Best game ever...

[Double Steal]

Discuss... Oct. 21, 1975? Game 6 Red Sox vs. Reds? Nov. 4, 2001? Game 7 DBacks vs. Yankees?

What was the greatest game ever. Regular Season... Playoffs... World Series....

Show me a guy who can't pitch inside and I'll show you a loser. - Sandy Koufax.
http://www.oregonbaseballcampaign.com

[Ytown_Tribe_fan]

One I'd include among the best ever is Game 1 of the '88 World Series.

The Dodgers touched Dave Stewart for 2 in the first, but Oakland came back with a 4-spot in the 2nd with Canseco's bomb.

Oakland went into the 9th leading 4-3 and Eckersley was automatic that season.

Up hobbles Kirk Gibson with one on in the bottom of the 9th -- the rest is history.

Every time I see "The Natural", I think of that shot.

[Double Steal]

[updated:LAST EDITED ON Apr-15-02 AT 03:47 PM (EDT)]Ya, I was just watching Sports Century with Gibson, and Costas and Hershiser were talking about Gibson hitting balls off a tee into a net in the hallway behind the dugout.

Costas says he'd hear... TWACK!... "GROOOAAANNN!"...TWACK!... "GROOOAAANNN!", and then someone comes out and says to Lasorda, "He's maybe got one good swing in him".

Is that straight out of The Natural or what? That and the fact that he'd fouled off, super weakly, 2 pitches on fast balls, and then Eck goes and lofts that hanging breaking ball. The rest is baseball history.

Unreal drama on that game.

Show me a guy who can't pitch inside and I'll show you a loser. - Sandy Koufax.
http://www.oregonbaseballcampaign.com

[The Real McCoy]

Not too many better games than Game 6, 1986 NL Championship Series.,,, Mets/Astros. Astros score three in the first and Knepper pitches eight great innings until the Mets tie it up with three in the top of the ninth. Both teams score in the 14th. Mets get three in the top of the 16th, Stros come roaring back with two, have two on, two out and Orasco strikes out Bass to clinch the pennant.

This classic is largely forgotten because in the Series Mookie hit a ground ball at Billy Bucks.

[LouGehrig]

The game in which the Phillies beat the Cubs, 23-22 early in the 1979 season.

[Double Steal]

Couldn't find info on this game (yet... still figuring out retrosheet), but I did find this:

Chicago 26 vs Philadelphia 23 most runs scored in a game at 49. Happened on 8/25/1922...

Must have been one heck of a pitchers duel that day, huh? ;-)

Show me a guy who can't pitch inside and I'll show you a loser. - Sandy Koufax.
http://www.oregonbaseballcampaign.com

[ciamele]

It's so difficult to choose one game... there are so many amazing moments in baseball. Being biased, I love the Mets/Astros game mentioned above, and of course games w/ Boston rank up there too. I have sentimental favorites of my frist game at Shea to my first game ever.

But games that really stand out to me:

The whole 1991 World Series. That was a tooth and nail fight to the finish. Almost every game went into extra innings, and there's no question we all got our worth out of every minute of those games.

The 1999 championship series of the Mets/Braves had some very exciting games like the 1991 world series.

You gotta love the Royals/Yankees game w/ the Pine Tar Incident. I could swear that George Brett flew out of the dugout -- no feet touching the ground. That's just classic.

How about the first All-star game w/ Ruth... being Ruth. He hit the first homer in All-star game history.

Then the following year in 1934 when Carl Hubbard strikes out the following Hall Of Famers in a row: Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Simmons, and Cronin. I have one word for that: Amazing.

Those are a few that come to mind for me, but there are so many more... Give me an extra inning game that goes 13+ innings, and it's a great game to me.

[bucsparrothead]

I post it every day; the 1960 World Series, Game 7. What a great display that showed that the underdog does beat the top dog once in a while. Did that home run by Mazeroski really propel him into the Hall of Fame? Was Casey Stengel to really blame for the 'embarassment' his team suffered? How can a team who dominated their winning games lose in 7 so agonizingly? That game not only has huge drama, but it spawns SO many questions to this day. Joe Carter? Kirk Gibson? NO, Bill Mazeroski and the totally improbable Pirates in a Game 7 when NO ONE really thought the dominating Yankees would lose.

