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It would be a long time, most observers agreed in late October 1991, before baseball would see anything like the just-concluded World Series between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves. After all, the '91 fall classic provided high drama -- five of the seven games were decided by one run and Games 6 and 7 went into extra innings -- and was fiercely contested from the outset.
With their sport suffering in television ratings and public-opinion polls, the baseball gods apparently decided there was precious little time to waste in terms of offering the sporting public another blockbuster World Series. So, just one year after the Twins-Braves donnybrook, it was back to big-time theatrics in baseball's showcase.
While the 1992 World Series between the Braves and Toronto Blue Jays might have fallen just short of equaling the 1991 Series for sheer excitement, it was real close. Thisclose.
This time, the Series participants engaged in four one-run games out of the six -- and the decisive game was an 11-inning thrill-o-rama that for taut drama would be difficult to top. The never-say-die Braves, who captured the National League pennant with a three-run, ninth-inning rally against Pittsburgh, showed similar resolve in Game 6 of the 1992 Series.
Down three games to two but buoyed by the fact the Series had returned to Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, the Braves nonetheless entered the bottom of the ninth inning staring at a 2-1 deficit. Plus, hard-throwing Tom Henke, who had 34 saves in the regular season, was coming on to pitch for Toronto, whose bullpen was working on a scoreless streak of 15 1/3 innings.
Jeff Blauser led off the ninth with a single off Henke, and Damon Berryhill advanced him to second with a bunt. Pinch-hitter Lonnie Smith drew a walk, putting the potential winning run on base.
Another pinch-hitter, Francisco Cabrera, tried to match his NL Championship Series heroics -- it was his two-run single that enabled the Braves to sew up the NL flag -- and he sent a scorching line drive to left field. Candy Maldonado, whose leadoff homer in the fourth inning had broken a 1-1 tie, at first charged Cabrera's smash but then made a hasty retreat. Leaping into the air, Maldonado speared the ball for the second out of the inning.
That left matters up to Otis Nixon, who fell behind in the count at 0-2. Nixon sliced a single between second and third, with Blauser racing across the plate with the tying run. On the throw home, Smith took third and Nixon motored into second. The series-squaring run was just 90 feet away for Atlanta, but Ron Gant flied out to center fielder Devon White.
It was White who was hit by a Charlie Leibrandt pitch with one out in the 11th, and he moved to second on Roberto Alomar's single. After Joe Carter flied out, Dave Winfield, yet to collect an extra-base hit in 43 World Series at-bats, picked an ideal time to get No. 1 when he followed with a sharply hit grounder down the left-field line that went for a two-run double.
An optimist might claim that the Braves had the Jays right where they wanted them -- that is, Toronto was up by two runs, just as Pittsburgh had been in the climactic inning of the NL playoff finale. And sure enough, Atlanta, down by a 4-2 count, began to stir in the bottom of the 11th.
Blauser led off the frame with his second straight clutch single, and Berryhill reached base on shortstop Alfredo Griffin's misplay of a ground ball. After Rafael Belliard's sacrifice left runners on second and third, pinch-hitter Brian Hunter came through with a run-scoring groundout.
Now clinging to a precarious 4-3 lead, the Jays brought in righthander Mike Timlin, their seventh pitcher of the night. With the potential tying run at third and the crowd roaring, the fleet Nixon tried to bunt his way on base (and, at the same time, get the baserunner home). But Timlin hustled off the mound, grabbed the ball and threw out Nixon at
first base. End of threat. End of inning. End of game. End of Series.
For Toronto and all of Canada, it was a special moment. Never before had a team from north of the border played in a World Series, much less won one. But the Blue Jays, weary of postseason setbacks, finally clicked in the AL playoffs (against Oakland) and the World Series, winning each round with four victories in the last five games after dropping Game 1.
Toronto fell in the opener of the '92 World Series, 3-1, when Atlanta's Tom Glavine tossed a four-hitter and Berryhill hammered a three-run homer. The Blue Jays got even with a pulsating 5-4 victory in Game 2. Utilityman Ed Sprague blasted a pinch two-run homer off baseball's all-time saves leader, Jeff Reardon, with one out in the ninth.
"I didn't see (it leave the park)," Sprague said. "When I looked up, it was right in the lights. Then when I got to first, I saw Deion's (left fielder Deion Sanders) back and I put my hands in the air. I knew we had the lead."
Then, in Game 3 with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth inning of a 2-2 game, Maldonado drove a Reardon pitch over the head of drawn-in center fielder Nixon. Jays 3, Braves 2.
Righthander Reardon's consecutive failures rendered him persona non grata in the Braves' bullpen. Obtained in late August from Boston, Reardon, the man with 357 saves, didn't appear in the Series after Game 3 -- not even when lefthander Leibrandt went up against righthanded power hitters Carter and Winfield in the decisive 11th inning of Game 6.
White stole part of the show in Game 3, the first Series contest played in Canada, by making a sensational catch against the center-field wall. With Sanders and Terry Pendleton on base in a scoreless game, Atlanta's Dave Justice unloaded a drive to deep center over White's head. White raced to the wall, leaped and made an amazing backhanded grab against the 400-foot sign.
The catch nearly was turned into a triple play as Pendleton passed Sanders on the basepaths for an automatic out and Sanders just missed being tagged out in a rundown by Jays third baseman Kelly Gruber,
It was Gruber who had tied the game at 2-2 in the eighth inning. Trying to shake out of an 0-for-23 postseason slump, Gruber socked a homer to left off Braves starter Steve Avery. "You're only as good as your last at-bat," Gruber said.
Toronto pushed its winning streak to three games in Game 4. Lefthander Jimmy Key and relievers Duane Ward and Henke limited Atlanta to five hits in a 2-1 triumph that also featured a bases-empty homer by Blue Jays catcher Pat Borders (the Series' Most Valuable Player) and an RBI single by White.
But the ever-resilient Braves, down three games to one, scratched back for a 7-2 victory in Game 5 as the veteran Smith, guilty of a costly baserunning blunder in the final game of the 1991 World Series, belted a bases-loaded homer to right off Jack Morris.
Then came Game 6 and Winfield's telling blow.
Derisively called "Mr. May" (as opposed to Reggie Jackson's "Mr. October" tag) by Yankees owner George Steinbrenner because of his poor performance with the Yanks in the 1981 World Series (one hit in 22 at-bats), Winfield could hardly contain himself in the Blue Jays' dressing room.
"Man, this is sweet," he said after lashing his World Series-winning hit. "I tell you, I'm the oldest man in the room and the guy who took the longest to get a World Series championship, but there's not a person that's happier than me."
The Game 6 setback was Atlanta's fourth one-run defeat, with Toronto winning three of those games in its last at-bat -- twice against Reardon and once against Leibrandt, who had been the victim of Kirby Puckett's
game-winning homer for Minnesota in Game 6 of the 1991 Series.
World Series Moment:
