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This Day in Dodgers History
October 1st

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12 Fact(s) Found
1944 Dixie Walker, an outfielder on the seventh-place Dodgers, wins the National League batting crown with a .357 batting average, finishing ten points higher than runner-up Stan Musial. In 1947, the 'People's Cherce's younger brother, Harry 'the Hat,' will also lead the Senior Circuit, hitting .363 in the year when he is traded, after playing ten games for St. Louis, to Philadelphia.
1946 The Dodgers and Cardinals, who finished the season with a 96-58 record, play the first game of a best-of-three series to determine the National League's championship, marking the first time in major league history a playoff is needed to send a team to the World Series. St. Louis wins today's Sportsman's Park contest, 4-2, and will clinch the pennant in Game 2, beating Brooklyn at Ebbets Field, 8-4.
1950 In the season's finale, Pee Wee Reese, ignoring the second base ump's directive to slow down when his outfield fly becomes stuck between the screen and the right-field wall, continues sprinting around the bases, crossing home plate with the tying run. Due to an odd ground rule, the Dodgers shortstop's unusual inside-the-park homer will be the only run Robin Roberts gives in the Phillies' pennant-clinching 4-1 victory at Ebbets Field.
1950 After they retire today, Burt Shotton of the Dodgers and the A's Connie Mack will become the last managers to wear street clothes. Although no edict explicitly mandates a skipper to wear a uniform, there is now a rule that states that a person not wearing a uniform, except medical personnel, isn't allowed on the field of play during a game.
1950 In the season finale, in the first of his six consecutive 20-win seasons, Robin Roberts becomes the first Phillies right-hander to win twenty games since Grover Cleveland Alexander accomplished the feat with 30 victories in 1917. The complete-game, ten-inning 4-1 Ebbets Field victory over the Dodgers hurled by the Whiz Kid from Springfield (IL) clinches Philadelphia's first NL pennant since 1915.
1951 The Giants' 3-1 victory over the Dodgers in the first game of the National League playoffs is the first major league contest to be televised coast-to-coast. CBS, who obtained rights to the game, transmits the picture from Ebbets Field but has to get the signal from ABC, who had made arrangements with WOR-TV, the New York station carrying Brooklyn's regular-season games.
1955 After losing the first two contests in the Bronx, the Dodgers even the World Series at a pair of games apiece when they defeat the Yankees at Ebbets Field, 8-5. Brooklyn will make it three victories in a row tomorrow with a 5-3 win over the Bronx Bombers, but it will take a dramatic Game 7 for the 'Bums' to capture their first World Championship.
1961 In front of 9,868 fans, Wrigley Field hosts its last professional baseball game when the Angels, moving to Dodger Stadium next year, drop an 8-5 decision to the Indians. In addition to being the home for the American League expansion team, the 36-year-old ballpark, which will be torn down in five years to make room for an eventual public playground and senior center, housed the PCL's Angels from 1925 through 1957 and served as the setting for the 1960 television series Home Run Derby.
1974 Mike Marshall establishes the major league mark for the most appearances by a pitcher when he throws two innings in the Dodgers' 8-5 victory over Houston at the Astrodome. With his 106 appearances, the right-handed reliever appears in 65% of his team's games this season.
1993 Mike Piazza plates Jose Offerman with a first-inning single to set a new team mark for runs driven in by a rookie with 107. The 24-year-old Dodgers catcher breaks the franchise record for rookie RBIs established by Del Bissonette, a freshman first baseman who played with Brooklyn in 1928.
2009 The Rockies' 9-2 win over Milwaukee assures the team of a wild-card berth in the postseason and puts the team in a position to win the N.L. West by sweeping the Dodgers this weekend in L.A. Although the club was 12 games under .500 on June 3, today's victory, their 91st - a club record - puts Colorado 23 games over .500, another first in the franchise's 17-year history.
2018 Two divisional tiebreakers are needed to determine the National League Central and West champs after Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and Colorado won yesterday. The Brewers/Cubs and Rockies/Dodgers winners will advance to the NLDS, with the losers facing one another tomorrow in the wild-card game.
12 Fact(s) Found