7 Up: There’s Nothing Like Game 7

Texas third baseman Adrian Beltre homers in Game Five win over St. Louis.

(This is a blog I first posted on October 25, 2008, during the 2008 World Series between the Phillies and the Rays. Philadelphia won that Series in five games. Here, three years later, on the eve of a sixth game between the Cardinals and the Rangers, we’re still hoping for a Game Seven.)

We need a seven-game World Series. This year.

There’s nothing like a seventh game in the World Series. It’s a game in a season, and a season in a game. One game. Winner take all.

Throughout baseball history, there have been 35 seventh games since the first World Series in 1903.

The last seven-game series in 2002 saw the Angels beat the Giants for their only World Championship.

The previous year, as the nation recovered from the 9/11 attacks, the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees in seven on a bloop, walk-off single by Luis Gonzalez off Marino Rivera  in the bottom of the ninth.

Since 1987, the only other seven-game series occurred in 1991 when the Twins beat the Braves, and 1997 when the Marlins beat the Indians, both in walk-off extra inning games.

Jack Morris pitched a shutout and Gene Larkin drove in the only run with a single in the 10th inning for the Twins win. Six years later, Edgar Renteria’s single in the 11th gave Florida a 3-2 win and the championship.

Walk-Off Wins

There have been a total of six walk-off wins in Game Seven overall. The Red Sox beat the Giants in 1912  when some Giant misplays and Larry Gardner’s sacrifice fly against Christy Mathewson enabled Boston to rally for a 3-2, 10-inning win.

Walter Johnson and the Washington Senators won their only World Series in 1924, also against the Giants, on a bad hop single by Earl McNeely in the 12th.

And in 1960, the Pirates edged the Yankees, 10-9, on a home run by Bill Mazeroski. That remains the only Game Seven in World Series history to end on a home run.

The St. Louis Cardinals have won seven seventh games (1926, 1931, 1934, 1946, 1964, 1967 and 1982), a record. Not surprisingly, the Yankees have played in the most, winning five out of eleven.

The Cards twice beat both the Yankees (1926, 1964) and the Red Sox (1946, 1967) in Game Seven showdowns. St. Louis Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, above right, pitched in three seventh games in four seasons, beating the Yankees in 1964 and the Red Sox in 1967 before losing to the Tigers in 1968.

The Pirates have the best record at 5-0 (1909, 1925, 1960, 1971 and 1979) and the Giants are 0-4 (1912, 1924, 1962 and 2002).

Other Game Seven facts and figures that may interest only me:

• A total of 16 seventh games were staged between 1952 and 1979, nearly half of the all-time total of 35.
• Six seventh games occurred in the 60s; five apiece in the 50s and 70s.
• Between 1955 and 1958, the Yankees played four straight seventh games, exchanging wins with the Dodgers and then the Braves.
• All four of those World Series were won by the road teams, including the first and only championships for Brooklyn and Milwaukee, in 1955 and 1957.
• The Yankees avenged those losses in 1956 and 1958; they also beat the Dodgers in seven in 1947 and 1952.
• The last time the Cubs appeared in the World Series, 1945, they lost to the Tigers in Game Seven.
• There were no seventh games between 1912 and 1924, the biggest gap in baseball history.
• The Oakland A’s are the only team to win back-to-back Game Sevens, in 1972 against the Reds and 1973 vs. the Mets.