Word: pennants
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Rarely have so many late-September games held the potential to make such an epic difference for so many teams. In all of baseball's four divisions, the pennant races will not be officially decided until this week, the final seven days of the season. Only the San Francisco Giants, astride the National League West, possess breathing room ahead of the late-charging San Diego Padres. Powered by outfielder Kevin Mitchell (46 homers) and first baseman Will Clark (109 RBIs), the Giants may boast the game's most titanic twosome since the Yankee era of Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle...
...natural superiority of baseball can be expressed in two electric words: pennant races. The daily games through September and the all-or-nothing arithmetic of a sport still unsullied by complex playoff pairings give baseball a dramatic structure without parallel. Last week, as the California Angels gamely struggled to overtake the Oakland A's, Bert Blyleven, the bearded 38-year-old ace of the pitching staff, said, "This is what everybody plays for, to go into the last week of the season and have the games make a difference...
...Mets know they're still in a pennant race? Monday night at Shea Stadium, the Metsies were hosting the first-place Cubs in a key pennant race game. With the Mets losing in the ninth inning, Darryl Strawberry and Kevin McReynolds decided to watch the rest of the game from the locker room...
...replacing Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams in left field in 1961, leading the American League in batting in 1963 and capturing the Triple Crown in 1967 (he is still the last player to accomplish that feat), when he almost single-handedly led the Red Sox to the "Impossible Dream" pennant...
Denny McLain, the Detroit Tigers pitcher, had a delightful alibi for two mashed toes that cost the 1967 pennant. He said he hurt himself shooing a raccoon away from a garbage can. Whether the raccoon had a Mob connection was a matter of speculation, but McLain was definitely the garbage can. When his bookmaking sideline was uncovered, he blurted, "My biggest crime is stupidity." Actually, it was just the thing at which he was most accomplished...