Forgetting Harvey's Wallbangers

My bad, folks. My bad. Remember the old countdown I did, where I ranked the best early-postseason elimination games (Division series games, tiebreaker games, regular season-ending games that happened to decide the pennant)? Yah, I missed one.

See, in 1982, the Brewers won the AL East. Good for them, right? They beat the Orioles by 1 game. Thing is, that one game was the last game of the season, at Baltimore. Absolutely fits my definition for this list. And I left it out.

See, what happened was that Milwaukee went into Baltimore for a season-ending four-game series needing only one win to clinch their first division championship. It took them a while to get it, though. The Orioles swept a doubleheader on Friday, then won again on Saturday to tie for the title. The last game was Sunday, and was actually Game 163 for both teams since they had played to a tie earlier in the year. It was Don Sutton for the Brewers against Jim Palmer for the Orioles.

After blowing a chance to clinch early and rest up, the Brewers didn't feel like blowing the winner-take-all game. Robin Yount homered in the first and third innings, then tripled in the sixth. Milwaukee took a 5-2 lead into the ninth inning, when they scored five more runs to put the game away. They won 10-2, Yount won the MVP award, and all was good in Milwaukee, at least until Game 7 of that year's World Series.

So I'll place this game where I think it ranks in the list below and renumber everything below it. There are three more games from this postseason to add to it, but I won't rank those until the season's over and I've had appropriate time to consider how good they really were. So stay tuned for that.

And now, I'm pretty sure I got them all. Mostly sure. Mildly sure. Maybe I should just double-check...

1. N.Y. Giants 5, Brooklyn 4 (1951 National League playoff)
2. Minnesota 6, Detroit 5 (2009 AL Central tiebreaker)
3. Seattle 6, N.Y. Yankees 5 (1995 ALDS)
4. Colorado 9, San Diego 8 (2007 NL Wild Card tiebreaker)
5. N.Y. Yankees 5, Boston 4 (1978 AL East tiebreaker)
6. San Francisco 6, Los Angeles 4 (1962 National League playoff)
7. Chicago 1, Minnesota 0 (2008 AL Central tiebreaker)
8. N.Y. Yankees 5, Boston 3 (1949 American League)
9. Arizona 2, St. Louis 1 (2001 NLDS)
10. Chicago 4, New York 2 (1908 National League makeup game)
11. Boston 12, Cleveland 8 (1999 ALDS)
12. Boston 5, Minnesota 3 (1967 American League)
13. Minnesota 5, Oakland 4 (2002 ALDS)
14. Boston 4, Oakland 3 (2003 ALDS)
15. Cleveland 4, N.Y. Yankees 3 (1997 ALDS)
16. L.A. Angels 5, N.Y. Yankees 3 (2005 ALDS)
17. Texas 5, Tampa Bay 1 (2010 ALDS)
18. San Francisco 3, Atlanta 1 (2002 NLDS)
19. N.Y. Yankees 5, Oakland 3 (2001 ALDS)
20. Seattle 3, Cleveland 1 (2001 ALDS)
21. Chicago 5, San Francisco 3 (1998 NL Wild Card tiebreaker)
22. N.Y. Yankees 7, Oakland 5 (2000 ALDS)
23. Los Angeles 4, Houston 0 (1981 NL West Division Series)
24. Montreal 3, Philadelphia 0 (1981 NL East Division Series)
25. Milwaukee 10, Baltimore 2 (1982 AL East)
26. N.Y. Yankees 7, Milwaukee 3 (1981 AL East Division Series)
27. Seattle 9, California 1 (1995 AL West tiebreaker)
28. Chicago 5, Atlanta 1 (2003 NLDS)
29. Houston 12, Atlanta 3 (2004 NLDS)
30. N.Y. Mets 5, Cincinnati 0 (1999 NL Wild Card tiebreaker)
31. Cleveland 8, Boston 3 (1948 American League tiebreaker)
32. Houston 7, Los Angeles 1 (1980 NL West tiebreaker)