21 short stories about the Dodgers winning the NL West
A brief look back at what I remember the most about each of these seasons
Baseball’s divisional play and I have coexisted for most of my life. The first baseball season I was alive for was 1966 and by the time I was old enough to understand how baseball’s playoff worked, which was 1971 when I was five, I didn’t need to adapt to anything new.
The Dodgers have won the National League West, the only division they have inhabited, 21 times in their history. This includes the split season title of 1981, but does not include the strike shortened season of 1994. In the former, there were official champions and in the latter case, nobody “won” anything.1
I originally had one long post writing a paragraph about each season, but that was long. So I’m going to try to do one winning season a day for three weeks. Wish me luck. And without further ado. Here’s installment one.
The year was 1974. The Dodgers hadn’t played in a postseason of any kind since their 1966 World Series sweep at the hands of the Orioles. The team had come close in 1971, but lost out on the last day to San Francisco. And the Cincinnati Reds, who had ended up in the Western Division when the divisions were first made, were the big bullies on the block.2
The Dodgers were now regularly using a home-grown infield that they would use through the 1981 season of Steve Garvey (the 1974 NL MVP), Davey Lopes, Bill Russell, and Ron Cey. The Dodgers pitching staff featured Andy Messersmith and Don Sutton. Tommy John was having a great season in 1974, but he hurt his elbow. I wonder if they had an operation that could fix that? I guess we’ll never know.
But the keys to the 1974 season were two offseason trades. The Dodgers traded longtime centerfielder and recent team captain Willie Davis to the Montreal Expos for reliever Mike Marshall. Marshall had pitched in 92 games in 1973 for the Expos and had a seemingly indestructible arm despite throwing a screwball, a pitch that creates a lot of torque in a pitcher’s arm.
The Dodgers replaced Davis in center with Houston’s Jim Wynn with Claude Osteen heading the other way.
Dodgers manager Walter Alston relied on Marshall and had him pitch in 106 games. Marshall threw 208 1/3 innings, the third highest total on the staff behind only Messersmith and Sutton. Marshall was 15-12, but had just 21 saves as the save rule had been adjusted in that season to make it very restrictive.3
Marshall held a great deal of influence on Alston’s strategy in 1974. That team issued just nine intentional walks all season, a staggeringly low number in that era. Marshall persuaded Alston to let him get out the batter at the plate instead of putting another runner on base.
Wynn’s recent numbers in Houston made him look over the hill, but he flourished in Los Angeles in 1974. He hit 32 homers and drew 108 walks. Wynn was behind only Derrell Evans and Joe Morgan in the walks department.
The regular season game I remember the most was on August 5, 1974. It was a Monday Night Baseball game between the Dodgers and Reds in Los Angeles. The game was nationally televised except to Los Angeles and Cincinnati because that’s how baseball rolled back then.
In a 2-2 game in the bottom of the seventh, the Dodgers had loaded the bases against Don Gullett on an infield hit, walk, and bunt single. Catcher Steve Yeager came up and drove them all home with a grand slam and the Dodgers won 6-3.
I thought this win gave the Dodgers an insurmountable 7 ½ game lead and the Reds limped home demoralized. In reality, the Reds won the next two games and would actually get as close as 1 ½ games back in mid-September. But, the Dodgers held on with an impresive 102-60 record.
I was now ready for Dodgers playoff baseball. There was one problem. The NLCS was still all day games then. As an eight year old, my transistor radio concealment skills were lacking and I could only listen at recess and lunch. The Dodgers needed four games to get past Pittsburgh.
Then came the World Series against two-time defending champion Oakland. It was not a memorable World Series for a young Dodgers fan as the team could not hit much against Oakland pitching. Oakland wasn’t great on offense either, but was just better enough to win in five games. Three of the Oakland wins were by 3-2 scores. The Series may have been decided in Game One, when Oakland manager Alvin Dark relieved a tiring Rollie Fingers (who had pitched 4 1/3 inning in relief) with two outs in the ninth and the tying run on base with Catfish Hunter. The result was a strikeout of Joe Ferguson. The Dodgers won Game 2, but then disappeared into the Oakland night for the next three games.
Next up: 1977. And I will write less.
I am very sorry to the people of Montreal for that.
Cincinnati and Atlanta were put in the West to keep St. Louis and Chicago together in the East. The Cardinals had won the National League in 1967-68 and were thought to be a dynasty. However, the Cardinals wouldn’t make the playoffs again until 1982.
Pitchers only got a save if the tying or winning run was on base or at the plate. Or if the reliever pitched three innings. The current definition was adopted for 1975.
Looking forward stories in this series, even the ones that don't mention Ron Cey.
That number of 9 IBBS was really an outlier. My Beloved Expos had the next lowest IBB total in the NL with 52. The AL was very different but even then the Twins were the lowerst intentional walkers with 18.
The Dodgers also only used 13 pitchers all year. The 2023 Dodgers have 14 pitchets on their roster now.