TODAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

The Night Dave Winfield Shook “Mr. May”: 1992 World Series, Game 6

Toronto went into Game 6 of the 1992 World Series one win away from something no team had ever done. No club outside the United States had won a World Series. Atlanta had stayed alive two nights earlier, and the Braves weren’t about to just hand it over.

Devon White got Toronto going in the first. He singled, stole second and scored on a Joe Carter sacrifice fly. Deion Sanders matched him in the third with a double, a steal of third and a run on a Terry Pendleton fly ball. Candy Maldonado put the Jays back up 2-1 with a homer off Steve Avery in the fourth. David Cone pitched his way out of a second-and-third jam in the fifth, ending an inning with a strikeout for the fourth straight time. Atlanta stranded 10 runners and Toronto stranded 13, which tells you all you need to know about the pitching that night.

Tom Henke came out for the ninth with a 2-1 lead. He had 14⅔ scoreless postseason innings behind him and saves in Games 2 and 4. Jeff Blauser singled and was bunted to second, Lonnie Smith walked, and Francisco Cabrera came off the bench. Ten days earlier, Cabrera had won the pennant for Atlanta with a walk-off single against Pittsburgh. He lined one to left. Maldonado misread it, recovered, jumped and caught it. Henke got Otis Nixon to 0-and-2, one strike from a title, and Nixon slapped a single through the left side to tie it. Maldonado’s throw home let both runners move up, and Henke had to get Ron Gant on a deep fly to center just to get the game to extras.

In the 11th, Charlie Leibrandt hit White with a pitch and Roberto Alomar singled him to second. Jeff Reardon was warming up, but Reardon had already given up the winning runs twice in the Series, so Bobby Cox stayed with his lefty. Carter popped out. That brought up Dave Winfield, 41 years old, 5-for-43 lifetime in the World Series, no extra-base hits, two RBIs. George Steinbrenner had hung the “Mr. May” label on him years before. Winfield worked it full and pulled a changeup down the left-field line. Both runners were moving on the pitch and both scored.

“I didn’t do a whole lot, but I did it at the right time,” Winfield said afterward.

Leibrandt, for what it’s worth, had given up Kirby Puckett’s Game 6 walk-off exactly 52 weeks earlier. Tough way to spend two Octobers.

Atlanta still had one more push left. Blauser singled again, and a sure double-play ball bounced off Alfredo Griffin’s glove. Brian Hunter’s groundout made it 4-3 with the tying run on third and Nixon coming up. Jimmy Key told Cito Gaston he’d never had much luck with Nixon, so Gaston brought in young Mike Timlin. Gaston, Pat Borders, Kelly Gruber and Carter all told Timlin the same thing: watch the bunt. Nixon bunted. Timlin fielded it clean, tossed to Carter, and Nixon was out by half a step.

At 12:50 a.m., the Toronto Blue Jays were world champions. Borders was the Series MVP after hitting .450, and Gaston became the first African-American manager to win a World Series.

Not bad for a guy they called Mr. May.

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This day in baseball has a deeper dive into every event from October 24

October 24, 1939 – Joe DiMaggio is named AL MVP, with Jimmie Foxx the runner-up. DiMaggio, for four years, acknowledged the greatest player in baseball by fans and experts alike, finally received official recognition yesterday when he was voted the Most Valuable Player in the American League. In receiving an honor long overdue, the 24-year-old slugger from San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf received 280 points out of a possible 335 in the annual vote of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and will receive The Sporting News award next season. DiMaggio, who led the league in batting with .381, drew fifteen first-place votes from the twenty-four participating writers (three from each city), three for second, three for third, one for fourth and two for fifth. For three years DiMaggio, whose arrival with the Yankees in 1936 started them on their unsurpassed streak of four successive World Championships, has been shunned when the postseason honor was awarded. He almost won the citation two years ago but was nosed out by Charley Gehringer. 78-74. (under the old scoring system) when veteran writers hesitated to give the coveted honor to a sophomore. In his freshman year, Joe finished eighth in the balloting; last season, he was sixth.

October 24, 1963 — Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax is the first unanimous winner of the Cy Young Award. Collecting all 20 first-place votes.

