1992 World Series: Oh Canada

The Teams
American League: Toronto Blue Jays (96-66) - First World Series
National League: Atlanta Braves (98-64) - Second World Series

What Happened
If the 1992 World Series was a living thing with a personality, you could say it had terrible timing. It was one of the truly great World Series ever played, but it had the misfortune of being sandwiched between the 1991 and 1993 World Series. I've covered the 1993 Series, which ended with Joe Carter's dramatic home run, and I haven't gotten to the 1991 series on my countdown yet, which means it's, at a minimum, one of the top six of all time (hint: it's higher than that). With all the drama surrounding those two series, the 1992 one gets lost in the shuffle.


It's too bad, too, because there was plenty of drama in 1992. There wasn't the magic of a Game 7, but there were four games decided in the eighth inning or later. Toronto won the first two of those, coming from behind to win both games 2 and 3. Ed Sprague's 2-run home run in the ninth inning off then-career saves leader Jeff Reardon gave the Blue Jays a key road win in Game 2, while Reardon was victimized again in Game 3, coming in with the bases loaded in the ninth inning of a tie game and giving up a game-winning hit to Candy Maldonado.

Atlanta got Toronto back in Game 6. With the Blue Jays one strike from their first championship, Otis Nixon snuck a grounder through the left side to tie the game. Between Nixon and Francisco Cabrera, it seemed like the Braves were destined to win it all in 1992. But then the Braves brought in Charlie Leibrandt to pitch in the top of the 10th, and that was just too much fate to tempt. Leibrandt had been on the mound for Kirby Puckett's home run the previous season, after all. He may well have been cursed.

It took the Blue Jays two innings to take advantage. After letting pitcher Jimmy Key hit for himself to lead off the inning - with predictably bad results - Toronto put two runners on base. A Joe Carter fly out made it two outs, bringing up Dave Winfield. In 1981, Winfield had eared the derisive nickname "Mr. May" after his postseason failure for the Yankees. Eleven years later, this was his first chance at redemption, and he didn't disappoint. Winfield lined a double down the left field line to score both runners and put the Blue Jays up by two.

The Braves weren't done yet, though. The first two batters reached in the bottom of the 11th, and after a sacrifice, they had runners on second and third with one out. Brian Hunter grounded into a fielders choice, scoring a run but putting the Blue Jays one out from the title. With two out, Nixon came up again, looking to recreate his heroics from the ninth inning. Instead, he bunted. Pitcher Mike Timlin fielded the ball cleanly, threw to first, and Canada had its first World Championship.

MVP
Pat Borders won for hitting .450. No overly dramatic clutch hits or memorable home runs. Just a solid .450 average. 

Scores 
(Home team shaded; winners in Bold)

Toronto	1	5	3	2	2	4 (11)
Atlanta	3	4	2	1	7	3

The List
I'm ranking all the World Series, from worst to best. Here are the ones I've done so far:

7. 1992 - Toronto (A) def. Atlanta (N) 4-2
8. 1947 - New York (A) def. Brooklyn (N) 4-3
9. 1972 - Oakland (A) def. Cincinnati (N) 4-3
Numbers 10-19
Numbers 20-29
Numbers 30-39
Numbers 40-49
Numbers 50-59
Numbers 60-69
Numbers 70-79
Numbers 80-89
Numbers 90-99
Numbers 100-107

1993 World Series: Walking Off on Wild Thing

The Teams
American League: Toronto Blue Jays (95-67) - Second World Series (Won in 1992)
National League: Philadelphia Phillies (97-65) - Fifth World Series (Won in 1980)

What Happened
After winning the World Series in 1992, the Toronto Blue Jays did the unthinkable: they added two future Hall of Famers to their already potent lineup. After adding Paul Molitor in the offseason and Rickey Henderson during a midseason trade, the Blue Jays surprised no one by getting back to the World Series.

