World Series Heroes of What The Heck ??!!

anybody out there been watching this terrible, horrible, gnashing World Series?  this is no Fall Classic, this is a gen-yoo-wine october surprise !

one would think it's bad enough the Dodgers folded up like run over origami and lost the division to the enemy.  nope, that wasn't bad enough.  adding oakland bay salt to my blue wounds, the bad guys are now on the verge of sweeping the sleeping tigers.  who'da thunk the team with verlander and cabrera would be getting beat in probably every catagory you CAN get beat in?

since i've spent half this WS saying "what the F**k !!??" to my t.v. set, that sounds like a good idea for this, quite possibly the final installment of ATBATT's World Series Heroes, The Heroes of What the Heck ?

1920 World Series, Dodgers/Robins vs. Indians, Game 5.  With Dodgers on first and second, Clarence Mitchell is batting for Brooklyn.  Mitchell lines out to Cleveland second baseman Bill Wambsganss, who steps on second for the put out, and tags Otto Miller coming in from first.

The crowd was silent at first because they had no idea what the heck they had just seen.  they just witnessed the first - and only ever - unassisted triple play in World Series history.

Mitchell continued his run for baseball immortality his next time up by hitting into a double play, thus setting the record for making the most outs -five - in 2 consecutive at-bats.  just gotta love those Dodgers.

but this game wasn't done with WTH? moments - Game 5 also featured the first WS grand slam, and first WS HR hit by a pitcher.


next up is WS 1986, mets vs. red sox, and bill buckner is involved.  i know, most of you are thinking i'm talking about the little nubber getting through buckners's legs.  nope, that would be too easy, and an error isn't REALLY a WTH? moment, is it?


first inning.  bill buckner, at this point of the game probably feeling pretty good, standing at bat, and then WTH? happened...

a freakin' parachute dropped (literally) right outta left field !   parachute dude was flying a GO METS sign.  i submit exhibit one that jinxed buckner for later that night. 


finally, since the bad guys have been providing most of the WTH? moments for this series, let's close with a moment from WS 2002.  game 5, s.f. vs. anaheim, or whatever they were called back then.  bottom of the 7th, the friscos up 8-4.  with giants standing on second and third, kenny lofton hits a triple. snow dashes for home - and then - WTH???

jinx manager dusty baker's son was the bat boy, and while the play was still developing, little dusty ran out on the field to recover lofton's bat.  saving everybody from what could have been a very ugly accident/incident/controversy, j.t. snow reached back - after scoring first, of course, and grabbed the kid.  it was a WTH? combined with WHEW !

shortly thereafter, the collapse of the friscos was complete and the angels won the series.  music to my ears.


THANKS for reading !

World Series Heroes The Big Boppers

hey everybody,

the world Series resets tonight in tiger town, and i'm ready !  if the tigers are gonna come back, they are sure gonna need a home run or two.  in that spirit, let's take a look at some hitters who certainly brought their bats to the Fall Classic...

"home run" baker

we begin with a guy who earned his nickname specifically by hitting home runs in the 1911 Fall Classic. he banged out 2 dingers, one each, in Games 2 and 3.  his Game 3 homer tied the game in the 9th, and he hit it off Christie Mathewson.  yeh, if you hit one off mathewson in the Classic, everybody SHOULD call you "home run".

 in the last postseason game ever played north of the border, joe carter came up BIG and smashed a home run off mitch 'wild thing' williams.  carter jumped like a little boy as he trucked around the bases.  it was only the second time in history that a WS was ended by a home run.  who else was on base when he hit it?  HOFers ricky henderson and paul molitor. not a bad cast.

 what a world series it was in 1991.  it went all 7, 4 games ended in the last at bats, and 3 went extra innings.  in game 6 kirby puckett came up in the 11th, and sent the twins faithful home with a game winning blast that sent the series to game 7, and an eventual minnesota championship.

fisk hit one of the most famous WS smashes, and i think we've all seen the video of him using autumn magic to wave that dang ball fair.  this homer epitomizes what it was like to suffer under the curse of the bambino, for as joyous as that moment was, as much hope it brought to fenway, it turned out fisk's mojo wasn't enough.  the reds won it all and boston fell into winter.

why wouldn't the Home Run King blast one in the Classic?

any Dodger WS home run that i have a card for makes it into the countdown. :)

“Partner, sure as I’m standing here breathing, you’re going to throw me that 3-2 backdoor slider, aren’t you?”

