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The First Pitch: October 1, 2025
Returning to Cleveland and the scene of the crime where, a week earlier, he imploded in the sixth inning, Detroit ace Tarik Skubal dominates in his rematch with the Guardians, striking out a career-high 14 in a 2-1 Game One victory as the first-round Wild Card Series begins. A safety squeeze bunt in the seventh from Zach McKinstry breaks a 1-1 tie and scores the go-ahead (and eventual game-winning) run for the Tigers, giving Skubal the opportunity to earn the win; he pitches 7.2 innings, allowing a run on three hits.
Skubal’s 14 K’s tie the Tigers postseason record previous achieved by Joe Coleman in the 1972 ALCS.
In the sixth postseason series featuring long-time archrivals in the Yankees and Red Sox, Boston ace Garrett Crochet makes his first postseason outing a memorable one, allowing a run on four hits through 7.2 innings in the Red Sox’ 3-1 Game One win at Yankee Stadium. Crochet retires the last 17 Yankees he faces, and throws a career-high 117 pitches—with his last one being the fastest he’s thrown all season, a 100-MPH called strike to retire Austin Wells.
Closer Aroldis Chapman, asked to earn his first four-out save of the year, relieves Crochet and gets into big trouble to start the bottom of the ninth when the Yankees’ first three batters load the bases on singles. Impressively, the 37-year-old Chapman gets out of it; he strikes out Giancarlo Stanton, induces an innocuous fly out from Jazz Chisholm Jr., then gets Trent Grisham to whiff for the final out, securing the win.
In Chicago, the Cubs squeak past the Padres, 3-1, on the strength of back-to-back homers in the fifth from Seiya Suzuki and Carson Kelly to take the first game of their Wild Card Series. Cubs starter Matthew Boyd, so good (12-1) at Wrigley Field this year, is lifted after just 58 pitches, having allowed a run over 4.1 innings; what seems at first to be a head-scratching moment turns out to be solid strategy from manager Craig Counsell, as four Chicago relievers will group up to retire all 14 San Diego batters they face.
It’s the fifth straight game in which Suzuki has gone deep, going back to the end of the regular season. While that matches the franchise mark shared by five other players, Suzuki’s five won’t count because one of the homers took place in a playoff game. However, he could still officially tie the mark if goes yard in his first game of the 2026 season.
In the one Wild Card Series opener that isn’t a taut thriller, the Dodgers clobber the Reds at Los Angeles, 10-5, behind five home runs—including two each from Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernandez. Ohtani’s first blast, leading off the first, is a 117-MPH launch off a 100-MPH fastball from Cincinnati starter Hunter Greene—who gives up three homers overall among five runs over three short innings of work.
The Angels will not bring back either manager Ron Washington—who left the ballclub in July to undergo triple bypass surgery—or his interim replacement Ray Montgomery for the 2026 season. The 73-year-old Washington, who earlier led the Rangers to back-to-back AL pennants in 2010-11, was in the midst of his second year at the helm with the Angels when he had to step away; at the time, he did not reveal the reason for his departure.
It Was Whatever-Something Years Ago Today
1903: The first World Series game in the modern era takes place as the Pirates jump on Cy Young for four first-inning runs—all with two outs—and glide to a 7-3 win over the Americans (Red Sox) before 16,000 at Boston. The Americans will bounce back to take the series, five games to three.
1919: The World Series between the White Sox and Reds begins with Chicago pitcher Eddie Cicotte plunking Morrie Rath in the back. It’s a signal to gamblers that the fix is on as a part of the White Sox’ roster is intending to lose games on purpose for money.
1932: Babe Ruth smashes his most discussed home run, one against the Cubs in Game Three of the World Series in which he appears to point toward center field beforehand. Whether the home run was actually a called shot is debated to this day, but what is certain is that the Yankees, behind a pair of homers each from Ruth and Lou Gehrig, defeat the Cubs at Chicago, 7-5.
1944: The St. Louis Browns win their one and only pennant in 52 years before moving to Baltimore, defeating the visiting Yankees before a rare sellout at Sportsman’s Park, 4-2.
1961: Roger Maris blasts his record-setting 61st home run on the last day of the season, accounting for the lone run in the Yankees’ 1-0 win over Baltimore. A crowd of 23,000 shows up at Yankee Stadium, knowing that commissioner Ford Frick—a former ghostwriter for Babe Ruth, whose record Maris breaks—is intent on placing a “distinctive mark” alongside Maris’ place in the record book because the young Yankee had 162 games to beat the mark, whereas Ruth only got 154 to set his.
1970: Philadelphia’s Connie Mack Stadium, which opened 61 years earlier as Shibe Park, hosts its final baseball game as the Phillies defeat the Montreal Expos in 10 innings, 2-1. Anticipating potential mayhem from souvenir-seeking fans, the Phillies gave away 5,000 wooden seat slats; the move backfires, as the slats are used to help pry away actual seats.
2004: The Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki collects three hits in an 8-3 victory over the Rangers at Seattle and breaks George Sisler’s all-time record for hits in one season; he’ll finish the campaign with 262 on a .372 batting average.