What was surprising was their opponents. While both the Braves and Giants won more than 100 games in the National League in 1993, it was the Phillies who ended up in the World Series. Center fielder Lenny Dykstra led the offense with 143 runs scored - the most in the National League since 1932 - and led the team in tobacco stains, though it was a tough battle. Between the wads of tobacco, then endless mullets, and the surprising number of potbellies, the Phillies looked more like an over-40 slowpitch softball team than a National League pennant winner.

Fittingly, then, the 1993 series had a lot of games with scores that looked like softball scores. The first two games - an 8-5 Toronto win followed by a 6-4 Philadelphia triumph - were nothing compared to the manic games that took place in Philadelphia. Toronto won Game 3, scoring 10 runs despite having AL batting champ John Olerud on the bench because of the lack of a DH in NL parks.

And then came Game 4. Crazy, maniacal Game 4. With a steady drizzle falling throughout the night, the pitchers had no shot. Both starters were gone by the third, which ended with Toronto ahead 7-6. The Phillies then dominated the middle innings, taking a 14-9 lead into the eighth inning. Toronto started to chip away, in the eighth, with Molitor driving in a run to make it 14-10. Then, Phildelphia brought in closer Mitch Williams. Nicknamed "Wild Thing" in honor the character from Major League - and because of his off-balance follow-through and inconsistent inability to find the strike zone - Williams drove Phillie fans crazy all season long, making all 43 of his saves gut-wrenching. On this night, he was asked to get five outs. He got two, but not before the Blue Jays scored five more runs to take a 15-14 lead. After the chaotic top of the 8th, the teams surprisingly went scoreless there rest of the way, but Toronto's 15-14 victory still stands as the highest-scoring World Series game of all time.

With the Phillies facing elimination and their bullpen completely taxed, Curt Schilling took matters into his own hands, reminding America what good pitching looked like by shutting out the Blue Jays on five hits. Still, the Blue Jays weren't worried, as they were heading back to Toronto needing just one win to wrap up their second straight title.

It's possible that they weren't worried even after the Phillies scored five runs in the top of the seventh of Game 6, either. Because while the Phillies were ahead, they were also in a save situation, and that meant the Wild Thing was coming into the game. I can't be certain, but this might have been the first save situation in World Series history where the team with the lead was more worried than the trailing team.

Rickey Henderson, the man who made an art form out of the walk, drew the least surprising leadoff walk ever to open the bottom of the ninth. Williams fell off the mound on the fourth pitch, and as Henderson jogged to first, Schilling hid his head in a towel on the Philadelphia bench, while Joe Carter clapped his hands on the Toronto one. It's like they both knew. A flyout, and then Molitor lined a single to center. The two Hall of Famers, then, had just made their acquisitions worthwhile. They were on base when Carter came to the plate. He took a couple of pitches that were way out of the zone, fouled off a couple other pitches, waited. Then he got one that broke inside and down, but not far enough in or far enough down. He swung, pulling it on a line to deep left. Normally, a right handed batter hitting a ball like that ends up pulling it violently foul, but not this time. This time, Carter's line drive stayed just straight enough, staying just high enough.

After throwing the pitch, Williams almost immediately started walking off the mound toward his dugout. He knew. As he approached the steps, he took one last look over his shoulder, but nothing had changed. He was off the field before Carter got to second base, in the clubhouse before Carter had gotten to third. He was never seen again in a Philadelphia uniform.

As Carter's hit cleared the wall, he started bouncing up and down. Carter bounced/leaped/jogged around the bases, waiving his arms like he needed the momentum to get all the way there. He jumped on home plate and was carried off on his teammates' shoulders, the man of the hour.  It was only the second time a World Series had ended on a home run, but the first time the hitting team was trailing at the time.

