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Look back at: Divisional Playoffs |
League Championship
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Monday, October 23
Useless facts from the World Series
By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
It's time for a Game 2 edition of the World Series Useless Information Dept.:
Whether the Yankees go on to threepeat or not, they've already done something just one other team in history has done. This is the third straight year they've won the first two games of the World Series. Only other team to do that: the 1937-38-39 Yankees.
From the ninth inning of Game 1 until Todd Zeile singled in the seventh inning of Game 2, the Mets went through a stretch in which they got one hit in 33 plate appearances (1-for-32, 13 strikeouts, no walks, one hit batter). Not good.
Timo Perez feat of the night: He now has gotten more at-bats for the Mets in this postseason (50) than he got in the regular season (49). Hard to do.
So what were the odds of Mike Hampton giving up a home run to Scott Brosius? Hampton was the hardest National League starter to take deep (just 10 gopherballs in 217 2/3 innings). And Brosius hadn't hit a home run since Sept. 11. Before Brosius bopped one around the foul pole in left in the second inning, Hampton had served up just two home runs since July 27 -- one to Ellis Burks in San Francisco on Oct. 4, the other to the Phillies' Scott Rolen on Sept. 8.
Not to imply that these Subway Series games last longer than they used to. But Game 1 of this World Series lasted only 38 fewer minutes (4:51) than Games 3, 4 and 5 of the 1922 Series combined. Times of those three, which involved the Yankees and the Giants: 1:48, 1:41 and 2:00.
And those 4 hours and 51 minutes these teams played was one hour and 25 minutes longer than any previous Subway Series game in history. Previous longest: Game 2 of the 1956 Series, a 13-8 game that lasted 3:26.
Game 1 was the 71st Subway Series game in history. Exactly two of the previous 70 lasted longer than 3:10. And none of the previous 70 started after dark, either. Boy, those were the days.
Game 1 was only the third 12-inning game in a World Series since The Carlton Fisk Game (Game 6, 1975). The other two were Game 1 of the 1977 Series -- a Don Sutton-Don Gullett duel that turned into another 4-3 game won by the Yankees; and Game 3 of the 1991 Series -- a crazy Braves-Twins game in which the teams used 42 players and 13 pitchers, and Twins manager Tom Kelly ran through so many players, he had to use pitcher Rick Aguilera to pinch-hit.
The only longer World Series game in innings than this year's opener was Game 2 of the 1916 Series -- a 14-inning "marathon" between the Red Sox and Dodgers. A couple of notable pieces of trivia from that game: 1) starting pitchers Sherry Smith (Dodgers) and George Herman Ruth (Red Sox) both went all the way, and 2) the time of game was 2 hours, 32 minutes -- meaning it lasted a mere 139 minutes shorter than this one.
Game 1 of this Series was also the longest Subway Series game in innings. The previous longest was an 11-inning Dodgers-Yankees game in 1952. Carl Erskine won that one for Brooklyn, 6-5, retiring the last 19 Yankees in a row.
Finally, Al Leiter did something Saturday he never did during the entire regular season: He gave up hits to two left-handed hitters -- David Justice and Paul O'Neill -- in the same inning. Of course, Leiter allowed just 14 hits to left-handed hitters all season. Which averages closer to two a month than two an inning.
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