1968 World Series

The 1968 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1968 season. The 65th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the American League (AL) champion Detroit Tigers and the National League (NL) champion (and defending World Series champion) St. Louis Cardinals. The Tigers won in seven games for their first championship since 1945, and the third in their history.

The Tigers came back from a three-games-to-one deficit to win three consecutive games, largely on the arm of Mickey Lolich, who was named World Series Most Valuable Player (MVP); as of 2024^[update], he remains the last pitcher to earn three complete-game victories in a single World Series. In his third appearance in the Series, Lolich had to pitch after only two days' rest in the deciding Game 7, because regular-season 31-game winner Denny McLain was moved up to Game 6 – also on two days' rest. In Game 5, the Tigers' hopes for the title would have been in jeopardy had Bill Freehan not tagged out Lou Brock in a home plate collision, on a perfect throw from left fielder Willie Horton, when Brock elected not to slide and went in standing up.

The 1968 season was tagged "The Year of the Pitcher", and the Series featured dominant performances from Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson, MVP of the 1964 and 1967 World Series. Gibson came into the World Series with a regular-season earned run average (ERA) of just 1.12, a modern era record, and he pitched complete games in Games 1, 4, and 7. He was the winning pitcher in Games 1 and 4. In Game 1, he threw a shutout, striking out a Series record 17 batters, besting Sandy Koufax's 1963 record by two; it still stands as the World Series record today. In Game 4, a solo home run by Jim Northrup was the only offense the Tigers were able to muster, as Gibson struck out ten batters. In Game 7, Gibson was defeated by series MVP Lolich, allowing three runs on four straight hits in the seventh inning, although the key play was a Northrup triple that was seemingly misplayed by center fielder Curt Flood and could have been the third out with no runs scoring.

The World Series saw the Cardinals lose a Game 7 for the first time in their history. This was the sixth World Series of the 1960s to go to a full seven games, the most of any decade. The Tigers were the third team to come back from a three-games-to-one deficit to win a best-of-seven World Series, the first two being the 1925 Pirates and the 1958 Yankees; since then, the 1979 Pirates, the 1985 Royals, and the 2016 Cubs have also accomplished this feat.

Detroit manager Mayo Smith received some notoriety for moving outfielder Mickey Stanley to shortstop for the 1968 World Series, which has been called one of the gutsiest coaching moves in sports history by multiple sources.^[1][2] Stanley, who replaced the superior fielding but much weaker hitting Ray Oyler, would make two errors in the Series, neither of which led to a run.

This was also the final World Series played prior to MLB's 1969 expansion, which coincided with the introduction of divisional play and the League Championship Series. Thus, it was the final World Series that guaranteed the teams with the best records from each league would be playing.

All seven games of NBC's TV coverage were preserved on black-and-white kinescopes by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and circulate among collectors. Games 1 and 5 have been commercially released; these broadcasts, and that of Game 7, were frequently shown on CSN (Classic Sports Network) and ESPN Classic in the 1990s and 2000s.

Tigers pitcher Mickey Lolich was named World Series MVP. Lolich compiled a 3-0 record (all three of his starts were complete games), with a 1.67 ERA and 21 strikeouts.