'...to the wall, GONE AND THE PIRATES WIN!' -Maz and the ORIGINAL home run WS blast!

[Reed Johnson]

The best game ever is the Jays latest win!

[RuthMayBond]

Not too many better games than Game 6, 1986 NL Championship Series.,,, Mets/Astros. Astros score three in the first and Knepper pitches eight great innings until the Mets tie it up with three in the top of the ninth. Both teams score in the 14th. Mets get three in the top of the 16th, Stros come roaring back with two, have two on, two out and Orasco strikes out Bass to clinch the pennant.

This classic is largely forgotten because in the Series Mookie hit a ground ball at Billy Bucks.This is the only game in the first five posts I don't have, a few from post #7

[Brian McKenna]

Vaughn and Toney double no-hit game

[BoSox Rule]

Games 4 or 5 of the 2004 ALCS

[EdTarbusz]

October 3, 1951.

[SavoyBG]

Guy I used to know invented a system to rank the greatest post season games and series ever played. It was based on the score after every half inning of every game, and how long the games went. Here are the results of his work. He only went back to 1916, so we don;t get ratings on the fabulous 1912 world series, but he rates the 1980 NLCS (Phils-Astros) as the greatest series ever.


Using a system of ‘rating’ how good a playoff game was based on the score after each ½ inning, I’ve scored all the playoff games back to 1916. Games are rated based on closeness (how close the home team win probability is to 50%) and turnaround (the change in win probability from the last ½ inning).

Using the system, the best playoff games are all extra inning contests. This makes sense, since a 15-inning game probably has some kind of late comeback + 6 innings of sudden death. The top ten (average game rating is about 5):

Series Road Homes Innings Rating
1995 ALDS1..G2 Mariners 5 Yankees 7 15 19.85
1999 NLCS....G5 Braves 3 Mets 4 15 19.30
1986 NLCS....G6 Mets 7 Astros 6 16 16.95
1916 WS......G2 Robins 1 Red Sox 2 14 15.75
(complete game win for Babe Ruth)
1995 ALDS2..G1 Red Sox 4 Indians 5 13 15.66
2000 NLDS2..G3 Giants 2 Mets 3 13 13.82
1975 WS......G6 Reds 6 Red Sox 7 12 13.59
2000 WS......G1 Mets 3 Yankees 4 12 13.46
1945 WS......G6 Tigers 7 Cubs 8 12 13.13

Worst Game (4-way tie)
1996 NLCS...G7 Cardinals 0 Braves 15 9 1.56
1960 WS.....G3 Pirates 0 Yankees 10 9 1.56
1998 WS.....G2 Padres 3 Yankees 9 9 1.56
2001 WS.....G6 Yankees 2 Dbacks 15 9 1.56

Top 9 Inning Game
1993 WS......G4 Blue Jays 15 Phillies 14 9 10.05
1960 WS......G7 Yankees 9 Pirates 10 9 9.92
1977 NLCS...G3 Dodgers 6 Phillies 5 9 9.81
1984 NLCS...G4 Cubs 5 Padres 7 9 9.42
2000 NLCS...G2 Mets 6 Cardinals 5 9 9.14
1995 NLDS1..G1 Braves 5 Rockies 4 9 8.77
1972 WS......G4 Reds 2 Athletics 3 9 8.59
1995 NLDS1..G2 Braves 7 Rockies 4 9 8.55
1988 ALCS....G2 Red Sox 3 Athletics 4 9 8.55
2001 WS......G7 Yankees 2 Diamondbacks 3 9 8.48

Once the games themselves are rated, they can in turn be used to rate how good a playoff series is. The simplest rating is to sum the game ratings. The results are…

