REGIONAL #188:  This group features the inaugural season of one Jackie Robinson, with he and his teammates capturing the pennant in 1947 to make them the highest profile squad in this group.  However, another noteworthy entry was a Yankees team that won the AL the season before AND the season after, but had their streak interrupted by the Go-Go Sox.  There were two examples of the Diamondbacks, one of them coming two years after their first NL pennant, and teams from the Tigers, Cubs, Angels, and A’s that I suspected included one or two decent squads.   I figured the Dodgers would get past the Dbacks in the bottom of the bracket, while I picked the Yankees to make the final despite the generally unimpressive showing of their 1950s teams in this tourney.  That would set up a classic Dodgers/Yankees final, where I predicted that number 42 and his colleagues would prevail.  For the second regional in a row, the ELO ratings agreed with my predictions, making the Dodgers odds-on favorites to win their second regional in a row.

First round action

The 1997 Angels were an 84-78 team that rode the bats of Tim Salmon and Jim Edmonds and endured the declining years of Eddie Murray and Rickey Henderson; they would give Chuck Finley (13-8, 4.23) his 10th start in this tournament, which has to be a record.  Speaking of Rickey H., he was also playing for the 77-85 1984 A’s, and he wasn’t the only thing shared between the teams as Tony Phillips was batting leadoff for both squads.  The ace for the A’s was Ray Burris (13-10, 3.15) and he was backed by the longball threat from Dave Kingman and Dwayne Murphy.  The Angels start the fireworks early with a 2-run homer from Salmon in the top of the 1st, while the A’s load the bases in the bottom of the inning but Davey Lopes makes the third out on a 3-3 roll with a grand slam sitting at 3-4.  In the bottom of the 3rd, Oakland’s Henderson finds and converts Finley’s HR result for a solo shot, and then Carney Lansford rolls the same result but misses the split for a double; however, he’s cut down trying to score on a Kingman single and the score is 2-1 Angels after three.  Edmonds adds some insurance in the 6th with a two out solo homer, but when Mike Heath leads off the bottom of the 7th with a double off Finley’s card, the Angels take no chances and bring in closer Troy Percival to head off the threat.  He retires six straight, and as the game heads into the bottom of the 9th the Angels wish to preserve Percival and bring in a no-name reliever (literally no name on his card; apparently one Pep Harris) to close things out.  He makes a name for himself with an uneventful inning and a save, and the Angels move on with the 3-1 win even though Burris held them to only five hits, while Chuck Finley evens out his tournament record at 5-5.

They had won four pennants in a row before, and they would win another five in a row afterwards, but the 1959 Yankees came up short, finishing only 79-75 in third place behind the Go-Go Sox.  Although many of the famous names were there, aside from Mantle they weren’t having particularly good seasons, and their defense was porous.  They went with Art Ditmar (13-9, 2.90) for the round one start, even though I remember once skipping over Whitey Ford in the first round for a different 50s Bombers and coming to regret it.  Their opponents, the 2009 Diamondbacks, lost 92 games and like the Yanks, were skipping over a bigger name pitcher in Max Scherzer to start Dan Haren (14-10, 3.14), who finished 5th in the Cy Young voting despite pitching for a bad team.  In the bottom of the 3rd, a 2-base error by Yankee 3B-4 Hector Lopez enables the Dbacks to score a run on an Augie Ojeda sac fly before either team had recorded a hit in the game.  However, in the 4th Arizona SS-2 Stephen Drew returns the favor with a 2-base error, and a 2-out single by Bill Skowron–the first hit of the game–ties things up.  Then, Lopez atones for his bad fielding with a 2-out solo shot to put NY ahead.  Justin Upton finally breaks up Ditmar’s no-hitter in the bottom of the 7th by converting a 3-12 SI* 1-2 split, but the Dbacks can’t take advantage of it, and little Bobby Richardson homers off Haren’s card in the 8th to provide an insurance run.  That’s more than Ditmar needs, as he closes out the 3-1 win for the Yanks; Haren tosses a 4-hitter himself but absorbs the loss.  However, in a meaningless at bat in the 9th, Skowron is injured for six games and the Yanks will miss his bat behind Mantle’s.

