Denver Post staff writer Mike Burrows recaps the major moments in Series history throughout the week.
8
GAME 7, OCT. 15, 1946
Remarkable run
Cardinals 4, Red Sox 3
Ted Williams wasn’t the Hall of Fame outfielder who won the 1946 World Series. Enos Slaughter did it with a mad dash around the bases.
In his first season back after World War II, Williams powered the Red Sox to 104 victories and an easy American League pennant with an MVP year (.342 average, 38 homers, 142 runs and 123 RBIs). But he hit only .200 (5-for-25) in the only World Series of his career.
Slaughter stole the show, scoring Game 7’s winning run for the Cardinals in St. Louis after leading off the bottom of the eighth inning with a single off Red Sox reliever Bob Klinger.
Slaughter scored on a two-out double by Harry Walker. Boston’s relay from center fielder Leon Culberson to shortstop Johnny Pesky wasn’t smooth, with Pesky hesitating after receiving Culberson’s hurried throw.
“It was a gutsy play,” Slaughter told reporters. “But, you know, two men out and the winning run, you can’t let the grass grow under your feet.”
7
GAME 3, OCT. 1, 1932
The called shot
Yankees 7, Cubs 5
Why would anyone want to rile Babe Ruth, especially in the World Series? Cubs fans still ask that question. Understandably so, considering that the Cubs haven’t won the World Series since 1908.
Ruth was being heckled unmercifully from the Cubs’ dugout at Chicago’s Wrigley Field when he stepped to the plate with one out in the fifth inning of Game 3 to bat against Charlie Root.
Always eager to star on the big stage, and fed up with what he was hearing from the Cubs’ dugout, Ruth allegedly pointed to the bleachers in center field.
That’s where Root’s next pitch landed.
Ruth hit one off Root. The Yankees swept the Cubs in four games. Any questions?
6
GAME 6, OCT. 25, 1986
Error on Buckner
Mets 6, Red Sox 5
Red Sox Nation suffered through its own Great Depression after the Mets rallied to win the 1986 World Series in seven games.
Game 6 at New York’s Shea Stadium started it.
Twice just one strike from winning their first World Series since 1918, the Red Sox turned Bill Buckner’s error at first base with two out in the 10th inning into a crushing defeat.
A groundball hit by Mookie Wilson went through Buckner’s 36-year-old legs – the Red Sox’s third error in a game they led 5-3 entering the bottom of the 10th – allowing Ray Knight to score the Mets’ winning run from second base.
Bob Stanley’s run-scoring wild pitch and three singles fueled the Mets’ three-run 10th. But Buckner, who finished his otherwise stellar 22-year career with 2,715 hits and a .289 batting average, got the blame in Boston. Big-time blame. So much blame, he eventually moved his family to Idaho.
Buckner wasn’t exactly pardoned when Boston ended its championship drought by winning the 2004 World Series, but Red Sox Nation at least was willing to forgive. If not forget.