Series Games Rating
1999 NLCS.....Total 6 54.35
1991 WS.......Total 7 52.65
1975 WS.......Total 7 51.92
1986 NLCS.....Total 6 49.36
1980 NLCS.....Total 5 46.60
1924 WS.......Total 7 46.59
1995 ALDS1...Total 5 46.01
1997 ALCS.....Total 6 45.88
1921 WS.......Total 8 42.82
2001 WS.......Total 7 42.10

Worst Series
2000 NLDS (Atlanta/St Louis)

The usual suspects appear: 1975 WS, 1991 WS, 2001 WS, 1980 NLCS. But in no way can the 1999 NLCS can be considered the best playoff series ever. The problem with including that series is that the Braves won the first 3-games draining the excitement from the rest of the games. It has the second highest rated playoff game ever (G5) and the 19th highest rated game as well (G6). The score for G5 is half of the score of the entire 2001 WS. Too much weight is given the outlier and the context the game is played is ignored. This system also gives an advantage to 7-game series over 5-game series.

So I looked at the average game scores…For context,

10% of all playoff games rate 9+
13% of all playoff games rate 8+
20% of all playoff games rate 7+

Series Games Average Score
1980 NLCS...Total 5 9.32
1995 ALDS1..Total 5 9.20
1999 NLCS...Total 6 9.06
1969 ALCS...Total 3 8.87
1986 NLCS...Total 6 8.23
1995 NLDS1..Total 4 7.72
1997 ALCS...Total 6 7.65
1995 ALDS2..Total 3 7.56
1991 WS......Total 7 7.52
1975 WS......Total 7 7.42

Worst Series
2000 NLDS (Atlanta/St Louis)

This has a different problem; short series have an edge. Two 3-0 series sweeps make the list. Again, a single outstanding game can put you on the top of the list. To avoid single games from skewing the results, I converted the ratings into percentiles.

Series Games Average Game Percentiles
1980 NLCS....Total 5 86.10%
1995 NLDS1..Total 4 77.86%
2000 ALDS2..Total 3 75.80%
1999 NLCS....Total 6 74.96%
1997 NLDS1..Total 3 74.38%
1975 WS......Total 7 73.89%
1996 ALDS2..Total 4 73.34%
1970 NLCS....Total 3 72.88%
1969 ALCS....Total 3 72.52%
1995 ALDS1...Total 5 71.16%

Worst Series
2000 NLDS (Atlanta/St Louis) [a triple crown]

Four 3-0 sweeps make the list again. The 1980 NLCS is amazing by this measure. It is farther from the #2 series than #2 is from #10. Not only that but only it, 75 WS and 95 ALDS1 went the distance.

My final attempt was to weight the game scores by the status of the series. A game played with the series tied 2-2 will count more than the same game with a team up 3-1 in the series. The weights were based on how much the chance of winning the series would shift depending on if the next game was won or lost. In a 7-game series, the G1 weight=31.25%, G7 weight=100%. If the series was 3-0 then the weight for game four would be 12.5%

This system favors longer series, series that go the distance and series with an outstanding last game.

Series Game Score Weighted Score
1980 NLCS....Total 5 46.60 27.67
1924 WS......Total 7 46.59 25.73
1975 WS......Total 7 51.92 25.41
1991 WS......Total 7 52.65 25.21
1995 ALDS1..Total 5 46.01 24.56
1986 NLCS....Total 6 49.36 21.70
2001 WS......Total 7 42.10 21.70
1997 WS......Total 7 36.55 20.52
1952 WS......Total 7 40.35 20.04
1925 WS......Total 7 38.54 18.79

The 1999 NLCS vanishes from the top ten. No series sweeps are on the list. Only one of these series did not go the distance. None of the recent series that are included surprise me. But even with the bias towards longer series, a 5-game series rates the highest.

I guess one could add a discount factor in for championship series and a larger one for division series since they are just stepping stones to the WS.

But as a Phillies fan, I just can’t do it.

[RockyC]

Game 6 of the '75 WS

[RationalNYYfan]

Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS

[EdTarbusz]

Series Game Score Weighted Score
1980 NLCS....Total 5 46.60 27.67
1924 WS......Total 7 46.59 25.73
1975 WS......Total 7 51.92 25.41
1991 WS......Total 7 52.65 25.21
1995 ALDS1..Total 5 46.01 24.56
1986 NLCS....Total 6 49.36 21.70
2001 WS......Total 7 42.10 21.70
1997 WS......Total 7 36.55 20.52
1952 WS......Total 7 40.35 20.04
1925 WS......Total 7 38.54 18.79

.

Any system that rates the 1997 World Series as one of the best has something seriously wrong with it.

[SavoyBG]

Any system that rates the 1997 World Series as one of the best has something seriously wrong with it.


Any world series that has an extra inning one run game in game 7 is going to rate pretty highly.

[RationalNYYfan]

The 1997 World Series was so lame. In any other year with any other teams, that game winning RBI single would've been important to baseball.

[Scoops]

...

Top 9 Inning Game
1993 WS......G4 Blue Jays 15 Phillies 14 9 10.05

...

I second the idea that this system is flawed. This wasn't even the best 9-inning game (http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR199310230.shtml) in that series, let alone of all time.

[kgrifeyjr30]

How about the game in 1963 when 42 year old Warren Spahn took on Juan Marichal and the game went 16 innings....both pitchers throwing a complete game! And the Giants winning 1-0 on a Willie Mays Home Run in the Bottom of the 16th off of Spahn!

[Mongoose]

Game 6 of the 86 WS was great. The events were bizarre, but what made them compelling was the weight of the Red Sox 20th Century curse. If the botched grounder had happened in another WS context, it wouldn't be remembered as being as shocking as it was. I can't think of a more visually striking image of defeat in sports history.

Down to their last strike about 10 times the Mets kept chipping away; you can only imagine ML officials hastily wheeling the WS trophy out of the Red Sox dugout...

Ironically Dave Henderson had hit the home run that sealed Gene Mauch's curse, and he delivers again in the top of the 10th in the exact same way, only to be foiled by anti-Red Sox karmic forces... It was a fitting culmination to the entire post season, with the insane comebacks and see-saw games in both Championship Series.

That post-season had casualties, too: Donnie Moore, Calvin Schiraldi, Bill Buckner.

As an individual game it might have rivals, but given its broader context, what it represented to its large respective fan bases and the human stories involved in the entire post season, Game 6 stands out.

(And like the 1975 Series, Game 7 was pretty damed good, too.)

[Mongoose]

And as far as ratings go, here's an interesting one:

"NBC's broadcast of Game 7 garnered a Nielsen rating of 38.9 and a 55 share, making it the highest-rated single World Series game to date."

In a way, that's a pretty strong public vote in favor of that whole post-season in general and Game 6 of the WS (and I guess game 7, since the public didn't turn their TVs off) in particular.

[EdTarbusz]

And as far as ratings go, here's an interesting one:

"NBC's broadcast of Game 7 garnered a Nielsen rating of 38.9 and a 55 share, making it the highest-rated single World Series game to date."

In a way, that's a pretty strong public vote in favor of that whole post-season in general and Game 6 of the WS (and I guess game 7, since the public didn't turn their T.V.s off) in particular.

Game seven was postponed a day because of rain. The extra day probably had a lot of people talking about the game, and may have helped with the ratings. Fox could probably only dream of a share that high.

I only got to see bits and pieces of game six because it was my duty day and I was on watch during the game. I did see the last two ABs of the game though. Most of my shipmates were rooting for the Mets and had given up before Stanley's wild pitch.

[SavoyBG]

Game seven was postponed a day because of rain. The extra day probably had a lot of people talking about the game, and may have helped with the ratings.


Please don't give your opinion on why the ratings were high. Just report the fact that they were high and let the reader make up his own mind why.

[RuthMayBond]

Please don't give your opinion on why the ratings were high. Just report the fact that they were high and let the reader make up his own mind why.I wasn't aware that opinions weren't allowed, or that Ed prevented the reader from making up his own mind

[SavoyBG]

I wasn't aware that opinions weren't allowed, or that Ed prevented the reader from making up his own mind

Inside joke. Read the exchange between Ed and me in the Ty Cobb thread yesterday.

[RuthMayBond]

Inside joke. Read the exchange between Ed and me in the Ty Cobb thread yesterday.Ah, it's looking clearer

[RuthMayBond]

Any system that rates the 1997 World Series as one of the best has something seriously wrong with it.Why don't you accumulate all the World Series that had EIGHT lead changes?

[digglahhh]

The best game ever is probably Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition.

You know you were cutting school too much when you could beat it on no more than two quarters with Zangief... (I often lost once against Vega).

Anyway, '86 NLCS Game 6 is my choice. It is admittedly difficult to be objective on this subject.

[RuthMayBond]

Guy I used to know invented a system to rank the greatest post season games and series ever played. It was based on the score after every half inning of every game, and how long the games went. Here are the results of his work. He only went back to 1916, so we don;t get ratings on the fabulous 1912 world series, but he rates the 1980 NLCS (Phils-Astros) as the greatest series ever.


Using a system of ‘rating’ how good a playoff game was based on the score after each ½ inning, I’ve scored all the playoff games back to 1916. Games are rated based on closeness (how close the home team win probability is to 50%) and turnaround (the change in win probability from the last ½ inning).

Using the system, the best playoff games are all extra inning contests. This makes sense, since a 15-inning game probably has some kind of late comeback + 6 innings of sudden death. The top ten (average game rating is about 5):

Series Road Homes Innings Rating
1995 ALDS1..G2 Mariners 5 Yankees 7 15 19.85
1999 NLCS....G5 Braves 3 Mets 4 15 19.30
1986 NLCS....G6 Mets 7 Astros 6 16 16.95
1916 WS......G2 Robins 1 Red Sox 2 14 15.75
(complete game win for Babe Ruth)
1995 ALDS2..G1 Red Sox 4 Indians 5 13 15.66
2000 NLDS2..G3 Giants 2 Mets 3 13 13.82
1975 WS......G6 Reds 6 Red Sox 7 12 13.59
2000 WS......G1 Mets 3 Yankees 4 12 13.46
1945 WS......G6 Tigers 7 Cubs 8 12 13.13

Worst Game (4-way tie)
1996 NLCS...G7 Cardinals 0 Braves 15 9 1.56
1960 WS.....G3 Pirates 0 Yankees 10 9 1.56
1998 WS.....G2 Padres 3 Yankees 9 9 1.56
2001 WS.....G6 Yankees 2 Dbacks 15 9 1.56

Top 9 Inning Game
1993 WS......G4 Blue Jays 15 Phillies 14 9 10.05
1960 WS......G7 Yankees 9 Pirates 10 9 9.92
1977 NLCS...G3 Dodgers 6 Phillies 5 9 9.81
1984 NLCS...G4 Cubs 5 Padres 7 9 9.42
2000 NLCS...G2 Mets 6 Cardinals 5 9 9.14
1995 NLDS1..G1 Braves 5 Rockies 4 9 8.77
1972 WS......G4 Reds 2 Athletics 3 9 8.59
1995 NLDS1..G2 Braves 7 Rockies 4 9 8.55
1988 ALCS....G2 Red Sox 3 Athletics 4 9 8.55
2001 WS......G7 Yankees 2 Diamondbacks 3 9 8.48

Once the games themselves are rated, they can in turn be used to rate how good a playoff series is. The simplest rating is to sum the game ratings. The results are…

Series Games Rating
1999 NLCS.....Total 6 54.35
1991 WS.......Total 7 52.65
1975 WS.......Total 7 51.92
1986 NLCS.....Total 6 49.36
1980 NLCS.....Total 5 46.60
1924 WS.......Total 7 46.59
1995 ALDS1...Total 5 46.01
1997 ALCS.....Total 6 45.88
1921 WS.......Total 8 42.82
2001 WS.......Total 7 42.10

Worst Series
2000 NLDS (Atlanta/St Louis)

The usual suspects appear: 1975 WS, 1991 WS, 2001 WS, 1980 NLCS. But in no way can the 1999 NLCS can be considered the best playoff series ever. The problem with including that series is that the Braves won the first 3-games draining the excitement from the rest of the games. It has the second highest rated playoff game ever (G5) and the 19th highest rated game as well (G6). The score for G5 is half of the score of the entire 2001 WS. Too much weight is given the outlier and the context the game is played is ignored. This system also gives an advantage to 7-game series over 5-game series.