Here’s the highest praise these eyes have seen for a baseball player. The tribute is from Paul Richards, possibly the greatest connoisseur of pitching in the game today. “Sandy Koufax,” says the master of the Houston Colts organization, “could beat a team made up of the best players in the Hall of Fame in their primes. I never saw a better pitcher.”

From the AP – BOSTON (AP) – Strike-out sensation Sandy Koufax the Los Angeles Dodger lefthander who almost lost a finger and his baseball career a year ago, is the first unanimous Cy Young Award winner as the major league’s outstanding pitcher. Koufax overwhelmed the selectors as he did opposing batters, sweeping all 20 votes cast by the designated committee of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America A circulatory ailment Koufax’s pitching hand 1962, costing the Dodgers his services and ultimately the pennant. Doctors subsequently revealed Koufax came perilously close to losing the finger by amputation before the condition suddenly improved.

The 27-year old Brooklyn-born bachelor responded by leading the Dodgers to the world championship with a brilliant 25-5 record and a National League record 306 strikeouts in 311 innings. His 1.88 earned run average was the lowest in both leagues. Koufax launched his season with an early no-hitter against San Francisco and capped it by winning two games in the World Series when the Dodgers swept of the perennial American League kings New York Yankees. Koufax established the world series strike out record by fanning 15 Yankees, the record was establish just 10 years previously by Brooklyn Dodger Carl Erskine. Koufax joins Don Newcombe who won the award in 1956 and last years winner Don Drysdale (1962).

October 24, 1972, Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson , weakened by complications of heart disease and diabetes, dies of a heart attack in his home in North Stamford, Connecticut. The 53 year-old nearly blind baseball pioneer and social activist’s death comes nine days after his appearance at the World Series, where he threw the ceremonial first pitch before Game 2 at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium, during his last appearance Robinson championed the face there needed to be more Negro’s in the dugout as managers and upper management positions. Robinson had become the first black major league player of the 20th century with the 1947 Dodgers.

October 24, 1981 – The Los Angeles Dodgers come back to beat the New York Yankees, 8 – 7, in a sloppy three-hour marathon and tie the World Series, 2-2. The Yankees blow a 6 – 3 lead. On one play, Reggie Jackson loses the ball in the sun and it bounces off his shoulder for a two-base error.

October 24, 1987 — The Minnesota Twins, amidst the deafening crowd noise of the hanky-waving fans in the Metrodome, stave off elimination when the team scores a total of eight runs in the fifth and sixth frames of Game 6 and collect 15 hits to beat the St Louis Cardinals, 11-5. Minnesota’s southpaw-swinging Kent Hrbek hits a sixth-inning grand slam off left-handed Ken Dayley to put the contest out of reach for the Cardinals, to force the World Series to a seventh game.

October 24, 1994 — Greg Maddux of the Atlanta Braves becomes the first pitcher in major league history to win three straight Cy Young Awards, unanimously sweeping the National League honor. Maddux posted a 16-6 record with a 1.56 ERA, the third-lowest in 75 years.

October 24, 2000 — Roger Clemens is fined a reported $50,000 for throwing the jagged barrel of a shattered bat in the direction of Met catcher Mike Piazza in the first inning of Game 2 of the World Series. Yankee manager Joe Torre and the right-hander both deny the incident was intentional.

October 24, 2004 — At Fenway Park, Curt Schilling becomes the first starting pitcher to win a World Series game for three different teams. In addition to his Game 2, 6 – 2, victory for the Red Sox over the Cardinals today, his 8-2 lifetime postseason record includes wins for the Phillies (1993) and Diamondbacks (2001).

October 24, 2012 — In the Giants’ 8-3 victory over the Tigers at AT&T Park, Pablo Sandoval becomes the fourth major leaguer to hit three home runs in a World Series game. The San Francisco third baseman, with first, third, and fifth inning round-trippers in the opening game of the Fall Classic, joins Yankees outfielders Babe Ruth (1926, 28) and Reggie Jackson (1977) and Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols (2011) in accomplishing the feat.

Barry Zito pitches 5 2/3 innings for the win, as Tigers ace Justin Verlander is the loser.

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