Each year, the primary focus in any professional sport is the race for a championship. Every sport has their pinnacle trophy, but none is as coveted as baseball's World Series. An event as important as any holiday on the calendar, it is as traditional as Thanksgiving, as patriotic as the Fourth of July and as anticipated as Christmas morning.
Over the last century, the World Series has been woven into the fabric of America's culture evolving far beyond a mere baseball tournament and what often stands out the most — in both good and bad memories — are the final outs (and walkoff wins). Research by Baseball Almanac.
"The young, thrifty Marlins made the Yankees look old and overpaid. By the final game they had Andy Pettitte shouting angrily into his glove and Jeter muttering to himself. And when Beckett tagged Jorge Posada for the final out, the Marlins became the first visiting team to celebrate a World Series title at Yankee Stadium since the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1981." - Wine, Steven. Sportswriter. Yahoo! Sports. 25 October 2003.
From the 1903 World Series through the 2023 World Series, fifteen hall of fame baseball players have made the final out in a World Series and twenty-three hall of fame ballplayers have gotten the final out.
In the Final Outs of the World Series chart above, we wrote "See Fast Facts at bottom of page" several times. This is because eleven World Series have ended with the winning team's last at bat. Here is that classic data set:
World Series | Got A Sac Fly | Scored The Run | Gave Up The Sac Fly |
1912 World Series | Larry Gardner | Steve Yerkes | Christy Mathewson |
World Series | Got The Hit (Type) | Scored The Run | Gave Up The Hit |
1924 World Series | Earl McNeely (2B) | Muddy Ruel | Jack Bentley |
1927 World Series | n/a (Wild Pitch) | Earle Combs |
Johnny Miljus |
1929 World Series | Bing Miller (2B) | Al Simmons |
Pat Malone |
1935 World Series | Goose Goslin (1B) | Mickey Cochrane | Larry French |
1953 World Series | Billy Martin (1B) | Hank Bauer | Clem Labine |
1960 World Series |
Bill Mazeroski (HR) | Bill Mazeroski | Ralph Terry |
1991 World Series | Gene Larkin (1B) | Dan Gladden | Alejandro Pena |
1993 World Series | Joe Carter (HR) | Paul Molitor | Mitch Williams |
1997 World Series | Edgar Renteria (1B) | Craig Counsell | Charles Nagy |
2001 World Series | Luis Gonzalez (1B) | Jay Bell | Mariano Rivera |
Did you know that Lave Cross was the only member of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders (single season record for games lost) to play in a World Series, and he also was the first final out in the first World Series an American League team lost?