Friday, October 16, 2009

A Day For Anniversaries

Plenty to remember on October 16th through the baseball years. Most of it good.

It was 40 years ago today that the New York Mets shocked the baseball world by upsetting the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series with a 5-3 win at Shea Stadium, when Davey Johnson flied out to Cleon Jones, setting off one of the wildest celebrations in New York history.

Four decades. I can still remember rushing home from school to catch the remainder of the game after watching it in school.

It was 10 years ago today that the famous "Clemens Massacre" took place at Fenway Park, as the Texas Con Man got blitzed by the Red Sox and Pedro Martinez, as the Sox won easily, 13-1, in Game 3 of the ALCS. Clemens got hooted off the mound by the Fenway Faithful after less than three innings, and Yours Truly is proud to say he was one of the many thousands doing the hooting.

It was 6 years ago today that the Red Sox lost Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS in the 11th inning, when some guy, whose name escapes me right now, hit a home run off Tim Wakefield to end the season, and allow Terry Francona to become manager just a month later.

A year to the day later, the Red Sox were beaten in Game 3 of the ALCS, 19-8, and were put in an 0-3 hole in that series. It was their final loss of 2004, setting up the greatest comeback in MLB postseason history.

Notice a pattern here? In 1969, the World Series was ending. By 2004, the ALCS was in the middle, and today, the ALCS hasn't even begun yet. One of these years, the season will still be going on Christmas Day.

2 comments:

Rick said...

Over the next 1 week or so - there should be a bunch of awesome 5 year anniversaries :)

BklynSoxFan said...

Oh yes, Rick. And I'll be marking them here. Beginning with October 17.