Total Baseball (1994 Edition)/Total_Baseball_1994_Edition_Creative_Multimedia_1994.iso/dp/0001/00012.txt

Text File | 1994-01-04 | 90KB | 1,292 lines

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$Title{Team Histories:  Part 4}
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$Author{
Ivor-Campbell, Frederick}
$Subject{Team Histories History teams Pittsburgh Pirates St Louis Cardinals
San Diego Padres San Francisco Giants Seattle Mariners Texas Rangers Toronto
Blue Jays}
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Chicago White Stockings Players League*0002801.scf
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
1980 Pittsburgh Pirates*0002301.scf
1983 Los Angeles Dodgers*0002401.scf
St. Louis Browns*0003301.scf}

Total Baseball:  The History


Team Histories:  Part 4

Frederick Ivor-Campbell


Pittsburgh Pirates

     Pittsburgh became a big league city in 1882, when its Allegheny baseball
club joined with five other teams to form the American Association. Allegheny
president H.D. McKnight was named president of the new league, but Allegheny
made little stir until the club hired Horace Phillips to manage it and
replaced its team in 1885 with players from the defunct Columbus Club, which
had finished second in the AA the year before. The new Alleghenys finished a
distant third in 1885, but after purchasing Pud Galvin from Buffalo they
improved in 1886 to a respectable second behind the invincible St. Louis
Browns.
     Flushed with success, Allegheny in 1887 became the first club to desert
the AA for the older and more highly regarded National League. There they
found the competition stiffer and sank back into the second division. In
1890, when most of the team jumped to the rival Pittsburgh Players' League
club, Allegheny (known that year as the Innocents) suffered the worst season
in Pittsburgh major league history, finishing last, 66 1/2 games out of first
place (and 23 out of seventh), with a won-lost record of 23-113.
     When the PL folded after just one season, Allegheny merged with its PL
counterpart to form the Pittsburgh Athletic Company, thereby retrieving many
of its old regulars. The club also hired a second baseman--Lou Bierbauer--
whose signing (or theft, as his old club saw it) gave the Innocents a new and
more enduring nickname: the Pirates. The renewed club still finished last in
1891, but thirty-six games closer to the top than the year before, and only
fractionally out of seventh place.
     In 1893 a rules change moved the pitcher 10 1/2 feet farther back from
home plate. Of all the NL clubs, the Pirates benefited most from the change:
their batting average jumped 63 points--28 more than that of the league as a
whole--while their pitchers suffered less than most. The club finished
second, with a .628 winning percentage that was their best of the century.
Lefty Frank Killen, a twenty-two-year-old pitcher acquired from Washington,
led the club's resurgence with a league-leading 34 wins.
     Although catcher Connie Mack was called upon to manage the club toward
the end of the 1894 season and led them to winning seasons the next two years,
the Pirates did not make another serious run for the pennant until 1900. With
a team transformed yet again by players from a defunct club--this time the
Louisville Colonels--the Pirates battled Brooklyn's Superbas almost to the end
of the season before dropping 4 1/2 games back, a solid second. Although they
lost the postseason Chronicle-Telegraph Cup games (that year's World Series)
to the Superbas, the Pirates were embarked on an era of greatness.
     In the merger that brought the Louisville players to Pittsburgh, the
Colonels' owner Barney Dreyfuss acquired half ownership of the Pirates. A
year later he bought the other half. His perennial hope for the club was a
first-division finish; in twenty-six of his thirty-two years of Pirate
ownership his hope was rewarded.
     Four of the former Louisville players--outfielder-turned-shortstop Honus
Wagner, outfielder/manager Fred Clarke, third baseman/outfielder Tommy Leach,
and pitcher Deacon Phillippe--and one carryover from the old Pirates, pitcher
Sam Leever, remained with Pittsburgh long enough to help lead them to four
pennants and, in 1909, their first world championship. In the sixteen years
Clarke managed the Pirates (a club record), they also finished second five
times, and slipped out of the first division only in Clarke's final two
seasons at the helm.
     In contrast to the club's devastation by the Players' League raid of
1890, the Pirates were unaffected in 1901 by raiders from the American League
(which that year turned itself into a major league largely by drawing off
talent from National League clubs). Only third baseman Jimmy Williams
defected to the Americans, and he was ably replaced by Tommy Leach, as the
Pirates, with the league's best pitching (Jesse Tannehill and Deacon Phillippe
finished one-two in ERA, and Jack Chesbro at 21-10 led in winning percentage),
captured their first pennant by a comfortable 7 1/2 games over the
Philadelphia Phillies.
     The Pirates repeated as pennant winners in 1902 and 1903. The 1902 team
was one of the most overwhelming of all time. One Pirate or another led the
league in nearly every offensive category: Ginger Beaumont in hits and
batting; Tommy Leach in home runs (with 6); and Honus Wagner in slugging,
RBIs, runs scored, doubles, and stolen bases. Pitcher Jack Chesbro's 28 wins
led the league, and the top five NL pitchers in winning percentage were all
Pirates. The club held the lead the whole season, finishing 27 1/2 games
ahead of second-place Brooklyn, still a major league record.
     Pitchers Chesbro and Tannehill deserted to the AL's New York Highlanders
the next season, but their loss merely made Pittsburgh's pennant-winning
margin (6 1/2 games) smaller than it might have been. Wagner beat out
teammate Fred Clarke for the NL batting crown and finished second to Clarke in
slugging. Beaumont took the titles in hits, runs, and total bases. Pitcher
Sam Leever, with his finest season, led the club with 25 wins and the league
in ERA and winning percentage. Owner Dreyfuss arranged with the AL champion
Boston Pilgrims for a best-of-nine World Series--the first between NL and AL
champions--but the Pirates lost it in eight games as their tired pitchers at
last succumbed to overwork.
     Although the Pirates twice finished second over the next four years, they
didn't come close to capturing another pennant until 1908, when, in one of the
tightest NL races ever, they were edged out by the Chicago Cubs and finished
one game back, tied with New York's Giants for second. The following year,
though, they moved in June into the new concrete-and-steel Forbes Field and
celebrated by returning to the top of the league with a club record 110
wins--holding off the dogged Cubs throughout the season to take the flag by 6
1/2 games. And this time they won the World Series, too, although they needed
the full seven games to subdue Detroit's Tigers. Honus Wagner remained the
league's dominant offensive force, but aging pitchers Leever and Phillippe
were overshadowed by a new crop of standouts: Vic Willis, Howie Camnitz, Nick
Maddox, and Lefty Leifield--and the astonishing rookie Babe Adams, who after
going 12-3 (with a 1.11 ERA) during the season, won three more games in the
World Series.
     The Series triumph ended an era. Wagner was past his prime and wound
down his long career over the next several seasons as the Pirates dropped out
of contention for a dozen years, including four (1914-1917) in the hated
second division. Only Babe Adams remained of the world championship team when
Pittsburgh next made a contest of the pennant race in 1921, taking an early
lead and holding it most of the summer until an August-September decline
dropped them to second place, 4 games back.
     Former Pirate infielder Bill McKechnie replaced George Gibson as manager
during the following season with the club in fifth place, and saw the Pirates
spurt to second before fading to third at the finish. Two more third-place
seasons--with the Pirates finishing just 3 games out of first in 1924--paved
the way for another pennant in 1925.
     The 1925 Pirates fielded several stars: shortstop Glenn Wright, who led
the club with 121 RBIs; sophomore right fielder Kiki Cuyler, who led the team
in hitting (.357) and the league in runs scored; third baseman Pie Traynor,
who shone on the field and at the bat; and Max Carey, who beat out Cuyler for
the league stolen base title and enjoyed his finest season (.343) at the
plate. The team as a whole hit .307 to lead the league and ran away with the
pennant, spurting to catch the front-running Giants in midseason and pushing
ahead to an 8 1/2-game lead by season's end. The World Series was tougher,
but the Pirates prevailed over the Washington Senators, defeating veteran
Walter Johnson in a seventh-game slugfest 9-7. Babe Adams, hero of the 1909
Series and now, at forty-three, nearing the end of his long career, pitched
one shutout inning in Game Four.
     Rookie outfielder Paul Waner arrived the next season and hit .336, but
the team, which had led the race going into August, fell into decline late in
the month and finished third, 4 1/2 games out. Max Carey sparked an
unsuccessful player uprising against the management and was sold to Brooklyn
just before the Pirate collapse in August, and manager McKechnie was replaced
after the season by former Washington manager Donie Bush.
     In 1927, his first season at the helm, Bush sailed the Pirate ship to its
sixth pennant, even though Kiki Cuyler was benched for half the season for
refusing to bat second in the order. But Paul Waner's younger brother Lloyd
arrived to join Paul in the outfield, and the pair tore up the league,
finishing one-two in hits (237 and 223) as Paul also took crowns in batting
(.380; Lloyd was third at .355), RBIs and total bases, while Lloyd led in runs
scored. In and out of first place throughout the season, the Pirates moved
into the lead a final time at the start of September and held on to edge the
St. Louis Cardinals by 1 1/2 games. In the World Series, though (played with
Cuyler on the bench), the Pirates were swept by a Yankee team widely acclaimed
as the greatest of all time.
     Barney Dreyfuss died in February 1932. Ownership of the Pirates passed
to his widow, who named their son-in-law Bill Benswanger president. The team
