Has the baseball season ever been strung out so long that the final play of the World Series occurred in Turkey Month?
Yep, 2001. No baseball for 6 days after 9/11, which pushed the start of the World Series back by a week, starting on October 27 (that’d be 5 years ago today.) It went all seven games, so games 5, 6, and 7 (won by New York, Arizona, and Arizona in their respective parks) were played in November.
Thanks!
Armed with that knowledge, I read the Wikipedia article which avers that those were the only non-exhibition games ever played in November by MLB.
I remember that Series because it was the Yankees in the Series after 9/11 (so of course the way the coverage was done was even more over-the-top–in retrospect, at least–than the MNF game in New Orleans earlier this year) and my roommate in college was a huge Yankees fan, so of course the TV was on for every single game. And in 2003. And I watched all of 2002 and 2004, but said roommate gave up after the ALDS and ALCS respectively. (Actually, that’s not fair. He was a big baseball fan anyway, so we watched all the games, but he would turn the TV off in frustration when the Yankees were losing.)
You know, I’m not sure which of those series was the hardest on him.
Not only that, but game 5 started late and ran long so they were still playing when midnight rolled around. The scoreboard flashed Welcome to November Baseball when it did.
We get November baseball every year with the Arizona Fall League but that’s not the Bigs so it doesn’t count.
And so, when Derek Jeter hit a walkoff home run to win that game, people started calling him “Mr. November.”