Kahrl: Sizing up the top World Series ‘web gems’ in the last 50 years

From SABR member Christina Kahrl at ESPN.com on October 25, 2013:

There’s something ironic about talking about some of the best plays in World Series history when the key feature of the first two games of this year’s Fall Classic have been the defensive miscues that decided the outcome. But as quickly as we’ve judged Pete Kozma’s Game 1 or Craig Breslow’s Game 2, we’ve also seen Carlos Beltran’s slam-saving wall-banger in the opener and Kozma’s slick, bare-handed pickup in Game 2. At this level, it’s in almost anybody’s power to deliver an indelible moment to add to October’s gem-spackled history.

Baseball’s multicentury scope almost automatically defies you to shave any such list to a top 10. There are plays with their place in legend: Willie Mays’ Game 1 snag for the Giants in 1954, or Bill Wambsganss’ unassisted triple play in the Tribe’s backbreaking Game 5 win over the Brooklyn Robins (or Dodgers) in 1920 to help untie a series they’d ultimately win. If you’re going to peg an all-time best World Series, Mays would be the huge favorite to top any poll or list, because as grainy as the footage might be, it’s more than we have on Wambsganss. How fair a choice is that, really?

So let’s put those two incomparable moments in their corner of baseball Valhalla and talk about the best from the past 50 years. It’s a good, round number that incorporates the full spread of divisional-era play.

Read the full article here: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/41804/best-recent-ws-gems-show-off-varied-skills



Originally published: October 28, 2013. Last Updated: October 28, 2013.