finished a competitive second in 1932 and 1933, but then fell back until 1938,
when--with Pie Traynor now manager--they moved out in front in midseason and
held their lead comfortably until late September, when ten straight Chicago
victories (including three against Pittsburgh) dropped the Pirates to second
place, where they finished, 2 games back.
     The Pirates showcased some great players in their lean years, like
shortstop Arky Vaughan in the 1930s and early '40s, and slugger Ralph Kiner,
who won or shared the league home run title all seven of his seasons with
Pittsburgh in the 1940s and '50s. But after 1938 the club finished no closer
than eight games from the top for twenty-one years. They finished as high as
second only twice (in 1944 and 1958), and in the eight years 1950-1957 wound
up each season either last or next-to-last, reaching their nadir in 1952 with
112 losses and a last-place finish 54 1/2 games out of first.
     The Pirates had been purchased in 1946 by a four-man syndicate that
included singer Bing Crosby and real estate tycoon John W. Galbreath.
Galbreath later bought a majority interest in the club and, as president,
hired Branch Rickey to rebuild the Pirates into contenders. Barney Dreyfuss
had resisted the development of minor league farm systems (a Rickey innovation
at St. Louis and Brooklyn), preferring to scour unaffiliated minor league
teams himself for young talent. Rickey's ministrations helped build a
foundation for the Pirate resurgence of 1958-1960.
     No one threatened the 1958 Milwaukee Braves' preeminence in the NL after
July, but Pittsburgh came closer than anyone, finishing second, eight games
back. Six of the eight regulars who would lead the Pirates to their next
championship in 1960 were already in the lineup, including Dick Groat, Bill
Mazeroski, and Roberto Clemente; and the leading pitchers of 1958--Bob Friend,
Vern Law, and reliever Roy Face--topped the 1960 staff, too.
     In 1959 the Pirates fell back to fourth place, barely above .500, but the
next year they began strong and, shaking off their last challenger in late
July, built up a 7-game margin of victory by season's end. League batting
champion Groat paced a balanced offense that led the league in hitting, and
pitcher Law, with 20 wins, enjoyed the finest season of his career. Facing
the Yankees in the World Series, the Pirates were overwhelmed in the three
games they lost, but they won the world title with four close wins, capped by
Mazeroski's famous home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of the final
game.
     Pittsburgh again led the league in batting in 1961, with Clemente (whose
.351 batting average led the league) and first baseman Dick Stuart (35 home
runs, 117 RBIs) enjoying especially fine seasons. But the Pirate pitching
fell apart (Vern Law lost most of the season to arm trouble), and the club
dropped to sixth place.
     When the Pirates next made a serious run for the pennant, in 1966, Harry
Walker managed the team and center fielder Matty Alou (newly acquired from San
Francisco) won the batting crown. (His brother Felipe of Atlanta was
runner-up--the only one-two brother finish ever.)  In a season-long three-way
race, the Pirates took a lead in August but lost it early in September and
finished third, 3 games out. They dropped to sixth again the next season and
remained out of the pennant race for three years.
     In 1970 the majors experienced their second season of divisional play,
John Galbreath's son Daniel was named Pirates' president, and Danny Murtaugh
returned a third time to pilot the Pirates. (His second stint was for half a
season in 1967.)  The team began slowly and entered June with a record under
.500. But they were already on their way up, and by mid-July, when they moved
out of aging Forbes Field into the brand-new Three Rivers Stadium, they were
at the top of the NL East. They slipped into a three-way tangle in
mid-September, but shot ahead later in the month to take the division title by
5 games. Most of the team was new since 1960--the power was now supplied by
first baseman Bob Robertson and outfielder Willie Stargell. But Roberto
Clemente was still in top form, and Bill Mazeroski was still at second base,
though nearing the end of his career.
     In the 1970 League Championship Series, the Pirates were swept by
Cincinnati. But they came back the next season to overwhelm the East in a
race that was no race after June, then defeated San Francisco for their eighth
pennant, three games to one. Their slugging--paced by Stargell's
league-leading 48 home runs--led the league, and reliever Dave Giusti saved a
league-leading 30 games in support of a balanced pitching staff. Clemente hit
.414 in the World Series (with half his hits going for extra bases) as the
Pirates overcame a 0-2 deficit to edge Baltimore in seven games for their
fourth world title.
     In 1972, after a slow start, Pittsburgh (now managed by their former
center fielder Bill Virdon) rocketed to their third straight division
championship--by 11 games over Chicago. The club lost, narrowly, to
Cincinnati in the LCS, then suffered an even greater loss when Clemente was
killed that winter in a plane crash. They played poorly the next season, yet
even with a losing record finished third, only 2 1/2 games behind the champion
New York Mets in a five-way divisional race. Danny Murtaugh returned as
manager a fourth (and final) time late in the season and piloted the club to
two more NL East titles the next two years.
     The 1974 championship drive featured a comeback from last place in early
July to first by late August, followed by a nip-and-tuck race in September
with St. Louis that was settled by a tenth-inning Pirate victory over Chicago
in the season's final game. Stargell's bat was joined by those of Al Oliver
and Richie Zisk as the Pirates outhit the rest of the league. In the LCS,
though, the Los Angeles Dodgers overcame Pittsburgh handily, three games to
one.
     The Pirates won the 1975 race more easily, holding the lead from early
June as right fielder Dave Parker, in his first full big league season, led
the club in home runs and RBIs, and the league in slugging. But once again,
for the fourth time in five tries, Pittsburgh lost the pennant in the
LCS--swept this time by the awesome Cincinnati Reds, winners of 108 regular
season games.
     A distant second-place finish in 1976 was followed that December by
manager Murtaugh's untimely death. His successor, Chuck Tanner, kept the
Pirates competitive in his first two seasons, steering them to within 5 games
of the champion Phillies in 1977, then--with an amazing August-September spurt
from way below .500--to within 1 1/2 games of the Phillies in 1978.
     In 1979 the Pirates again started slowly but began to move up in May and
pushed to the front, ahead of Montreal, in late July. By mid-September,
though, the Expos had caught up, and it was not until the final day that an
Expo loss and Pirate win gave Pittsburgh its sixth NL East title. Parker and
the aging Stargell (now called "Pops") were still the club's big bats, but
submariner Kent Tekulve had emerged as the bullpen ace, and one of six Pirate
pitchers to win 10 games or more.
     In the LCS the Pirates repaid Cincinnati for their 1975 humiliation,
sweeping to the pennant in three games. In the World Series they seemed to
have met their match in Baltimore, falling behind three games to one. But
Pops rallied his "family" to victory in the final three must-win contests, and
Pittsburgh for a fifth time reigned at the top of the baseball world.
     For seven years the Pirates drifted downhill. The club's family spirit
disintegrated, fans deserted the team, and it seemed for a time that the
Pirates would leave Pittsburgh. But in 1985 a group of local corporations and
individuals purchased the club from the Galbreaths, determined (with the
assistance of a loan from the city of Pittsburgh) to keep the Pirates in town.
Syd Thrift, a trader of consummate skill, was named general manager, and
Chicago White Sox coach Jim Leyland was hired to his first job as a big league
pilot. Under the new regime the club improved gradually, until in 1988 it
once again proved itself a serious contender for the NL championship of the
East. Thrift had built a team second only to New York's mighty Mets, one that
drew more than 1.8 million fans at home--a club record. But Thrift's
unwillingness to share with his superiors the top-level decision making bulked
larger, in the eyes of the Pirate directors, than his achievement and he was
fired at the season's end.
     Plagued all season by injuries, Pittsburgh plunged to fifth in 1989. But
in 1990, as Doug Drabek put together a career season on the mound and the bats
of Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla burst into full bloom, the Pirates arrived at
the All-Star break in first place by half a game over New York. With Drabek
and Zane Smith (newly acquired from Montreal) all but unbeatable down the
stretch, the Pirates, after exchanging the lead with New York several times,
swept a Met series in early September to extend a narrow lead and clinched the
NL East title at the end of the month with eight straight wins.
     The Pirates repeated as division champions in 1991 and 1992. Bonds and
Bonilla again led the offense in 1991 and pitcher John Smiley won 20 games as
the team built an early lead and enlarged it to 14 games by season's end. In
1992, even the departure of Bonilla (who signed with the Mets as a free agent)
and Smiley (dealt to Minnesota) didn't hamper the Pirates. Center fielder
Andy Van Slyke took up the offensive slack with one of his best seasons, and
pitcher Tim Wakefield rose from the minors at the end of July to compile an
8-1 record as the Pirate ship breezed to the title by 9 games. But the
three-time division champions could not win a pennant. In the 1990 LCS they
fell to Cincinnati in six games. The next year they built a 3-2 lead over
Atlanta, but lost the final two games. And in 1992, down three games to two,
they fought back to within one out of victory in Game Seven before an Atlanta
pinch hit cut them down once again.
     The departure of free agent Barry Bonds to San Francisco was the most
crucial of many roster changes for 1993, which saw more than half the 1992 NL
East championship squad replaced. The revamped Pirates fielded near the top of
the league and batted near the middle, but their pitching fell apart and the
team finished fifth.

