OCTOBER 11-16, 1969 -- In a year which saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, another miracle was in the making. This one involved 100-to-1 underdogs going up against a team of future Hall of Famers. The Orioles had the Robinsons: Frank and Brooks. They had the powerhouse bat of Boog Powell. They had a kid named Jim Palmer on the mound. But on professional baseball's 100th anniversary, fans everywhere would bear witness to one of the most remarkable Series ever. Over five games, a mostly unsung Mets team looking like David against Goliath, this little team from New York, which had never had a winning season before 1969, would upset the heavily favored O's, going down in history as the Miracle Mets.

OCTOBER 16, 1969 -- Slugger Donn Clendenon and light-hitting Al Weis each homered to back the five-hit pitching of Jerry Koosman as the "Miracle Mets" closed out their first-ever World Series championship with a 5-3 victory over the heavily favored Orioles. A key play in the sixth featured Cleon Jones being plunked on the foot by Baltimore starter Dave McNally. Jones was not originally awarded the base, but manager Gil Hodges retrived the ball and pointed out the telltale black shoe-polish on the ball as proof. Rattled, McNally surrendered a two-run homer to the next batter, Clendenon, bringing the Mets within a run and shifting the momentum irrevocably toward New York. The Mets tacked on three more runs in the next two innings and the Amazin' upset was complete.

OCTOBER 14, 1969 -- The Miracle Mets take another step closer to fulfilling their destiny as rookie hurler Gary Gentry combines with a young fireballer named Nolan Ryan to four-hit Jim Palmer and the Orioles. But the star of the show is center fielder Tommie Agee, who leads off the scoring with a homer in the first, then saves five runs with two of the greatest catches in Series history.

OCTOBER 2-10, 1968 -- A pitcher's duel is common in the World Series. But the 1968 World Series turned out to be a pitcher's duel between two pitchers: Detroit's Mickey Lolich and the Cards' Bob Gibson. Both were dominating on the mound. Both kept their teams in the Series by winning their first two starts. It would all come down to the decisive game 7, where the veteran World Series pitcher Gibson would go head to head with Lolitch for the first time in the Series. Only one pitcher could win this duel ... and the Series.

OCTOBER 10, 1968 -- By the time the '68 Series made it to a decisive Game 7, the Tigers had already been victimized by Bob Gibson twice -- striking out a Series-record 17 times in Game 1, and managing only one run on five hits in Game 4. But Mickey Lolich had already won two games in the Series himself (Games 2 & 5), and he was up to the challenge of taking on Gibson in Game 7 on only two days' rest. Lolich spun a gem, with only a ninth-inning homer by Mike Shannon spoiling his shutout as the Tigers win the World Series in seven games.

OCTOBER 2, 1968 -- 1968 was frequently called "The Year of the Pitcher," and that season, few were more dominant than Cards' ace Bob Gibson. The menacing Gibby was in peak form in Game 1, as the NL MVP and Cy Young winner matched up against Tigers' ace Denny McLain, whose 31 regular-season wins were the most since 1931. Gibson was at his best against the Tigers' best hitters, striking out Al Kaline and Norm Cash three times each, and fanned 17 to set a World Series record, steam-rolling to a five-hit shutout.

OCTOBER 4-12, 1967 -- The National League Champion Cardinals had absolutely dominated in 1967, finishing with a ten-and-a-half game margin over the rest of their league. The Red Sox squeaked by in the American League finishing only one game ahead of the pack, winning it on the last day of the season. It was their first time back in the Series after 21 years.

OCTOBER 14, 1965 -- In one of the defining moments of Sandy Koufax's legendary career, the electric lefty stymied the Twins with a three-hit shutout and delivered the 1965 World Championship to Southern California for the third time in seven years.

OCTOBER 7, 1965 -- Sandy Koufax, who had sat out Game 1 to observe a Jewish holiday, was the most overpowering pitcher in baseball. But Tony Oliva and Harmon Killebrew get to Koufax with RBIs in the sixth, and Jim Kaat allows just one run as the Twins go ahead two-games-to-none against the Dodgers.

OCTOBER 15, 1964 -- They don't make pitchers like this anymore (ok, well maybe Curt & Roger). Bob Gibson, who, only three days before, turned in a two-run, 13K, 10-inning performance in game five, follows it up with another stellar complete game. He survived three home runs -- by Mickey Mantle, Clete Boyer and Phil Linz -- and outlasted Yankee ace Mel Stottlemyre to lead the Cards to their first World Championship since 1946.

OCTOBER 16, 1962 -- Ralph Terry, who led the Yankees' staff that season with a 23-12 mark, had already gone 1-1 in the series, losing Game 2 and winning Game 5. Terry, who just two years earlier had served up Bill Mazeroski's title-clinching homer, came back to start Game 7. Terry was one inning away from exorcising his World Series demons, having held San Francisco to just two hits over the first eight innings. The Yankees had their own troubles with Giants starter Jack Sanford, who had won Game 1 and lost to Terry in Game 5. Sanford and Billy O'Dell held the Yankees to a single run over nine innings, leaving the Giants just three outs to work with to scratch out a run.

OCTOBER 1, 1961 -- Both Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris spent the summer of 1961 chasing the ghost of Babe Ruth through the record books and American League ballparks. The mighty Yankees' three and four hitters -- known as the "M&M Boys" -- kept pace through the dog days, but as an injury sidelined Mantle (he finished with 54), Maris continued the pressure-filled chase through autumn. On the last day of the season, facing Boston's Tracy Stallard & and an asterisk (since Commissioner Ford Frick decided that the 161-game schedule required notation, as compared to Ruth's 154 in 1927) Rog finally launched the bomb that put him in the record books. An aside: listen for a rookie named Carl Yastrzemski starting in left field for the Red Sox.

OCTOBER 5-13, 1960 -- After missing the World Series only once in the last decade (1959), the Yankees opened the 1960's in their expected position as the American League champions. But instead of renewing their rivalries with the Dodgers or the Milwaukee Braves, their opponents in this Series would be the scrappy Pittsburgh Pirates. The Yankees were the widely predicted favorites to win. But in a World Series that saw the advantage see-saw between the teams over seven games, the Pirates used the Yankees' own great offensive weapon against them, hitting home run after home run. A clear winner was not determined until the final at-bat of the Series and one of the most famous homers of all time, Bill Mazeroski's Series winner in the bottom of the ninth.