on Youtube.

Was this the high point of quality baseball? Maybe. As in the 1980s, there was a mix and balance of hitting and pitching and defense, power and speed. A lot of strategic variety.

The four postseason teams were good and were interesting, the national league ones a little more so.

The highlight for me is the second game of the NL LCS: THE game that began the Braves' dynasty run really.

Steve Avery is now barely noted when Maddox, Glavine and Smoltz are rightly remembered, but Maddox wasn't there yet in 1991 and Avery pitched not one but two of the greatest postseason pitching performances I have ever seen. Also forgotten almost because of the World Series game 7 match-up of Morris and Smoltz, one of the greatest games ever.

But Avery was awesome, and was 21 years old. The highlight of the 1-0 victory in game 2, with the Braves down one game to zero to the Pirates, and ahead thanks to a sharp bouncer by Mark Lemke past third base and a brilliant stop one a grounder up the middle by Lemke to prevent the tying run from scoring, is in the bottom of the 9th, with Avery giving up a leadoff double to Bobby Bonilla and his arm clearly about to fall off, Bobby Cox comes out and basically tells him, " You've done a great, great job kid, I know you're tired, and we have Alejandro Pena ready in the bullpen...


wait for it.....


wait for it....


"...we just want you to pitch to this one left-handed batter before Pena comes in to get the RH hitter behind him. So, I know you're exhausted, just 21, having pitched an 8 inning shutout and your arm is killing you, but just get this one last batter for me, and we'll go to the bullpen, so I am just asking you, dead tired, to...


wait for it...


wait for it...


wait for it....


"...get out...."



....BARRY BONDS (!!!!).

Avery get him. Pena gets the save. The Braves are alive.

David Justice actually arguably blew two games for the Braves with his throw from the OF to 3B in one game and his baserunning Merkle-like mistake in another. But I don't see any evidence to link him with what I wonder about Kelly Gruber (see below).

The AL series is a little less entertaining, but has its moments too. Mike Pagliarulo being a hero arguably for three straight games. Chuck Knoblauch showing what might have been had he not gone haywire in NY, though even then he was a very productive player. But in this series as a rookie he looks like a HOF shoo-in.

I think it's clear that poor Cito Gaston, suffering terribly from a back injury, mismanaged his pitching staff for the Series. And seeing how effective future Yankee David Wells was makes you wonder if he had been one of the starters if the Blue Jays might have had a better chance. Joe Carter's injured play is heart-rending until you recall what the future holds for him in the postseason. That was no comfort in 1991 to him and his team though.

If I were a Jays fan I would have wanted some investigation into Kelly Gruber's play in the Series. Even the looks on his face are weird, and for some reason the camera focused in on him often as if the broadcasters had their own doubts as well...

Great LCS Series. I am going to rewatch the World Series from that year starting tonight.

Kelly Gruber was not popular in Toronto among his teammates. There were rumors they referred to him as "Mrs. Gruber" because he was thought to fake or exaggerate injuries, and just not work hard in general. As for David Wells not starting, Cito Gaston didn't like fat players, which explains the Jays of that era giving short shrift to guys like Wells and Cecil Fielder.

No major league team had ever previously gone from the cellar to the World Series the next season. In `91 both the Twins and the Braves did it. Kirby Puckett stole the show single-handedly in Game 6. Tom Kelly didn't want to pitch Jack Morris on three days' rest in Game 7 but he talked his way into it by pointing out that he would have 150 days' rest before his next start. And he pitched a 10-inning shutout masterpiece. Game 7 had one of the best "off the ball" plays in baseball history when Terry Pendleton hit a long double to the wall in the 8th and Chuck Knoblauch and Greg Gagne decoyed Lonnie Smith, who was running from first, into hesitating by faking a force out. Smith probably would have scored otherwise but he had to hold up at third because he disobeyed the cardinal rule of never looking at the infielders while running.

Kelly Gruber was kind of disagreeable. Didn't he get kicked off a Canadian HOF panel a few years ago for being drunk and obnoxious?

Hadn't heard about the Gruber incident, but I Googled it and it's not pretty. Can't say I'm surprised, though.

I've definitely thought, and heard others say as well, that MLB's most balanced and purest era was from 1988-1992, and 91 was definitely a beautiful example of that.

When you go back and watch those games, you really see the difference in how things are done between then and now. The fundamentals were definitely better back then, and that is something that pains me when watching present day. Then again, the point above about Avery makes me recall that young pitchers were overworked into permanent loss of effectiveness and injury back then as well. So the future can be both good and bad I suppose.

That said, I MISS 1990s MLB. I began watching regularly in 1990, and was hooked from day 1. The nostalgia is off the charts any time I go back to watch those games, or get into any discussion such as this. Thanks for bringing this up IP!

Posted by crazystengel on 4/11/2021 11:35:00 PM (view original):
Hadn't heard about the Gruber incident, but I Googled it and it's not pretty. Can't say I'm surprised, though.

Yuck.

Also, that lack of interest might explain how he went from a great season in 1990 to being washing up and out of the league three years later.