MVP
Paul Molitor played in five postseason series in his career. His batting average in the first four, in order: .250, .316, .355, .391. Not bad, but nothing compared to what he did in the 1993 series, when he batted .500 with 8 runs batted in, and half of his 12 hits were extra-base hits. He even played two flawless games at third base after not having played the position in three years. An investment worth every penny.

Scores
(Home team shaded; winners in Bold)

Philadelphia	5	6	3	14	2	6
Toronto	8	4	10	15	0	8

The List
I'm ranking all the World Series, from worst to best. Here are the ones I've done so far:

18. 1993 - Toronto (A) def. Philadelphia (N) 4-2
19. 1956 - New York (A) def. Brooklyn (N) 4-3
Numbers 20-29
Numbers 30-39
Numbers 40-49
Numbers 50-59
Numbers 60-69
Numbers 70-79
Numbers 80-89
Numbers 90-99
Numbers 100-107

October 24, 1992: Mr. May wins it

ATLANTA - It's hard to shake a nickname like Mr. May. It's especially hard when that nickname is bestowed upon you by the most infamous owner in your sport. Sometimes, all you need is one chance, one opportunity in the biggest spotlight possible to get redemption.

Dave Winfield earned the nickname in 1981, his first season with the Yankees. After starring for bad teams in San Diego, Winfield signed a big free-agent contract with the Yankees, with New York hoping he could replace the production of Reggie Jackson. Winfield played very well in 1981, leading the Yankees to the World Series, but in the Series, he fell flat, batting .045 with only one RBI in the six-game loss to the Yankees. Furious, George Steinbrenner instantly labeled Winfield "Mr. May," meant as a direct comparision to Jackson, known forever as Mr. October.

Winfield was crushed. And he never got a chance to redeem himself. Despite outstanding play from Winfield for the rest of the 1980s, the Yankees never went back to the postseason, so Winfield never got a chance to erase his Mr. May moniker.

By 1992, Winfield had been away from New York for a year and a half, going first to California and then to Toronto. Instead of a fleet, Gold Glove-caliber outfielder, he was a 40-year-old designated hitter, but he was exactly what the young Blue Jays needed. After years of near-misses, the Blue Jays finally had a roster good enough to win in 1992, but they were still a young team. Winfield's presence gave them the veteran leadership they needed to clear the last hurdle.

Winfield helped in the ALCS, hitting two home runs as the Blue Jays beat Oakland in six. Though outshined by several of his younger teammates, Winfield felt relieved with his two home runs and generally good play. He was finally able to get past his failures of more than a decade ago.

Then came the World Series against Atlanta, and Winfield's struggles began again. He only got four hits through the first five games, and no extra-base hits. Despite this, though, the Blue Jays entered game 6 in Atlanta with a 3-2 series lead, needing just one win for their first championship.

Again, Winfield's struggles continued, as he went 0 for his first 4. Still, the Blue Jays were one out from a World Championship before Atlanta's Otis Nixon hit a game-tying single, the second time in that postseason that Atlanta had gotten a season-saving hit when they were an out from elimination. This time, though Atlanta couldn't win it in regulation, so they went to extra innings.

After a scoreless 10th, Toronto put two runners on base with two outs in the 11th. Up came Winfield. This was his opportunity. This was his chance to put the Mr. May nickname away for good. With the two fastest runners on the team on base, it would only take a single to give the Blue Jays the lead, and a short double would be all it took to give them a two-run lead.

Facing Charlie Liebrandt, Winfield alternated balls and strikes, working the count full. With two outs, the runners would be going. Any hit now would almost certainly score two. Winfield dug in, waiting for Liebrandt to deliver.

It wasn't a hard-hit ball, just well-placed. A slow bouncer that went just over the bag at third and down the left-field line. It was more than enough, though. Devon White scored easily from second, Roberto Alomar flew around the bases to score from first, and Winfield ended up on second with a double, his first extra-base hit of the series and, dating back to 1981, his first extra-base hit of any kind in a World Series.

