1969 in baseball

Expansion

Four expansion teams joined Major League Baseball for this season: the San Diego Padres, the Kansas City Royals, the Seattle Pilots, and the first MLB team in Canada, the Montreal Expos. To accommodate the additional teams, the two leagues were split into two divisions of East and West. For the first time, extra post-season playoff series were added prior to the World Series, at this juncture best-of-five series between the East and West division leaders in each league.

Champions

Major League Baseball
Main article: 1969 Major League Baseball season

The most notable part of the 1969 season were the Miracle Mets

  League Championship Series
(ALCS, NLCS)		 World Series
                 
East Baltimore 3  
West Minnesota 0  
    AL Baltimore 1
  NL NY Mets 4
East NY Mets 3
West Atlanta 0  

Other champions

Awards and honors

MLB statistical leaders
Statistic American League National League
AVGRod Carew MIN.332Pete Rose CIN.348
HRHarmon Killebrew MIN49Willie McCovey SF45
RBIHarmon Killebrew MIN140Willie McCovey SF126
WinsDenny McLain DET24Tom Seaver NYM25
ERADick Bosman WSH2.19Juan Marichal SF2.10
KsSam McDowell CLE279Ferguson Jenkins CHC273

The save is introduced as an official statistic this year. Ron Perranoski leads the majors with 31.[1]

Major league baseball final standings

Events

January–March
  • January 2 – In response to major-league owners' continued refusal to increase their contributions to the players' pension fund commensurately with their television broadcast revenues, the Major League Baseball Players Association urges players not to sign any new contracts.
  • January 21 – Stan Musial and Roy Campanella are voted into the Hall of Fame by BBWAA members.
  • January 22 – The Expos trade Donn Clendenon and Jesús Alou to the Houston Astros for Rusty Staub. The Astros had recently hired Clendenon's former Pittsburgh Pirates manager Harry Walker, with whom Clendenon had a personality clash, to steer their club and Clendenon refused to report to his new team. The Expos and Astros worked out a new deal, and Clendenon joined the Expos on April 19.
  • February 2 – Pitchers Stan Coveleski and Waite Hoyt are voted into the Hall of Fame by the Special Veterans Committee.
  • February 17 – Spring training opens without 400 players who have decided to boycott it over the pension-fund impasse.
  • February 26 – The boycott ends when owners accept most of the players' terms.
  • March 1 – Mickey Mantle announces his retirement.
  • March 16 – A plane crash in Maracaibo, Venezuela kills 155 people including first baseman Carlos Santeliz, the Venezuelan League Rookie of the Year, on his way to the Braves' spring training camp. Another fatality is pitcher Látigo Chávez, en route to the Giants' camp. Chávez (1-0) was 12–5 with Double-A Waterbury in the Eastern League (1967), including seven shutouts. Pitcher Pablo Torrealba was also scheduled to take the flight, but missed it and took a later one.

