winner Louisville to be called off after each team had won three
games and tied one. The next year, with other NL teams renewed by players
from the failed PL, Brooklyn finished sixth.
     When the AA folded after the 1891 season, Brooklyn picked up slugger Dan
Brouthers and pitcher George Haddock from pennant-winning Boston, and
rebounded in 1892 to finish second and third in the two halves of a divided
season. But for the next five years they finished no higher than fifth, and
in 1898 sank to tenth in what was now a twelve-team league.
     Help was on the way, however--help that today would be prohibited.
Longtime Brooklyn president Charles Byrne had died, and the owners of the
Baltimore Orioles--Harry Von der Horst and Ned Hanlon--seeing an opportunity
to move into the more lucrative Brooklyn market, purchased a half interest in
the Bridegrooms. Hanlon retained his Baltimore presidency, but took over as
manager in Brooklyn, bringing along with him the core of his Oriole
club--shortstop Hughie Jennings and outfielders Joe Kelley and Willie
Keeler--plus its two best pitchers, Jim Hughes and Doc McJames.
     The infusion of new talent worked wonders, as Brooklyn in 1899 (with a
new nickname, the Superbas) took the NL lead in late May, during a twenty-two
game winning streak, and held it the rest of the way. That winter, when
Baltimore was dropped as the NL cut back from twelve teams to eight, Hanlon
moved more Orioles to Brooklyn (including pitcher Joe "Iron Man" McGinnity),
and once again led the Superbas to the pennant. That year they also won their
first world championship in a series played with second-place Pittsburgh for
the elegant Chronicle-Telegraph Cup.
     Slow starts in 1901 and '02 kept the Superbas out of pennant contention,
although they finished third and second. During this period Charley Ebbets,
who had risen from ticket seller to president, took over majority ownership
with the purchase of Von der Horst's stock, thereby quashing Hanlon's proposed
move back to Baltimore. But Ebbets' clashes with Hanlon hastened the club's
decline. In 1903 the team began a twelve-year sojourn in the second division,
including a last-place finish in 1905 with their worst record ever (48-104, 56
1/2 games out). Perhaps the most memorable events of these years were the
change in nickname to Dodgers, and their move to brand-new Ebbets Field in
1913.
     Hanlon was fired as manager after the disastrous 1905 season, but it was
not until Wilbert Robinson took over in 1914 that the team began to pull out
of its doldrums. Pitcher Jack Pfeffer, in his first full big-league season,
won 23 games for the fifth-place Dodgers that year, and two years later led
them to the pennant with 25 wins on a sparkling 1.92 ERA.
     But the Dodgers lost the World Series to the Boston Red Sox, and in 1917
fell all the way to seventh. After three years in the second division, they
bounced back in 1920, turning a three-way race into a rout with sixteen wins
in their final eighteen games. After another World Series loss, to Cleveland,
the Dodgers returned to the second division for another three years. In 1924
they began slowly, but leaped from twelve games back to an early-September
lead, only to slip 1 1/2 games behind the Giants at the finish.
     Charley Ebbets died the following April, and Robinson was named to
replace him. In his five years as president the club suffered on the field,
finishing sixth each year. Fired as president but retained as manager, "Uncle
Robbie" saw his Robins (as the Dodgers were now known) lead the league in 1930
most of the time from mid-May to a mid-August decline, then retake the lead
for a day in mid-September before tailing off once more to finish fourth.
That was Uncle Robbie's last hurrah. When the Robins provided no serious
challenge in their fourth-place run the next year, he resigned after eighteen
years at the wheel.
     A succession of managers followed, but it was not until the Dodgers
brought in the free-spending Larry MacPhail as general manager in 1938 that
the club began to pull itself back into contention. The highlight of
MacPhail's first year with the Dodgers was not the team's finish (seventh) but
the introduction of night baseball to Ebbets Field (on June 15, when
Cincinnati's Johnny Vander Meer defeated Brooklyn with his second consecutive
no-hitter). MacPhail was also looking for new talent, and over the next
couple of years he acquired a combination of youngsters and veterans that
turned the Dodgers into one of the best teams in the league.
