1941 World Series: Strike Three

The Teams
American League: New York Yankees (101-53) - 12th World Series (won in 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939)
National League: Brooklyn Dodgers (100-54) - Third World Series

What Happened
At the start of the 1941 World Series, New York City was buzzing about the matchup between the Yankees and the Dodgers. Usually, when it was an inter-city matchup, it was the Giants trying to conquer the mighty Yankees, so the Dodgers were excited to finally have their chance at them. It was a novel matchup at the time, but the Yankees-Dodgers matchup would eventually become commonplace, as 1941 was the first of what would be seven Yankees-Dodgers World Series to be held while the Dodgers were in Brooklyn.

It's also the only one of those series remembered for a single pitch.

There were plenty of tense moments in the 1941 series, many games that could have turned on a single pitch. The first three were all one-run games, each featuring game-winning runs scored in the sixth inning or later. All three winning starters threw complete games, and all three had to deal with at least one tense inning late in the game. Game 5, the game where the Yankees clinched, was the only one without any late-inning drama, and even that one was only a two-run game.

And yet none of it mattered, forgotten to history. because of one stunning, jaw-dropping inning. Because of one rule that rarely comes into play, because of one pitcher's pitch that was, somehow, too good, the ninth inning of Game 4 became one of the greatest innings in World Series history.

Defining Game
Game 4 had been much like the previous three. With the Yankees up 3-0 in the 4th, Brooklyn pinch-hitter Jimmy Wasdell hit a two-out, two run double to cut the deficit. One inning later, Pete Reiser hit a two-run home run to give Brooklyn the lead, and they held that lead into the 9th inning.

On the mound was Hugh Casey, who had come into the game to get out of a bases-loaded, two-out jam in the 5th. Now that Brooklyn was ahead, Casey was in line for the win, needing only to get through the 9th unscathed. The first two Yankees to bat in the ninth grounded out harmlessly. Casey then got two strikes on Tommy Henrich. With his team one strike from tying the series, Casey decided to put a little bit extra on this next curveball (whether literally or figuratively is up for debate). Casey threw, and Henrich started to swing, only to watch in horror as the ball dropped several feet and out of the strike zone. Henrich tried to check his swing, but failed. Strike three. Game over.

Except Mickey Owen didn't catch the ball. And as Owen futilely chased the ball toward the backstop, Henrich ran to first base safely, taking advantage of baseball's Rule 6.09(b), stating that The batter becomes a runner when the third strike called by the umpire is not caught, providing (1) first base is unoccupied, or (2) first base is occupied with two out. Henrich was safe. The game was still alive.

It doesn't take much more than an intermediate knowledge of baseball history to know what happened next. There's a reason the Yankees always won the World Series, while it seemed like the Dodgers always lost. When given any break, any second chance, the Yankees killed you. And that's what happened next.

With the Dodgers still one out from tying the series, Joe DiMaggio singled, sending Henrich to third. Then Charlie Keller doubled, scoring Henrich and DiMaggio and giving the Yankees the lead. Quick, ruthless, devastating. And it wasn't done, because after a walk to Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon hit another double, again scoring two runs. Just four batters earlier, the Dodgers thought they had a game-ending and series-tying strikeout. Now, they were trailing 7-4. Needless to say, they lost the game that day, and they lost the series the next. And Mickey Owen is now forever known for a ball he didn't catch.






MVP 
In a fantasy world, the MVP could have been fate, or the muse, or whatever ancient creature or diety smiled on the Yankees so many years ago to make sure they got all the big breaks. But the 1941 World Series was played in reality, as unrealistic as it seemed, so the MVP was Joe Gordon. A .500 batting average, a team-high five runs batted in, one of only three home runs hit in the series, and - of course - the back-breaking game-winning hit in Game 4. He was the MVP by far, even if it wasn't yet an official award.

