WORLD SERIES WALKOFF GAMES

All this continuing parity (though it's slipping a bit in the AL, what with the A's and the Angels pushing over the .600 mark...) has given us an ever-so-slight case of ADD. Or, to rework a very old phrase: in late July, a not-so-young man's fancy turns to the World Series.

So we went to Forman et fils, where you can do a lot more than Bill James seems to think you can, and we teased out all of the World Series walkoff games. (We left out the other playoff games, but at some point we might be induced to go back and look at them.)

Now we haven't had the time to go back and see if the walkoff winners in these games (aside from the six times that the walkoff game came in the final game: the seventh--or, in one instance--the eighth game) actually win the World Series after those heroics; we hope to have some time for that presently and we will follow up.

The handy chart (at right) will show you in what year these games occurred and in what game(s) they occurred in those given years.

As you'll doubtless remember, the 1991 World Series was especially prolific in walkoff games, with a total of four. 2001 was right behind with three. Three other World Series had two walkoff games: 1924; 1975--including the Carlton Fisk homer in Game 6; and 1988-- one being the Kirk Gibson homer in Game 1.

We don't show it in the chart, but Game 3 is the most prolific in terms of walkoff games, with 13. Game  6 is next, with 11. Game 5 is the least prolific, with just three walkoffs.