St. Louis Cardinals

     The club that is now the Cardinals first fielded a team in 1881, and the
next season became a charter member of the American Association, a new major
league formed in part to offer fans the beer and Sunday baseball forbidden by
the older National League. Chris Von der Ahe, one of the club's founders and
its first president, at first saw in baseball simply a source of customers for
his St. Louis saloon and beer garden, but he developed a love for the game
itself as his Brown Stockings--or Browns--developed into one of the era's
greatest teams.
     After a losing season in 1882, Von der Ahe hired Ted Sullivan, a noted
judge of baseball talent, to manage the Browns. Sullivan brought in third
baseman Arlie Latham and pitcher Tony Mullane to strengthen a team that
already boasted a fine pitcher in Jumbo McGinnis (25-18 in 1882) and one of
the game's premier first baseman in Charlie Comiskey. Although Sullivan quit
before the end of his first season because of the continued interference of
the volatile Von der Ahe, the Browns finished second in the AA, just a game
behind champion Philadelphia.
     When Mullane bolted the Browns in 1884, the club slipped to fourth. But
help was on the way. In July Von der Ahe purchased the Bay City, Michigan,
club to acquire its heavy-hitting pitcher Dave Foutz, and in September added
another hitting pitcher, "Parisian Bob" Caruthers, to the roster. In
1885--with Comiskey now the manager, left fielder Tip O'Neill blossoming into
one of baseball's best hitters, and Caruthers and Foutz winning 40 and 33
games--the Browns rose to the top, 16 games ahead of second-place Cincinnati.
They finished on top four years in a row, tying Chicago's White Stockings
(3-3-1) in the 1885 World Series and defeating them four games to two the next
year for the AA's only Series triumph over their NL rivals.
     Pitcher Silver King joined the club in 1887, and outfielder Tommy
McCarthy arrived the following year. They helped keep the Browns at the top
of the AA through 1888 (although the team lost the World Series both years).
But Von der Ahe's sale of Foutz and Caruthers to Brooklyn following the 1887
season boosted Brooklyn to second place in 1888. The next year Brooklyn edged
the Browns for the pennant, and the club's first era of greatness was over.
     When the AA folded after the 1891 season, the Browns were taken into the
NL, but fared poorly there, finishing ninth and eleventh of the twelve clubs
in the divided season of 1892. They rose no higher than ninth in the
remaining years of Von der Ahe's ownership, dropping into the cellar (63 1/2
games out) in 1897 and returning to the bottom with a club-worst 111 losses
the next season.
     New owners Frank and Stanley Robison (who also controlled the Cleveland
club) transferred the best Cleveland players and their manager to St. Louis in
1899. Dubbed the Perfectos, the revitalized St. Louis club fell short of
perfection, but did rise to a first-division fifth place that year and (now
known as the Cardinals) rose to fourth in 1901 before sinking back into the
second division for a dozen years.
     After Stanley Robison died in 1911 (his brother Frank had died in 1905),
the club passed into the possession of Frank's daughter Helene Britton, who
ran it behind the scenes until, in 1916, she sold it to a syndicate headed by
her attorney James C. Jones. Jones hired Branch Rickey away from the AL
Browns to run the club.
     Rickey took over a team with two chief assets: manager Miller Huggins
and a promising young infielder, Rogers Hornsby. Huggins had managed the
Cards to third place in 1914, before Hornsby arrived, and after a pair of
losing seasons brought them up to third again in 1917. Huggins was lost to
the New York Yankees the next year, and Rickey left the club temporarily for
military service in the Great War. When Rickey returned in 1919, he took over
as manager himself, and in 1921 and 1922 saw the team finish third, closer to
the leaders than the club had finished since joining the NL in 1891. Led by
Hornsby's .397 and .401 batting, the team hit over .300 both seasons.
     Sam Breadon, one of the Jones group of owners, increased his investment
in the Cardinals until by 1920 he was majority stockholder and club president,
with Rickey as vice president and general manager. Breadon moved the Cards
out of the inadequate wooden Cardinal Park during the 1920 season into the
more modern Sportsman's Park, owned by the Browns (and built on the site of
Von der Ahe's original grounds).
     Early in the 1925 season, with the Cards in last place, Breadon replaced
Rickey as field manager with second baseman Hornsby. The switch worked. In
1925 the Cards rebounded to fourth, and in 1926 they captured their first
pennant since the glory days of the old Browns four decades earlier--edging
Cincinnati in the final week of the season after an August spurt had shot them
into pennant contention. The season was made perfect by victory in the World
Series over Miller Huggins' Yankees.
     But Breadon and his irascible player-manager had a falling out, and
Hornsby found himself traded that winter to the New York Giants for second
baseman Frank Frisch and pitcher Jimmy Ring. The trade enraged Cardinal fans,
but the team finished a close second in 1927, and returned to the top (under
new manager Bill McKechnie) in a tight race the following season.
     McKechnie, fired after the Yankees swept the Cards in the 1928 World
Series and rehired in the midst of a Cardinal slump the next season, left to
manage the Boston Braves in 1930. Former catcher Gabby Street, who replaced
him, led the Cards back to the top again for successive pennants in 1930 and
1931, and in 1931 to a World Series victory over the Philadelphia Athletics.
The 1930 race saw the club shoot from below .500 in mid-June to 30 games above
.500 by season's end, overtaking three other teams to clinch the flag just
three games from the finish. The 1931 team ran away with the pennant, leading
all the way and finishing 13 games in front. Outfielder Chick Hafey and first
baseman Jim Bottomley finished first and third in NL batting, and pitcher Bill
Hallahan led the league in strikeouts (for the second year in a row) and tied
for the lead in wins, with 19. Four of the league's top five base
stealers--led by Frank Frisch and including outfielder Pepper Martin in his
first full season--were Cardinals.
     When the Cards dropped to sixth place in 1932 and showed little
improvement the following year, Breadon replaced manager Street with Frisch.
As when he had named Hornsby to manage, Breadon's move paid immediate
dividends. Though the club finished fifth that season, their record improved
after Frisch took over, and the next year, in a season-long uphill struggle,
the Cards won thirteen of their final fifteen games to pass the front-running
New York Giants in the final week.
     Writers labeled the 1934 Cardinals the "Gashouse Gang" for their rowdy
and daring play. In addition to team veterans Frisch and Martin (who had been
shifted from the outfield to third base), the gang included shortstop Leo
Durocher, left fielder Joe "Ducky" Medwick, and the team's leading hitter and
slugger, first baseman Rip Collins, who in a career-best season led the league
in slugging average and tied for first in home runs.
     Cardinal pitching was headed by the league-leading Jerome "Dizzy" Dean
(30-7) and his rookie brother Paul (19-11). Of the team's final nine wins,
Diz and Paul accounted for seven. Each won another pair in the Cards' World
Series triumph over Detroit.
     The next two seasons the Cardinals moved into the lead late in the season
only to wind up second. After the team slipped into the second division in
1938, Breadon replaced Frisch as manager with Ray Blades, who led a
late-season run for the flag in 1939 but finished second. When the Cards
failed to contend in 1940, Breadon brought up Rochester manager Billy
Southworth for a second time. Southworth had failed as McKechnie's
replacement in 1929, but this time he stuck, becoming one of the club's
greatest helmsmen.
     Through all these years Branch Rickey was revolutionizing baseball as he
built the game's first and most extensive "farm system" of minor league clubs.
The Cardinals' farm teams would--until the other major league clubs caught on
and caught up--provide St. Louis with a competitive advantage in the
recruitment and development of young players.
     In the closing days of the 1941 season, perhaps the Cardinal system's
greatest product arrived at the big club: Stan Musial. Southworth brought
the club in a close second that year after a season-long back-and-forth
struggle with Brooklyn. The next year--Musial's first full season--the
Cardinals enjoyed their winningest season ever: 106 victories. They needed
them all, too, for Brooklyn won 104 games, leading the race until
mid-September, when the Cardinals passed them and held on to a narrow lead by
winning twelve of their final thirteen games. St. Louis pitchers Mort Cooper
and Johnny Beazley finished one-two in National League wins and ERA, while
Enos Slaughter and Musial paced the Cardinal offense. The club maintained its
momentum in the World Series, taking the Yankees in five games.
     St. Louis retained its preeminence for two more years as baseball
gradually lost players to military service in World War Two. Slaughter and
Beazley were gone by 1943. But Cooper remained to compile two more 20-plus
winning seasons, and Musial was not called until after the 1944 season. With
105 wins in both 1943 and 1944, the Cards ran away with two more pennants,
losing to the Yankees in the 1943 World Series, but taking their sixth world
title the next year from their St. Louis landlords, the AL champion Browns.
     Owner Breadon had fired Branch Rickey in 1942 (objecting to the personal
profit Rickey made from selling the club's unneeded farm players), and
Southworth left to manage the Boston Braves after the 1945 season (in which
the Cards failed to catch the leading Chicago Cubs, finishing second). Rickey
went to head the Brooklyn Dodgers, building for them a farm system and tapping
the large reservoir of black players. In 1946, the last year of all-white
major league ball, the Cards (managed now by Eddie Dyer) and the Dodgers waged
a two-team pennant race, ending the season in the first major league tie for
first place. St. Louis won the first two games in a best-of-three playoff and
went on to surprise the favored Boston Red Sox in the World Series. With the
war over, the team was back at full strength. Slaughter led the league in
RBIs, and Musial led it in most other offensive categories; pitcher Howie
Pollett led the league in ERA (as he had in 1943 before leaving for the war)
and in wins, with 21.
     But St. Louis was slow to integrate its club and lost ground to teams
like Brooklyn, whose black players brought an immediate upswing in the club's
success. The Cards began poorly in 1947, but recovered to finish second to
Brooklyn, though never offering a serious challenge for the flag. After the
season Breadon sold the club to Fred Saigh and Robert Hannegan (the U.S.
Postmaster General). Musial enjoyed his finest season in 1948, but the club
finished second again in a lackluster race. The next year, though, the Cards
and Dodgers tangled in a season-long struggle for first place that was not
resolved until the season's last day--with Brooklyn on top.
     The Cardinals threatened to move to Milwaukee, but beer magnate August
Busch, Jr., purchased the club early in 1953 and the same year bought
Sportsman's Park from the Browns (who were moving to Baltimore). With Busch's
infusion of money and enthusiasm, the club slowly revived. They made runs for
the pennant in 1957, 1960, and 1963, but each time tailed off sharply in the
final week of the season.
     The Cards were playing below .500, in seventh place, in mid-June 1964
when the arrival (via a trade with the Cubs) of speedy young Lou Brock sparked
a revival of both the team and player. Brock, who had been hitting .251 in
Chicago, with 10 stolen bases, hit .348 the rest of the season and stole 33
more bases as the Cards hurtled into the midst of a four-way race for the
pennant that was settled only when they took the flag with an 11-5 win on the
final day. After surprising the Yankees in the World Series, the Cardinals
were themselves surprised when manager Johnny Keane left to take the Yankee
helm. The club slipped into the second division for a couple of years under
the management of their great former second baseman Red Schoendienst.
     But owner Busch built them a striking new stadium in 1966, and the next
season the team rebounded to the top again, running away from the field in the
last half of the season behind the heavy hitting of Orlando Cepeda, the bat
and speed of Lou Brock, and a pitching staff of remarkable breadth and
balance. Bob Gibson's three World Series wins over Boston edged the Cards to
a ninth world title and set the stage for Gibson's astonishing season the
following year.
     With his 22 wins leading the Cards to another pennant in 1968, Gibson
hurled 13 shutouts and compiled an ERA of just 1.12--both feats the best in
more than half a century, both ranking among the top five big league
performances ever. After winning two World Series games, Gibson lost Game
Seven as Detroit took the crown.
     Red Schoendienst continued as Cardinal manager through 1976--a club
record twelve years--but led the team to no more championships. When
divisional play was inaugurated in 1969, geography was ignored as the Cards
were installed in the East to add strength to what seemed the weaker division.
But it was fourteen years before they won their first divisional championship.
Four times they finished second, losing twice by only 1 1/2 games, in the
back-to-back tight races of 1973 and 1974.
     Dorrel "Whitey" Herzog was in his first full season as Cardinal manager
before the club again finished that near the top. In the strike-shortened
divided season of 1981, the Cards compiled the best overall record in the NL
East, but because they had finished the two halves of the season second to
Philadelphia and Montreal they were ineligible for postseason play.
     With the defensive wizard shortstop Ozzie Smith (acquired from San Diego)
and rookie speedster Willie McGee bolstering an already strong team, the
Cardinals of 1982, after prevailing against the Phillies in the race for the
East, swept West champion Atlanta for the pennant and captured their tenth
World Series crown in a seven-game struggle with Milwaukee.
     After two seasons out of the running, the Cards in 1985 gained the power
of veteran Jack Clark (acquired from San Francisco) and the speed of rookie
Vince Coleman. With career-best seasons from Willie McGee and newly acquired
pitcher John Tudor, the team edged the New York Mets for the division title
and defeated Los Angeles for the pennant--but lost the World Series in seven
games to Kansas City.
     Jack Clark missed two-thirds of the 1986 season to injury, and the Cards
finished below .500, but they rebounded to edge the Mets again for the
championship of the East in 1987 as Clark and Vince Coleman enjoyed their
finest seasons at the bat. But the reinjured Clark made only a token
appearance as the Cards edged San Francisco for the league championship, and
he missed the World Series entirely as St. Louis bowed to Minnesota in seven
games. That winter Clark signed as a free agent with the Yankees and in 1988
the Cardinals dropped to fifth place, 25 games out.
     With solid pitching and hitting, and the league's best fielding, the 1989
Cardinals drew within half a game of the division lead on September 8, then
fell out of the race with six straight losses, finishing third. As the season
drew to its close, long-time owner August Busch, Jr., died at age ninety. The
next July, with the club uncharacteristically mired at the bottom of the NL
East, manager Whitey Herzog resigned. Under new manager Joe Torre the Cards
revived briefly, but then dropped their final seven games to insure their
first basement finish in seventy-two years.
     Reliever Lee Smith provided the key to St. Louis' 1991 rebound to second
place: his 47 saves--a new NL record--preserved more than half the wins of a
team that won thirty-seven of its games by a single run. Smith saved another
43 games in 1992 and the Cards won nearly as often as they had the previous
year, but this time finished third. The defense developed a leak in 1993, and
the pitching faltered, but four regulars--Bernard Gilkey, Todd Zeile, and
newcomers Gregg Jeffries and Mark Whiten--scaled new heights offensively to
keep the Cardinals competitive through much of the season and give them
another third place finish.