Scores
(Home team shaded; winners in Bold)

Brooklyn	2	3	1	4	1
New York	3	2	2	7	3

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

41. 1941 - New York (A) def. Brooklyn (N) 4-2
42. 1958 - New York (A) def. Milwaukee (N) 4-3
43. 1959 - Los Angeles (N) def. Chicago (A) 4-2
44. 2008 - Philadelphia (N) def. Tampa Bay (A) 4-1
45. 1933 - New York (N) def. Washington (A) 4-1
46. 1929 - Philadelphia (A) def. Chicago (N) 4-1
47. 1982 - St. Louis (N) def. Milwaukee (A) 4-3
48. 1923 - New York (A) def. New York (N) 4-2
49. 1944 - St. Louis (N) def. St. Louis (A) 4-2
Numbers 50-59
Numbers 60-69
Numbers 70-79
Numbers 80-89
Numbers 90-99
Numbers 100-107

1936 World Series: DiMaggio and the Yankees

The Teams
American League: New York Yankees (102-51) - Eighth World Series (won in 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932)
National League: New York Giants (92-62) - 11th World Series (won in 1905, 1921, 1922, 1933)

What Happened
For the eighth time in 15 years, the New York Yankees were the American League champions in 1936. For the first time ever, though, they were going to play in a World Series without Babe Ruth, who had retired the previous season. But they still had Lou Gehrig, and they still had the best pitching staff in baseball, and they also had a new weapon in 1936: a rookie center fielder named Joe DiMaggio.

DiMaggio stepped right into the Yankees lineup, occupying the No. 3 spot that Ruth had made his own for a decade and succeeding instantly, putting together one of the best rookie seasons in baseball history. Adding him to an already lethal Yankee lineup almost seemed unfair, and it seemed to ensure the Yankees would be a dynasty over the rest of the 1930s.

Hoping to delay the Yankee ascension by at least a year were their cross-Harlem River rivals. The Giants didn't have much on their team, especially when compared to the great Yankees, but they did have Carl Hubbell, who may have been the best pitcher alive in 1936. Hubbell was all the Giants needed in Game 1, though, as the Yankees could only manage a third-inning home run in a 6-1 loss.

All that loss did was make the Yankees angry, and the Giants didn't like the Yankees when they were angry. A seven-run third put Game 2 away early; a six-run ninth turned it into a laugher. The final out of the Yankees 18-4 victory was a drive to the deepest part of the Polo Grounds, where DiMaggio ran the ball down and, without slowing down, ran up the steps into the clubhouse.

After that debacle, the Giants held the Yankees to only four hits in Game 3. One was a home run by Gehrig, and another was an eighth-inning single by Frankie Crosetti that gave the Yankees the win. Game 4 was Hubbell's turn again, and the Yankees weren't impressed the second time around, taking a 4-0 lead after three innings on their way to a 5-2 win. The Yankees blew a chance to win the series at home, losing Game 5 in 10 innings, but the Polo Grounds were just across the river, so it might as well have been a home game for the Yankees. Their 13-5 win in Game 6 not only clinched the series, but also sent notice to the rest of baseball that a new dynasty was born. 

Defining Game
Game 6 looks like a blowout if you see just the score, but it served as an appropriate symbol for the series. The Yankees took an early 5-2 lead and then, perhaps bored, let the Giants get slowly back into the game. The Giants eventually cut the lead to 1; when the Yankees scored one in the 8th, the Giants answered right back in the bottom of the inning. Finally, the Yankee juggernaut woke up, yawned, stretched a bit, and crushed the Giants, closing out the series with a debilitating seven-run ninth inning.
 
MVP
Jake Powell joined the Yankees in midseason to bolster the bottom of their lineup, and he ended up being the biggest star in a World Series full of them. His .455 average, 10 hits, and 8 runs were all series highs. He hit a home run off Hubbell in Game 1, then tied Game 6 with a double before delivering the series-clinching hit, a bases-loaded single that broke up the Yankees' seven-run ninth in the deciding game.