2007: In one of the greatest games in recent times, the white-hot Rockies defeat the visiting Padres in a thrilling 9-8, 13-inning contest to advance to the postseason. The raucous game is complete with numerous lead changes and controversial moments—including the winning run scored by the Rockies’ Matt Holliday which, under today’s video review process, might have been overturned because Holliday appeared to never touch home plate.
You Say It’s Your Birthday
Happy birthday to:
Miami middle infielder Otto Lopez (27)
Mets center fielder Cedric Mullins (31), 2021 All-Star
San Diego infielder Xander Bogaerts (33), four-time All-Star; two-time collector of 100+ RBIs
Giants pitcher Robbie Ray (34), southpaw pitcher of 12 seasons; 2021 AL Cy Young winner
Matt Cain (41), solid but luckless pitcher of undeserving 104-118 record; threw first perfect game in Giants history; three-time All-Star; 4-2 record, 2.10 ERA over eight postseason starts
Roberto Kelly (61), Panamanian-born outfielder and two-time All-Star; career .290 batting average
Mark McGwire (62), titanic slugger of 583 home runs, including 70 in 1998 to break Roger Maris’ all-time mark; 1987 Rookie of the Year; 12-time All-Star; reputation (and Hall-of-Fame chances) reduced to shreds in 2005 Congressional hearing in which he refused to answer whether he took steroids
Jeff Reardon (70) closer of 367 saves; four-time All-Star; saved all four wins without allowing a run for 1987 world champion Twins
Rod Carew (80), Hall-of-Fame hit machine with seven batting titles and career .328 batting average; 3,053 hits, 353 steals; All-Star in his first 18 of 19 seasons; 1977 AL MVP, when he flirted with .400
Born on this date:
Hal Naragon (1928), back-up catcher from 1951-62; TGG interview subject
Shameless Link of the Day
Look later today for the October edition of the Comebacker. Relive the frantic finishes to the regular season, and our picks for the Best & Worst of the Month that was.
Book Review: “Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame: A Collection of Biographical Essays”
Edited by Louis H. Schiff and Robert M. Jarvis
One of the things I’ve always loved about baseball literature is its expansive and diverse nature of subjects. For every book that focuses on, say, the storied but familiar history of the New York Yankees, there’s another that digs deeper into the weeds and nudges you with a subject that leaves you thinking, “Huh—I didn’t know that.”
Such a book is Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame: A Collection of Biographical Essays. Published by MacFarland Books—the North Carolina-based baseball book factory—this collection of articles overseen by retired judge Louis Schiff and law professor Robert Jarvis is a meticulously researched book that focuses on a fascinating collection of 11 people who played, managed or ran the game of baseball and, at some point in their lives, took up law. Fun fact, as revealed in this book: Eight managers in the history of major league baseball acquired law degrees—and six of them are in the Hall of Fame. All six are profiled in this book.
What makes Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame such an intriguing read is how these 11 people used their law experience to great benefit during their time in baseball. Branch Rickey, almost overqualified for a life in law school, used his lawyerly instincts to trailblaze his way through baseball history, perfecting the art of the farm system, overhauling failing franchises and, of course, shattering baseball’s race barrier by bringing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Larry MacPhail, less the law prodigy than Rickey, nevertheless leveraged what he learned into a far more successful calling as a businessman known for turning companies (and major league teams) around. Walter O’Malley fused his knowledge of the law with his father’s past as a corrupt New York City politician to become the man that tactfully stole the Dodgers from Brooklyn. And Tony La Russa, failed major league ballplayer, eagerly pursued a law degree to empower his stature as a rising manager—first in the minors, then at the major league level where he collected more wins than anyone not named Connie Mack.
Some of those featured in the book are not surprising for their inclusion, like O’Malley or Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Federal judge turned baseball’s first commissioner. One unexpected subject is Hughie Jennings, who from past reading always struck me as the whoop-it-up baseball character who would have least thought of a career in law. Less ironic but still surprising is Miller Huggins, manager of the Yankees during the 1920s who, as a child, was encouraged by his working-class father-in-law to get a law degree because of his penchant for arguing—and was fortunate enough to be taught by, among others, future President William Howard Taft. There’s also Jim O’Rourke, the man who struck the first-ever hit in National League history whose lofty use of “five-syllable words”—which would have made even George Will blush—gained him the nickname “Orator,” lending himself all too naturally to a post-baseball career in law.
The 10 writers who contribute to Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame are not lightweights; they’re highly experienced lawyers, professors and judges who know their craft—and they know their baseball, too. This double-barreled knowledge results in a smooth, self-assured narrative, not delving too deep into law linguistics that might wear down the many laymen among us (to which I count myself as one). And while most of the authors play it buttoned up and refrain from overt opinion, Elizabeth Marquez’s write-up on Bowie Kuhn stands out for her critical views of the former commissioner, writing that he “often…turned out to be on the wrong side of history” with his rulings and opinions.
Some readers adverse to long books may feel compelled to back away from the 253 pages offered in Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but nearly half of the content consists of footnotes and addenda, greatly shortening the core writing while being made available as an option for further digestion of the facts. The book can be useful for reference, or simply enjoyed as 11 well-written bios on some of baseball’s most influential men, and how their appetite for the law helped mold their place in the game.
Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame can be purchased from MacFarland Books, Amazon, and other online book sellers.
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