April–June

July
  • July 8 – With three runs in the 9th inning, the New York Mets beat the Chicago Cubs 4-3, cutting Chicago's lead in the National League East to four games. Chicago's Ron Santo rips into center fielder Don Young for two misplays in the outfield; Santo apologizes the next day for criticizing Young, who had left early and didn't take the team bus. Santo is later booed in his first game back at Wrigley Field.
  • July 9 – With one out in the ninth inning, the Chicago Cubs' Jim Qualls lines a single to left center to break up Tom Seaver's perfect game bid. The New York Mets' 4-0 victory over the Cubs at Shea Stadium would go down in history as "Tom Seaver's Imperfect Game."
  • July 13 – In the third meeting between the two brothers, the San Diego Padres' Joe Niekro defeats his younger brother Phil Niekro of the Atlanta Braves 1–0; Joe is 2-1 over Phil.
  • July 23 – At R.F.K. Memorial Stadium, Willie McCovey hits two home runs as the National League beats the American League 9–3, for its seventh straight All-Star Game win. McCovey is named MVP, with his two homers tying an All-Star Game record set earlier by Arky Vaughan (1941), Ted Williams (1946) and Al Rosen (1954). The game was postponed by one day after heavy rains in the Washington, D.C. area. When the AL's Don Mincher pinch-hit in the fourth inning, he became a trivia answer: the only Seattle Pilot to appear in an All-Star game.
  • July 26 – Randy Hundley drives in all three Cub runs, including a walk-off single in the 11th inning, to lead the Cubs to a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Wrigley Field.
  • July 27 - In the most dominant shutout in Orioles history, the Baltimore Orioles defeat the Chicago White Sox, 17-0 at Memorial Stadium. Jim Hardin pitches a 2-hit shutout, walking none and hits a 3-run home run in the bottom of the fourth off of Gary Bell to make it 13-0, the Orioles would plate 4 more runs and belt out 20 hits, all Oriole starters hit safely. In Baltimore's 100th game of the season, they stand at 69-31 and have a 12.5 game lead over the Detroit Tigers in the newly formed American League East.
  • July 29 – Willie McCovey hits his 300th career home run helping the San Francisco Giants beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-2.
  • July 30 – After losing the first game of a doubleheader with the Houston Astros 16-3, the New York Mets were down 7-0 in the third inning when Johnny Edwards hit a double to Cleon Jones in left field to make the score 8-0. Mets manager Gil Hodges emerged from the dugout, walked past Nolan Ryan on the mound, and walked all the way out to left field. A few minutes later, Hodges walked back to the dugout, with Jones a few paces behind him, and replaced Jones in left with Ron Swoboda. According to Jones, he pointed down to the water filled turf. Hodges then said that something must be wrong with Jones's ankle and pulled him for that reason (Jones was kept out of the line-up for the next two games, and used only as a pinch hitter in the two after that). Newspapers report that Jones was removed for failure to hustle, and Hodges decided to do so publicly to show that he would not tolerate lack of effort on his team, even from its star player.

August
  • August 1 - Willie Davis of the Los Angeles Dodgers began his 31-game hit streak this day. Coming into this game Willie was batting .260 - by the time the streak ended on September 4 Willie was batting .318 - during the streak Willie hit .459 and broke the Dodgers franchise record of 29 games set by Zack Wheat . Willie Davis 31 game hit streak was the 3rd longest in N.L. history and as of 2017 is still the Dodgers record.
  • August 5 – The Pittsburgh Pirates' Willie Stargell hits the first home run hit completely out of Dodger Stadium. Los Angeles pitcher Alan Foster surrenders the 506-foot blast—to date, the longest home run in Dodger Stadium history. (Stargell will hit another homer out of Dodger Stadium, off Andy Messersmith in 1973.) The mammoth home run comes in the seventh inning and breaks a 3-3 tie, a three-run home run by Andy Kosco having tied the game for the Dodgers in the bottom of the sixth; Pittsburgh scores seven more runs in the ninth inning and defeats Los Angeles 11-3.
  • August 10
  • August 13
  • August 14 – In the National League Eastern Division, the Chicago Cubs lead the St. Louis Cardinals by 8.5 games and the New York Mets by 9.5 games.
  • August 19 – At Wrigley Field, Ken Holtzman of the Chicago Cubs no-hits the Atlanta Braves 3-0 without striking out a single batter the entire game. Only one other pitcher in Major League history, Sad Sam Jones in 1923, has hurled a no-hitter without the benefit of a strikeout. Holtzman survives a scare in the seventh as Hank Aaron's fly ball to deep left field leading off the inning appears to be going over the wall for a home run; however, a stiff wind cuts into the ball and enables Billy Williams to catch it at the warning track. Aaron will ground out to Cubs' second baseman Glenn Beckert for the game's final out.