Scores
(Home team shaded; winners in Bold)

N.Y. Yankees	1	18	2	5	4	13
N.Y. Giants	6	4	1	2	5 (10)	5

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

60. 1936 - New York (A) def. New York (N) 4-2
61. 1909 - Pittsburgh (N) def. Detroit (A) 4-3
62. 2005 - Chicago (A) def. Houston (N) 4-0
63. 1950 - New York (A) def. Philadelphia (N) 4-0
64. 1906 - Chicago (A) def. Chicago (N) 4-2
65. 1981 - Los Angeles (N) def. New York (A) 4-2
66. 1943 - New York (A) def. St. Louis (N) 4-1
67. 1954 - New York (N) def. Cleveland (A) 4-0
68. 1978 - New York (A) def. Los Angeles (N) 4-2
69. 2006 - St. Louis (N) def. Detroit (A) 4-1
Numbers 70-79
Numbers 80-89
Numbers 90-99
Numbers 100-107

1950 World Series: What could have been

The Teams
American League: New York Yankees (98-56) -  17th World Series (won 12 previous times)
National League: Philadelphia Phillies (91-63) - Second World Series

What Happened
Things were looking so good for the Phillies in 1950. Dubbed the Whiz Kids because of the youth of their talented roster, the Phillies stormed to the top of the National League after the All Star break and had a 7.5-game lead in the standings on September 20. But then, all the bad luck that they had been avoiding all season caught up with them. No. 2 starter Curt Simmons was called up to military duty and two other starters went down with injury. The Phillies started to tumble, and what had been a seemingly safe lead was cut to a single game entering the final game of the season. But the Phillies beat the Dodgers in 10 to win their first pennant since 1915.

Exhausted and shorthanded, the Phillies were overwhelming underdogs against the Yankees, who some places had listed as 2-5 favorites. To drive the mismatch home, the Phillies were forced to use Jim Konstanty as their Game 1 starters. It's true that Konstanty had won the NL MVP award that year, but he had done so as a reliever, having not started a game since 1946.

Konstanty pitched well, probably better than the Phillies could have imagined. He got into jams int he first, third, fourth, and fifth innings, but he got out of all of that allowing only a single run. That one run was costly, though, as the Phillies weren't hitting Yankees pitcher Vic Raschi at all. Raschi's two-hit shutout helped the Yankees open the series on a positive note.

Game 2 was about more blown chances for Philadelphia. The game was tied 1-1 entering the eighth, with Phillies ace Robin Roberts pitching gamely despite his exhaustion at being overused down the stretch. The Phillies threatened in both the bottom of the 8th and the bottom of the 9th, only to see both threats snuffed out with double plays. Then, in the bottom of the 10th, the great Joe DiMaggio, who up to this point had been a sleeping giant, woke up with a bang, leading off the inning with a home run. Allie Reynolds finished his complete game, and the Yankees had handed the Phillies their second straight heartbreaking defeat.

If they were deflated after losing two painfully close home games to open the series, the Phillies didn't show it in Game 3, taking a 2-1 lead into the 8th inning. Then, the Yankees loaded the bases with two outs, leading Philadelphia to bring Konstanty in from the bullpen. Konstanty did his job, getting a ground ball, but the Phillies didn't, as an error let the Yankees tie the game. Philadelphia threatened in the top of the ninth, but had the potential go-ahead run cut down at the plate. Then, with Konstanty having been taken out for a pinch hitter, the Yankees strung three straight singles together in the ninth; the last one, by Jerry Coleman, won the game.

Having given everything they had and still fallen behind 3-0 in the series, the Phillies were done by the time Game 4 rolled around. The Yankees scored 2 in the first, forcing the Phillies to go to Konstanty again, and they added three runs off the exhausted reliever in the sixth. As if to torture their fans even more, the Phillies got two runs back in the ninth, but ended the game with the tying run at the plate.

Defining Game
Game 3 was a perfect example of how frustrating the series was for the Phillies. Even when they were succeeding, they couldn't get out of their own way, like when they had a sixth-inning rally snuffed out by getting a runner picked off.

