This time around, it's the league without the DH. The senior circuit had its own share of heroes and zeroes who played on more artificial fields than their American League counterparts.
Most of the public was certain that at least one major moment in sport would happen this year. Hank Aaron hits his 715th home run April 8, breaking Babe Ruth's long-standing record. He had finished 1973 one short of 714 but ties the record in his first at-bat of the season in Cincinnati April 4. The big one comes at the Atlanta Braves' first home game of the season. The Braves wanted him to skip that road series, but no way, says Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Aaron hits 20 homers this season, including one on his last at-bat with the Braves Oct. 2. This is also his twentieth consecutive season with 20 or more. It has to be mentioned: the pitcher of number 715 was Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Aaron also sets a new N.L. record for runs that big night of April 8, scoring his 2,063rd as he crosses the plate on that fourth-inning shot. Another N.L. mark he sets April 28 with his 15th grand slam. On a day in the Hammer's honor, Aaron matches Ty Cobb's standard for games played, taking the field for his 3034th game July 26.
The N.L. continues its All-Star Game dominance July 23 in Pittsburgh with a 7-2 win.
The Pittsburgh Pirates win the N.L. East title with a come-from-behind victory over the Chicago Cubs Oct. 2, which puts them 1 1/2 games ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Pirates are the second team to win its division after being 12 games or more under .500 sometime in the season; last year's New York Mets were the first.
All four divisions have tight races; in the West, the Dodgers finish just four games ahead of the Cincinnati Reds.
Manager Walter Alston wins his seventh and last pennant in 20 years as the Dodgers beat the Pirates 3-1 in the National League Championship Series.
With 36 round-trippers, Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies leads the National League in home runs for the first of eight times. Schmidt also has 118 RBI and bats .282. He makes his All-Star Game debut by entering as a pinch hitter, walking in his first plate appearance, staying in as third baseman, and scoring a run after being walked again.
On June 10, during a game against the Houston Astros, Schmidt hits a ball in such a way that it would have gone on to be a homer in any park other than the Astrodome; it goes down off a speaker for a single.
Lou Brock of the Cardinals steals a record 118 bases in his last season leading the league in swiped bags. He has won the title eight times in nine years. He reaches 700 for his career June 29 and ends up with 753 at year's end. Over the course of the season, he passes Honus Wagner, Max Carey, and Eddie Collins. Only Cobb has more career stolen bases (no, Billy Hamilton doesn't count). The Sporting News names Brock Sportsman of the Year despite most other such awards going to Muhammad Ali.
Fellow Cardinal Bob Gibson gets his 3000th strikeout July 17, becoming the first pitcher since Walter Johnson to reach that number. For less than five years will he be the only one in the Big Train's company.
Another Cardinal, Bake McBride, is the Rookie of the Year. He steals 30 bases, finishing second to Brock on the team.
Gold Glove winner Steve Garvey of the Dodgers is the MVP of the season. He's also the All-Star Game MVP, going 2 for 4 with a run and an RBI.
Aaron may get the headlines, but his teammate Ralph Garr leads the N.L. in batting average with .353, and Bruce Capra, another Brave, has a league-best ERA of 2.28.
Saves leader Mike Marshall of the Dodgers wins the N.L.'s Cy Young Award, and he appears in a record 106 games.
There are many 20-game winners in the American League, but the National League has only two: Phil Niekro of the Braves and Andy Messersmith of the Dodgers. The former leads the senior circuit in innings pitched, and the latter becomes the 14th to have a 20-win season in each of the two leagues.
Johnny Bench of the Reds hits 33 home runs to bring his total to 212. His league-leading 129 RBI make his career total 745. The catcher also wins the seventh of his ten Gold Gloves.
Ray Kroc buys the San Diego Padres. In 1973, the league had rejected two different sales, one that might have resulted in relocation to Washington and one that involved Burt Bacharach being in the Padres' ownership group.
The Padres' selection as the first choice in the Amateur Draft, Bill Almon of Brown University, is the first and only Ivy League man to be an overall No. 1 pick.
This is a good year to start an MLB career on a high note. Benny Ayala of the Mets hits a home run in his first big-league at-bat Aug. 27, and John Montefusco of the San Francisco Giants does the same seven days later.
Al Oliver of the Pirates hits in 23 straight games June 25 to July 28, then 21 in succession Aug. 4 to Aug. 28. Teammate Richie Zisk also has a 20-game hit streak Aug. 6-28, and he hits for the cycle June 9. On the same day as Oliver's second streak begins, the Phillies' Willie Montanez fails to get a hit for the first time in 24 games.
Three-homer games are achieved by George Mitterwald of the Cubs April 17, Jim Wynn of the Dodgers May 11, and Davey Lopes of the Dodgers Aug. 20. The latter follows his Wrigley Field feat four days later by stealing five bases against the Cardinals at home.
The only player to score five runs in a game this season is Bill Madlock of the Cubs, who gets two hits in three at-bats April 17, reaching on error in the other and walking twice. Madlock's opponents in that high-scoring Wrigley Field game? The Pirates.
