The Cincinnati Reds defeated the Boston Red Sox in what some are considering the best World Series ever played.
Sparky Anderson can at last call his Cincinnati Reds “the best darn team in baseball.” But if the Reds are No. 1, the Boston Red Sox are the closest “second” you’ll find.
It took six knock-down ball games plus nine innings of the deciding seventh for the Reds to finally win their first World Series championship since 1940. They won the “big one” in their own style — on their last at-bats.
“There are 27 outs allotted to us in a game,” shouted Joe Morgan, whose ninth inning bloop single to center scored Ken Griffey with the winning run. “Nobody’s got to tell us how or when we’ve got to use ‘em.”
Managers Sparky Anderson and Darrell Johnson used a record 52 pitchers in the Series and it was 23-year-old lefty Will McEnaney who was the last — getting the last three Red Sox out in the ninth.
“It was great,” said Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans, whose sensational over-the-shoulder catch had saved the sixth game. “We gave it all we had.”