1997 World Series

The four year-old expansion team known as the Florida Marlins represented the best (and worst) of parody in Major League baseball. Despite becoming the youngest team to ever win a Fall Classic and the first Wild Card team to earn a world championship, the franchise would be unable to support it's expensive list of mercenary players and would eventually find itself on the verge on contraction in a few short years. Jim Leyland had been the Marlin's biggest purchase after having a series of semi-successful seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The gritty skipper had become disenchanted with the Pirates organization after watching the majority of his biggest players (including Bobby Bonilla and Barry Bonds) dealt to other teams during his tenure in the Steel City, but his farm-team phobia would soon come back to haunt him in the Sunshine State.

The Cleveland Indians had lost the Series in '95 (against the Atlanta Braves), but had regrouped to retake the American League for their fifth championship title. The much-more experienced Indians were heavy favorites going into the contest, but the surprise Marlins would present a major challenge pushing the proposed sweep aside for a seven game marathon.

The opener debuted the first post-season outing at Pro Player Park that had barely begun to show signs of use in its four years of operations. Leyland went with Livan Hernandez against Cleveland standout Orel Hershiser and the righty (along with Dennis Cook, Jay Powell and Robb Nen) responded with a 7-4 victory despite giving up eleven hits. Both teams boasted two home runs a piece with Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome connecting for Cleveland and Moises Alou and Charles Johnson matching for the Marlins. Game 2 evened the contest as the Indians managed six runs to Florida's one thanks in part to Sandy Alomar's blast that set the momentum for the visiting team. The third outing was a slugfest with eleven pitchers surrendering a combined twenty-five runs. Marlin Al Leiter emerged the winner (barely) with support from Gary Sheffield, Darren Daulton and Jim Eisenreich who all nailed home runs of their own. Thome added a second blast to his stats, but it was no match for the National's performance that looked more like batting practice and less like a game.

Game 4 finally tipped the scales in Cleveland's favor after Jaret Wright and Brian Anderson combined on the mound for a 10-3 decision with Ramirez and Matt Williams in support at the plate. The clutch win tied the Series at two-games-apiece and most fans anticipated the contest coming down to the wire. As Hernandez returned for Game 5, he faced six of his rival's counterparts (led by Hershiser) and prevailed over them all in an 8-7 decision that was won in the final inning. Both Alou and Alomar added additional homers to their stats as the heavily outnumbered Hernandez bested the Indians rotation permitting only nine hits to their combined fifteen. Game 6 witnessed even odds on the mound with four pitchers each going toe-to-toe and Chad Ogea kept the Indians alive with a crucial 4-1 win that extended the contest another day.

As both teams took the field for Game 7, the Marlins felt that they had finally earned the respect they deserved. After entering the Series on what some writers called a wing, a check and a prayer, the expansion team silenced their critics by going the distance with a real postseason veteran. The grand finale was one of the most exciting as well as the second longest game in World Series history. Not leaving anything in the bag, both sides exhausted their line-ups and rotations as twelve combined aces went at it for the game-set-and-match. Jaret Wright and Al Leiter held each other in check for seven innings and after their replacements followed suite the game moved into extra-innings. Finally in the eleventh, Florida managed the go-ahead run crowning them as the youngest World Champions in baseball history. The party on the peninsula would soon come to an end though as Leyland and the rest of the Marlins roster was bound for "greener pastures". In fact the following season the defending champions would go 54-108 while finishing in a disappointing fifth place.