The Pittsburgh Pirates were a team with unfinished business, having reached the 1970 NLCS before being swept out of the then best-of-five round in three straight. The San Francisco Giants were making their first appearance in a League Championship Series round that was in just its third year of existence. When the Pirates and Giants […]
The League Championship Series round was only in its third year of existence in 1971, but the Baltimore Orioles were already old hands at it. The Birds had swept what was then a best-of-five series the previous two years and won the World Series in 1970. The Oakland A’s were the newcomers. The difference in […]
The Houston Astros are set to make their first appearance in the American League Championship Series on Friday night against the New York Yankees. If the franchise’s history in the National League is any indication, there are some thrills in store. Over the course of their 50-year run as an NL team (1962-2012), the Astros […]
It was a year of change in the MLB postseason structure for 1985. The League Championship Series expanded from a best-of-five to a best-of-seven and it had an immediate impact. The Kansas City Royals lost three of the first four games to the Toronto Blue Jays before rallying to win the 1985 ALCS.
Two dramatic home runs punctuated the 1985 NLCS between the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers. The broadcast call of one is remembered in a lot of baseball montages to this day—and that wasn’t even the home run that won the pennant. Another dramatic shot was the final big blow of a competitive six-game series.
The Oakland A’s were on a mission of redemption in 1989, trying to return to the World Series and atone for their 1988 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Toronto Blue Jays had survived a tough AL East fight against the Baltimore Orioles. The A’s were a solid favorite and that’s how the 1989 ALCS played out—the Blue Jays had their share of moments, and led at some point in most games, but Oakland had too much firepower and they took the pennant in five games.
The San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs met in the 1989 NLCS with each in pursuit of a long-sought pennant. The Cubs’ chase of their first National League pennant since 1945 is the stuff of legend, but the Giants had been out of the Fall Classic for a while themselves. Their last appearance was 1962. It was San Francisco who ended their drought with a five-game victory in 1989
The 1988 MLB season wasn’t filled with drama when it came to pennant races, but that didn’t stop the year from having an epic ending that was seemingly written in Hollywood and literally ended there.
The results of the American League Championship Series were predictable—an Oakland sweep—but the Red Sox made each game competitive and the ALCS was filled with could’ve, should’ve moments that might have altered its course.
The two big markets of the National League battled in the 1988 NLCS, as the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The series had the best pitchers and best MVP candidates, and it went the full seven games, with several surprising plot twists, before the Dodgers finally prevailed
The two best teams in baseball met in the 1983 ALCS, as the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox squared off. The Orioles had 98 wins and the White Sox had 99. The series was competitive throughout, the finale was outstanding and Baltimore prevailed to bring home a pennant.
No team had ever lost the first two games of a League Championship Series and then rallied to win what was then a best-of-five round. The Milwaukee Brewers dug just such a hole against the California Angels in the 1982 ALCS. The Brewers made history, with three consecutive wins at home.