MVP
He didn't have the best numbers on his team, but Coleman came up big for the Yankees all series long. He drove in the only run of Game 1, scored one of the two Yankee runs in Game 2, then drove in two runs and scored a third in Game 3. His 0-fer in Game 4 didn't matter much, because by then the series was over. Then came the ugly 8th, when the Yankees loaded the bases with three consecutive two-out walks, then scored on an error by shortstop Granny Hamner. After getting the tying run thrown out at home in the top of the ninth, the Phillies again let the Yankees off the hook. After two outs, the Yankees got two straight infield hits before Coleman ended it with another single. At least Coleman's single made it to the outfield.

Random Fact
Three years after Jackie Robinson, the Yankees and Phillies still hadn't integrated their teams. That makes this the last all-white World Series. 

Scores
(Home team shaded; winners in Bold)

New York	1	2 (10)	3	5
Philadelphia	0	1	2	2

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

63. 1950 - New York (A) def. Philadelphia (N) 4-0
64. 1906 - Chicago (A) def. Chicago (N) 4-2
65. 1981 - Los Angeles (N) def. New York (A) 4-2
66. 1943 - New York (A) def. St. Louis (N) 4-1
67. 1954 - New York (N) def. Cleveland (A) 4-0
68. 1978 - New York (A) def. Los Angeles (N) 4-2
69. 2006 - St. Louis (N) def. Detroit (A) 4-1
Numbers 70-79
Numbers 80-89
Numbers 90-99
Numbers 100-107

1939 World Series: Four Straight

The Teams
American League: New York Yankees (106-45) -  11th World Series (Won in 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938)
National League: Cincinnati Reds (97-57) - Second World Series (Won in 1919)

What Happened
The 1939 season started on quite a downer for the Yankees. Legendary first baseman Lou Gehrig took himself out of the lineup after only eight games, never to play again. The Yankees were devastated at the loss of their captain because of what was then a little-known disease.

For most teams, losing a legend and leader like Gehrig would have meant the end of the season. Not these Yankees, though. They hadn't won three straight World Series by being a one-man team. They went through their proper bit of mourning, then went about dominating the American League. Some historians say this Yankee team, and not the 1927 one, was the best baseball team of all time. With a healthy Gehrig, they might have broken the single-season wins record. Even without him, they won 106 games and were never really challenged in their run through the league.

Waiting for them in the World Series was the Cincinnati Reds, who made the World Series for the first time since "winning" the tainted 1919 series. They were eager to get rid of the bad taste from that win, and they had the team to do it, with two 25-game winners in the starting rotation and a good lineup led by Hall-of-Fame catcher Ernie Lombardi. In the first game, Cincinnati's Paul Derringer matched Red Ruffing pitch for pitch, with each giving up one run on four hits through eight. In the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees' own Hall-of-Fame catcher, Bill Dickey, ended the game on a walk-off single.

Following Game 1 was two games of Yankee dominance; Monte Pearson carried a one-hitter into the ninth in a 4-0 win in Game 2, while the Yankees took advantage of tiny Crosley Field to hit four home runs in a 7-3 Game 3 victory.

Defining Game
Game 4 was a true classic. After Derringer and Oral Hildebrand took dueling shutouts into the seventh inning, when the Yankees got on the scoreboard with a pair of solo home runs. The Reds responded with three in the bottom of the inning then one more in the bottom of the eighth. Three outs from forcing a fifth game, the Reds instead fell apart, letting the Yankees come back to tie the game.

In the top of the 10th came one of the weirdest plays in World Series history. With runners on the corners and nobody out, Joe DiMaggio hit a single to right that scored the go-ahead run. When right fielder Ival Goodman bobbled the ball, the Yankees' Charlie Keller tried to score from first. Goodman's throw got to home plate at the same, and Keller crashed into Lombardi. Keller knocked the ball away, but more importantly, knocked Lombardi dizzy. With Lombardi still recovering, DiMaggio came soaring around third and slid home to score the third run. Despite diving up a devastating "Little League" home run, the Reds fought back in the bottom of the 10th, putting the first two runners on base before going down.

Despite the Reds' valiant effort, the Yankees were just too good. Their fourth straight championship came easily, a fitting close to baseball's first great dynasty.