September

October–December

Births

January–March

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Deaths

January–April
  • January 6 – Hank Olmsted, 89, pitcher for the 1905 Boston Americans.
  • January 23 – Al Bridwell, 85, shortstop whose apparent game-winning single for the New York Giants in a 1908 contest led to the controversial play in which baserunner Fred Merkle was eventually called out for not touching second base.
  • February 19 – Doc White, 89, Chicago White Sox pitcher whose record of five consecutive shutouts was finally broken by Don Drysdale in 1968.
  • March 14 – Heinie Zimmerman, 82, third baseman who won the NL triple crown in 1912 but was barred from baseball in 1919 for his role in fixing games.
  • March 16 – William Bell, 71, All-Star pitcher of the Negro Leagues who posted the highest career winning percentage in black baseball.
  • March 16 – Néstor Chávez, 21, pitcher who played for the 1967 San Francisco Giants.
  • March 21 – Pinky Higgins, 59, third baseman who held the AL record for career games at that position, a three-time All-Star and later manager of the Red Sox.
  • April 4 – Les Wilson, 83, outfielder who played for the 1911 Boston Red Sox.
  • April 7 – Si Rosenthal, 65, outfielder who played from 1925 to 1926 for the Boston Red Sox.
  • April 19 – Rip Collins, 59, catcher for the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees in the 1940s.
  • April 23 – Freddie Moncewicz, 65, backup shortstop for the 1928 Boston Red Sox.
  • April 27 – Harry Taylor, 61, first baseman who played 10 games with the 1932 Chicago Cubs.

May–August
  • May 1 – Gary Wilson, 90, second baseman for the 1902 Boston Americans.
  • May 5 – Eddie Cicotte, 84, pitcher who won 208 games for the Tigers, Red Sox and White Sox, but was thrown out of baseball as one of the eight "Black Sox" involved in fixing the 1919 World Series; he was the first of the eight to come forward, confessing his involvement and testifying before the grand jury.
  • May 17 – Pants Rowland, 90, manager of the 1917 World Series champion Chicago White Sox, later president of the Pacific Coast League from 1944 to 1954.
  • May 20 – Lee Allen, 54, historian at the Baseball Hall of Fame since 1959, former sportswriter.
  • May 25 – Jim Riley, 74, Canadian infielder for the St. Louis Browns and Washington Senators, who also is the only athlete in sports history to play both Major League Baseball and in the National Hockey League.
  • June 24 – John Perrin, 71, right fielder for 1921 Boston Red Sox; later a fullback/quarterback for the NFL Hartford Blues.
  • July 8 – Bill Carrigan, 85, manager and backup catcher for the Boston Red Sox' world champions in 1915 and 1916.

September–December
  • September 29 – Tommy Leach, 91, third baseman and center fielder, primarily for the Pittsburgh Pirates, who led the NL in runs twice and home runs once.
  • September 30 – Jim Galvin, 62, played briefly for the 1930 Boston Red Sox.
  • September 30 – Hank Thompson, 43, third baseman who was the third black player in MLB history and played on the 1954 New York Giants World Series championship team.
  • October 2 – Gordon Cobbledick, 70, sportswriter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer from 1928 to 1964.
  • October 9 – Don Hoak, 41, third baseman who played on 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers and 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates World Series championship teams.
  • November 1 – George Winn, 72, pitcher for the Boston Red Sox (1919) and Cleveland Indians (1922–23).
  • November 14 – Curt Roberts, 40, first black player in Pittsburgh Pirates history.
  • November 15 – Billy Southworth, 76, manager who won World Series titles in 1942 and 1944 with the St. Louis Cardinals and the 1948 NL pennant with the Boston Braves, posting a .597 career winning percentage.
  • November 24 – Pablo Morales, 64, Venezuelan professional baseball executive for more than three decades, and former owner of the Leones del Caracas club.
  • November 30 – Eddie Eayrs, 79, outfielder/pitcher who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Braves and Brooklyn Robins in the early 20th century.
  • December 3 – Roy Wilson, 83, pitcher for the Chicago White Sox in the 1920s.
  • December 7 – Lefty O'Doul, 72, left fielder who batted .349 in his career and won two batting titles after being converted from a pitcher; became the winningest manager in Pacific Coast League history, and earned additional fame as the "father" of professional baseball in Japan.
  • December 11 – Ollie Fuhrman, 83, catcher who hit .333 for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1922.
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References
  1. Baseball Reference
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