Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Quick Recap: Who won the previous 7 Tournaments

Back in the spring of 2010 we hatched this idea to run NCAA bracket type tournaments for all of the seasons in the 1960's.  The first quandary we had was figuring out when exactly did the decade start ?  Does it start with 1960 or 1961 ?  Do we end with 1969 or 1970.  I decided to make an executive decision and start with 1960 and end with 1969.  Next came the fun part, setting up the infrastructure and the brackets.  Once we got that going we recruited managers and off we went.  On and off we have played the tournament.  Sometimes we rolled right into the next one and other times we took off 3-4 months.  Here are the results from the first 7:

1960 World Series
The shocker here was that neither the Yankees, nor the Pirates made it to the series like they did in real life.  Milwaukee finished a distant 2nd to the Bucs in the regular season, but did very well in the tournament until they met up with the jaugernaut O's under the guidance of Justin Ryan.  Newcomer Carlo Della Mea took the Bravos to the finals.
1961 World Series
Same players as the real 1961 World Series.  Same outcome, but a bit closer.  Hard to beat the M&M boys, especially since Mantle was deemed healthy for this contest as opposed to real life where he a shell of himself.  Jeff Hunter and Bill Keller split managerial duties for the Bronx Bombers.  Steve Tate with some help from me piloted the Redlegs
1962 World Series
Sweet redemption for the Dodgers, who lost out on making the 1962 World Series thanks to a NL Playoff loss to the Giants in 3 games.  In real life the Dodgers did not have the services of their soon to be ace, Sandy Koufax.  In the tournament I had the luxury of calling on Sandy's able left wing.  Douglas Zaner did an incredible job taking the sophomore expansion Angels to the finals in this "All-PCH" Series.
1963 World Series
Hoping for a repeat I got stymied by Justin Ryan's O's, who took their 2nd tournament of the decade.  In real life the Yankees were swept by the Dodgers, but the O's were a lot tougher on the former Boys of Summer.  Baltimore was able to get their bats going to eliminated the Dodgers in 6
1964 World Series
Riding the tender right arm of Dean Chance Douglas Zaner did the unthinkable and upset the Redbirds in 5 games.  The 5th seeded Angels, who finished just 2 games over .500 in 1964 relied heavily on their pitching to survive each series and move on to the next round.  Zaner was able to win 3 straight elimination games en route to a 5 game mastery over Bike Mike Roberts' #1 seeded St. Louis Cardinals
1965 World Series
In 1965 Ohio was truly a "battleground state".  This time the battle was for MLB Tournament supremacy.  Bill Keller, who took the Tribe to game 7 of the ALCS in the 1964 Tourny got them over the hump and into the World Series as an unheralded 5th seed.  Ron Burnette took a 4th seeded Cincy team to the finals knowing full well that his window of opportunity to win with this franchise was closing fast as rumors swirled that Frank Robinson was on the trading block.  Cleveland jumped out to a 2-0 series lead, but Burnette's calm head prevailed as the boys from the Queen City came rearing back to take the final 4 games and the Championship

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