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1975 World Series

The 1975 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1975 season. The 72nd edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff played between the American League (AL) champion Boston Red Sox and the National League (NL) champion Cincinnati Reds. The Reds won the series, four games to three. In 2003, ESPN ranked it the second-greatest World Series ever played, trailing only the 1991 series,[1] while in 2020, Sam Miller of ESPN named it the best World Series ever.[2]

For the similarly named rugby league tournament, see 1975 Rugby League World Cup.

1975 World Series

October 11–22

Fenway Park (Boston)
Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati)

Pete Rose (Cincinnati)

NBC

Curt Gowdy (Games 1, 3, 5, 7)
Joe Garagiola (Games 2, 4, 6)
Dick Stockton (Games 1, 6; in Boston)
Ned Martin (Games 2, 7; in Boston)
Marty Brennaman (in Cincinnati)
Tony Kubek

NBC

Joe Garagiola (Games 1, 3, 5, 7)
Curt Gowdy (Games 2, 4, 6)
Marty Brennaman (in Boston)
Ned Martin (Games 3, 5–6)
Dick Stockton (Games 4, 7)

The Reds, at the height of their Big Red Machine dynasty, recorded a franchise-high 108 victories in 1975 and won the NL West division by 20 games over the Los Angeles Dodgers, then defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates, three games to none, in the NL Championship Series. The Red Sox won the AL East division by 4+12 games over the Baltimore Orioles, then defeated the three-time defending World Series champion Oakland Athletics, three games to none, in the AL Championship Series. The sixth game of the World Series was a 12-inning classic at Boston's Fenway Park, which culminated with a walk-off home run by Carlton Fisk to extend the series to seven games. The Reds rallied from a 3–0 deficit to win the seventh and deciding game of the series on a ninth-inning single by Joe Morgan.


It was Cincinnati's third World Series appearance in six years, losing in 1970 to Baltimore and in 1972 to Oakland. It was the first of back-to-back championships for the Reds. For the Red Sox, the 1975 World Series was their first World Series appearance since losing to St. Louis in seven games in 1967. It would be 11 more years until Boston returned to the World Series in 1986, in which they suffered another seven-game loss to the New York Mets.


This was the fourth time in five years that a seven-game World Series winner (following Pittsburgh in 1971, and Oakland in 1972 and 1973) was outscored.


Reds third baseman Pete Rose was named World Series MVP. Rose batted .370 with 10 hits and two RBIs and scored 3 runs.

Broadcasting[edit]

NBC broadcast the series on television and radio, with Curt Gowdy and Joe Garagiola alternating play-by-play on both media along with local team announcers Dick Stockton and Ned Martin (Red Sox) and Marty Brennaman (Reds). Tony Kubek provided color commentary on the telecasts.


This was the final World Series play-by-play assignment for Gowdy, who had been NBC's lead baseball announcer since 1966. Garagiola took over full-time as the network's primary play-by-play voice for baseball the following season. It was the only World Series broadcast for Stockton (who became a prominent national sportscaster for CBS, Fox, and TNT) and for Martin.


This was also the final Series broadcast for NBC Radio, which had retained exclusive rights to the event since 1957. CBS Radio would become the exclusive national radio network for MLB beginning the following season.


This is the earliest World Series telecast for which all games survive today in their entirety. Portions of many previous Series telecasts also survive, but the general practice of the networks in the past was to reuse old tapes to save money and space. All subsequent World Series telecasts since this one also have had all their games preserved.

1975 Japan Series

Adelman, Tom. (2003). The Long Ball: The Summer of '75—Spaceman, Catfish, Charlie Hustle, and the Greatest World Series Ever Played. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown.  0-316-06899-3.

ISBN

Frost, Mark. (2009). Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime. New York: Hyperion.  1-4013-2310-3.

ISBN

Gammons, Peter. (1985). Beyond the Sixth Game: What's Happened to Baseball Since the Greatest Game in World Series History. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin.  0-395-35345-9.

ISBN

Hornig, Doug. (2003). The Boys of October: How the 1975 Boston Red Sox Embodied Baseball's Ideals—and Restored Our Spirits. New York: McGraw-Hill.  0-07-140247-0.

ISBN

Lowitt, Bruce. (1999). "Rats! Fisk's homer" St. Petersburg Times, November 23, 1999

Neft, David S., and Richard M. Cohen. (1990). The World Series. 1st ed. New York: St Martins.  0-312-03960-3. (Neft and Cohen 355–360)

ISBN

Posnanski, Joe. (2009). The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. New York: William Morrow.  0-06-158256-5.

ISBN

Reichler, Joseph, ed. (1982). The Baseball Encyclopedia (5th ed.), p. 2197. Macmillan Publishing.  0-02-579010-2.

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