1960s
From BR Bullpen
The 1960s were the decade of expansion in Major League Baseball. In 1960, there were 16 major league teams, eight in each league, the same sixteen franchises that had existed since 1901 (some of them having moved once or twice in the intervening years). By 1969, there were 24 teams, including one located in Canada, the Montreal Expos. The two leagues had been split into eastern and western divisions, and a second tier of playoffs was added in 1969, the League Championship Series.
Montreal was not the only new geographical area to be conquered by Major League Baseball. Three years after the National League had done so, the American League put a foothold on the West Coast in 1961 with the expansion Los Angeles Angels, who were joined in 1968 by the Oakland Athletics, relocated from Kansas City. In the expansion of 1969 both leagues added a third West Coast team, the San Diego Padres in the NL, and the short-lived Seattle Pilots in the AL. The Houston Colt .45's (soon renamed the Houston Astros) and Atlanta Braves became the first teams in the deep south, in 1962 and 1966 respectively, while the Minnesota Twins introduced the fashion of naming a team after a state when they moved from Washington, DC to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for the 1961 season. Two expansion teams, the (new) Washington Senators of 1961 and the Kansas City Royals of 1969 were put in cities that had recently lost their team to a move.
On the playing field, the 1960s are known as the second deadball era, as offensive levels from 1963 to 1968 were the lowest in baseball history since the Deadball era of the 1900s and 1910s. For a pitcher, playing in Dodger Stadium in the mid 1960s was the most favorable context ever, leading to eye-popping numbers by pitchers such as Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale or even Ron Perranoski. Things became so twisted in 1968, the so-called Year of the Pitcher, that Bob Gibson could post a 1.12 ERA over 300+ innings, while Carl Yastrzemski would win the American League batting title with a .301 average, the lowest ever for a batting champion. After the season, rule changes were made to lower the pitching mound, and to restrict the size of the strike zone in order to give some leverage back to hitters.
The 1960s were a decade of great pennant races and World Series. The 1960 World Series between the underdog Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees was decided in favor of Pittsburgh by Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th inning of Game 7. The 1962 National League race came down to a three-game playoff between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants, with the Giants winning and taking the New York Yankees to the seventh game of a World Series whose outcome was in doubt until the last pitch. 1964 saw close races in both leagues, with the Philadelphia Phillies losing out to the St. Louis Cardinals in a phenomenal collapse over the season's last ten days. The ensuing World Series also went to seven games. The 1967 American League saw probably the greatest pennant race in history, with the Incredible Dream Boston Red Sox, propelled by a superhuman performance by Yastrzemski over the stretch drive, prevailing over three other teams in the season's last week-end, and then losing a tightly-fought seven-game World Series to the Cardinals. The Series again went the distance in 1968, while in 1969, the New York Mets shed their image as lovable losers by overtaking the Chicago Cubs and defeating the heavily-favored Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.
Yet, the most enduring images of the decade are the 1961 race between teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees to break Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a season, and the historical ineptitude of the 1962 New York Mets, who seemed to devise a new way to lose each day on their way to a record of 40-120.
| Years | American League | National League | Postseason | Japan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | 1960 AL | 1960 NL | 1960 WS | 1960 in Japan |
| 1961 | 1961 AL | 1961 NL | 1961 WS | 1961 in Japan |
| 1962 | 1962 AL | 1962 NL | 1962 WS | 1962 in Japan |
| 1963 | 1963 AL | 1963 NL | 1963 WS | 1963 in Japan |
| 1964 | 1964 AL | 1964 NL | 1964 WS | 1964 in Japan |
| 1965 | 1965 AL | 1965 NL | 1965 WS | 1965 in Japan |
| 1966 | 1966 AL | 1966 NL | 1966 WS | 1966 in Japan |
| 1967 | 1967 AL | 1967 NL | 1967 WS | 1967 in Japan |
| 1968 | 1968 AL | 1968 NL | 1968 WS | 1968 in Japan |
| 1969 | 1969 AL | 1969 NL | 1969 Postseason | 1969 in Japan |
[edit] Further Reading
- Bill James: "The 1960s", in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, The Free Press, New York, NY, 2001, pp. 249-275.
