1990 World Series
The 1990 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1990 season. The 87th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff played between the defending champions and heavily favored American League (AL) champion Oakland Athletics and the National League (NL) champion Cincinnati Reds. The Reds defeated the Athletics in a four-game sweep. It was the fifth four-game sweep by the NL and second by the Reds after they did it in 1976. It was the second consecutive World Series to end in a sweep, after the Athletics themselves did it to the San Francisco Giants in 1989. It is remembered for Billy Hatcher's seven consecutive hits. The sweep extended the Reds' World Series winning streak to nine games, dating back to 1975. This also was the second World Series meeting between the two clubs (Oakland won four games to three in 1972). As of 2023, this remains both teams' most recent appearance in the World Series.
1990 World Series
October 16–20
Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati)
Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum (Oakland)
José Rijo (Cincinnati)
Frank Pulli (NL), Ted Hendry (AL), Jim Quick (NL), Rocky Roe (AL), Randy Marsh (NL), Larry Barnett (AL: Games 1 and 2), Bruce Froemming (NL: Games 3 and 4)
Reds:
Barry Larkin
Tony Perez (coach)
Athletics:
Tony La Russa (manager)
Harold Baines
Dennis Eckersley
Rickey Henderson
Vin Scully and Johnny Bench (CBS)
Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall (WLW)
Bill King and Lon Simmons (KSFO)
Oakland Athletics over Boston Red Sox (4–0)
Cincinnati Reds over Pittsburgh Pirates (4–2)
Athletics manager Tony La Russa and Reds manager Lou Piniella were old friends and teammates from their Tampa American Legion Post 248 team.
Radio and television coverage[edit]
CBS Sports covered the World Series as part of the new contract it had signed with Major League Baseball. The broadcast was led by Jack Buck, who had called the previous six World Series for CBS Radio. Serving as analyst was Tim McCarver, who had joined the CBS broadcast team after working for ABC Sports since 1983. Jim Kaat and Lesley Visser served as field reporters, while Pat O'Brien hosted the pregame and postgame shows. The World Series was the third major sporting event to be broadcast by CBS in 1990; the network aired Super Bowl XXIV in January of 1990 and carried its last NBA Finals in the spring.
CBS Radio continued to serve as the nationwide radio home of the World Series for a fifteenth consecutive year. For the first time since 1982, Vin Scully served as the lead broadcaster; he had left CBS after losing out on a chance to be its lead NFL voice and had spent the previous seven years as NBC Sports' lead baseball voice. Johnny Bench returned for a second consecutive series as analyst, with John Rooney hosting the pregame and postgame shows for a third consecutive year.
Aftermath[edit]
The 1990 World Series would be the Reds' fifth championship but would also be remembered as one of the biggest upsets in baseball history.[9][10][11] The twelve game differential between the teams' regular season records made this one of only two times in World Series history that a team swept an opponent whose regular season record bested theirs by ten games or more, the other being the 1954 New York Giants, who swept the 14-games-better Cleveland Indians. The Reds 22-8 scoring margin was the same scoring margin from their last World Series win in 1976 over the Yankees which also was a sweep.
The Oakland Athletics were initially favored to win a fourth consecutive American League pennant in 1991, but their pitching that had led the American League by a wide margin in 1990 failed the team in 1991. Staff ace Dave Stewart, whose 1991 ERA (5.18) was more than twice his 1990 ERA (2.56). 1990 Cy Young Award winner Bob Welch fared almost as poorly; his earned run average swelled from 2.95 (1990) to 4.58 (1991). In 1990, he had won a league-high 27 games; in 1991, he won a mere 12. The A's team ERA of 4.57 was the 2nd worst in the American League. On a positive note, Rickey Henderson stole his 938th career base on May 1; in doing so, he succeeded Lou Brock as MLB's career stolen base leader.
Oakland would return to contention in 1992 with a record of 96-66. The 1991 season still, however, marked the end of the Athletics as a dynastic power. The 1992 team failed to dominate the league in the manner that the 1988–90 teams had; following that team's six-game ALCS defeat to the Toronto Blue Jays, Oakland wouldn't reach the postseason until 2000.
As it turned out, the Nasty Boys bullpen trio of Norm Charlton, Rob Dibble and Randy Myers would only play together for two seasons. Myers left after the 1991 season. Charlton, having played for the team since 1988, left after the 1992 season. Dibble, also a Red since 1988, left the following year in 1993. As such, none of the players were present for the next postseason appearance for the Reds, which was in 1995.
This was the last championship of the four major North American sports leagues won by a team from Ohio until the Cleveland Cavaliers made and won the 2016 NBA Finals. This is also the most recent sports championship for the city of Cincinnati.
To date, this is the last time either team has appeared in the World Series. This was also the final World Series to feature a team that wore pullover jerseys (Cincinnati).
This World Series would be the last hurrah of the Bash Brothers duo of Canseco and McGwire. After playing together for four full seasons, the two would continue to play together for the entire 1991 season and the first half of the following year before Canseco was traded to the Texas Rangers midway through the 1992 season. The Athletics would make it to the ALCS that year but would lose in six games to the eventual world champion Blue Jays. After 1992, the Athletics would fall into mediocrity and would not reach the playoffs again until 2000, by which point manager Tony LaRussa and McGwire were with the St Louis Cardinals. LaRussa took the managerial position in St Louis following the 1995 season, while McGwire would join him midway through the 1997 season.