MVP
This was still the era before official MVPs were named, but this one would have been a slam dunk. Keller batted .438 with a double, a triple, and three home runs. With that, plus being prominently involved in the series-deciding three-run play, he would have been an easy pick.

Scores
(Home team shaded; winners in Bold)

Cincinnati	1	0	3	4
New York	2	4	7	7 (10)

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

85. 1939 - New York (A) def. Cincinnati (N) 4-0
86. 1910 - Philadelphia (A) def. Chicago (N) 4-1
87. 1905 - New York (N) def. Philadelphia (A) 4-1
88. 1965 - Los Angeles (N) def. Minnesota (A) 4-3
89. 1961 - New York (A) def. Cincinnati (N) 4-1
Numbers 90-99
Numbers 100-107

1938 World Series: The first three-peat

The Teams
American League: New York Yankees (99-53); 10th World Series (won in 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937)
National League: Chicago Cubs (89-63); Ninth World Series (won in 1907, 1908)

What happened
In 1937, the New York Yankees became the seventh team to win a second straight World Series. They entered the 1938 season trying do the one thing those previous six teams had failed to do: win a third straight title. With six future Hall of Famers in their clubhouse, getting back to the World Series would be no problem.

Standing between the Yankees and their date with destiny was the Chicago Cubs, who won their fourth National League championship in nine seasons. While they had four future Hall of Famers of their own, a couple of their stars were at the end of their careers. It didn't look like much of a matchup.

The Yankees' Hall of Famers took control of the series and never let the Cubs into it. In Game 1, catcher Bill Dickey's 4-for-4 day backed up Red Ruffing's complete game for a 3-1 win. In Game 2, Joe DiMaggio's ninth-inning home run clinched the victory for Lefty Gomez. In Game 3, it was Joe Gordon, the future Hall of Fame no. 8 hitter, who hit the go-ahead home run for New York in the fifth. In the last game, every Yankee got a hit, including starting pitcher Ruffing, as they completed the sweep to become baseball's first back-to-back-to-back World Series champs.

It was a domination in every way. The Yankees used only four pitchers the entire series. Nine Yankees drove in a run in the series, and five different players homered. The Yankees won easily despite a pedestrian effort from their star of stars, the great Lou Gehrig.

Gehrig had only four singles in the series for New York, the first World Series of his career without an extra-base hit. This after finishing a season where he hit below .300 for the first time since his rookie year. At first, Gehrig's struggles were dismissed as those of somebody who had played every game for 12 years and might finally be wearing down. Knowing what we know now, it is instead likely that Gehrig started suffering the earliest effects of ALS during the 1938 season. Gehrig played only eight games in 1939 before retiring, meaning the 1938 World Series was his last appearance in the postseason.

Defining Game
Game 4. The Yankees took a 4-1 lead into the eighth inning, happy to take that lead home and celebrate a third straight title. But then the Cubs cut it to 4-3 with a home run by Ken O'Dea in the top of the eighth. That just made the Yankees angry. They used four hits, two walks, two wild pitches and a stolen base to add four more runs. It was their last half-inning at bat in 1938, and it was the fitting cap to a dominating season.

MVP
There was no official MVP of this series, and it would have been hard to pick one. The best choices would have been either Gordon - who batted .400 with a team-high six RBI from the no. 8 spot - or Ruffing, who gave up only three runs in two complete-game victories. Or, you could have picked a Yankee name out of a hat and picked a legitimate MVP.

The Scores
(Home team in Bold)

New York	3	6	5	8
Chicago	1	3	2	3

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

103. 1938 - New York (A) def. Chicago (N) 4-0
104. 1998 - New York (A) def. San Diego (N) 4-0
105. 1989 - Oakland (A) def. San Francisco (N) 4-0
106. 1928 - New York (A) def. St. Louis (N) 4-0
107. 1917 - Cincinnati (N) def. Chicago (A) 5-3

1949 American League: The Rivalry Begins

Pregame
A lot has been written in recent years about the rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. In the past decade, they have been the teams with the two highest payrolls and they have spent that money wisely. Since they're in the same division, each of their 18 regular season game has been treated with postseason-type importance, making it seem like the two teams have been bitter rivals forever.

