Oct. 1
1903 - The Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Boston Red Sox, 7-3, in the first World Series game. Jimmy Sebring hit the first series home run. Deacon Phillippe was the winning pitcher and Cy Young the loser.
1932 - Babe Ruth, as legend has it, called his home run against Chicago’s Charlie Root in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the World Series, won by the New York Yankees 7-5 at Wrigley Field. Ruth and Lou Gehrig each hit two homers for the Yankees.
1946 - For the first time in major league history, a playoff series to determine a league’s championship was played between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Cardinals took the first game 4-2 as Howie Pollet held the Dodgers to two hits, a homer and an RBI single by Howie Schultz.
1950 - The Philadelphia Phillies clinched the NL pennant on Dick Sisler’s three-run homer against Don Newcombe in a 4-1 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers on the season’s last day.
1961 - Roger Maris ended a season of personal torment by hitting his 61st home run against Tracy Stallard of the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. The homer eclipsed Babe Ruth’s 34-year-old single-season home run record. The Yankees won, 1-0.
1967 - The Boston Red Sox won the American League pennant with a 5-3 win over the Twins on the final day of the season. Boston’s Carl Yastrzemski went 4-for-4 and finished with 44 home runs, 121 RBIs and a .326 average to win the batting Triple Crown.
1978 - The Cleveland Indians beat the New York Yankees 9-2 on the last day of the season to force a one-game playoff between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox won their eighth straight game with a 5-0 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.
1988 - Tony Gwynn went 2-for-3 to raise his league-leading batting average to .313 but hurt his hand in a 6-3 victory over the Houston Astros. Gwynn is the first NL batting champion to win the title with an average below .320. The previous lowest was Larry Doyle’s .320 in 1915.
2000 - Detroit’s Shane Halter became the fourth major leaguer to play all nine positions in a game, and capped his adventure by scoring the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the Tigers over Minnesota 12-11.
2004 - Ichiro Suzuki set the major league record for hits in a season, breaking George Sisler’s 84-year-old mark with a pair of early singles as the Seattle Mariners beat the Texas Rangers 8-3. Sisler set the hits record of 257 in 1920 with the St. Louis Browns over a 154-game schedule. Suzuki broke it in the Mariners’ 160th game of the year.
2007 - Matt Holliday and the Colorado Rockies pulled off the most dramatic comeback of the year. Holliday scored on Jamey Carroll’s shallow fly ball, capping a stunning, three-run rally in the 13th inning against Trevor Hoffman and leading the Rockies over the San Diego Padres 9-8 in a tiebreaker for the NL wild card.
2009 - Pitcher Chris Carpenter hit a grand slam and drove in six runs to lead St. Louis to a 13-0 victory over the Reds.
2014 - Madison Bumgarner pitched a four-hitter with 10 strikeouts and Brandon Crawford hit the first grand slam by a shortstop in postseason history as the San Francisco Giants routed the Pittsburgh Pirates 8-0 in the National League wild-card game.
2015 - The New York Yankees clinched an AL wild-card spot, ending a two-year absence from the postseason by beating the Boston Red Sox 4-1.
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