Baseball's 25 Greatest Moments

Sporting News, The, Oct 18, 1999 by Dave Kindred

BASEBALL has moments. Football has drives, basketball has runs, hockey has ... I dunno what hockey has. But I know this: Baseball has moments.

Moments of suspense.

Followed by moments when everything changes.

It's almost as if the rules were designed to create these moments. Baseball's drama builds incrementally. Because nothing can happen until the pitcher throws the ball--Lord knows he'd often rather not throw it at all--we have time to imagine the possibilities inherent with every pitch.

Basketball is jazz. Football is bombs blowin' up. Baseball is silence--until lightning strikes and all hell breaks loose, setting our brains on fire. (Scientists say vivid memories are the result of adrenaline rushes that juice up the brain's ability to absorb events. That, or your brain's on fire.)

So baseball is the best at giving us the suspense that leads to a moment

The moment may be a pitcher's, a hitter's, a fielder's, a runner's, even an umpire's. Whatever it is, we anticipate it. We may frame the circumstance out loud: "Be in trouble if he throws a strike here." Or we may wait in butterfly-stomach silence, knowing from experience the dread and happy things that can happen next.

Well, if baseball's moments are such big deals, and they are, don't you think someone ought to put together a list of the game's 25 Greatest Moments?

We've done it. That is, THE SPORTING NEWS has done it. I'm only a reader of the various TSN lists. This preserves for me the ability to lob grenades at the TSN editors/provocateurs already famous for liking Goose Goslin more than Ken Griffey Jr. on their best-ever baseball rankings and consigning poor Joe Namath to the 96 hole in football's hundred greatest.

As an interested reader, then, I ask: How do you put together a list of baseball's 25 Greatest Moments and include nothing that happened before 19397 What, Grover Cleveland Alexander never wobbled in from the bullpen to fan Tony Lazzeri? Johnny Vander Meer never threw that second no-hitter in a week? Babe Ruth, where's Babe Ruth, you guys ever hear of Babe Ruth?

I could go on, and I will. What's this New York obsession? (Of the 25 moments, 15 come with Gotham imprints.) For that matter, doesn't anything count except what happened in the World Series or League Championship Series or pennant playoffs? (Eighteen items here.)

A Sandy Koufax perfect game didn't matter? Nolan Ryan's seventh no-hitter? Roger Clemens' 20 K's, twice? Any of a thousand plays Brooks Robinson made at third? Kirby Puckett's catches against the Metrodome glass? Earl Weaver's cap turned backward so he can get nearer Marry Springstead's nostrils?

Anyway, if you ask this child of the Midwest, the 25 Greatest Moments in baseball history were any 25 times that Stan Musial came to bat.

1

THE SHOT HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD

October 3, 1951

Bobby Thomson's three-run, ninth-inning home run off Ralph Branca lifts the Giants over the Dodgers in their N.L. playoff series.

DID YOU KNOW ...

... That Giants right fielder Don Mueller, who got a key hit in his team's ninth-inning comeback against the Dodgers in the third game of the 1951 N.L. playoff, was lying on the trainer's table when the game ended and didn't know which team had won? Mueller, taken to the clubhouse after injuring an ankle while sliding into third base on Whitey Lockman's double, said he heard "the roar of the (Polo Grounds) crowd. There were probably as many Dodger tans there as there were Giants fans, so you couldn't tell by that." Only when the jubilant Giants reached the locker room did Mueller figure out his team was World Series-bound--thanks to Bobby Thomson.

2

MAZ

October 13, 1960

Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski wins the World Series against the Yankees with a stunning leadoff home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7.

3

LARSEN'S PERFECT GAME

October 13, 1960

Twenty-seven Dodgers up, 27 down for Yankees pitcher Don Larsen in Game 5 of the World Series--the first no-hitter in the Fall Classic's long history.

4

FISK WAVES IT FAIR

October 21, 1975

Carlton Fisk breaks a 6-6 tie in the 12th inning of Game 6 of the World Series against the Reds with a home run off the Fenway Park foul pole.

5

HAMMERIN' HANK & THE BABE

April 8, 1974

Henry Aaron passes Babe Ruth as the game's career home run leader when he hits No. 715 on a 1-0 pitch from Dodgers lefthander Al Downing.

6

GIBSON DELIVERS IN A PINCH

October 15, 1988

The Dodgers'Kirk Gibson limps to the plate in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the World Series and, on a 3-2 count, beats the A's with a home run off Dennis Eckersley.

7

62 AND BEYOND

September 8, 1998

Mark McGwire lights up Busch Stadium with his record-setting 62nd home run, a laser-like line drive over the left field fence off Cubs veteran righthander Steve Trachsel.

8

E-3

October 25, 1986

Mookie Wilson's miler on a 3-2 pitch goes through Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner's legs, allowing Ray Knight to score from second base with the Mets' winning run in Game 6 of the World Series.

9

THE CATCH

September 29, 1954

Center fielder Willie Mays' back-to-the-infield catch of Vic Wertz's drive into the outer reaches of the Polo Grounds sparks the Giants' World Series sweep of the Indians.