But that hasn't exactly been the case. Just like the famous sale of Babe Ruth was very one-sided, the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry was virtually nonexistent through most of the first half of the 20th Century. In fact, from the American League's founding in 1901 through the 1947 season, the Yankees and Red Sox finished 1-2 in the standings exactly twice, and only once was the race close enough to be exciting in the final weeks of the season.

That changed in 1948, as the Yankees and Red Sox battled for the American League lead through most of the season. In the end, the Yankees fell off, and the Red Sox fell to Cleveland in a one-game playoff for the pennant.

The Red Sox and Yankees like their pennant race so much they did it again in 1949. Through much of the early part of the season, it looked like it would be a New York-Cleveland showdown for the pennant. But as the weather got hot, so did Boston, and as they stormed up the standings, Cleveland fell off, making it a two-team race between Boston and New York. But despite their hot play, Boston could not get within 3 games of the Yankees until New York star Joe DiMaggio got hospitalized with pneumonia. With their biggest rival out, Boston went on an 11-game winning streak and entered the final weekend of the season a game in front, needing only to win one of two games in Yankee Stadium to win the pennant.

The first game, on October 1, was tied 4-4 in the fifth, with both teams into the bullpen. Boston's Joe Dobson, normally a starter, did well in relief for Boston, but New York's relief ace Joe Page was even better, giving up only 1 hit in 6 2/3 innings. Page kept the Red Sox at bay until the eighth, when backup outfielder Johnny Lindell crushed a high fastball into the left-field seats to give the Yankees a 5-4 victory. After 153 games, the Yankees and Red Sox were tied, setting up a winner-take-all season finale.

The game
Red Sox starter Ellis Kinder reacted in an interesting way to starting the biggest game of the season. He got drunk. As his roommate, Joe Dobson, recounted years later in Summer of '49, he got back to his hotel room at 4:00 the morning he was scheduled to pitch with a woman Dobson had never seen before. Kinder was awake at 9:00 that morning, calling room service and asking for coffee.

Meanwhile, Yankees starter Vic Raschi. He had been hoping for this start all week, when it became apparent that the whole season could ride on the final game. Though he had pitched in and won game 152 for the Yankees, he was ready to go for game 154. He got a good night's sleep and spent most of the pregame sitting at his locker, staring at the floor, trying to ignore the reporters and photographers who were gathering.

After Raschi got through the Red Sox in the first, Yankee shortstop led off the bottom of the inning with a triple down the third-base line, aided by Ted Williams misplaying the carom in the left field corner. The Red Sox played the infield back for the next batter, first baseman Tommy Henrich, and he happily grounded to second to take the free rbi.

And that was it, at least for a while. For the next six innings, the two aces showed why they had each won 20 games that season, staying out of trouble and putting zero after zero on the scoreboard. Kinder had apparently recovered from his night of drinking, while Raschi was coming through in the game he desperately wanted to pitch.

The turning point of the game came with one out in the top of the eighth. Though Kinder had been cruising, completely keeping the Yankees off-balance, Red Sox manager Joe McCarthy pinch-hit for him in the eighth, sending up Tom Wright, called up from the minors just that week. With a fuming Kinder watching, Wright drew a walk, but was quickly erased on a double-play grounder. The Yankees still had their 1-0 lead, and they no longer had to worry about Kinder.

Boston brought in their other 20-game winner, Mel Parnell, in relief for the eighth. Like Kinder, Parnell had been overused down the stretch as the Red Sox tried to squeeze every inning they could out of their two aces. Parnell had started and lost the day before, though, and he was exhausted as he entered game 154. Parnell didn't have it on this day, giving up a home run to Henrich, the first batter he faced, to make it 2-0. After one more hit he was gone, replaced by Tex Hughson, who gave up three more runs to seemingly give the Yankees the pennant.

