I love basball and every year around this time I cannot wait for the playoffs to start.  Of all the major sporting events in the US The World Series is the best for me.  Much better than the Super Bowl, The NBA finals, The Masters and anything related to tennis, horse racing.  The World Series rules the roost for me.

But, what are some of the most memorable play and players in baseball history?  Lets take a look.

October 18, 1977: “Any moment that can create a nickname is amazing,” says Richard Puerzer, a member of the Society for American Baseball Research. It was during Game 6 of the 1977 World Series that Reggie Jackson got his. In the fourth inning, Jackson hit the first pitch he saw from Dodgers starter Burt Hooten into the right field seats. In the fifth, Jackson lined reliever Elias Sosa’s first offering to about the same spot. And in the eighth, Jackson smacked Charlie Hough’s first pitch, a knuckleball, 475 feet into dead center field. 

Reggie certainly is one of the best players in history but is especially great in the World Series.  You don’t get a nickname that sticks like this unless great things happen.

August 19, 1951: Bill Veeck, the St. Louis Browns owner and baseball’s greatest promoter, created one of the game’s iconic images when hesigned 3-foot-7-inch Eddie Gaedel to a contract and sent him to bat as a pinch hitter. “The picture itself is so hilarious,” says Neil Lanctot, author of three books on baseball, including Campy: The Two Lives of Roy Campanella. “Gaedel looks like he’s really ready to hit.” Gaedel, whose strike zone measured all of one-and-a-half feet, walked on four pitches and twice tipped his cap to the crowd before being lifted for a pinch runner.

The Cubs and the White Sox are both eliminated from the playoffs this year but it should be exciting to watch the playoffs, once again.

I’ll post more memorable photo’s and baseball stories throughout the playoffs.

Jim

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