San Diego Padres

     In their first fifteen years the Padres put together only one winning
season. In their sixteenth, they won the National League pennant. Founded in
the 1969 expansion that saw the two major leagues divide into East and West
divisions, the Padres finished last in the six-team NL West their first six
seasons, ending each year from 28 1/2 to 42 games behind the division
champion.
     Their first season was their worst. With 110 losses, the Padres finished
not only 41 games out of first but 29 games out of fifth. First baseman Nate
Colbert, with 24 home runs, provided San Diego's brightest ray of hope. He
proved to be one of the Padres' standout performers through their last-place
years, and in 1972 became the first Padre to drive in more than 100 runs.
     Big league baseball was not an instant hit in San Diego. Home attendance
barely topped half a million in the Padres' first year, and though it rose a
little over the next few seasons, the increase was not enough to make the club
viable. Owner C. Arnholt Smith decided early in 1974 to sell the franchise to
a buyer who planned to move the team to Washington, D.C. New uniforms had
been manufactured and the club's files were packed for the move, when the
builder of the McDonald's fast-food empire, longtime baseball fan Ray Kroc,
stepped in with an offer to buy the Padres for cash and keep them in San
Diego. His bid was accepted.
     Though Kroc's 1974 Padres finished last with the same 60-102 record they
had posted the year before, his sense of showmanship drew spectators. Home
attendance shot up 76 percent, rising above a million for the first time. The
Padres then began to draw fans on their own merits as they finally pulled
themselves out of the cellar. Pitcher Randy Jones, who in 1974 had led the
league with 22 losses, turned his record around and for two years shone as one
of the game's finest pitchers. He halved his 1974 ERA to a league-leading
2.24, winning 20 games as the Padres rose to fourth place in 1975 and posted a
winning percentage over .400 for the first time. The next year Jones won a
league-high 22 games and earned the Cy Young Award--the first major award to
come to a San Diego player.
     Although 1976 proved to be Jones' last winning season, the Padres were
by then attracting other top-quality players. Outfielder Dave Winfield came
up as a rookie in 1973, and the following year became the team RBI leader, a
position he held in six of his seven full seasons with the Padres. Reliever
Rollie Fingers signed as a free agent. In each of his four seasons in San
Diego (1977-1980) he led the team in saves, twice also leading the league. In
1978 the Padres acquired veteran pitcher Gaylord Perry from Texas and
installed rookie Ozzie Smith at shortstop. Perry's sparkling 21-6 season gave
San Diego its second Cy Young winner, and together with Smith's play in the
field, Winfield's bat (.308, 97 RBIs) and Fingers' 37 saves, brought the
Padres their first winning season.
     All these stars had gone--and owner Kroc had recently died--by the time
the Padres recorded a second winning season six years later, and won the
division title and NL pennant with a new blend of experience and youth.
Sparked by recently acquired veterans Steve Garvey at first, Graig Nettles at
third, and Goose Gossage in the bullpen, and by a bevy of younger stars like
batting champ Tony Gwynn and hard-hitting outfielder Kevin McReynolds, the
Padres moved into first place to stay in early June. From August 3 to the end
of the season, they played only .500 ball but still won the championship of
the weak Western Division by 12 games. Underdogs in the League Championship
Series, the Padres lost the first two games in Chicago, but pulled themselves
together to take the pennant with three come-from-behind wins at home.
     Their decline began with their World Series loss to Detroit. The end of
1985 saw them tied for third, and in 1986 they slipped below .500 and into
fourth place. In 1987 Gwynn won his second batting title, and rookie catcher
Benito Santiago capped the season with a 34-game hitting streak to cop Rookie
of the Year honors. But with most of the 1984 standouts faded or traded, the
Padres' decline was complete: the club for the ninth time in its nineteen
years finished last.
     In late May 1988, with the team at 16-30, Padre general manager Jack
McKeon took over as field manager from Larry Bowa. Under McKeon the Padres
went 67-48, with nine wins in their final ten games, shot from sixth place to
third in the NL West.
     In 1989 a trio of veteran pitchers--starters Bruce Hurst (lured from
Boston as a free agent) and Ed Whitson, and closer Mark Davis--attained new
peaks of performance. Slugger Jack Clark (newly acquired from the Yankees)
turned on the power after a slow start to complement Tony Gwynn's fourth
season as NL batting leader. The Padres stumbled through the first half,
arriving at the All-Star break four games below .500, but climbed steadily
through the final two months to a second-place finish with their second-best
winning percentage ever.
     With the loss of free agent Davis in 1990, plus injuries to Clark and
catcher Santiago, even the new power of Joe Carter (traded from Cleveland)
could not lift the club above a tie for fourth. New owners, headed by TV
producer Tom Werner, took control of the Padres from Ray Kroc's widow Joan in
mid-June. Jack McKeon resigned his managerial position, which went to coach
Greg Riddoch a month later, and was fired as general manager in September.
     Slugger Fred McGriff arrived for 1991 (in a trade that sent Carter to
Toronto) and helped power the Padres into third place. In 1992 he was joined
by Gary Sheffield, who revived after an injury-ridden season at Milwaukee to
lead the NL in batting and rank with McGriff among the league leaders in home
runs and RBIs. The Padres again finished third. But Sheffield and McGriff were
traded away during the 1993 season in cost-cutting moves that, combined with
poor team pitching and fielding, dumped the Padres into the NL West cellar, a
club record 43 games out of first. Attendance also fell, to below 1.4 million,
the club's lowest level in thirteen years.