But Boston wasn't done. After pitching gallantly for eight innings, Raschi started to show signs of wear in the ninth. A one-out walk to Ted Williams was followed by two straight hits, including a triple to center that DiMaggio would have normally run down with ease, except he was cramping. DiMaggio called time after the play and took himself out, not willing to risk losing the pennant because he couldn't run down a flyball.

After another out, another single made it 5-3, with the tying run coming to the plate. But the Red Sox season died on the final day for the second year in a row as Birdie Tebbets fouled out to end the game.

Postgame
Invigorated by the pair of dramatic wins at the end of the season, the Yankees beat the Dodgers in the World Series for the second time in three years. The win in 1949 was the first of five consecutive World Championships for the Yankees, which still stands as the best streak in baseball history.

It took a long time for the Red Sox to recover, as they didn't finish higher than second place again until 1967. The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry didn't pick up again until 1978, when Bucky Dent broke the hearts of New Englanders everywhere.

Especially hurt by the loss was Williams. Looking for vindication after batting just .200 in the 1946 World Series and losing in the 1948 playoff, Williams instead came up empty. He went 1-for-5 in the two deciding games in 1949, in the process costing himself the batting championship. He later said that more than the 1946 series or the 1948 playoff game, the loss in 1949 was the toughest one of his career.

The Rundown

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. N.Y. Yankees 7, Milwaukee 3 (1981 AL East Division Series)
26. Seattle 9, California 1 (1995 AL West tiebreaker)
27. Chicago 5, Atlanta 1 (2003 NLDS)
28. Houston 12, Atlanta 3 (2004 NLDS)
29. N.Y. Mets 5, Cincinnati 0 (1999 NL Wild Card tiebreaker)
30. Cleveland 8, Boston 3 (1948 AL tiebreaker)
31. Houston 7, Los Angeles 1 (1980 NL West tiebreaker)

July 16, 1941: 56

CLEVELAND - On May 15, 1941, the Yankees lost to the White Sox 13-1, dropping to 14-15 for the season, in fourth place and 6.5 games out of first. In that game, centerfielder Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-4 and drove in the only Yankee run. Neither DiMaggio nor the Yankees had any idea what lay in store for them over the next two months.

On June 8, the Yankees swept a doubleheader from St. Louis to move into second place. DiMaggio drove in seven runs in the two games. He had gotten a hit in 23 straight games, but he was just getting started.

On June 28, the Yankees beat Philadelphia 7-4 to move into first place. Thanks to a 14-game winning streak that started that day, they stayed in first the rest of the year. DiMaggio went 2-for-5, extending his hitting streak to 39 games. He was attracting national attention now.

By getting a hit against Boston on July 2, everybody thought DiMaggio had broken the record of 44 straight games with a hit (people would later realize the old record was actually 45 games, not 44, and that he had only tied the record that day). The excitement of his accomplishment helped slightly soften the blow caused by Lou Gehrig's death that same day. DiMaggio by then was a national phenomenon.

On July 16, DiMaggio went 3-for-4 in a game against Cleveland, extending his streak to 56 games. The next day, two outstanding defensive plays by Cleveland third baseman Ken Keltner, combined with strong pitching from all-stars Al Smith and Jim Bagby, helped end DiMaggio's streak. During the streak, he had batted .408, lifting his season average from .304 to .375. More importantly, the Yankees went 41-12 (with three ties) during his streak, making up 12.5 games in the standings.

More than anything else, the streak is what defines DiMaggio, the first thing that's mentioned whenever somebody talks about his career. His summer of steady, consistent play matched with the stoic, unflappable demeanor he displayed for nearly two decades have put him alongside Lou Gehrig as the most beloved Yankees, the archtypes for the "Yankee Way" currently personified by Derek Jeter.

As more years pass without anybody breaking DiMaggio's record, the argument for it being the most hallowed and unbreakable record in sports grows. While other hitting marks long viewed to be untouchable have been topped in the years since, nobody has come within even two weeks of DiMaggio's streak in nearly 70 years. The combination of skill and luck needed to match it put it with Ty Cobb's career .366 batting average at the top of baseball's most unbreakable hitting records.