THIS is THE Dodgers WS home run for the ages.  the biggest WS home run EVER hit at Dodger stadium.  sure, cheater canseco hit a grand slam that dented a camera in center field earlier in the game, that most of America oohed and ahhed about - but Gibby's 9th inning blast erased all significance of that - forever.

let's check it, one more time, just for fun....

 Gibby's HR is certainly iconic, but that '88 series had another home run hero who is sometimes forgotten.  He was the guy who replaced Gibby...

mickey only hit one home run all season, but with the Fall Classic spotlight upon him, he came up big with a first inning 2-run shot in Game 1, and another first inning dinger to help close out the A's in the final, Game 6. 

 next up, the ONLY guy to EVER live that baseball dream that lots of us grew up dreaming about... Game 7,  bottom of the 9th, , against the yankees...BLAMMO !!!

HOME RUN and baseball immortality ! the only time it ever happened, and probably ever will.

THANKS for reading!

A World Series Gift From Me To The Giants

hey everybody,

Since the bad guys are now up 2 games to none, and since we're all taking a day off from the World Series, this gives me a chance to take a moment, and offer a little something from me to those guys in the halloween colors...

from me to you, boys.  i'll even deliver him right to your dugout...

i offer to you all the best with your very own petting-zoo favorite...

may all of your fans be as loyal and eager as this guy...

you're going to be the visitors in detroit, so you can open first....

may all your fielders be as fleet footed as those who came before you...

and may your dugout overflow with the memories and connections to your past manager, and every bit of curse...oops, of course i mean luck, that he brings.....

enjoy your gifts, friscos...from me to you...with nothing but love.  hehe

World Series Heroes Mr. October (the first)

i know the babe was the first guy to hit 3 homers in one World Series game, but after seeing a few of the sportscaster talking heads out there call that panda from nocal by the same moniker...well, i just hadda let the whipper snappers out there know there was another guy who was first dubbed mr. october, and he wasn't chubby like the babe or the panda.

the first mr. october was reggie.  one of those players called by only one name, and everybody knew who it was.  like ichiro or manny, he was known by baseball fans, writers and players as just plain "reggie", and that was about the only plain thing about him. 

in commemoration of what happened in game one, it's only natural that the next installment of World Series Heroes feature one of the four guys to hit 3 homers in one Fall Classic game, reginald martinez jackson...

reggie first came up with the A's.  this is his topps '75 miiiiiiiinnnniiii.  again, this is about the only thing mini about reggie.  long before the cheater brothers canseco and mcguire were 'bashing' HR's for oakland, reggie blasted 47 in 1969.

2012 topps archives.  got this one in a trade :)

caught this in a group break. love the design - text, logos, info and still doesn't feel crowded.

reggie was World Series MVP twice !  1973 and '77

AWESOME relic card from a trade  :)   the gold swatch just jumps off the card.

quality control alert: "jackson was oakland" ???

here's reggie's card commemorating those 3 knocks in one WS game.  if you want to know the story, read the back of the card below.  it would pain me too much to type it out.

i don't know if jackson was ever oakland, but he was definitely new york. "I didn't come to New York to be a star. I brought my star with me."
-- Reggie Jackson, when he joined the Yankees after the 1976 season

i've got the card, but not the figurine :(

just this week i upgraded this card in a trade with The Diamond King ! THANKS D.K.

reggie hit his 500th HR with the angels - and he hit it on the 17th anniversary of hitting his first.

THANKS for reading !

World Series Heroes - The Mick

as i write this, Game 1 of the Fall Classic has begun and the bad guys are already winning 4-0.  sheesh !

 it's very, very early in the series, but momentum does matter in sports - as in all things - and i wish to add my two cents.  why not ? that's why i have a blog, right?  this is yet another example of what lousy scheduling MLB has given us.  the tigers have been sitting around waiting too long, while the other guys have been playing and keeping their bats hot.  and the series is starting waaaaay too dang late in the coldness of the year.  that said, lets move on...

ATBATT will be presenting some past heroes of the Fall Classic.  when i think World Series, there are some teams and some players that always come to mind.  mickey mantle is one of them.  if you were rooting for the N.L. team, you didn't want to see him coming up to bat in the Series, and if you were a yankee fan, you probably wished he could bat every other slot in the line up.

in keeping with the spirit of my last post, rather than show assorted cards from mantle, i'm showing cards from a mantle set that pinnacle released back in '92.  it's a 30 card set chronicling mantle's career and life.  i only have about a dozen, and here's 9 of them, Binder Page Heroes style.  if anybody has any of these, i would love to trade for them and eventually complete the set.

our first World Series Hero....Mickey Mantle...

THANKS for reading, everybody !