San Francisco Giants

     The expulsion of Troy and Worcester from the National League after the
1882 season cleared the way for the league to reestablish clubs in the major
markets of Philadelphia and New York. Manufacturer John B. Day was awarded
the New York franchise. Purchasing the defunct Troy club, he divided their
players between the new NL Gothams and his other club, the Metropolitans of
the American Association, and set them up on adjoining grounds north of
Central Park, on a field once used for polo.
     The Mets fared better than the Gothams, finishing fourth in 1883 to the
Gothams' sixth, and winning the AA pennant the next year while the Gothams
rose only to fifth in the NL. Since the NL, with greater prestige and higher
ticket prices, offered potentially greater profit, Day switched some of his
Mets to the Gothams in 1885, including ace hurler Tim Keefe and manager Jim
Mutrie. The results were immediate: the Mets sank to seventh place while the
Gothams (dubbed "my Giants" by an enthusiastic Mutrie) rose to the thick of a
pennant race with Chicago. At the finish Chicago was on top by two games, but
the Giants had won more than three games out of four for a .759 winning
percentage that is not only the club's best ever, but one of the highest in
major-league history. Pitchers Keefe and Mickey Welch together won 76 of the
team's 85 victories, and first-baseman Roger Connor led the league in batting.
     The Giants won their first pennant in 1888 by nine games over Chicago,
and their second the next year in a one-game squeaker over Boston. Keefe and
Welch, still going strong, combined for 61 wins in '88 and 55 in '89.
Continuing their winning ways in the World Series, the Giants triumphed easily
over St. Louis in 1888, and overcame a 1-3 deficit to vanquish Brooklyn the
next year.
     In 1890, ravaged by the loss of players to the rival Players League, the
Giants finished sixth, but they recovered several players when the PL folded
at the end of the season. (They also moved into the PL ballpark, named it
after their original Polo Grounds, and played there 67 years). They rose to
third in 1891, but Day could no longer afford to maintain the team and sold
out to financier Edward Talcott. Talcott brought back former Giant star J.M.
Ward to manage the club, and in 1894 saw the team rise to a close second-place
finish behind Baltimore. Pitchers Amos Rusie and Jouett Meekin tied for the
league lead with 36 wins apiece. In postseason Temple Cup play, the Giants
swept Baltimore in four games for their third world championship.
     That winter Talcott sold control of the club to Tammany Hall politician
Andrew Freedman. Giant fortunes sank under Freedman's abrasive and
heavy-handed rule. As he ran through a succession of managers, the Giants
fell to ninth (of twelve clubs) in 1895 and--apart from a third-place finish
in 1897--rose no higher than seventh while he controlled the franchise. In
1902, his final year of ownership, the Giants suffered their lowest winning
percentage--.353--and most distant finish ever--53 1/2 games behind champion
Pittsburgh.
     In the midst of the 1902 season, though, a skirmish in the war between
the NL and the upstart American League led to a Giant turnaround. John T.
Brush, owner of the NL Cincinnati Reds, bought the AL Baltimore Orioles, then
released Oriole manager John McGraw and several key players to sign with NL
clubs. Five joined the Giants, including McGraw, catcher Roger Bresnahan, and
pitcher Joe "Iron Man" McGinnity. That winter, Brush sold the Reds and
Orioles and bought the Giants.
     In 1903, with Bresnahan hitting .350 and McGinnity winning a league-high
31 games (closely followed by third-year Giant Christy Mathewson's 30 wins),
manager McGraw saw his Giants win thirty-six more games than they had in 1902
and finish a solid second in the standings. In McGraw's twenty-nine full
seasons at the helm, the team would win ten pennants and finish second eleven
times.
     Just two years after their worst season ever, McGraw in 1904 led the
Giants to one of their best. Their 106 wins and 13-game winning margin remain
Giant highs to this day. The club led the NL in pitching, hitting, fielding,
and base stealing. McGinnity led league pitchers in several categories with a
career-best 35-8, 1.61 ERA season. Mathewson, right behind with 33 wins, led
the league in strikeouts.
     The only Giant disappointment of 1904 was McGraw's refusal to face Boston
in a World Series. His rejection of the AL champions as worthy opponents was
the last shot fired in the war between the two leagues. By the time the
Giants had repeated as NL pennant winners a year later, the World Series was
an official and permanent feature of the baseball landscape. Mathewson led NL
pitchers in 1905 with 31 wins and an ERA of 1.27, and outfielder "Turkey Mike"
Donlin, acquired from Cincinnati the previous July, erupted with the best
season of his career, batting a team-high .356 and scoring a league-high 124
runs. The Giants won only one game less than the year before and held a
comfortable lead throughout the season. Matty's three shutouts against the
Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series secured the club's fourth world
crown.
     It was 1911 before the Giants won their next pennant. Despite 96 wins in
1906 they finished a distant second to Chicago's mighty Cubs, who won a record
116 games. In 1908 the Giants came within a disputed play of the pennant. On
September 23, playing Chicago (with whom they were tied at the top of a
three-way race), Giant baserunner Fred Merkle failed to run to second on a
single by Al Bridwell that would have driven in the winning run from third.
Merkle was forced at second after the ball (or a second ball--the argument
still rages) was recovered amid the horde of fans who overran the field. The
force out at second negated the run, and the game was ruled a tie. At
season's end, when the two clubs found themselves again tied at the top, the
"Merkle boner" game was replayed. The Cubs won the game and flag, leaving the
Giants in a second-place tie with Pittsburgh.
     In 1911 the Giants pulled away from the Cubs in September for the first
of three straight pennants. (Early in the season most of the Polo Grounds was
rebuilt in concrete after fire destroyed the wooden stands.)  The following
year the Giants took the lead in May and held it comfortably the rest of the
way. In 1913 they didn't move into first until late June, but then quickly
put the flag out of reach and finished 12 1/2 games ahead of the faltering
Phillies. Mathewson led the team in victories over the three years, with 74,
followed closely by Rube Marquard (who with 73 wins enjoyed the three best
seasons of his career). Matty led the NL in ERA in 1911 and 1913; Giant
rookie Jeff Tesreau took the honors in 1912 (winning 17 games that season and
22 the next). Giant pitching led the league all three seasons, as did their
hitting, which featured a balanced offense paced by infielders Larry Doyle and
Art Fletcher and catcher John "Chief" Meyers.
     In the World Series, though, the Giants three times fell short of the
title. Philadelphia's Athletics defeated them handily in 1911 and 1913, but
the Giants carried the 1912 Series against the Boston Red Sox to the tenth
inning of the final game before a pair of Giant fielding lapses enabled Boston
to rally for the win.
     Boston's "miracle" Braves, in their 1914 surge from last place to the
pennant, passed the front-running Giants for good in early September. The
next year, five of the eight NL clubs found themselves bunched within 3 1/2
games of one another at the lower end of the standings as the season
ended--with the Giants at the very bottom. And in a 1916 Giant season
characterized by dips and surges, even a 26-game winning streak in September
couldn't raise the team higher than fourth. But in 1917 a balanced pitching
staff--paced by Ferdie Schupp's one big season (21-7, 1.95 ERA)--hurled the
Giants to the front early in June and kept them there to the finish. Once
more, though, the World Series proved a disappointment, with a loss to the
Chicago White Sox in six games.
     Three years of second-place finishes followed, in the midst of which the
Giants changed owners. Brush had died in 1912 and was succeeded as president
by his son-in-law Harry Hempstead. But in January 1919 Brush's heirs sold the
club to financier and racehorse fancier Charles A. Stoneham, with manager
McGraw a minority stockholder.
     In 1921 McGraw brought home the first of four straight winners for
Stoneham. Seven regulars hit over .300 (led by third baseman Frank Frisch's
.341); first baseman George Kelly's 23 home runs topped the NL. The club hung
close to Pittsburgh through August, then broke into a lead which the fading
Pirates could not challenge. In postseason play the Giants lost the first two
games to the Yankees, but charged back to win their fifth world title. The
next year outfielder Emil "Irish" Meusel celebrated his first full season in
New York with a team-high 132 RBIs, as the Giants fended off a midseason
challenge from St. Louis to pull away to a comfortable margin at the end. The
World Series was especially sweet: a four-game sweep of the Yankees.
     Cincinnati and Pittsburgh hung just behind the Giants through much of
1923, but never quite caught up. The Giants' league-leading offense was led
by individual NL highs in RBIs (Meusel), runs scored (outfielder Ross Youngs),
and hits and total bases (Frisch). But the Yankees finally caught the Giants
in the World Series, 4-2.
     George Kelly took the NL RBI title in 1924. The club's hitting remained
the league's best, and by early August the Giants had taken a ten-game lead.
But they then leveled off while Brooklyn and Pittsburgh surged. Brooklyn, in
fact, took over the lead for a day in early September, but the Giants emerged
triumphant at the end by 1 1/2 games. The World Series, though, was as
heartbreaking as the pennant race had been heartstopping: the Giants lost to
Washington in the last of the twelfth inning of the seventh game when a
Senator grounder bounced over the head of rookie third baseman Fred Lindstrom
to drive in the Series-ending run.
     Close finishes--2 games out--in 1927 and 1928 were the nearest McGraw's
Giants came to another pennant. Player relations with the demanding manager
had seldom been harmonious, and they had reached a low point when, ill and
tired, he quit early in the 1932 season with the team in last place, naming
first baseman Bill Terry to replace him. Under Terry the Giants rose only to
sixth that season, but McGraw had built a squad fit for a new era of
greatness. He had persuaded Terry to leave a career with Standard Oil for one
with the Giants; he had saved Mel Ott's unique but effective batting stance
from revision by well-meaning minor league managers by keeping Ott out of the
minors; and he had rescued pitcher Carl Hubbell from mediocrity by encouraging
the screwball pitch other managers had tried to suppress.
     Hubbell and Ott formed the heart of the club that would win a trio of
pennants under Terry's management. In 1933 the Giants moved to the front in
June and, despite a late-September slump, finished well ahead of runner-up
Pittsburgh. Ott, with what was for him an off-year, powered the Giant offense
with 23 homers and 103 RBIs, while Hubbell led the league in wins, shutouts,
and ERA. Hubbell also hurled two wins against Washington in the World Series,
and Ott won it all for New York with a tenth-inning home run in Game Five.
McGraw, still the club's vice president, threw a party for "his" Giants after
the Series. The following February he died, at age sixty.
     As they had the previous season, the Giants of 1934 emerged from the
crowd to take and hold first place into late September. They rose higher than
they had in 1933 and didn't slump as far at the end. But their five
end-of-season losses were enough to drop them 2 games behind the surging
Cardinals at the finish. Again in 1935 they led the league much of the
season. But they had begun to level off in mid-July and finished the season
well back in third. Charles Stoneham died in January 1936, and his son
