1979 Season
1979 - Cincinnati Reds World Series Champions
I was so excited when REPLAY released the 1979 season. It's one of my all-time favorite years. Aside from my Tigers starting grow the talent that would eventually win a world series (Trammell, Whitaker, Morris, Parrish...) I was a big fan of the "Family" Pittsburgh Pirate team. They won the world series in an epic seven game series against the Baltimore Orioles. Unfortunately I couldn't capture that "Family" magic and I piloted the Pirates to a third place finish, 20 games behind NL East winner Montreal. In the NL West, the Cincinnati Reds finished ahead of the LA Dodgers by 3.5 games. The AL West was won by Kansas City who finished 8 games ahead of Seattle.
The best and craziest race was the AL East. When the season ended the standings looked like this:
Baltimore 95-64
Milwaukee 96-65
Boston 95-65
I had no choice but to add on the games that weren't played. Baltimore beat Chicago and Boston beat Milwaukee. Baltimore was now .5 ahead of Boston and 1 game ahead of Milwaukee. Chicago then beat Boston. That left Baltimore with two games against New York. They just had to win one. They defeated New York in the first game and didn't have to play the second one. Whew! The Orioles win the AL East by 1.5 games over Boston and Milwaukee.
The A.L. MVP was Jim Rice (.344-48-152)(*That's back to back MVP seasons for Rice*). A.L. Cy Young winner was Dennis Martinez (21-15-4.02-145). N.L. MVP was Larry Parrish (.346-40-121). N.L. Cy Young winner was Steve Rogers(20-9-3.64-174).
Here is how the replay compared to real life in some basic categories:
The AL had a .279 AVG (.270 Real), .341 OBP (.334 Real), .420 SLG (.408 Real), .761 OPS (.743 Real), Runs 11,488 (10,527 Real), HR 2,111 (2,006 Real), ERA 4.51 (4.22 Real), .976 FLD (.978 Real)
The NL had a .261 AVG (.261 Real), .321 OBP (.325 Real), .389 SLG (.385 Real), .710 OPS (.709 Real), Runs 8,477 (8,186 Real), HR 1,553 (1,427 Real), ERA 3.84 (4.22 Real), .976 FLD (.978 Real)