The 1988 World Series was supposed to be a coronation for the 104-win Oakland Athletics. It ended up being a stunning upset for the Los Angeles Dodgers, as an iconic baseball moment started the series and the dominance of LA ace Orel Hershiser took over from there.
The 1990 Oakland Athletics were the gold standard of baseball. They had won consecutive American League pennants and the 1989 World Series. They spent all of 1990 looking ready to claim a special place in history before a shocking ending dented the legacy. Oakland is remembered in this era for “The Bash Brothers”, the power-hitting […]
This post will focus on the game-by-game narrative of the battle between the A’s and Giants, both of whom stepped up and contributed to their communities in the aftermath of the devastation.
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 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 Oakland A’s had been off the radar since winning the AL West in 1981, with losing seasons each ensuing year through 1986. Midway through that ’86 campaign, the A’s hired Tony LaRussa as their manager. A year later they went .500. The big breakthrough came when the 1988 Oakland Athletics rolled to 104 wins and the American League pennant before a shocking World Series loss finally ended the run.
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 Oakland A’s were baseball’s royalty in the early 1970s, winning three straight World Series from 1972-74. Oakland fell off the radar following a close second-place finish in 1976, but the 1981 Oakland Athletics returned with a vengeance. Manager Billy Martin and a starting rotation with four outstanding pitchers led the team to an AL West title in a strike-shortened season.
The A’s won three straight pennants from 1972-74, taking the World Series each time. The Yankees won three straight pennants from 1976-78 and grabbed two Series titles. But the teams’ paths had never crisscrossed in October. That changed when they met in the 1981 ALCS.
An interesting subplot was that Oakland’s revival was under the leadership of manager Billy Martin, who had also restored to the Yankees to prominence five years earlier.
…the first Division Series came about by accident and it produced an ironic result–not only did the New York Yankees advance, but so did their old manager, who moved on with the Oakland A’s.
The A’s rolled through the playoffs, but the big story of the 1989 World Series was the earthquake that devastated a Bay Area battle with the San Francisco Giants, caused a delay for ten days between games and more importantly, caused massive human suffering.