Horace--who at age thirty-three had already run the club for a year--assumed
the club presidency.
     In 1936, and again in 1937, the Giants came from behind to take the flag.
Hubbell sparked their second-half resurgence in 1936, winning his final 16
decisions of the season as the Giants rose from fourth to first. In the World
Series, though, Hubbell, after one win, was stopped by the Yankees in his try
for a second. The Yankees took the Series in six games.
     Again the next year the Giants hid behind the leaders most of the season
until a surge in late August coincided with a Chicago decline and shot the
Giants to the front. The Cubs recovered, but New York continued its winning
ways and finished ahead by 3 games. But again the Yankees dominated the World
Series, winning 4-1.
     Hubbell's years of greatness were now over, and while the Giants led the
NL through the first half of 1938, they finished third, 5 games out. It would
be twelve years before they again finished that close to the top. Mel Ott
replaced Terry as manager in 1942, but the Giants sank to the cellar in 1943
with their second-worst season ever, and finished last again three years
later. One bright spot: in 1947 they rose to fourth with a barrage of 221
home runs (led by Johnny Mize's 51) that remained the major league record
(though tied by Cincinnati in 1956) until the 1961 Yankees topped it with 240.
     Halfway through the 1948 season the baseball world was startled to learn
that Leo Durocher, the fiery manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, had switched his
allegiance to their arch foes, the Giants. Durocher discarded the three top
Giant home run hitters of 1947 (but presciently retained the fourth, Bobby
Thomson), and added agile infielders Alvin Dark and Eddie Stanky to the
roster. By 1950, with the blossoming of Sal Maglie into a first-rank pitcher
and the timely midseason purchase of hurler Jim Hearn, the Giants were once
more a challenger, spurting in the second half from below .500 to within 5
games of the top.
     After losing their first eleven games the next year, the Giants began a
long climb. A sixteen-game August winning streak and a seven-game streak at
season's end tied them with Brooklyn and forced a three-game playoff. After a
win and a loss, the Giants entered the last of the ninth inning of Game Three
trailing 1-4. Two singles and a double cut the deficit by a run and brought
on Dodger Ralph Branca to face Bobby Thomson, whose two-run homer had provided
the Giants' margin of victory in Game One. Thomson homered again, and the
Giants won the pennant. Their defeat by the Yankees in the World Series
dimmed the miracle a bit, but couldn't detract from the career bests of
pitchers Maglie and Larry Jansen, who tied for the NL lead with 23 wins
apiece, and of former Negro League great Monte Irvin, who hit .312 and led the
league in RBIs.
     The next year Irvin was lost until August with a broken ankle, Jansen
(with a back problem) fell off to 11-11, and Willie Mays--a promising rookie
in 1951--left early in the season for a hitch in the Army. Still, the Giants
hung close to Brooklyn for much of the summer and finished second. In 1953,
though, they fell apart in midseason and wound up in fifth, 35 games out.
     Mays returned in 1954 to enjoy one of his strongest seasons at the bat,
and pitchers Johnny Antonelli (newly acquired from Milwaukee), sophomore Ruben
Gomez, and reliever Marv Grissom all burst forth with the best seasons of
their careers. The Giants pulled away from Brooklyn in July and held on with
a late-season rush to finish 5 games up. Underdogs to powerful Cleveland in
the World Series, they stunned the Indians (and the rest of the baseball
world) with a four-game sweep. It was their eighth world title--and, so far,
their last.
     Manager Durocher retired after a distant third-place finish in 1955, and
Bill Rigney, who replaced him (the first of seven straight rookie managers to
be hired by the Giants over the next twenty years), presided over a pair of
sixth-place seasons in the club's final years in New York. Persuaded by the
Dodgers' Walter O'Malley that California was the land of baseball opportunity,
Giant owner Stoneham announced in August 1957 his decision to move the club to
San Francisco before the next season.
     The move succeeded. Home attendance doubled, even though the team had to
play in a former minor league park that seated fewer than 23,000 fans. When
new Candlestick Park opened in 1960 attendance climbed to nearly 1.8 million,
a new club high. Better still, rookie sensations like Orlando Cepeda in 1958
and Willie McCovey in 1959, plus the continuing mastery of Willie Mays, made
the Giants competitive once again. In their first fourteen San Francisco
seasons, they compiled winning records--a longer string than they had ever
known in New York.
     Candlestick Park, though, proved a cold and windy place to watch
baseball, and after its inaugural season fans began to drift away. Attendance
picked up some in 1962, however, as the Giants battled for first all summer
with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mays, Cepeda, and Felipe Alou headlined the
league's best offense, and a pair of veteran pitchers--Jack Sanford and Billy
O'Dell--garnered the most wins of their careers (24 and 19) as part of a
balanced staff that also got 16 wins from veteran Billy Pierce and 18 from the
emerging great Juan Marichal. Still, the Giants trailed the Dodgers most of
the season until a Dodger loss and Giant win on the final day threw the teams
into a tie and another playoff. As in 1951, the Giants won the first game and
lost the second, and overcame a ninth-inning deficit in the finale to win the
pennant. Also as in 1951, they lost the World Series to the Yankees, although
this time they held on until the final out of Game Seven before losing their
grip on the crown.
     The 1963 Giants offered little challenge to the leaders after June, but
the next three years found them locked to the end in tight struggles for the
flag. Although they finished fourth in 1964, they were still in contention
with just two games to play, in one of the closest four-way races ever. The
next year they took the lead from the Dodgers early in September, only to lose
it in the final week. And in 1966, in a season-long three-way race with the
Dodgers and Pirates, the Giants weren't eliminated until the final day.
     The turbulence of these races was reflected in the team itself. Cepeda
(until traded to St. Louis in 1966) continually railed against his managers
and his low pay. Alvin Dark, after four winning seasons as manager, was fired
in 1964 when some of his racist comments ended up in print. And Marichal was
fined and suspended for nine days in 1965 for hitting Dodger catcher John
Roseboro over the head with his bat.
     After a pair of distant second-place finishes, the Giants in 1969 (with
the fine work of Marichal and McCovey augmented by the speed and power of
young outfielder Bobby Bonds) found themselves in the thick of a five-way race
for the championship of the newly created NL West. The race wasn't settled
until the final week, when Atlanta's ten-game winning streak knocked the
Giants out of first. Two years later, with Bonds the chief source of
offensive power and fine pitching from starters Marichal and Gaylord Perry and
reliever Jerry Johnson, the Giants moved out in front at the start of the
season and held their lead all the way. A September slump coinciding with a
Dodger surge narrowed the lead to one game in midmonth, but the Giants held on
for the division crown. In their first experiences with a League Championship
Series, though, they succumbed to Pittsburgh with three losses after an
opening-game win.
     The LCS loss signaled the end of an era. McCovey was past his prime and
Marichal had enjoyed his last big year. Mays, after twenty Giant seasons, was
sold to the Mets in 1972 so he could close out his career in New York, where
it began. That year the Giants suffered their first losing season in San
Francisco, and attendance for the first time dropped below what it had been in
their final New York season.
     Attendance had reached such a low point by the mid-1970s that Stoneham
negotiated the club's sale to a Canadian brewery which planned to move it to
Toronto. But San Francisco's mayor George Moscone delayed the sale until a
buyer could be found who would keep the Giants in the city. San Francisco
realtor Robert Lurie stepped forth with half the purchase price, and Arizona
cattleman Arthur "Bud" Herseth provided the rest. (Toronto settled for an
expansion club, the Blue Jays.)
     After six years out of the running, the Giants in 1978 played at the top
of the NL East through much of the summer before dropping to third (and home
attendance jumped more than a million above the previous year). But they fell
below .500 the next two years--making seven losing seasons in the nine that
followed their division title of 1971.
     In 1982 the Giants--paced by the slugging of Jack Clark and Greg
Minton's sparkling relief pitching--made one of the most impressive comebacks
since divisional play was instituted in 1969, driving from ten games below
.500 in late June to just 2 games from champion Atlanta at season's end. But
they dropped to fifth the following year, and to a last-place sixth in 1984
and 1985.
     When Roger Craig was called on to manage the final weeks of the 1985
season, there was no stopping the Giants' slide to a club-record 100 losses.
But the next year, inspiring a "can do" spirit among the players, Craig turned
the club around. Veteran hurler Mike Krukow won a career-high 20 games, eight
players contributed more than 40 RBIs each, and the team captured 26 of their
83 wins in their final at-bat. In first place at midseason, the Giants
slipped (in part because of injuries) to third by season's end, but the fans
were back--over 700,000 more than a year earlier.
     The club set a new home attendance record of more than 1.9 million in
1987 as it returned to the top of the NL West for the first time in sixteen
years. Sophomore first baseman Will Clark led a balanced offense, and several
shrewd in-season acquisitions by the front office spurred a second-half drive
from five games back to a 6-game lead at the finish. But after taking a 3-2
advantage over St. Louis in the LCS, the Giants failed to score in the final
two games and the Cardinals captured the flag.
     Injuries contributed to the Giants' decline to fourth place the next
year, but in 1989 Will Clark enjoyed his strongest season yet, and left
fielder Kevin Mitchell erupted with league-high power (47 HRs, 125 RBIs, .635
slugging) to lead another successful Giant assault on the division title. For
the first time, the Giants passed the 2 million mark in home attendance.
After holding first place from mid-June to the finish, they pushed past the
stubborn Cubs in the LCS to their first pennant in twenty-seven years, their
nineteenth over all. But the earthquake that delayed Game 3 of the World
Series only postponed a sweep by mighty Oakland.
     The Giants' downward slide over the next three years--to third place in
1990, fourth in 1991, and fifth in 1992--coincided with futile efforts to
persuade Bay area voters to approve public funding for a new stadium to
replace unpopular Candlestick Park. In August 1992, Giant owner Bob Lurie
arranged to sell the club to a group of investors who planned to move it to
St. Petersburg, Florida. In November, though, the sale and move were blocked
by the other major league owners.
     The signing of free agent Barry Bonds ignited a Giant turnaround in 1993.
As Bonds put together another Ruthian season, and Matt Williams rebounded from
his worst season to his best, starting pitchers John Burkett and Bill Swift
developed into twenty-game winners and closer Rod Beck saved the second most
games (48) in NL history. The Giants lost their once-big lead to surging
Atlanta in September, but revived to tie the Braves with three games to go.
Although a final-game loss to Los Angeles cost them the division title, their
103 wins tied for third best in club history.

