This date in baseball
Oct. 9
1910 Nap Lajoie, in a batting race with Ty Cobb, had eight hits for Cleveland in a season-ending doubleheader with the Browns. The hits were tainted, however, with St. Louis third baseman Red Corriden playing back as Lajoie bunted safely six times. Regardless, Cobb was awarded the batting title by a fraction of a point.
1916 Babe Ruth outpitched Sherry Smith of the Brooklyn Dodgers as the Boston Red Sox won the longest World Series game, 2-1 in 14 innings.
1928 Babe Ruth hit three home runs in a World Series game for the second time in his career as the Yankees beat the St. Louis Cardinals 7-3.
1934 Dizzy Dean of St. Louis blanked the Detroit Tigers 11-0 in the seventh game of the World Series.
1958 Bob Turley of the Yankees pitched 6 2/3 scoreless innings in relief to beat the Milwaukee Braves 6-2 for the World Series title. New York became the first team since 1925 to win the World Series after being down 1-3.
1977 The New York Yankees rallied for three runs in the ninth inning to beat the Kansas City Royals 5-3 and take the American League pennant in the fifth game of the playoffs.
1988 The Oakland Athletics completed a four-game sweep in the ALCS by beating the Boston Red Sox 4-1.
1996 Bernie Williams hit a home run in the 11th inning to give New York a 5-4 victory over Baltimore in Game 1 of the AL championship series. The Yankees got a lot of help from a fan when Jeff Maier, 12, created a game-tying homer by Derek Jeter in the eighth when he reached out and grabbed a ball that was about to be caught by Tony Tarasco.
2005 Chris Burke hit a home run in the bottom of the 18th inning and Roger Clemens pitched three scoreless innings of relief in Houston's 7-6, series-ending victory over Atlanta in the NLDS. The longest postseason game in history took 5 hours, 50 minutes to complete. Atlanta's Adam LaRoche and Houston's Lance Berkman each hit grand slams, making it the first postseason game to feature two grand slams.
-- The Associated Press