The biggest blunders in World Series history

Baseball has a rich history, but alongside the high moments there are errors that live on in infamy. Players, even the best of them, made mistakes that became their unfortunate calling card.

When these moments happen in the World Series, on the biggest stage in all of baseball, the lights shine even brighter. These men never lived down their World Series blunders.

5. Mickey Owen, 1941

Mickey Owen was the true goat in the 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers’ loss to the New York Yankees. The Dodgers held the lead over the Yankees 4-3, and pitcher Hugh Casey threw a strike-3 pitch to end the game. However, Owen let the strike ball pass him by, letting the batter reach base safely. The Yankees went on to score four runs after that error, and the Dodgers lost the series in the next game.

4. Roger Peckinpaugh, 1925

This isn’t a single blunder or error, but a series of mishaps that doomed Roger Peckinpaugh’s Washington Senators to lose to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1925 World Series. Peckinpaugh finished the series with eight errors, setting a World Series record at the time. In Game 7, he was at his worst, dropping a fly ball that set up a two-run Pirates burst, and then committing a two-out error to bring home the winning run.

3. Heinie Zimmerman, 1917

Rarely, if ever, does a runner win the rundown when caught between bases. It happened in the 1917 World Series when Chicago White Sox’s Eddie Collins scored on a rundown while the New York Giants’ Heinie Zimmerman chased him across the plate, unable to catch him in time. It was a comic looking score, but there was no one covering home plate to help Zimmerman in the rundown.

2. Willie Davis, 1966

Willie Davis won three Gold Gloves, but his performance over one inning of a World Series game is something he might never live down. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Baltimore Orioles remained tied 0-0 when Davis committed three errors in one inning of the 1966 World Series, allowing the Orioles to score three runs. It was something the Dodgers could not recover from, failing to score a single run in the final three games of the series.

1. Bill Buckner, 1986

This is the play that goes down in history as the biggest blunder in the World Series archives. What is sad is fans like to pin all the blame on Buckner for the 1986 World Series mishap. Yes, he let the grounder to first go between his legs, allowing the game winning run, but it was Game 6 and there was another game to go. Blame also goes to manager John McNamara for leaving Buckner out there in a situation where he normally substituted him out, Calvin Schiraldi for giving up three hits, and Bob Stanley for throwing a wild pitch to bring home the tying run before Buckner ever made his classic blunder.


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