The 1988 World Series: Kirk Gibson's One At-Bat
How an injured Kirk Gibson, a historic Orel Hershiser season and an underdog Dodgers club beat the 104-win Oakland Athletics in 1988, with the numbers behind the legend.
The 1988 World Series is remembered for a single swing. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1, with the Los Angeles Dodgers one run behind, two outs and a runner on first, Kirk Gibson limped out of the dugout on two damaged legs, took his only at-bat of the entire Series, and hit a two-run home run off Dennis Eckersley, who had led the American League with 45 saves. The Dodgers won 5-4. They went on to beat the favored Oakland Athletics in five games.
The swing is the part everyone has seen, and it deserves its fame. But the Series was won by a team that had been outplayed on paper by nearly everyone in the other dugout, and it was won largely by one pitcher, Orel Hershiser, who finished the Series with two complete-game victories and the Most Valuable Player award. This article tells the story in order, with the season numbers from the historical record for context, and separates what the record shows from what the legend adds.
Two clubs and the case for Oakland
The Athletics were the obvious favorite. Oakland won 104 games and finished 13 games ahead of the Minnesota Twins in the American League West, then swept the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series, four games to none. Jose Canseco was the league's Most Valuable Player, hitting 42 home runs with 124 runs batted in (first in the league in both categories) in a season in which he was also famous for being the first player with 40 homers and 40 stolen bases. Dave Stewart was one of the league's best starters, and Eckersley, in his second season as the Athletics' closer, led the American League with 45 saves.
The Dodgers had won 94 games and the National League West by seven games over the Reds, then beaten the New York Mets, who had won 100, in seven games. By most accounts the Dodgers' lineup was thin. The statistics support the judgment: Gibson, the team's Most Valuable Player, hit .290 with 25 home runs and 76 runs batted in. The strength of the club was pitching, and one pitcher in particular.
| Club | Record | Division finish | Route to the Series |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oakland Athletics | 104-58 | First, American League West | Beat Boston 4-0 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 94-67 | First, National League West | Beat the New York Mets 4-3 |
The managers were Tony La Russa for Oakland and Tommy Lasorda for the Dodgers. The Series was a best-of-seven with home games at Dodger Stadium for Games 1 and 2, and at Oakland for the middle games.
A season of low scoring
The 1988 season was a pitchers' year, and it helps to see the figures. Teams averaged 4.14 runs per game and 0.76 home runs per game, which was a sharp drop from the year before.
| Season | Runs per team-game | Home runs per team-game |
|---|---|---|
| 1987 | 4.72 | 1.06 |
| 1988 | 4.14 | 0.76 |
| 1989 | 4.13 | 0.73 |
| 1968 | 3.42 | 0.61 |
| 2000 | 5.14 | 1.17 |
The 1988 level was not as extreme as 1968, the so-called Year of the Pitcher, but it was lower than 1987 by more than half a run per game per team, and it stayed there in 1989. In that environment a run mattered more, and the leaders in the league's pitching categories were correspondingly good. The National League earned run average title went to Joe Magrane (2.18), with David Cone (2.22) and Hershiser (2.26) next, and Frank Viola won 24 games in the American League. A lineup with Gibson as its only star could win in such a year if the pitching was elite.
Hershiser's 1988
Orel Hershiser pitched 267 innings that year, won 23 games against 8 losses, struck out 178 batters and posted a 2.26 earned run average. He won the Cy Young Award. The season is best remembered for how it ended: he finished it with a streak of 59 consecutive scoreless innings, which broke the record of 58 set by Don Drysdale of the same franchise in 1968. The 59th inning came in his final start of the regular season, a scoreless tenth inning against San Diego.
The number matters because it describes his state going into October. Hershiser had been so reliable that Lasorda used him constantly, and in the playoffs his workload was heavy. He pitched in the National League Championship Series, including the decisive Game 7, which the Dodgers won by 6-0 with a complete-game shutout, and he was named the series' Most Valuable Player. Then he started two games of the World Series. This is where the legend of 1988 starts to look less like one swing and more like two stories at once: a hitter who could barely walk, and a pitcher who would not stop.
