Trivia Teaser
Can you name the only MLB team to win the World Series after being outscored by the opposition in the regular season?
Photo by Shemp65 
The only team to be outscored during the regular season and go on to win the World Series was the 1987 Twins – one of MLB’s unlikeliest World Series Champions. Consider just a few of the circumstances:
- The Twins had finished in sixth place, 20-games under .500 the previous season – when they were outscored by 98 runs (741-839).
- In 1987, they were outscored by 20 tallies (786-806), but produced an 85-77 record, good enough to top the American League West.
- The Twins has ended the 1987 season on a five-game losing streak.
- In the American League Championship Series they faced the 98-64 Detroit Tigers – who had outscored their opponents by 161 runs; had beaten the Twins eight times (versus four losses) during the regular season; had outscored the Twins 83-58 in head-to head matchups; and had ended the regular season a four-game winning streak.
- The Twins opponent in the World Series was the 95-67 St. Louis Cardinals, who had outscored their opponents by 105 runs (798-693).
The 1987 World Series saw the first-ever indoor Fall Classic contests – at Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.
At the time, the Twins 85-77 record represented the worst regular-season record ever by a World Series Champion. In the 2006 season, the 83-78 St. Louis Cardinals eclipsed that mark topping the 95-67 Tigers in the World Series.
There’s no place like dome.
The 1987 Twins had a 29-52 road record, the fifth-worst in MLB that season – but they offset that with a 56-25 home record (the best in baseball) at the Metrodome. Then, in the World Series, the home team won every game – and the Twins had four home games.
It’s a Smalley World After all
Game Seven of the 1987 World Series was played on October 25 – the 35th birthday of Twins SS/3B Roy Smalley III. It was also the final game of Smalley’s 13-season MLB career. He retired as part of a World Series winning squad – not a bad way to celebrate your birthday.
HOW THE GAME HAS CHANGED
The very first World Series night game as played on Wednesday, October 13, 1971, in Pittsburgh – with the Pirates topping the Orioles 4-3. That’s right, prior to 1971, every World Series game was lit by the sun.
The 1987 World Series’ Game Six, played in the Metrodome, is the last scheduled World Series Day game – although, being indoors, the fans did not enjoy blue skies and sunshine. The game, however, did enjoy prime-time TV exposure.
GOOD DAY SUNSHINE
World Series Baseball, old schoolers say,
Was made to be played under blue skies and autumn sun.
In fact, the Fall Classic didn’t see a night-time start
Until October of 1971.
It was a prime-time slide from there, two night matches in ’72;
Three in ’73 and then a total of four in ’74.
And World Series baseball continued to get darker,
Five night games in ’75 – and the future held even more.
Now the count for World Series day games
Has dropped to the lowly sum of none.
1987 was, sadly, the last October Classic
When we could watch even one.
Even that single day game in 1987
Was not exactly a sunlit ride.
It was played in Minnesota’s Metrodome,
Where the day could not get inside.
Now, 31 years of Series games
Have been played without blue skies and bright sun.
It’s been all moonlight heavens and halogen
Lighting the fields where championships are won.
Of course, TV advertising
Has proven to be a boon.
But I’d still like to see some Series baseball
Under the sun and not the moon.
For an old school fan like me,
if wishes could come true,
A few weekend Series games
Would feature skies, not black, but blue.
I tweet baseball @DavidBBRT
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Member: Society for American Baseball Research; The Baseball Reliquary; The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
