TODAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

Congratulations to the Tampa Bay Rays. Within the next two weeks, baseball will crown a new champion, a team that has never won the World Series. Go back to 1980, when the Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals faced off in a similar situation.

As we get into today's feature and why I wrote it, it would be easy to write about the 1988 Dodgers, the 1990s Reds, or even Catfish Hunter vs. Tom Seaver in Game 6 of thee 197 World Series. But my thoughts shifted to Pat Murphy. Craig Counsell, an excellent manager for the Brewers, said that after nine seasons managing Milwaukee (accumulating a franchise-record 707 wins and five postseason appearances), he simply needed and wanted a fresh competitive environment. The Cubs offered him more money, but that last sentence said it all. He felt the team could not win.

Enter Pat Murphy. 3 straight division titles, back-to-back NLCS, a 103-win team in 2026, and World Series appearances. Meanwhile, the Cubs finished a distant second to Milwaukee in each of the past three seasons and were swept out of the playoffs this year, with an aging roster.

Seems like he may have made an error in judgment.

Which brings us to Johnny Keane.  

1964: Triumph Amid Turmoil

Sixty-two years ago today, the 1964 baseball season ended with two managerial hires. The manager who had just won the World Series went to work for the team he had just beaten. The team that won hired somebody else.

To see how that happened, you have to go back to August.

By mid-August the Cardinals looked finished. Gussie Busch had owned the club since 1953 and still didn’t have a pennant, and he was out of patience. Branch Rickey, whom Busch had brought in as a consultant, may have been in his ear. Either way, Busch decided the front office needed a full housecleaning. On August 17 he fired, or accepted the resignations of, nearly every senior executive in the organization. General manager Bing Devine was one of them.

Johnny Keane kept his job, but not because Busch was sold on him. Behind the scenes, Busch was talking with Leo Durocher, then a coach with the Dodgers, about taking over as manager once the season ended.

Then the Phillies collapsed.

Philadelphia had looked like a lock with two weeks to go. Then they lost ten straight, and suddenly four teams were in it: the Phillies, Cardinals, Reds and Giants. The Phils came into St. Louis after losing seven in a row at home, and the Cardinals swept them. That was eight straight wins for St. Louis and put them in first place at 92–67.

All they had left was three games at home against the Mets, who were 51–108. They lost the first two. That dropped them into a tie with Cincinnati, one game ahead of Philadelphia.

On Sunday, October 4, the last day of the season, the Phillies shut out the Reds 10–0 and the Cardinals beat the Mets 11–5. That avoided a three-way playoff and gave St. Louis its first National League pennant since 1946. They went on to beat the Yankees in seven games in the World Series.

The Cardinals won Game 7 on October 15 and called a press conference for the next day. Everyone expected a contract extension for Keane. Instead, Keane handed Busch and new GM Bob Howsam a resignation letter. He had written it in late September, in the middle of the pennant race, because he believed Busch was going to replace him with Durocher no matter how the season ended.

So on October 20, 1964, both clubs filled their jobs.

Keane to the Bronx. Days after beating the Yankees, Keane replaced Yogi Berra as their manager. It went badly. The 1965 Yankees were an aging team, and they finished with their first losing season since 1925. In 1966 they started 4–16, and Keane was fired twenty games into the season.

Red takes over in St. Louis. The Cardinals never did hire Durocher. They gave the job to Red Schoendienst, a former Cardinals second baseman, a fan favorite, and one of Keane’s coaches. Albert “Red” Schoendienst managed the Cardinals for 12 full seasons and came back as interim manager in 1980 and again in 1990. His record was 1,041–955. He won the World Series in 1967 and the pennant in 1968.

The Veterans Committee elected Schoendienst to the Hall of Fame in 1989 as a player. As a player alone, he was a borderline Hall of Famer at best. Add in what he did from the dugout and his place in Cardinals history is a lot easier to defend.

Todays Podcast

Brought to you by: This Day In Baseball

This day in baseball has a deeper dive into every event from October 20

October 20, 1936 – In a pitchers’ duel, Carl Hubbell (26-6) edges out Dizzy Dean (24-13) for MVP honors in the National League. It is the second time he will win the award, he won the first in 1933. In 1936 he was the first unanimous MVP pick.