So I looked at the average game scores…For context,

10% of all playoff games rate 9+
13% of all playoff games rate 8+
20% of all playoff games rate 7+

Series Games Average Score
1980 NLCS...Total 5 9.32
1995 ALDS1..Total 5 9.20
1999 NLCS...Total 6 9.06
1969 ALCS...Total 3 8.87
1986 NLCS...Total 6 8.23
1995 NLDS1..Total 4 7.72
1997 ALCS...Total 6 7.65
1995 ALDS2..Total 3 7.56
1991 WS......Total 7 7.52
1975 WS......Total 7 7.42

Worst Series
2000 NLDS (Atlanta/St Louis)

This has a different problem; short series have an edge. Two 3-0 series sweeps make the list. Again, a single outstanding game can put you on the top of the list. To avoid single games from skewing the results, I converted the ratings into percentiles.

Series Games Average Game Percentiles
1980 NLCS....Total 5 86.10%
1995 NLDS1..Total 4 77.86%
2000 ALDS2..Total 3 75.80%
1999 NLCS....Total 6 74.96%
1997 NLDS1..Total 3 74.38%
1975 WS......Total 7 73.89%
1996 ALDS2..Total 4 73.34%
1970 NLCS....Total 3 72.88%
1969 ALCS....Total 3 72.52%
1995 ALDS1...Total 5 71.16%

Worst Series
2000 NLDS (Atlanta/St Louis) [a triple crown]

Four 3-0 sweeps make the list again. The 1980 NLCS is amazing by this measure. It is farther from the #2 series than #2 is from #10. Not only that but only it, 75 WS and 95 ALDS1 went the distance.

My final attempt was to weight the game scores by the status of the series. A game played with the series tied 2-2 will count more than the same game with a team up 3-1 in the series. The weights were based on how much the chance of winning the series would shift depending on if the next game was won or lost. In a 7-game series, the G1 weight=31.25%, G7 weight=100%. If the series was 3-0 then the weight for game four would be 12.5%

This system favors longer series, series that go the distance and series with an outstanding last game.

Series Game Score Weighted Score
1980 NLCS....Total 5 46.60 27.67
1924 WS......Total 7 46.59 25.73
1975 WS......Total 7 51.92 25.41
1991 WS......Total 7 52.65 25.21
1995 ALDS1..Total 5 46.01 24.56
1986 NLCS....Total 6 49.36 21.70
2001 WS......Total 7 42.10 21.70
1997 WS......Total 7 36.55 20.52
1952 WS......Total 7 40.35 20.04
1925 WS......Total 7 38.54 18.79

The 1999 NLCS vanishes from the top ten. No series sweeps are on the list. Only one of these series did not go the distance. None of the recent series that are included surprise me. But even with the bias towards longer series, a 5-game series rates the highest.

I guess one could add a discount factor in for championship series and a larger one for division series since they are just stepping stones to the WS.

But as a Phillies fan, I just can’t do it.I like this. I have ranked postseason games, giving more weight the later the series is in the postseason order, and more weight to game 7 of 7s/5 of 5s than game 1s. Plus I mostly weighted complete games that I can get on DVD, which kinda leaves out 1916, 1945, 1960. Don't overlook 97 WS game 7.
The only postseason series as a whole I've done are just World Series. Don't overlook the 72 WS.

[BSmile]

Yankees vs. Red Sox - 1978 - Game 163
The tension before that game was unbelievable.