In a year in which so much baseball history has been called into question, it seems oddly fitting that the Fall Classic will be played by two of the game's oldest franchises: the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers. It is, in fact, their third match in the World Series, the teams having split the previous two meetings, both 7-game affairs (St. Louis won in 1934, Detroit in 1968). Detroit, curiously, has had a superior regular-season record each time. The Cards managed to get past that first 101-win team, which was stocked with Hall of Famers (Greenberg, Gosling, Gerringer, Cochrane) on the strength of the filial pitching tandem of Dizzy and Daffy Dean, who went 4-1 while allowing but 7 runs in 44 innings. Things pretty much reversed in 68, when Mickey Lolich (3-0, 1.67 era in 27 ip) propelled the Tigers to victory over a Cardinal team spilked with greats (Gibson, Brock, Cepeda, Flood). Tim McCarver caught for that St. Louis team, so you can epect to hear plenty about it during the broadcasts.
Should be fun. We'll be rooting for our AL bretheren. Go Tigers.
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