As Winfield stood on second, it all came back to him. All the years of torment and pressure that he wasn't good enough to be a True Yankee, all the years of being called Mr. May, all erased. It didn't matter now. He had delivered the hit that put his team three outs from the title. When the Blue Jays got those outs in the bottom of the inning, Winfield was officially redeemed.

Winfield stayed in the Majors for three more seasons, closing up in 1995 with Cleveland. Though those Indians tore through the American League to get to the playoffs, Winfield wasn't on the postseason roster. His double in the 11th inning of game 6 of the 1992 World Series was his final postseason at bat.

October 23, 1993: Wild Thing

TORONTO - Usually, when a team brings in its closer with the lead in a World Series game, it's cause for celebration. They would be three outs away from the victory, and now their best reliever, if not their best pitcher, was coming into the game. For the trailing team, it was time to grip the bat handles a little tighter, to feel the hearts racing a little bit faster - they had to make a comeback against THIS guy?

But when the Philadelphia Phillies brought in their closer for the bottom of the ninth of game 6 of the 1993 World Series, asking Mitch Williams to get the three outs they needed to get to game 7, the Toronto fans stood and cheered. You could say that they were cheering as a way to drum up support for their offense, but they were also cheering because there was no pitcher they'd rather face than Williams.

Williams was nicknamed the Wild Thing because of his crazy delivery that left him tumbling off the mound and because of his lack of knowledge of where the ball was going to go. He even took the number 99 in honor of the other "Wild Thing," Ricky Vaughn from the Major League movies. He had been pretty good in 1993, effective enough to get the Phillies to the World Series despite his wild innings, but he had completely fallen apart in the World Series. He hadn't been able to find the strike zone at all, and when he had, Toronto's hitters had battered him. Now he needed to find a way to get three outs, and the Toronto fans were sure he wouldn't do it.

That he was able to pitch in a save situation at all was the result of a fantastic rally by his teammates, who had scored five runs in the 7th to take a 6-5 lead. Toronto had loaded the bases without scoring in the eighth, and now Philadelphia was handing the ball, and their season, to Wild Thing. It's probable the Phillies had all the confidence in the world in Williams. It's also possible that they wished they had scored more than the five runs in the seventh, that they had been able to give him more than a one-run lead.

Whatever the Phillies were thinking, the Toronto fans were full of confidence, and they erupted in cheers when Rickey Henderson led off the ninth with a four-pitch walk. Williams hadn't been close on any of the pitches, and now the tying run was already on first. The crowd was going crazy.

Williams ignored the crowd as best he could, getting Devon White to fly out after a nine-pitch at bat. One down. Next up was Paul Molitor, a future Hall of Famer like Henderson. Williams' first pitch was hopelessly wild. The crowd went wild again. Perhaps knowing he was losing control, Williams eased up just a bit on the next two. The first one Molitor fouled off. The second one he lined into center. The World Series-winning run was on first base.

Joe Carter was up next. Though he was Toronto's cleanup hitter, he may have been no more than their sixth best hitter. Having incredibly talented teammates surrounding him in the batting order inflated his numbers, making him look better than he probably was. Still, though, he was a threat to hit a home run at any time. Although, it's hard to hit a home run when you're trying to dodge a ball thrown at your feet. Carter didn't have to dodge the second pitch, but it was clearly high. At this point the crowd was delirious - the winning run on first, a pitcher who had shown no ability to get a ball anywhere near the strike zone, and a dead fastball hitter at the plate. This had to end well.

Carter wasn't going to swing at anything until Williams proved he could throw a strike, so he watched the 2-0 pitch go right down the middle. Then Williams proved why he was still, for the most part, an effective closer, cutting loose a slider. Earlier in the at bat, Carter had needed to jump out of the way of a slider. Now he was swinging and missing at one that came much closer to its target. It was a 2-2 count.

