1965: In the heat of a Giants-Dodgers pennant race during a violent summer in America, Giants pitcher Juan Marichal and Dodgers catcher Johnny Roseboro get into one of the most famous and bloody fights in baseball history. Roseboro had asked Sandy Koufax to throw at Marichal to retaliate for Marichal's knocking Wills down as part of an escalating bean-ball war. Koufax, who wouldn't throw at hitters, throws over Marichal's head, so Roseboro nicks Marichal's ear with a return throw. The two argue, and Marichal whacks Roseboro with his bat as the benches empty. The incident may have kept the great pitcher out of the Hall of Fame for a while. He was inducted in 1983 after Roseboro publicly supported him.
1965: Koufax throws a perfect game against the Cubs. It's his fourth no-hitter, then a record.
1968: Denny McLain of Detroit becomes the first pitcher since Dizzy Dean in 1934 to win 30 games as the Tigers rally to beat the Oakland A's 5-4. He ends up 31-6 with a 1.96 earned-run average. Nobody's won 30 since, and nobody's likely to ever again.
1968: Bob Gibson of the Cardinals posts a 1.12 ERA. The unfathomable mark, the highlight of a period of general offensive drought, helps spark rule changes to help hitters, including lowering the mound.
1969: The "Miracle" Mets, the laughingstock of baseball for their first seven years of existence, during which they finished last or next-to-last every year and averaged 105 losses a season, win the World Series.
1970: Star Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood sues baseball after he's traded to the Phillies. His suit challenges baseball's reserve clause, which essentially ties a player to one team for life, unless that team trades or sells him. "By God, this is America," Flood later recounts in Ken Burns' documentary "Baseball." "I'm a human being. I'm not a piece of property. I am not a consignment of goods." The case goes to the Supreme Court, and Flood loses. Within a few years, though, the reserve clause would be challenged successfully, ending a century of unfairness to players and ushering in the current era of free agency and market-rate salaries.
1975: Frank Robinson makes his debut as the player-manager of the Cleveland Indians. Incredibly at this late date, he is the first black manager in the major leagues.
1978: Bucky Dent's home run over the Green Monster at Fenway lifts the Yankees to a win over the Red Sox in a one-game playoff for the A.L. East title. The Yanks had been 14 games out of first on July 19, then had gone 47-20 under Bob Lemon after the firing of Billy Martin. The Sox, meanwhile, had collapsed in September, falling three and a half games out with two weeks to play, only to rally and finish the season tied for first.
1981: A 50-day strike wipes out the middle third of the season, forcing baseball to crown first- and second-half champions, like many minor leagues do, and add a tier of playoffs. The team with the best record in baseball, Cincinnati, fails to qualify.
1983: The Pine Tar Incident. George Brett of the Kansas City Royals hits a two-out, two-run home run in the top of the ninth off Goose Gossage at Yankee Stadium to give the Royals a 5-4 lead in a July game. But New York manager Billy Martin asks umpire Tim McClelland to inspect Brett's bat. McClelland calls Brett out, ruling that he had violated the rules by having pine tar more than 18 inches up the handle of the bat. A furious Brett leaping out of the dugout, arms flailing, and charging McClelland is one of the indelible baseball images of the '80s. The Royals protest the loss, and league president Lee McPhail overturns McClelland's ruling, saying that games shouldn't be decided by a close reading of rule technicalities. The game is ordered replayed from the point of the homer, and the Royals win.
1986: With the California Angels one strike away from their first pennant, Dave Henderson hits a two-run homer off Donnie Moore to give the Red Sox a 5-4 lead in the ninth. The Angels tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, giving Henderson the chance to win it with a sacrifice fly in the 11th, also off of Moore. The Sox go on to win the pennant but lose the World Series to the Mets thanks to Bill Buckner's error. Moore, who reportedly never got over blowing the save, committed suicide in 1989.
1992: Pinch-hitter Francisco Cabrera, who had played in 10 games for the Atlanta Braves during the season, comes up with two outs and the bases loaded in Game 7 of the N.L. Championship Series, the Braves trailing the Pirates, 2-1. He lines a pinch single to left. David Justice scores from third, and here comes Sid Bream, possibly the slowest runner in America, racing a throw from Barry Bonds. Bream slides: safe. The Braves win their second straight pennant. Cabrera, 25, plays 70 games the next year for the Braves and then is never heard from again.
1994: A strike wipes out the last two months of the season, the playoffs and the World Series, the first time since 1904 that the World Series had not been played.
1997-98: Florida Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga holds a fire sale of the high-priced players he'd assembled to win the 1997 World Series. The dismantling of the team, then only 5 years old, disheartens Marlins fans, who never really return, and comes to serve as a symbol for everything that's wrong with the business side of baseball, even to people who disagree over exactly what's wrong.
This story has been corrected since it was first published.
About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. For more columns by Kaufman, visit his archive.
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