Posted on 10/17/2020 6:16:19 AM PDT by Rummyfan
In 1970, baseball’s post-season consisted of a best of five playoff series in both leagues plus the World Series. Thus, the minimum number of post-season games was ten.
The 1970 playoffs were completed in one game over that minimum number. The Baltimore Orioles, smarting from their upset loss to the New York Mets in the 1969 World Series, swept aside the Minnesota Twins in three straight. The combined score of the three games was 27-10.
In the National League, the Cincinnati Reds swept the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, this was a tighter series.
The Reds needed ten innings to win the opener. Gary Nolan and Doc Ellis pitched nine shutout innings each. Cincinnati scored three runs in the tenth. The key hits were a triple by Ty Cline (pinch hitting for Nolan), a single by Pete Rose, and a triple by Lee May.
Clay Carroll pitched a perfect bottom of the tenth to seal the win.
The next two games were also tight. Cincinnati won them 3-1 and 3-2. Although the Reds were known for their hitting (“the Big Red Machine”), they featured strong pitching, too, and it was the pitchers (especially Nolan, Carroll, Don Gullett, Milt Wilcox, and Jim Merritt) who saw them through the NLCS.
The sweeps by the Baltimore and Cincinnati set up what looked like a dream World Series. The Orioles were a team for the ages. They had followed their 109 win season in 1969 with a 108 win season in ’70 (ten more games than the Twins won that year). The pitching staff featured three 20 game winners — Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar (24 wins each) and Jim Palmer (20). The staff boasted the lowest ERA in the American League. Their hitters led the League in runs scored.
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
With the Orioles going to The Series in ‘69 - ‘70 - and ‘71 we got rather spoiled as Baltimore fans. They didn’t even lose a playoff game in those three postseasons, beating Minnesota twice and Oakland (the As being the rising team that would win three consecutive championships ‘72 - ‘73 - ‘74), all sweeps. Yes it was a great decade for baseball, with an epic Series in 1975 and then the rise of the Yankees in the latter part of the decade and all the soap opera accompanying that.
What a blast from the past that cartoon is! I remember the morning I first saw it. I always went straight to the sports page to read about the Reds before I folded and delivered those Cincinnati Enquirers. Thanks again.
The Reds probably won’t win another World Series in my lifetime but they currently have won their last nine World Series games even though it is spread over 45 years. Yup, 45 years since they lost a World Series game. :-)
Was it Bob Robertson?
The upper deck in right field, with Wild Bill Hagey. Carried in our own beer. Fun times.
You seem to be the only other person, other than me, who realizes they have that streak. I didn’t watch a single inning of baseball this year, how about you? Getting shut out in playoff was the best news I heard about the Reds this year. I would have been really pi$$ed if they pulled of a 1990 this year.
Honestly, I left baseball years ago. I don’t follow it. I was the prototype boy of the 1970s who ran to the local convenience store to buy a pack of cards with a dime (or whatever it cost) and hoped to get Fred Norman or Ken Griffey if not Johnny Bench and Pete Rose. The little boy in me still exists though is dormant. I don’t watch but I look at scores when the situation presents itself. I did watch the two shutouts but in total I have maybe watched 10 games in the past 10 years.
Roberto Clemente. He could do it all. So many greats in that series. Brooks and Frank Robinson. Palmer and their great staff. Willie Stargell, Steve Blass had a great series for the Pirates. They would meet again in 79 with the same outcome. That was the ‘we are family’ Pirate team.
Yes I remember Wild Bill..... went to many many games at Memorial Stadium.
1979 was a great season too.... except for the finish!
Great memories, thanks for posting. Followed baseball as a kid so this was really cool.
Love the people in suits and ties in the stands.
I’ve been addicted to Reds baseball since I was 5. All the losing and the strikes never dissuaded me. After walking away this year, I was very surprised how little I missed it. I am now in the same boat you’re in. I think I’m done.
I hear you. It isn’t all about being non-competitive more so about the interest wanes and the significance turns irrevelant.
It’s really hard to watch these days. The 3+ hour games, analytics robots in the dugouts “managing”, the stupid gesticulating by the players after every play. It’s just not very enjoyable. I do enjoy reading about all of the characters that played and managed the game in its rich history.
The upper deck in right field, with Wild Bill Hagey. Carried in our own beer. Fun times.
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We did the same thing at Forbes Field, back than. Would take garbage cans in filled with beer and Ice in the bleachers along 3rd base outfield line. Those were the days! sigh
All valid points. I watched the Reds-Braves game and Alex Rodriguez and company said “Pedro” 13 times by the second inning regarding Pedro Martinez and talking about the Yankees-Boston past rivalry. Think about that for a moment. Almost irrelevant to the game being played.
Thanks for posting this. It brought back a lot of great memories. You know, Brooks taught himself to field slow rollers on the wrong foot so he could come up and throw in one continuous motion. I have a glove that Brooks autographed the day he retired. He’s my favorite all-time player.
One day in Texas the O’s were playing, and, after the game, as we were leaving, an elevator opened and Brooks, stepped out. I had my gamer (I was a softball player) with me and asked him to autograph it for me. He was real patient as the pen was having trouble putting out the ink. He said, “You know, you have too much oil on this glove, son.” I was 39 years old.
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