     But MacPhail's most brilliant move may have been his conversion of
shortstop Leo Durocher into manager Leo Durocher. The loud, driven Durocher
alienated many (including MacPhail himself), but provided inspired leadership
and a will to win that overcame complaints against him. After a third-place
finish in 1939 and second place in 1940, the Dodgers battled the St. Louis
Cardinals through all of 1941 before pulling ahead to clinch the pennant with
just two games remaining. Veteran first baseman Dolf Camilli led the league
in home runs and RBIs, sophomore outfielder Pete Reiser led the league in
batting, slugging, and runs scored, and pitchers Kirby Higbe and Whitlow Wyatt
tied for the league lead with 22 wins apiece, as the Dodgers for the first
time since 1899 won 100 games. Only their loss to the Yankees in the World
Series marred their finest season in forty-two years.
     In 1942 they played even better, winning 104 games. But a late-season
five-game slump dropped them behind the surging Cardinals, and they finished 2
games short of the flag.
     MacPhail and many of his players left for the war, and though the club
finished third in 1943 and 1945, it was not until 1946 that the Dodgers again
presented a serious challenge. Once again the Cards and Dodgers made a
two-team race of it, but this time the race ended in a tie, forcing the first
league playoff ever. St. Louis won the pennant with wins in the first two
games.
     When MacPhail left for the Army, Branch Rickey was hired to run the club.
MacPhail had left the club financially sound and a big drawing card; Rickey
set about to make it a consistent winner. Famed as the developer of the
Cardinal farm system, he was determined at Brooklyn to tap the one source of
talent that the major leagues had willfully neglected: black players. He
signed Jackie Robinson to Montreal (Brooklyn's leading farm team), and after a
year there promoted him to the Dodgers for the 1947 season. Thus began the
club's golden Brooklyn decade: ten years in which they won six pennants
and--in 1955--a World Series. Two other races went right to the wire; only
once did they finish as low as third.
     With manager Durocher suspended from baseball for a year for consorting
with gamblers, the Dodgers in 1947 were led by grandfatherly Burt Shotton,
brought out of his Florida retirement. Robinson's hustle put him at the top
of the league in stolen bases and second in runs scored. The team pulled up
from fourth in June to first in July, and held the lead to the end. In the
World Series they lost to the Yankees in an exciting seven games.
     Durocher returned to the helm in 1948, but was replaced by Shotton in
midsummer, with the Dodgers in fifth place. Shotton saw the team rise to
third that season, then battle back and forth with the Cardinals throughout
1949 before edging them by a game on the final day. Robinson, in his finest
season, led the league in hitting and stolen bases, and finished among the
leaders in most other offensive categories. Rookie pitcher Don Newcombe led
the team in victories with 17, and Preacher Roe led the league in winning
percentage. Again the World Series was a loss to the Yankees, this time in
only five games.
     In 1950 the Dodgers nearly caught the staggering Phillies, losing out
only in the tenth inning of the final game. President Rickey left the club
for Pittsburgh and was replaced by Walter O'Malley, who replaced manager
Shotton with Charlie Dressen. The slugging of catcher Roy Campanella and
first baseman Gil Hodges, and 20-win seasons by Roe (22-3) and Newcombe (20-9)
kept the Dodgers in front through most of 1951, but New York's surging Giants
closed from thirteen games back in August to tie for the lead at the finish.
The teams split the first two playoff games. In Game Three the Dodgers were
leading by two runs in the last of the ninth when Bobby Thomson's three-run
homer gave New York the flag.
     The next year, though, the Giants fell short and Brooklyn took the
pennant with relative ease. But not the World Series. Although Brooklyn held
a 3-2 lead after five games, the Yankees came back to take the final two.
     The Dodgers repeated as NL champions in 1953 with their best season ever.
Dodger bats overwhelmed the league, hitting 19 points and slugging 63 points
above the league average, as the team outscored its nearest rival by more than
a run per game. With a club-record 105 wins, the Dodgers cruised to the
pennant by 13 games. But again the Yankees took the World Series, in six
games.
     Dressen wanted a three-year contract and was let go when he turned down
another for only one year. Minor league manager Walter Alston wasn't so
demanding, and signed for 1954 the first of a historic string of twenty-three
one-year Dodger contracts that would see him into the Hall of Fame. After a
second-place finish in Alston's rookie season, the Dodgers in 1955 took the
lead from the start and--never challenged--walked away with their eleventh
pennant. Outfielder Duke Snider, with one of his most productive seasons, led
the league's most powerful squad; Newcombe (20-5) paced the league's best
pitching staff.