October 20, 1973 — Catfish Hunter clutch pitching outduels Tom Seaver, and the timely hitting of Reggie Jackson give the A’s a game 6 win. Jackson doubled and drove in Joe Rudi in the first inning and doubled in Sal Bando in the third to give Oakland a 2–0 lead. In the eighth inning, the Mets threatened, knocking Hunter out of the game after Ken Boswell singled in a run. Reliever Darold Knowles put out the fire by striking out the Rusty Staub on three pitches with two men on base. In the bottom half of the inning, the A’s added an insurance run when Jackson singled, advanced to third on center fielder Don Hahn’s error, and scored on Jesús Alou’s sacrifice fly. Rollie Fingers got the save in the ninth inning to force a seventh game.

October 20, 1981 — In a World Series rematch of the 1977 and 1978 teams, the Yankees take Game 1 over the Dodgers, 5 – 3. Bob Watson hits a three-run home run in the 1st inning as pitcher Ron Guidry goes seven innings for the win. Goose Gossage closes down a Dodgers rally in the 8th.

October 20, 1982 — On his 29th birthday, Keith Hernandez hits a game-tying two-run single off Bob McClure in Game 7 of the Fall Classic, in the Redbirds’ eventual 6-3 victory over the Brewers at Busch Stadium. The batter and pitcher, who lived in homes 100 feet from one another growing up in Pacifica, California, were teammates in Little League and Terra Nova High School baseball team. it’s the Redbirds’ first world championship since 1967.

October 20, 1988 — The Los Angeles Dodgers complete one of the greatest upsets in World Series history when Orel Hershiser pitches a four-hitter, all singles and Mickey Hatcher and Mike Davis hit two-run home runs to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5 – 2 victory over the Oakland Athletics and the World Series title in five games.

Hershiser also won Game 2, becomes only the third player to win the MVP honors in both the League Championship Series and the World Series. The win gives the Dodgers their first World Championship since 1981, becoming the only team to win more than one World Series in the 1980s.

October 20, 1990, the Cincinnati Reds complete a stunning four-game sweep of the heavily-favored Oakland A’s. Jose Rijo retires the last 20 batters he faces, with ninth-inning help from Randy Myers, wins his second game of the series. finishing off a 2-1 victory. Rijo is named World Series MVP.

October 20, 1996 — at Yankee Stadium. The Atlanta Braves continue to pound the ball, as they defeat the Yankees, 12 – 1, in the World Series opener. At age nineteen, Andruw Jones puts himself in the record books as the youngest player to hit a home run in the Series. He hits one homer in the 2nd inning off Andy Pettitte and another in the 3rd. Pitcher John Smoltz gains the win.

October 20, 1993 — at Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium, Devon White’s two-run triple caps a six-run 8th inning as Toronto rallies for a 15 – 14 victory over the Phillies and a 3-1 World Series lead. The 29 runs shatter the Series record of 22 set in Game 2 of the 1936 Series, when the Yankees beat the 1936 Giants, 18 – 4. It is also the longest nine-inning game in series history at 4 hours, 14 minutes.

Calling balls and strikes Charlie Williams becomes the first black umpire to work home plate during a World Series.

October 20, 2004, the Red Sox complete an improbable and historic comeback by defeating New York in Yankee Stadium, 10-3 in Game Seven of the ALCS. The Red Sox win the final four games of the series to become the first team to ever rebound from a 3-0 deficit.

Johnny Damon hits two home runs, including a grand slam in the 2nd inning, backing up the solid pitching of Derek Lowe, and David Ortiz hits a two-run homer in the first inning for the Sox. It’s the second straight season that the Red Sox and Yankees battle to a seventh game in the ALCS.

Boston joins the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and the 1975 New York Islanders, both of the National Hockey League, as the only teams in the history of North American professional sports to overcome a 3-0 series deficit to win a seven-game series.

October 20, 2018 — The Dodgers win Game 7 of the NLCS, 5 – 1 over Milwaukee, to return to the World Series. The Brewers open the scoring on a 1st-inning homer by Christian Yelich, but Los Angeles replies with a two-run shot by Cody Bellinger off Jhoulys Chacin in the 2nd, and a three-run shot by Yasiel Puig off Jeremy Jeffress in the 6th. Bellinger is named the NLCS MVP.

 ANSWER TO TODAY’S TRIVIA

TRIVIA ANSWER: JIM BOTTOMLEY

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Thank you Horsehide Trivia

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