The 1947 Dodgers won 94 games and the NL and were the top seed here, but in setting their lineup I was surprised by the lack of power (12 homers was tops on the team) in a field that I’d always assumed to be pretty homer-friendly.  I noticed that they finished seven games better than their Pythagorean projection, and so it seemed that they could use a strong showing from their ace Ralph Branca (21-12, 2.67) with no Bobby Thomson-like incidents.  He would face the 76-86 1996 Cubs, whose Sammy Sosa and Ryne Sandberg combined to hit as many homers as the entire Dodger lineup, but Steve Trachsel (13-9, 3.03) had a fair share of longballs on his card as well.  The Cubs break the stalemate in the top of the 5th with a 2-run single from Scott Servais, and then in the 5th a 2-out error by Dodger 2b-2 Eddie Miksis is followed by a 3-base error from their RF-4 Dixie Walker, and the Cubs lead grows to 4-0.  In the 8th, Luis Gonzalez adds an RBI single and defensive replacement Rey Sanchez follows that with a HR off Branca’s card and it looks like the favorites are going down hard.  A squib RBI single from Tyler Houston adds to the damage, and Trachsel finishes up the 5-hit shutout as the Cubs roll over the top seed with an 8-0 laugher.

The 2003 Diamondbacks were a couple of season past their first pennant, but they still had much of that squad intact and they were good for an 84-78 record and the #4 seed in this bracket.  Although their famous pitching tandem of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson were still around, their top starter was Brandon Webb (10-9, 2.84) who would be making his 4th start of the tournament, sporting a 1-2 record in his previous efforts.  He would try to even up his record against the 79-83 1997 Tigers, who got career years out of Bobby Higginson and Tony Clark, but their rotation after Justin Thompson (15-11, 3.02) was pretty gruesome.  In the bottom of the 2nd, the normally sure-handed DBack CF-2 Steve Finley misplays a single by Clark, and that sets up a sac fly by free-swinging Melvin Nieves for a Tiger lead.  Meanwhile the Dbacks don’t register a hit against Thompson until a Carlos Baerga single in the 5th, but that leads nowhere, and although they load the bases in the 6th they again fail to capitalize.  However, in the 8th Finley makes up for his fielding miscue with a solo HR off Thompson’s card.  The Tigers respond in the bottom of the inning with Brian Hunter drawing a walk and stealing second, so the Dbacks head to the pen for closer Matt Mantei, but he can’t prevent Higginson from stroking a 2-out RBI single and the Tigers regain the lead heading into the 9th.  That puts it in Thompson’s hands, and he closes out a 6-hitter and the Tigers squeak by to the semifinals with the 2-1 win.

The survivors

The Yankees DL

The 1959 Yankees and the 1997 Angels both survived the first round winning with identical 3-1 scores, notching only a total of nine hits between them, and both were hoping for better offensive performance as the opposition dug deeper into their rotation.  Although the Yanks would be missing the bat of Bill Skowron, they felt good about the prospects of sending out Whitey Ford (16-10, 3.04) against Angels spot starter Shigetoshi Hasegawa (3-7, 3.93).  In the bottom of the 1st, Hector Lopez, stepping into the cleanup spot vacated by Skowron’s injury, cracks a 2-run homer, but a spate of Ford wildness in the 3rd loads the bases to set up a 2-out 2-run single by Tim Salmon that ties it up.  Unfortunately, in the bottom of the inning the Yanks watch their tournament aspirations go up in smoke as Mickey Mantle is carted off the field with a 7 game injury, “replaced” in the lineup by Marvelous Marv Throneberry.  The Angels smell blood and get a run in the 4th on a Gary Disarcina RBI single that scores Garret Anderson.  Both pitchers then hold until Gil McDougald leads off the bottom of the 7th with a triple, leading the Angels to summon closer Troy Percival in the hopes of recording some strikeouts.  The Angels bring the infield in, and Bobby Richardson hits a grounder, McDougald breaks for home, and he’s out on the fielder’s choice.  Percival then whiffs Kubek and Throneberry, and it’s crisis averted.   Percival then gets two quick outs in the 8th, but then Elston Howard wakes up the depressed Yankee Stadium crowd with a long bomb that ties the game heading into the 9th, with Percival now burnt for the regional.  However, the crowd quickly relapses as Disarcina converts Ford’s HR 1-5/flyB for a 2-run shot in the top of the 9th.  So, to begin the bottom of the 9th it’s once again the Angels’ no name reliever (aka Pep Harris) looking for his second straight save.  He gets two quick outs, but then SS-2 Disarcina drops a Kubek grounder, Throneberry draws a walk, and up comes Hector Lopez, who already has two homers in the regional, as the winning run.  But he grounds out harmlessly and the Angels survive and advance to the finals with the 5-3 win over the game but battered Yankees.  