The next pitch was a fastball that ran inside, Williams hoping to jam Carter to get a double play ball. But Carter was a dead-red fastball hitter, was looking fastball, so he got the barrel of the bat out and pulled a line drive deep to left. Usually, balls pulled that hard off inside pitches end up hooking foul, but Carter's stayed straight as an arrow, landing just on the other side of the fence to end the series.

A jubliant Carter hopped around the bases, never coming close to jogging until he had already reached second base. His teammates swarmed the field, along with several dozen fans, congratulating him as he took his trip around the bases. Carter had become the second man to end the World Series on a home run, the first to do so while his team was trailing. It was celebration time in Toronto for the second straight year.

As Carter's home run cleared the fence, Williams walked off the mound, head down. He took off his hat, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and walked down to the clubhouse, not even stopping in the dugout. All season long, the Phillies put up with, even embraced, Williams' Wild Thing persona. Suddenly, it seemed very old. A season's worth of great memories were erased with one bad inning. Williams never threw another pitch for Philadelphia.


http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=3251266

October 20, 1993: Wet and wild

PHILADELPHIA - The runs came early and often. Philadelphia led 4-3 after one inning, 6-3 after 2. Toronto lead 7-6 after three. Philadelphia took the lead back. Back and forth it went.

The rain had been falling all day, making conditions slippery and difficult for fielders, so the runs kept coming. Philadelphia put up runs in four straight innings, including five in the fifth, but Toronto kept answering. The scoreline started resembling something you'd see in a slow-pitch softball game, then it started looking like a football score. But it was the World Series.

The 1993 series had been high scoring before game 4. The defending champion Blue Jays had scored 22 runs in taking a 2-1 series lead, but Philadelphia's offense had represented itself well, also. But nothing that happened in the first three games compared to the wild events of game 4.

The first run of the game came in the top of the first, when Toronto's Paul Molitor drew a two-out, bases-loaded walk. The Blue Jays added two more that inning. Philadelphia's first run also came as a result of a two-out, bases-loaded walk in the first. The next batter, Milt Thompson, hit a triple to make the score 4-3. It was the first hit of the game for Philadelphia. Phillies leadoff hitter Lenny Dykstra hit a two-run home run in the third to extend the lead to 6-3. Toronto got the lead back, scoring four runs in the third with two walks, two stolen bases, and four singles.

Deep breath. The next four half-innings passed with only one run scoring. Perhaps the chaos had stopped.

Not quite. Philadelphia hit two home runs in the fifth, including a second by Dykstra, and took a 12-7 lead into the sixth. They seemed to be in control, especially since they kept answering when Toronto scored. When Darren Daulton drove in a run by being hit by a pitch, it was 14-9 Philadelphia entering the top of the eighth.

Then came the wild eighth inning. Five straight batters reached for Toronto as they scored twice and loaded the bases with one out. After a strikeout, Rickey Henderson hit a two-run single, followed by a two-run triple by Devon White, and Toronto was in front by a stunning score of 15-14.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about game 4 was that after all those fireworks, nobody scored in the final inning and a half. Philadelphia's final six hitters went down quietly, and Toronto only added one more hit. Their 15-14 victory put the Blue Jays one win away from a second straight championship.

The 29 runs scored set a postseason record for most runs scored in a single game, a record that still stands. The teams combined for 32 hits and 14 walks. Every position player who started for Toronto got at least one hit and scored at least once, while Philadelphia had three different players get three hits and had three players drive in three or more runs. The teams used 11 pitchers, and three different pitchers gave up at least six runs. There were 18 half-innings played in the game, and at least one run was scored in nine of them. The only completely scoreless inning was the ninth, by which point the offensive players might have been exhausted. Perhaps the only saving grace in the game was the fact that nobody committed an error.

The wet and wild game 4 destroyed the teams' pitching staffs and tired out the hitters. With the game not ending until after midnight, there were some dragging players who showed up to the park the next day. Order was restored a bit in that one, as Philadelphia won 2-0.