Seattle Mariners

     The Mariners began play in 1977, returning major league baseball to the
Pacific Northwest eight years after the Seattle Pilots had moved to Milwaukee
after only one season. With a 64-98 inaugural season, the Mariners avoided
last place in the American League West only because the Oakland A's had
plummeted faster and farther. The hitting of first baseman Dan Meyer,
outfielder Leroy Stanton, and rookie center fielder Ruppert Jones--who
combined for 73 home runs--and the relief pitching of rookie Enrique (Romo)
Romero, who contributed 16 saves and 8 wins, provided most of the high points
of that first season.
     There was less to cheer about the next year as the production of the
first-season heroes fell off and the Mariners took possession of the cellar
from mid-May on, losing a club-record 104 games. They finished 12 games out
of sixth place, 35 out of first. Much of the offense that was generated came
from outfielder Leon Roberts. Acquired from Houston over the winter, Roberts
put together his best season and became the Mariners' first .300 hitter.
     The club moved up a notch in 1979, to sixth place. Meyer and Jones
regained much of their 1977 power, first baseman Bruce Bochte hit .316 and
drove in 100 runs, and DH Willie Horton, near the end of a long career,
enjoyed one of his finest seasons, driving in 106 runs and leading the club
with 29 homers.
     As the Mariners, with the league's weakest hitting, dropped back into the
cellar the next season, attendance fell to a new low, and some of the original
owners decided to sell out. In January 1981 California real-estate magnate
George Argyros purchased control of the club, and later bought out the
remaining partners to take sole ownership.
     In strike-divided 1981 the Mariners finished sixth and fifth in the two
halves of the season. Second baseman Julio Cruz continued among the league's
top base stealers, and right fielder Tom Paciorek's second-place .326 BA put a
Seattle hitter high among the league's best for the first time. Paciorek was
traded away that winter, but his replacement, veteran Al Cowens, came through
with one of his best seasons in 1982. And Mariner pitching improved
dramatically--from the bottom of the league in ERA in 1981 to fourth best in
'82. Newcomers Bill Caudill and rookie Ed Vande Berg, working in relief,
combined for 21 wins and 31 saves. Starter Floyd Bannister led the league in
strikeouts while winning 12 games (tying Caudill for the team lead), and
veteran Gaylord Perry added 10 victories, including his 300th career win in
May. The team finished above .450 for the first time, fourth in the AL West,
a new high.
     Caudill's 26 saves in 1983 couldn't prevent a slide back into last place.
But the club's farm system was beginning to produce quality talent, and 1984
saw the arrival of two standouts: first baseman Alvin Davis, whose 27 homers
and 116 RBIs earned him AL Rookie of the Year honors, and pitcher Mark
Langston, a 17-game winner in 1984 and AL strikeout leader in three of his
first four seasons. Rookie third baseman Jim Presley hit 10 home runs in 70
games and proceeded to blossom into one of the Seattle club's leading power
hitters the next year.
     After sixth-place finishes in 1984 and '85, the Mariners fell off to last
again in 1986. Langston's 19 wins led the team's 1987 rebound to fourth, with
Lee Guetterman's 11-4 pitching and the power of Davis and Presley providing
valuable assists. Infielder Harold Reynolds stole his sixtieth base in the
final game to preserve his lead in that department and to give the Mariners
their first league leader in an offensive category.
     After dropping back into the cellar in 1988 and rising a notch to sixth
in 1989, the Mariners revived under new ownership in 1990 to challenge the
.500 barrier. Center fielder Ken Griffey, Jr., began to fulfill the promise
he had shown as a nineteen-year-old rookie the previous summer. Sophomore
hurler Erik Hanson--with 18 wins and an ERA among the league's best--replaced
the traded Mark Langston as ace of a young pitching staff that compiled the
league's third lowest ERA. The Mariners entered August third in the strong AL
West, with a winning record which they maintained through mid-month before
stumbling to fifth place with their fourteenth straight losing season.
     At last, in 1991, Seattle produced its first winning season, rising from
an even .500 with six wins in the final eight games. Griffey Jr. overcame a
lackluster first half to reach new Mariner heights in batting (.327) and
slugging (.527), but the club still finished fifth, and manager Jim Lefebvre
was fired. It also continued to lose money, so in June 1992, as the Mariners
sailed for the sixth time to the bottom of the AL West, the club was sold.
The new ownership group included (for the first time) substantial local
representation, but as major financing came from Hiroshi Yamauchi, the
Japanese president of computer game giant Nintendo, and his son-in-law, a
Washington State resident but Japanese national, the sale was delayed until
jingoistic opposition to it subsided--and the deal was restructured to insure
American control of the club. On the field Griffey enjoyed another strong
season, and third baseman Edgar Martinez hit .343 to give Seattle its first
league batting champion.
     A torn hamstring sidelined Martinez much of 1993, but Griffey shone
brighter than ever at the bat, and pitcher Randy Johnson finished with nine
straight wins (for a 19-8 season record) and 308 strikeouts (a fifteen-year AL
high). Their exploits lifted the Mariners into third place for a day in late
September before they settled into fourth, with their second winning season
ever.

Texas Rangers

     As part of the first American League expansion, a new Washington club was
added to the league in November 1960, to replace the old Senators, who were
moving to Minnesota to become the Twins. The old Senators had languished in
the second division their final 14 years in Washington, and the new Senators
scarcely improved on that record. In each of their first four seasons they
lost 100 games or more, tying for last place in 1961 and holding down the
bottom all by themselves for two years before rising to ninth in 1964.
     Although as an expansion team the new Senators had to make do at first
with expendable players from the established clubs, they were not devoid of
talent. In their first season, pitcher Dick Donovan led the league with a
2.40 earned run average, though injuries and the lack of offensive support
held his won-lost record to 10-10. Perhaps their most promising player, he
was traded with two teammates to Cleveland for outfielder Jimmy Piersall.
Piersall proved a major disappointment in Washington, batting only .244 while
Donovan was winning 20 games for his new club.
     Not all the Senators' trades proved disastrous. In late 1964 they sent
another promising pitcher--Claude Osteen--to the Dodgers in a deal that
brought them five players, including third baseman Ken McMullen and outfielder
Frank Howard. Osteen blossomed into a consistent winner in Los Angeles, but
at the same time, McMullen brought strength to the Washington infield and
Howard became one of the league's offensive stars.
     The Senators' blend of youth and experience jelled in 1969 under rookie
manager Ted Williams, as several key players--including McMullen and
Howard--enjoyed career-best seasons. The club finished above .500 for the
first time, driving with a late-season spurt to within a game of third-place
Boston in the league's Eastern Division.
     But 1969 was a one-year phenomenon. After losing seasons in 1970 and '71
(and the loss of much of their fan support), owner Bob Short pulled up stakes
and moved the club to Arlington, Texas (midway between Fort Worth and Dallas),
where, as the Texas Rangers, they have been ever since. Their first summer in
Texas resembled their first in Washington: they lost 100 games (despite a
strike-shortened season) and finished last. Williams was replaced by a new
rookie manager--Whitey Herzog--but the club did no better in 1973.
     Before the season's end Herzog gave way to Billy Martin. Martin came too
late to save the Rangers from another lost season, but the next year he
spurred the team to the kind of turnaround Williams had managed five years
earlier. Behind the 25-12 pitching of Ferguson Jenkins (acquired in the
offseason from the Cubs) and the hitting of league MVP Jeff Burroughs and
rookie first baseman Mike Hargrove, the Rangers spurted in the second half of
1974 from a sub-.500 record to second place in the American League West, only
5 games behind Oakland.
     Since 1974 the Rangers' fortunes have been up and down. After two losing
seasons they rebounded in 1977 to their finest season yet (94-68, .580) and
second place, behind strong pitching and the blooming of Jim Sundberg as a
hitter to go along with his league-leading catching. Fergie Jenkins' return
to the club (after two years in Boston), the sparkling 11-5 season of rookie
Steve Comer, and a September surge kept the club competitive in 1978. Jim
Kern's brilliant relief work the next season helped the club recover from a
nosedive in July and August to edge Minnesota for a strong third-place finish.
     After a losing season in 1980, the Rangers bounced back in 1981 to record
their second-best winning percentage ever (.543)--and finishes of second and
third in the two halves of the strike-divided season. Then they slipped below
.500 again for four more years. Pitcher Charlie Hough's knuckleball, and
strong seasons at the bat from Pete O'Brien, Larry Parrish, and rookies Scott
Fletcher and Pete Incaviglia helped new manager Bobby Valentine turn the
Rangers around once again in 1986, lifting them to the club's fifth
second-place finish after last-place seasons in 1984 and '85.
     Once more, though, the turnaround was brief: in 1987 losses in their
final games of the season dropped the Rangers into a tie at the bottom of the
division, and in 1988 they finished only two games out of the cellar, in sixth
place.
     A group of investors headed by George W. Bush--the President's
son--purchased control of the Rangers in March 1989, and strikeout king Nolan
Ryan returned to the American League as a Ranger after nine years in Houston.
The strong arms of starter Ryan (who recorded his 5,000th career strikeout
during the season) and reliever Jeff Russell, the potent bats of outfielder
Ruben Sierra and second baseman Julio Franco (newly acquired from Cleveland),
and a 10-1 start that put the club in first place for a month (before they
settled back to fourth) highlighted a Ranger return to the winning side of the
ledger. In 1990 Ryan hurled his 300th win and sixth no-hitter, first baseman
Rafael Palmeiro peaked at the plate, and pitcher Bobby Witt enjoyed his finest
season, with 17 wins. After a slow first half, the Rangers rose from sixth
place to third, compiling an 83-79 record identical to that of the year
before.
     A fourteen-game win streak in May 1991 boosted the Rangers into first
place for several days, although they again finished third. Jose Guzman
joined Ryan (who fashioned a seventh no-hitter) among the league's top
pitchers, and young slugger Juan Gonzalez formed with Franco, Palmeiro, and
Sierra a powerful quartet that made the Rangers the top scoring team in the
majors. In 1992 pitcher Kevin Brown joined the Rangers from Milwaukee and won
21 games, and Gonzalez topped the majors in home runs. But an overall decline
in offense, and disastrous fielding and relief pitching dropped the team below
.500 after a competitive first half. In the year's biggest in-season trade,
the club acquired Jose Canseco from Oakland for Sierra, Witt, and Russell.
     The Rangers surged to within a game of first place in mid-July 1993, and
remained competitive into September, finishing second, eight games out.
Canseco injured his elbow in a relief pitching stint in June and was lost for
the season, but Gonzalez again led the league in home runs (with 46), while
also leading his team in batting and RBIs. Nolan Ryan retired after an
injury-shortened season, and as the Rangers ended their tenure at Texas
Stadium, their new home "The Ballpark" arose on the other side of the parking
lot.