Two near-contemporaries that were upset winners in round one, the 1996 Cubs and Jaime Navarro (15-12, 3.92) would face the 1997 Tigers with Willie Blair (16-8, 4.17) for the right to vie for the regional title.  In the bottom of the 3rd, Deivi Cruz bounces a double past Cubs LF-3 Luis Gonzalez, and he scores on a Tony Clark single to put the Tigers ahead, but the Cubs tie it up in the 5th on a Mark Grace RBI single.  In the 6th, Brian Hunter draws a leadoff walk, steals second, and scores when RF-2 Sammy Sosa can’t get to a Bobby Higginson single, and the Tigers regain the lead.  However, as is often the case in a semifinal game neither team will surrender, and in the top of the 7th Scott Servais hits a solo shot off Blair’s card, and two singles later the Tigers summon closer Todd Jones from the pen hoping for something better.  He whiffs PH Brant Brown, walks Sosa to load the bases, and then strikes out Ryne Sandberg and the game remains tied.  When Cruz leads off the bottom of the 8th with a double, the Cubs decide to move to their pen and Turk Wendell comes in; he whiffs Hunter but then Damion Easley knocks a base hit and 1-14 Cruz beats the throw to put the Tigers back on top.  Hoping to preserve Jones for the final, the Tigers bring in Doug Brocail to close in the 9th, but that proves unwise when an error by 2B-3 Easley is followed by two singles, with one by Brown driving in a game-tying run.  Brocail then gets Sosa to ground into a DP, and when Wendell retires the Tigers in the bottom of the inning we head to extra frames.  Both pens hold, but when Brocail is burnt for the regional in the 13th the Tigers are forced to go to the nether regions of their bullpen, with AJ Sager the least terrible option.  His first pitch to Jose Hernandez is a 5-9, HR 1-18/TR, and he misses the split with a 19 but the inherited runner Rey Sanchez scores.  The next batter, Servais, also rolls a hit on Sager’s card, Hernandez scores, and the Cubs take a two run lead into the bottom of the 13th, with Larry Casian assigned the job of closing out the game.  He rips through a succession of Detroit pinch hitters, and the Cubs come from behind three different times to take the 5-3 13-inning battle to reach the finals.

It’s an all-90s final with the #4 seeded 1997 Angels against the #5 seed 1996 Cubs representing the middle of the pack of the regional.  As is typical of middle of the pack teams, the #3 starters for these squads were worrisome, with Anaheim’s Ken Hill (9-12, 4.55) pretty bad and the Cubs’ Frank Castillo (7-16, 5.28) even worse, and both teams had seriously stretched their pens during the semifinals.  Sure enough, in the top of the 1st Castillo walks the first batter and then allows a solid 6-9 homer roll to Darin Erstad.  Then, in the 2nd Castillo allows a single off his card to Garret Anderson, and that’s followed by another 6-9 roll for Chad Kreuter and things are getting ugly quickly.  However, Castillo then responds with three hitless innings, and the Cubs begin chipping away with a 2-run homer from Luis Gonzalez in the bottom of the 5th.  In the 6th, Grace leads off with a single, Tyler Houston doubles past LF-3 Anderson, and then runners on 2nd and 3rd and first base open, the Angels elect to pitch to the cold Sammy Sosa, who warms to the occasion with a 3-run moon shot that sends the Cubs into the lead and their yuppie scum fans into a frenzy.  When Tony Phillips singles to lead off the top of the 8th, the Cubs decide not to risk any more longballs off Castillo and he departs to considerable applause, with Terry Adams charged with closing things out.  He whiffs Erstad, but promptly gets injured on the next batter, which is something the Cubs definitely did not plan on and Kent Bottenfield gets pressed into emergency service and he retires Salmon to maintain the one-run lead.  Things stay that way heading into the 9th, where Bottenfield gets two quick outs, but then PH Jack Howell raps a single and Rickey Henderson pinch runs representing the tying run.  Kreuter then hits a grounder to 2B-2 Sandberg, but he muffs it and the tying run is now in scoring position, and PH Luis Alicea steps to the plate.  But he hits a soft liner to Jose Hernandez at third, and the Cubs take home their 8th regional crown with the 5-4 comeback win.

Interesting card of Regional #188:  Does anyone else think this card might have shortchanged Melvin by a few strikeouts?  I realize that in the current era, 157 strikeouts doesn’t even place a batter on the leaderboard in that category anymore, but still, accumulating those in only 300+ ABs is an impressive amount of whiffing.  Of course, Nieves had big shoes to fill as a Tigers right fielder, attempting to follow in the footsteps of the immortal Rob Deer.  Perhaps he did so a little too well, as Nieves only played one more season in the majors before being demoted to the minors, where he spent nearly 10 seasons unsuccessfully learning to make contact.  Sadly, Nieves was arrested in 2022 in Puerto Rico after taking the congregation in a Mormon church hostage and threatening to kill them; police eventually subdued him with a Taser.  News reports did not indicate whether he fired on the police, but if so, it’s safe to guess that he missed.