Game 7s

Of the World Series games that I've seen (beginning from about 1974) these were, imo, the best game 7s:

5. (1979) The Pirates erase a 3 game to 1 deficit to beat the Orioles on a Willie Stargell homerun. Tekulve holds on for the save.

4. (1975) Made possible by the heroics of Fisk and Carbo a night earlier, the big Red Machine trailed the Red Sox early, but a double by Perez tied it and a two-out bloop single by Joe Morgan won it in the top of the ninth for a one run win.

3. (2001) Soriano's late homer off Schilling put the Yankees ahead, but a line drive double by Womack and a clutch one-out hump back single by Gonzalez brought the Diamondbacks a WS championship. It also caused a bit of a rift between Rivera and Brosius.

2. (1997) Mesa couldn't hold a ninth inning lead for the Indians. Edgar Renereia's two out hit wins it for the Marlins in extra innings. Tony Fernandez's error to start the inning was huge, but he is nowhere nearly reviled as Bill Buckner.

1. (1991) What can you say? Extra innings. 0-0 game. Jack Morris going the distance. Twins win on a sac fly from Dan Gladden.

Obviously, Mazeroski's homer in '60, Kubek's snaring McCovey's liner, or Johnnie Pesky being snakebit as Enos Slaughter scored from first on a single are worthy moments, but they predated me.

Nice list, klydon. As a Twins fan I agree about '91 being an unbelievable game. We taped both Games 6 & 7 and the copy is completely unwatchable it's been viewed so many times. As a result, it was actually Dan Gladden who scored the winning run on a single by pinch-hitter Gene Larkin. Brian Hunter never bothered to go after the deep fly to left, since he knew he had no shot of throwing Gladden out at the plate.

I was 9 at the time and my father, my high school baseball coach, made sure to point out at the time what a bone-headed move it was by Hunter. He would have looked pretty foolish walking in from left field if Gladden had somehow tripped and fell. A slim chance indeed, but I'll never forget that lesson as a result of that play.

You are absolutely correct. What I remember most from that game, aside from Morris' performance, is Lonnie Smith's base running error when he fell for an infielder's decoy. The play likely cost the Braves a run and a championship.

Honorable mention to the 1986 Mets-Sox series. It wasn't a 1 run game, but was scoreless through 5 innings. Calvin Shiraldi blew that game too, just like Game 6.

I would rank the Yanks-Arizona Game 7 ahead of Cleveland-Florida for these reasons: 1) Shilling vs. Clemens 2) Soriano hit the go-ahead HR off Schilling in the 8th inning 3) Randy Johnson, a starter, came in after having pitched 7 innings the day before, and shut down the Yanks after Schilling left 4) the series winning run came off the game's best closer (not necessarily of all-time, but one of the best relievers in MLB history).

As an aside to the 1997 series, to this day I still hate Edgar Renteria, Jose Mesa, and Craig Counsell.

Probably the best World Series I ever saw. As a Sox fan, Game 6 may have been the most exciting game I ever saw.

Over the last 40 years, the Sox have been in 4 World Series. They lost in seven games in '67, '75 and '86.... all wonderful Series.

[quote=SC
Probably the best World Series I ever saw. As a Sox fan, Game 6 may have been the most exciting game I ever saw.

Over the last 40 years, the Sox have been in 4 World Series. They lost in seven games in '67, '75 and '86.... all wonderful Series.



[/quote]

Absolutely. The Sox earned the sweep against the Cardinals in '04.