Toronto Blue Jays

     For a while, in February 1977, it looked as if the National League's San
Francisco Giants would move to Toronto, where there were buyers eager for the
club. But when the Giants were sold in March to new owners determined to keep
them in San Francisco, the American League jumped in to establish Toronto as
an American League city, setting up an expansion club, the Blue Jays.
     It took seven years for the Jays to lift themselves out of last place in
the seven-team American League East. For five years they had the cellar all
to themselves, never finishing closer than 11 games behind the sixth-place
club.
     In their first season, the Jays' 107 losses left them 45 1/2 games out of
first, as the team performed at the bottom of the division in hitting,
fielding, and pitching. In 1978 their fielding improved dramatically, but the
Jays still lost over 100 games, and there was little doubt after April who
would finish last.
     The next year was the team's worst ever. While every other Eastern
Division club was compiling a winning record, Toronto plunged relentlessly
downward and, despite a brief rally in September, finished 28 1/2 games out of
sixth place (50 1/2 out of first), with 109 losses.
     The club's turnaround began in 1980. It was late June before the Jays
began their drop away from the rest of the division, and for the first time
they finished with fewer than 100 losses. Pitchers Jim Clancy and Dave Stieb
lowered their ERAs below 4.00 for the first time, and newly acquired second
baseman Damaso Garcia combined with shortstop Alfredo Griffin to form the
league's best double-play combination. There were still two more seasons in
the cellar, but in strike-divided 1981 the Jays played a creditable second
half for the first time, and in 1982 they spurted in September to tie the
Indians for sixth at season's end. Garcia in 1982 became a .300 hitter and a
leading base stealer, Clancy put together his first winning season and Stieb
his second, and Stieb's five shutouts led the league.
     In 1983, with seven of the Blue Jays' eight principal pitchers enjoying
winning seasons, and the Jays' hitters leading the league in team batting and
slugging, Toronto recorded its first winning season--in fourth place, only 9
games out of first. Their balanced pitching and offense carried them to a
repeat 89-73 record in 1984--this time for second place (though they finished
a distant 15 games behind Detroit).
     In 1985 the Blue Jays topped their division with 99 victories, edging the
Yankees by 2 games. Their pitching was better than ever. Doyle Alexander won
17 games, Jimmy Key and Dave Stieb contributed 14 each, and reliever Dennis
Lamp compiled an impressive 11-0 record. Stieb led the league in ERA, with
Key fourth. Tony Fernandez, in his first full big league season, sparkled as
expected at short, but also proved unexpectedly solid at the bat. Eight Jays
drove in more than 50 runs, with outfielders George Bell (95), Jesse Barfield
(84), and Lloyd Moseby (71) pacing the club's balanced attack.
     In the LCS the Jays won three of their first four games against Kansas
City, but lost the next three--and the pennant. Equally discouraging was
their drop to fourth place in 1986. Barfield, Bell, and Fernandez all
improved at the plate, but the league-leading pitchers of 1985 dropped back to
the middle of the pack in '86 (though rookie Mark Eichorn sparkled in long
relief).
     Toronto sprang back stronger than ever in 1987. Jim Clancy (15-11, 3.54
ERA) enjoyed his best season yet, as did Jimmy Key (17-8), whose 2.76 ERA led
the league. Once again, as in 1985, the team ERA was the league's lowest. And
the offense remained strong. (George Bell, league RBI leader with 134, was
named the American League MVP at season's end.)  The Jays led their division
going into the season's final series against second-place Detroit, though four
straight losses had reduced the lead to just one game. Needing to win two of
the three games to take the AL East title, or one to tie the Tigers and force
a playoff, the Jays' slumping bats remained quiet, and Toronto lost the first
two games. In the season finale, Jimmy Key hurled a three-hitter, striking
out eight. But one of the hits was a home run--the only run of the game, as
it turned out. Toronto's seven-game losing streak had cost them what would
have been their second title in three years.
     In 1988, a rocky season made worse by George Bell's feud with manager
Jimmy Williams (who wanted the unwilling outfielder to serve as designated
hitter), the Jays surged at the end--with six straight wins--into a tie for
third place, only two games out of first. The season was highlighted by the
emergence of Fred McGriff as one of the game's most powerful batsmen, and by
ace Dave Stieb's two successive one-hitters in late September--both of which
were no-hitters through 8 2/3 innings.
     When Toronto's front office replaced manager Williams with batting coach
Cito Gaston in mid-May 1989, the Jays were drowning near the bottom of the AL
East with a record of 12-24. By mid-August they had bobbed above .500 to
stay, and on September 1 replaced Baltimore in first place. With a pair of
one-run victories over the Orioles at the end of September, the Jays preserved
their narrow lead and clinched the division title. But Oakland outplayed them
in the LCS, taking the pennant in five games.
     From mid-June 1990 to the final day of the season, the Blue Jays battled
Boston for the division lead before settling for second. Dave Stieb (after
two more one-hitters in 1989) at last hurled a no-hitter, and third baseman
Kelly Gruber confirmed a place with Bell and McGriff among Toronto's power
elite. But the brightest Toronto star of 1989-90 was the new SkyDome, with
its 11,000-ton retractable roof and its restaurants and hotel rooms above the
outfield wall. After the Jays moved into the Dome on June 5, 1989, attendance
zoomed, and by season's end the club set a new American League home attendance
record of nearly 3.4 million. In 1990, with a full season in the Dome, the
Jays attracted over a half million more fans than the year before, for a new
major league record of 3,885,284.
     SkyDome attendance continued to set new records in 1991 and 1992 as it
rose above four million. McGriff and Bell had departed by 1991, but an
improved Devon White, plus newly acquired slugger Joe Carter and
second-baseman Roberto Alomar, led an offense that--together with the
league's stingiest pitching staff--brought the Jays through a tight race to
their fourth divisional title. For the fourth time, though, they crashed in
the LCS, this time trampled by Minnesota in five games.  With the addition of
a pair of free-agent veterans--pitcher Jack Morris (who went 21-6) and DH-
outfielder Dave Winfield (108 RBIs)--Toronto in 1992 finally completed the
puzzle. The Jays sported a balanced offense (six players drove in 60 runs or
more) and outstanding pitching from starter Juan Guzman (16-5; 2.64 ERA) and
relievers Tom Henke and Duane Ward. The Jays fended off Baltimore's challenge
for the lead through much of the summer, and resisted Milwaukee's late-season
surge to repeat as AL East titlists. They then felled Oakland in six games to
bring Canada its first major league baseball pennant, and stopped stubborn
Atlanta in six games to carry home the championship of the world.
     Nearly half the team was new in 1993, but after a tight battle with
several clubs through most of the season, the Blue Jays pulled away to capture
their fourth divisional title in five years, by a comfortable seven-game
margin. John Olerud, with his first full .300 season at the bat, hit over .400
through the first half of the season and finished with a league-high .363.
Paul Molitor, signed from Milwaukee as a free agent, hit better than anyone
else in the league from midseason on, and finished second over all. Together
with Roberto Alomar, Olerud and Molitor became the first teammates since 1893
to take the top three spots in a major league batting race. In postseason play
the Jays repeated their success of the previous year, with six-game victories
over the Chicago White Sox for the AL pennant and over Philadelphia for the
world title.