     Once more in the World Series, Brooklyn faced the Yankees, and once more
the Series went seven games. But this time there was joy in Brooklyn--Johnny
Podres shut out New York in the finale!  In an exciting three-way fight in
1956, the Dodgers repeated as pennant-winners, taking their final three games
to edge Milwaukee's Braves. Newcombe, in his greatest year, clinched the flag
on the final day with his twenty-seventh win. In the World Series, though, it
was deja vu time--a sixth Yankee triumph, in seven games. The golden decade
was over.
     The Dodgers (despite the league's best pitching) vacated the 1957 race in
August, finishing third. Before the start of the next season, they had
vacated Brooklyn as well, for Los Angeles. Playing in Memorial Coliseum (a
converted football stadium) the L.A. Dodgers sank to seventh place in 1958.
But the next year the reawakened bats of aging Duke Snider and Gil Hodges, the
fiery pitching of young Don Drysdale, and the late-season pitching heroics of
Roger Craig (recalled from Spokane) kept the team in the thick of a tight race
that found them tied with the Braves at season's end. The Dodgers won the
first playoff game in Milwaukee, and captured big league baseball's first West
Coast pennant at home the next day, in the twelfth inning. Then they defeated
the Chicago White Sox to give the West its first World Series winner.
     After finishes of fourth and second, the Dodgers produced record-breaking
excitement in 1962 as they moved into brand-new Dodger Stadium in the hills
above Los Angeles. Between the new ballpark and the excitement generated on
the field, more than 2.75 million fans passed through the turnstiles--a new
attendance record that would last until the Dodgers themselves broke it
fifteen years later. As pitcher Don Drysdale and left fielder Tommy Davis
ignited the league with career-high seasons, and shortstop Maury Wills became
the first major leaguer of the century to steal 100 bases, the team locked
into a season-long struggle for first place with archrival San Francisco. But
after holding a narrow lead much of the season, the Dodgers dropped their last
four games to finish in yet another tie--their fourth.
     The playoff must have reminded fans of 1951. As they had then, the
Giants and Dodgers split the first two games, and the Dodgers once again
brought a 4-2 lead into the ninth inning of Game Three. This time, though, it
was not a home run that undid them, but a bases-loaded walk.
     Sandy Koufax--who had won 14 games in 1962 (and the first of five
straight ERA crowns) despite losing half the year with circulation problems in
his fingers--rose to dominate the world of pitching the next four years. For
three of those years his Dodgers dominated the NL. In 1963 Koufax's 25-5
season carried Los Angeles into the World Series against the Yankees, where
two more wins helped put the New Yorkers away in the minimum four games. The
next year Koufax slipped to 19 wins, but the Dodgers fell all the way to a tie
for sixth.
     They rebounded to the top in 1965. Koufax won 26 and Drysdale 23 in a
tight four-team race that saw them fall behind the Giants in early September,
only to retake the lead for good later in the month with 13 straight wins.
The World Series against Minnesota went to the seventh game before Koufax
nailed down another world title with his second shutout in three days.
     The race in 1966 was just as close as in '65, with three teams switching
leads throughout the season. But the Dodgers, third at the end of August, put
together streaks of five and seven wins in September to move to the top, where
Koufax clinched the pennant on the final day with his twenty-seventh victory.
And then it was all over. After a losing effort in Game Two of the World
Series (a Baltimore sweep), Koufax, at age thirty, retired because of
arthritis in his pitching elbow. The Dodgers sank to eighth the next year and
rose only to seventh in 1968.
     In 1969, the first season of divisional play, Los Angeles found itself in
the thick of a five-team race in the West until eight straight losses in late
September dropped them to fourth. No one challenged Cincinnati in 1970, but
the next year the Dodgers closed to within a game of the front-running Giants
in September before their drive stalled.
