50 years later the 1974 MLB season still shines brightly
I recently read a great piece on the 1974 World Series from C.J. Mullen. I remember watching the ’74 World Series as a teenager and was familiar with the players involved along with the ups and downs of that World Series between the two-time defending champion Oakland A’s and the NL Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Although that series ended up as a 4–1 win for Oakland, (under their new manager which was wild since who changes a manager after winning two consecutive World Series?) that series capped what was a very interesting and memorable 1974 baseball season.
50 years is a significant amount of time to look both forward and back. 50 years prior to 1974 the Washington Senators won their only World Series in D.C. behind Walter Johnson and Goose Goslin. It conjures up black grainy black and white images in great contrast to the outrageous colors worn by the A’s under owner Charles O. Finley in the 1970s! And those A’s were indeed a very colorful team in many ways.
Speed and power ruled the day
In 1969 MLB ushered in the beginning of divisional play and simultaneously the lowering of the pitcher’s mound. In 1968 prior to the changes MLB teams batting averages were .237. In 1974 .254. In 1968, there were 1,995 home runs, by 1974 the total was 2,649. Clearly by 1974 MLB teams had adapted to the higher scoring environment. Speed on the bases also flourished with team stolen bases increasing from 1,515 in 1968 to 2,488 in 1974.
The season started with a bang when on April 15, 1974, HOFer Henry Aaron passed Babe Ruth for the home run career record. On September 10th, HOFer Lou Brock passed Maury Wills single season stolen base record of 104 and Brock finished the season with 118 steals. A record that was broken by HOFer Rickey Henderson eight years later. A 64% increase!
1974 was also 27 years removed from Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. MLB was in full bloom and for many, baseball had become the best version of itself. The combination of speed and power that were so integral to the game had never been seen before. There had been a stolen base era before the moddern era began in 1901. 10 years after the dead ball era ended in 1920, the 1930 season might’ve been the greatest offensive season in MLB history, but it was only power and not stolen bases and speed that ruled those days.
Changing of the guard
The late Willie Mays retired after the 1973 season and played his final two seasons with the Mets. Henry Aaron was playing his final season for the Braves and would move back to Milwaukee to play two seasons for the Brewers. With Mays’ retirement and Aaron setting the home run record at age 40, the stars who had been stars for more than 20 years were fading out and a new generation of stars had taken over. Stars in the prime of their careers like HOFers Reggie Jackson, Jim ‘Catfish’ Hunter, and Rollie Fingers, led those 1974 A’s. Those three were big reasons why the A’s ended up winning three straight Series. Their 1974 World Series opponent, the Dodgers only had one future HOFer on the team — pitcher Don Sutton.
Future HOFer Gary Carter debuted in the 1974 season at age 20. While he only played nine games, he hit .407 and, following in the footsteps of the still great future HOFers Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk, were part of a new breed of catchers who could both mash and play great defense.
Hall of Fame ballplayers playing in 1974
Besides Hunter and Sutton, the 1974 season included a plethora of future HOF starting pitchers Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Fergie Jenkins, Jim Palmer, Nolan Ryan, Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Bert Blyleven, Steve Carlton, and Jim Kaat. Whew! Besides Fingers, fellow reliever Rich Gossage was only 22 and just starting to show what he would do in his Hall-of-Famer career.
Aside from Aaron, Jackson, Bench, Fisk and Carter, the future HOF position players included Rod Carew, Orlando Cepeda, (in his final season), Willie Stargell, Willie McCovey, Mike Schmidt, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Tony Oliva, Jim Rice, Brooks Robinson, Ron Santo, Ted Simmons, Joe Torre, Billy Williams, Dave Winfield, Carl Yastrzemski, rookie George Brett (only 13 games in 1973), and rookie Robin Yount, in addition to those mentioned earlier. Future HOFer Harmon Killebrew played his final year for the Twins and would go on to play one more season in Kansas City. Another injured future HOFer Frank Robinson, only played 15 games for Cleveland and would be named the first black manager in 1975. Robinson was a player-manager for two more seasons. 39-year-old Al Kaline finished up his Hall-of-fame career playing his 22nd season for the Tigers. With the era of free agency impending, the days of playing 20 or more years for one team were ending.
41 future Hall-of-Famers playing in the same season, although one time MVP and batting champ Torre was elected to the HOF as a manager. Would-be HOFer Pete Rose had 771 plate appearances for the Reds who were edged out for the NL West by the Dodgers. There were ‘Almost’ Hall-of-Famers like pitcher Tommy John (yes that Tommy John), who led MLB in winning percentage at .813, but he would not play in 1975 due to his eponymous surgical procedure. Dick Allen had another tremendous season.
If 40 HOFers playing in one season seems like a lot, it’s because it is overall but wasn’t that unusual for the time. The average MLB game time was a tidy 2 hours and 30 minutes. Baseball still ruled the roost as the NFL had played Super Bowl VIII and the league had not yet attained its current popularity, nor was the NBA yet experiencing worldwide attention. The 1970s were the glory days for MLB. I wrote about the great Pirates-Reds 1970s rivalry a while back.
1974 was the first of two consecutive seasons that the New York Yankees did not play their home games in Yankee Stadium which was being refurbished. Instead, the Bronx Bombers played their home games at Shea Stadium in Queens. 1974 was a forgettable season for the Yankees who would return to the World Series in 1976 and win it in 1977 and 1978.
Of the top eight players in bWAR, seven of them would end up being Hall-of-Famers. Schmidt, Morgan, Perry, Niekro, Bench, Blyleven, and Jenkins. Only the Mets Jon Matlack, who was second in bWAR but never got a sniff to be elected to Cooperstown.
All four of the divisional races were tight with the A’s 90–72 record (a down year for them) five games better than the second place Texas Rangers. The Reds finished second to the Dodgers by four games. Their turn would come the next two years when they won back-to-back World Series. The Pittsburgh Pirates eked out a division championship by 1 ½ games over the Cardinals and the Orioles were two games better than the Yankees.
Both the ALCS and NLCS were four game victories for the A’s and Dodgers. The pitching was dominant in those series with the Orioles winning the first game vs. the A’s and then scored only one more run the rest of the series, Both the A’s and Orioles batted under .200 as did the NLCS-losing Pirates.
After the World Series the A’s slid back into mediocrity until they reached and won the World Series again in 1988 losing this time to the Dodgers, then winning again in 1989. The 1989 series featuring the ‘Bash Brothers’ Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, may well have been the dawn of the PED era and seems further away from the glory days of 1974 than the 15 years that it was. Now the A’s are supposedly moving to Las Vegas after making a temporary home in Sacramento. Nobody in 1974 ever imagined an MLB team playing in…Sacramento, proving that 50 years ago is a very long time in baseball.
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About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com.
