Word: pennant
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Angeles Dodgers, champions of the National League, had barely arrived in Bloomington when they started bragging about what they were going to do to the American League's Minnesota Twins in the World Series. "Three or four clubs in our league could have won the pennant over there," said Dodger General Manager Buzzie Bavasi. "I don't think the competition from the Twins will be any tougher than it was from the Yankees when we beat them four straight in 1963." Now that was too much-even for Minnesota's mildmannered manager, Sam Mele. "Cracks like that...
This just had to be the loosest team in baseball. There they were, smack in the middle of one of the tightest pennant races in National League history, leading the league by 1½ games with four games still to play. Up in San Francisco, the second-place Giants had already beaten the Cincinnati Reds 5-3. In 15 minutes, the Dodgers were due on the field to take on the tough Milwaukee Braves. And what were they doing? Sitting around...
...Homers. They had reason to feel safe. The only way they could lose the pennant would be to wake up. The only man on the club who was batting as high as .290 was a pitcher, and the team's top slugger had hit only 12 home runs all year. (Not counting "Dodger homers," in which, as explained last week by Shortstop Maury Wills: "I get a base on balls, take second on a sacri fice, steal third, and come home on a fly ball.") But just the night before, the Dodgers had won their twelfth straight game...
...while, the way their pitchers were going, it looked as though the Dodgers would never lose a game. Then they did just that, 2-0, to Milwaukee.The Giants lost too, and next day Sandy Koufax clinched the pennant, beating the Braves 4-1 and getting his name in the record book still another time-by tying the modern National League record for victories in one season (26) by a lefthander. The Braves' lone run was actually an achievement of sorts: it was the first scored off Koufax in his last six victories. In 78 innings, Los Angeles pitchers...
When I picked the Dodgers to win the National League pennant last spring, I take it you all went out and bet heavily on them. So you'll no doubt be chagrined to hear that that bum O'Malley hasn't seen fit to recognize my loyality by sending me World Series press credentials. I'm deeply hurt...