     A late-season Dodger slump let Cincinnati get to the top in 1973, but the
Dodgers held their lead to the end in 1974. Newly acquired veteran outfielder
Jimmy Wynn and first baseman Steve Garvey, in his first full season, led the
club offensively; pitcher Mike Marshall set a modern major league record with
106 appearances in relief of a staff that was the league's best (which earned
him the Cy Young award). The Dodgers beat Pittsburgh handily in the League
Championship Series for their fifth Los Angeles pennant, but lost the World
Series to Oakland in five games.
     Cincinnati proved untouchable in 1975 and '76, but in 1977 the
Dodgers--under new manager Tom Lasorda, who moved up from the coaching staff
when Alston retired--jumped to an early lead and held it all the way. Garvey's
33 home runs led a balanced offense in which four players hit 30 or more
homers and drove in over 85 runs. Again the Dodgers won the LCS (in four
games, against Philadelphia), and again they lost the World Series (to the
Yankees, in six games).
     Although the divisional race was closer--and the Dodgers broke baseball's
three million attendance barrier for the first time--1978 was in most respects
a replay of 1977. Garvey again led the club offensively, the Dodgers again
beat out Cincinnati in the West and Philadelphia in a four-game LCS, and the
Yankees again defeated the Dodgers in a six-game World Series.
     A season-long back-and-forth battle with Houston in 1980 ended in a tie
for first--the fifth tie for the Dodgers, three more than any other club. In
the playoff (reduced from three games to one to bring the NL into line with AL
practice), Houston won easily.
     When the players went out on strike part way through 1981, the Dodgers,
paced by the spectacular pitching of rookie Fernando Valenzuela, found
themselves half a game in front of Cincinnati. In a special playoff with
poststrike leader Houston, the Dodgers defeated the Astros in five games for
the division title, and also went the distance in beating Montreal for the
pennant--their twenty-first. Facing the Yankees for the eleventh time in
World Series play, they lost the first two games, but swept the next four
games to capture their sixth world title.
     In 1982, after a poor start, the Dodgers fought back to take the lead in
August and again in September before dropping back to second, a game out.
More successful drives in 1983 and '85 led to their fifth and sixth division
titles, but culminated in defeat in the LCS--to Philadelphia in 1983 and St.
Louis two years later. In 1986 and '87 they posted identical 73-89 won-lost
records--the team's worst performance in two decades.
     But then in 1988, with an infusion of talent from the American
League--most notably slugger Kirk Gibson and relief ace Jay Howell--and a
spectacular season on the mound from starter Orel Hershiser (who concluded his
23-8 year with a major-league record 59 consecutive scoreless innings), the
Dodgers bounced back to the top of the NL West. It took them the full seven
games to down the favored Mews in the LCS for their twenty-second pennant, but
in the World Series they humbled Oakland's powerful Athletics in just five
games for their seventh world crown.
     Hershiser (whose 15-15 record belied another strong season on the mound)
led a 1989 Dodger pitching staff that yielded the fewest runs in the majors,
but with an offense last among major league clubs in scoring runs, the Dodgers
could finish no better than fourth in the West. Hershiser's 1990 season ended
almost as soon as it began when he underwent shoulder surgery in late April,
but young Ramon Martinez took up the slack, winning 20 games. With a revived
offense that topped the NL West in runs scored, the Dodgers bounded back from
a slow first half to draw within 3 1/2 games of Cincinnati in late September
and finish second, 5 games out.
     From early May to late August 1991, the Dodgers occupied first place in
their division, paced by the majors' stingiest pitching staff and the hot bats
of free agent signees Brett Butler and (after a cold, injury-plagued first
half) Darryl Strawberry. But the team never enjoyed more than a 6-game lead,
and with seven straight losses after the All-Star break, began their descent
into a great struggle with ascendant Atlanta. From August 21 through season's
end the two clubs stayed within two games of each other. With four games to
go, Los Angeles held a one-game lead. But they lost their next three games,
and all hope of the division crown.
     In 1992 everything fell apart. Unable to parry the twin blows of injury
and inexperience, the Dodgers stumbled to the worst record in the majors, and
finished last for only the second time in their 109 years of major league
play. Rookie catcher Mike Piazza burst upon the scene in 1993 to rank among NL
leaders in batting, slugging, home runs and RBIs, as the Dodgers recovered to
finish in fourth place. A final-game victory over San Francisco brought their
season record to .500, and deprived the Giants of a tie for the division
title.