MLB Showdown Obsession

 Not every world champion in a franchise is a timeless collection of men. Yankees fans would be forgiven if they can't recite every last championship season, but 1927, 1998, 1961 and the 1949-53 runs all tend to come to mind quickly. 1937, however, tends to fall down the list of titles the fans can recite. This only applies to teams with MANY titles, like the NBA Celtics and NHL Canadians. The Texas Rangers might not win again for 50 years, so 2023 will stand out for a long time. The Cardinals have a similar problem to the Yankees. They have the 2nd most titles in baseball, at a very distant 11. Die hard fans can recite all 11 years, but the casual fan may scratch their head for some of the more obscure teams. The 1934 Cardinals happen to belong in the group easier to recall. They were the Gas House Gang. Just like Murderer's Row or the Big Red Machine, when teams had to square up against the Gas House Gang, there was a pretty good chance they were gonna get run over. They play

  Let's go back to the summers of the 1950's in New York, where every sports fan was throwing their opinion around in the conversation to which Centerfielder was the best of the best in the city. Not only was pride at stake between the three, but championships were on the line as Mantle and the Yankees, Mays and the Giants, and Snider and the Dodgers would battle over MVPs, pennants, World Series glory and more. These three men not only owned New York, but the entire baseball landscape while other Centerfielders were just trying to live in the same world. 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 Epilogue

 Perfect games are hard by definition. Nine whole innings of perfection, no room for error. It's a taxing endeavor for a pitcher to complete. Just imagine how much harder it would be if his team couldn't score any run support and her had to go back out there and try for a 10th inning. Or 11. What about 12! That was just the assignment for Harvey Haddix on May 26, 1959. His Pittsburgh Pirates were going up against the 2-time defending NL champion Milwaukee Braves at Milwaukee County Stadium. The Pirates of '59 were a pretty .500 team. Going into the game they were 20-20 and they'd end the season 78-76-1. Heck, Haddix himself would go 12-12 that season so it all seemed just. But there was nothing average about Harvey on this day. The Braves were helpless for 12 innings against Haddix who was throwing so effectively that Bill Mazeroski would comment that it was an incredibly easy day on defense. There was a problem though. The Pirates couldn't score. Nothing. Nine inni

 This is one of my longest standing baseball traditions. Way back in 2009 when I had a fan blog hosted on MLB.com, I started an end-of-year award post mocking the worst in baseball. I didn't stay on that blog too long, but when I was running my writing blog , I kept the award show going. Now that I've been putting in serious time in on this project of Showdown cards, I've decided to bring the awards in here and incorporate Showdown cards in the process. Check out the awards history here , but for now I'll bring it in for the 3rd hosting venue. ------------------------------------------------------------- [The 2024 MLB Turtle-Wax Awards] These are the awards you DON'T want to win. The "AL Central Needs to Disband" Award Awarded to the crappiest division in baseball [Previous winners: AL Central 2009, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023; AL West 2010, 2013; NL East 2014, 2015, 2017, 2021] ---The American League West: Angels, Astros, Athletics, Marine