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On Aug. 31, 1961, the Detroit Tigers trailed the first-place New York Yankees by a mere one and one-half games, but by just a single game in the all-important loss column. With the passage of time, it is often forgotten that the great 1961 Yankees were in a torrid pennant race with the Tigers most of the season. Really, A Crucial ...

Fans remember the 1914 Miracle Braves, who became World Champions after languishing in last place as late as July 4. The Boston Braves had finished a dismal fifth the previous season with only 69 wins. Fans remember the Boston Red Sox, who finished ninth in 1966 but who won the pennant the next season to become the first major league team ...

Sandy Koufax won the Cy Young Award for the third time in 1966. He won 27 games for a Los Angeles team that was offensively challenged, and compiled a 1.90 ERA+, which was the best of his career. Koufax was at his peak. Los Angeles, led by Koufax and Don Drysdale, won the pennant, but the underdog Baltimore Orioles swept ...

It was announced on Feb. 2, 1936, that the Baseball Writers Association of America had elected Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson to the Hall of Fame in the first-ever balloting. Cobb received 222 out of a possible 226 votes. Ruth and Wagner each received 215 votes, Mathewson had 205 votes, and Johnson finished with ...

Jo Bydin was a young baseball fan when the Yankees 18-game winning streak was broken by the St. Louis Browns on June 16, 1953. Jo rooted for the New York Giants, and any day that the Yankees lost was a good day for Jo Bydin. The St. Louis Browns The New York Yankees had high hopes of ...

Jo Stac recalls that after the disastrous 1965 season, the New York Yankees were finally considered "just another team." She read many articles about how the "pride of the Yankees" belonged to the past. Jo was pleased. I have rooted for the Cleveland Indians since 1951. Today's fans don't know that the Indians, not the Boston ...

Mary Lynne Munroe roots against the New York Yankees as much as the next woman, but even she felt sorry for Tony Kubek when he was hit in the throat by a ground ball that took a bad hop in the 1960 World Series. Kubek suffered a neck injury that might have led to his early retirement. Bill ...

Bryan Kashmen passed by Yankee Stadium in early October, 1965. The ball park that would be destroyed following the 2008 season was eerily silent. For the first time since 1959, there would be no World Series games at Yankee Stadium. Bryan felt so good. Tired of the Yankees in the World SeriesI couldn't root for the New York Yankees ...

Bryan Kashmen thinks that the only reason the New York Yankees rehired manager Johnny Keane three weeks before the end of the 1965 season was to avoid embarrassment. Yankees' management knew that that the team had deteriorated with time, and that firing Keane would result in too much bad publicity since he could hardly be blamed for what happened. Ralph ...

As the New York Yankees prepared to face the Boston Red Sox on Jul. 20, 1965, the defending American League Champions found themselves ensconced in sixth place, 12.5 games behind the league-leading Minnesota Twins. The Red Sox were in even worse shape. They were ninth in the 10-team league, 22 games out of first.   Trendy Game Some games define trends, and this was one of them. Twenty-three-year old Mel Stottlemyre faced ...