10 greatest pennant chases in Major League Baseball history
4. 1949: AL and NL Both Decided on Final Day
Because a Major League Baseball season is so long, it’s very rare for a playoff race to be decided on the final day on the regular season. It’s even more rare for two pennant chases to go all the way to the wire, yet that’s what happened in the fall of 1949.
It took the entire 154-game schedule for both the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees to emerge as the pennant winners in the National League and American League, respectively. The Dodgers never led by more than three games in the standings at any point in the season, and they never trailed by more than four games – marking for one of the tightest regular season races in Major League history.
The St. Louis Cardinals spent more than a month in first place, but lost four games in a row from September 25 to October 3 to fall behind when it mattered most. With a 9-7 victory over Philadelphia on the final day of the season, the Dodgers avoided a one-game tiebreaker and earned their spot in the World Series.
The Yankees were on the other side of the spectrum. New York took sole possession of first place in the American League on April 21, after moving to 3-0 on the season, and held the top spot until falling behind the hated Boston Red Sox on September 25.
In the season’s final two games, and with Boston clinging to a one-game lead, the Yankees and Red Sox met at Yankee Stadium with the AL pennant at stake. New York swept the series to avoid an embarrassing collapse and went on to beat the Dodgers in five games in the World Series.
Next: 1978 American League East