Having been drafted by the Padres, been brought straight to the major-league club, and been passed over for Rookie of the Year honors in '73, Dave Winfield plays his first full season with San Diego, hitting 20 homers and stealing 9 bases.
Pete Rose of the Reds scores a league-best 110 runs and sets a single-season record for plate appearances with 771. He also does not miss a game this year and will not for the next three.
Miked up for a TV broadcast June 1, Tommy Lasorda calls a home run hit by his Dodgers' Ron Cey from his third-base coach's box.
Former Padres manager Preston Gomez gets the keys to the Astros' dugout from Leo Durocher sometime before the season, having been a coach in '73 and gone 16-5 as pilot. He'll be in Houston's skipper role for 289 games.
Besides Juan Marichal, bought by the A.L.'s Boston Red Sox in December of '73, another Giants legend is on a different team starting this season: Willie McCovey had been traded to the Padres Nov. 25, 1973.
After the season, the Mets' Tug McGraw goes to the Phillies in a six-player December trade.
Atlanta's WSB radio wins a Peabody Award for this year's "Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream."
With increased attendance, the N.L. does its part to bring the major-league figure close to reaching 30 million as it had in '73, but thanks to a larger A.L. decrease, it misses by 6,039.
The Pirates' Mario Mendoza, in his first season, bats .221, but that's in 163 at-bats. It is years before he establishes the Mendoza Line.
As the Padres open their season April 9, Ray Kroc tells anyone who will listen the following over the P.A. system: "Ladies and gentlemen, I suffer with you." He continues, "I've never seen such stupid baseball playing in my life." In between those comments, he addresses a situation on the field thusly: "Get that streaker out of here!"
C. Arnholt Smith ran an operation worthy of Kroc's scorn. It even included personality tests that had too much bearing on which players made the team. Under Smith, John McNamara started as Padres manager, but after a few years he proved not to be a big enough Mac for Kroc.
Cutoff throws from the outfield are a problem for the Padres. During a San Diego game April 30, Winfield throws the ball from center toward home. Derrel Thomas, playing second, decides he'll get out of the way but does not in fact get out of the way, try as he might. The ball hits him in the rear. After the game, in which the Padres beat the Montreal Expos 2-1, Winfield tells the press: "I finally hit the cutoff man."
One home game against the Astros is "Short Order Cooks Night" at the Padres' ballpark. The visitors' Doug Rader -- having said Kroc was grilling his team as if he were "dealing with a bunch of short-order cooks," which incensed actual short-order cooks -- brings the lineup card to the umpire in his capacity as captain and while wearing a chef's hat and apron. He serves it up on a skillet. No more hard feelings from the cooks in attendance.
During spring training in Arizona, Jose Cardenal, who mainly plays right field for the Cubs, is reportedly deprived of sleep after trying to catch a cricket in his room, and he drops out of the day's preseason game.
At the commencement of a Pirates home game May 1, Dock Ellis hits Rose, Joe Morgan, and Dan Driessen. He walks Tony Perez for the Reds' first run and is not allowed to finish pitching to Bench.
May 12 at Riverfront Stadium is a day the Astros' Bob Watson gets a treatment to remember, with an entry in the inaugural Baseball Hall of SHAME book coming in 11 years. Watson falls after colliding with the wall in left field, and some fans drop "beer, ice and other debris" on him. He doesn't move because he's concerned about glass in his right eye. The spectators' words hurt while teammate Cesar Cedeno helps Watson. The left fielder goes to the same hospital where three of the Cincinnati cranks are getting stitches, "apparently from beating their heads on the cops' [security guards] nightsticks."
Cesar Geronimo of the Reds is on the receiving end of Gibson's 3000th strikeout July 17. Almost six years later, another will join the club at his expense, that being Nolan Ryan (who will have joined the Astros).
Twenty-five innings come and go Sept. 11-12, in a game that takes until 3:15 in the morning to play. In that last inning, by which time easily more than 90 percent of the Wednesday crowd has gone to bed, Mets pitcher Hank Webb attempts a pickoff, but the throw is way off. McBride touches second and third with the ball still live (it's not a balk because of what Retrosheet will call "a recent rule change") and scores thanks to another error by catcher Ron Hodges. The Cardinals retire the Mets in order and win 4-3.
During practice one day, veteran Pirates left fielder Willie Stargell tells Miguel Dilone, a 19-year-old outfielder, that he'll race him from first base to second for $100. The fast runner shows what he can do, but the slow runner says he wants his cash. Stargell, something of a trickster, points out that he didn't use language suggesting Dilone would be paid for winning.
Next: future stars on
the farm and an incredible-but-true story coming full circle. Extra innings
start April 12.
[EDIT 3/27/2024 10:19 p.m. EDT: Adjusted font size.]
[EDIT 5/24/2024 7:36 a.m. EDT: Corrected a mistake in the attendance item.]
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