1997 – Atlanta clubs the Astros, 13-3, to take Game Two of the N.L.D.S. The Braves go up, 2-0, in the series. Eight walks from Mike Hampton does not help Houston’s cause.
1997 – The Baltimore Orioles continue their dominance over the most dominant lefthander in major league baseball. Baltimore bounces Randy Johnson and the Seattle Mariners in the first game of the American League Division Series. Johnson, who has a winning record against every other team in the American League, drops to 3-8 overall against the Orioles.
The Yankees and Rockies become the first wild-card teams in the new major league baseball playoff system. Both sides will lose in the first round of the new format, with Colorado bowing to the NL East’s Braves in four games, and the Bronx Bombers eliminated in extra innings of Game 5 in a classic ALDS against the AL West’s Mariners.
1995 – The Colorado Rockies become the first major league team to reach the postseason before their seventh year in existence. Colorado also becomes the National League’s first wild card winner following a 10 – 9 win over the San Francisco Giants. Colorado’s .535 winning percentage (77-67 record) is the best-ever for a third-year team. The New York Yankees become the first wild card winner in the American League.
Mike Piazza plates Jose Offerman with a first-inning single to set a new team mark for runs driven in by a rookie with 107. The 24 year-old Dodgers catcher breaks the franchise record for rookie RBIs established by Del Bissonette, a freshman first baseman who played with Brooklyn in 1928.
In what is believed to be his last day with the team, Ernie Harwell, whose contract is not renewed by team management and WJR, waves goodbye to the fans and the crowd attending the season finale gives the ‘Voice of the Tigers’ for the past 32 years a long and loud standing ovation. The veteran broadcaster will return to Detroit in 1993, thanks to the warm invitation from new team owner Mike Ilitch, and will continue to do play-by-play until the end of the 2002 season.
1989 – Kirby Puckett of the Minnesota Twins and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres each win batting titles on the final day of the regular season. Puckett goes 2-for-5 to edge Carney Lansford, .339 to .336, while Gwynn goes 3-for-4 to beat Will Clark, .336 to .333.
1988 – Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres goes 2-for-3 to raise his league-leading batting average to .313 but sustains a hand injury during a 6 – 3 victory over the Houston Astros. Gwynn is the first National League batting champion to win the title with an average below .320. Before Gwynn, Larry Doyle’s .320 average was the lowest.
On October 1, 1987, at the Astrodome, With the bases loaded, Braves runner Gerald Perry, the runner on third, scores on a delayed steal of home when Astros’ backstop Ronn Reynolds, who suffers a bruised and lacerated right hand on the play, drops the return throw from right-hander Danny Darwin. The other Braves runners, Jeff…
Peter Ueberroth takes over the reins of major league baseball as the sport’s sixth commissioner. The former L.A. Olympic president will immediately face a crisis when he needs to arbitrate the labor disagreement with the umpires’ union, who have threatened to strike before the start of the League Championship Series.
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