The two Dodgers who decided the year
| Player | 1988 regular season | Honors |
|---|---|---|
| Kirk Gibson (outfield) | 150 games, .290, 157 hits, 25 HR, 76 RBI | National League Most Valuable Player, Silver Slugger |
| Orel Hershiser (pitcher) | 36 games, 23-8, 2.26 ERA, 267 IP, 178 SO | Cy Young Award, Gold Glove, NLCS MVP, World Series MVP |
Gibson's line is that of a good outfielder rather than an overwhelming one, and his award reflected a team that won more than expected as much as his own production. Batting-title winners that year were Wade Boggs (.366) in the American League and Tony Gwynn (.313) in the National League, and the other major awards went to Frank Viola and Chris Sabo (Rookie of the Year in the National League) and Walt Weiss (American League). The Dodgers held both of the National League's top individual awards, the Most Valuable Player and the Cy Young, which is a fair summary of how they won.
The Dodgers get through the Mets
The NLCS against the Mets went the full seven games, and it produced its own turning points. In Game 4, the Mets led 4-2 in the ninth inning and were one win from a 3-1 series lead when Mike Scioscia, a catcher not known for power, hit a two-run home run off Dwight Gooden to tie the game. The Dodgers won it in the 12th on a home run by Gibson. Hershiser then won Game 7.
Gibson paid for the series. During the NLCS he hurt his left hamstring and his right knee, and by the end he could hardly run. Before Game 1 of the World Series he was left out of the lineup and was not expected to play; he was in the clubhouse receiving treatment. Gibson had arrived from Detroit as a free agent that winter, a hard-driving former football player at Michigan State who had also been drafted by the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals.
Game 1: the at-bat
Oakland led Game 1 4-3 going to the bottom of the ninth. Canseco had hit a grand slam earlier in the game. Eckersley retired the first two Dodgers, then walked Mike Davis, who had come in as a pinch-hitter. That brought up the pitcher's spot, and Lasorda sent up Gibson to hit for him.
By the usual account, the Dodgers' scouting report said that Eckersley would throw a backdoor slider on a full count to a left-handed hitter. Gibson could hardly stand up straight. He fouled off pitches on one leg, in some cases nearly falling, and worked the count full. Then Eckersley threw the pitch the scouts had predicted, and Gibson, swinging mainly with his arms, sent it into the right-field seats. The Dodgers had won 5-4.
Vin Scully's call on NBC, including the line "In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened", is one of the best-known in baseball broadcasting. Gibson pumped his fist as he limped around the bases. The image of him rounding second is the usual picture of the 1988 Series. It was also his last at-bat of the Series: he did not play again.
Games 2 through 5: Hershiser finishes it
If the Series is one swing in the popular memory, the box scores say Hershiser. In Game 2 at Dodger Stadium he pitched a three-hit shutout, 6-0, and the Dodgers went to Oakland with a two-game lead. Oakland won Game 3, 2-1, when Mark McGwire hit a walk-off home run off Jay Howell in the ninth inning, cutting the Series to 2-1. Howell, a Dodgers reliever, had been suspended for part of the NLCS after pine tar was found in his glove.
The Dodgers won Game 4, 4-3, and then Game 5 on October 20, 5-2, with Hershiser pitching a complete game. In his two starts he allowed two runs in 18 innings. He was named the Most Valuable Player of the World Series, the second time in a month that he had won a playoff-series MVP. The Dodgers had won their sixth World Series title and their first since 1981. Oakland would return to the World Series in 1989 and win it, which is a reminder that the 1988 result was not a measure of the gap between the clubs.
What the numbers say about the upset
How surprising was the result? Oakland won 10 more games in the regular season, and most commentators expected the Athletics to win. A seven-game series is a small sample, though. If two teams are modestly mismatched, the weaker team still wins a short series fairly often, and baseball's randomness is greater than in most sports. A 104-win team against a 94-win team is not the same as a mismatch between a 104-win team and a 70-win one.
Three things made the result less surprising than the legend suggests.
- The Dodgers had the National League's Cy Young Award winner and used him for 18 of the Series' 45 innings. In those 18 innings he gave up two runs.
- Oakland's offense was quiet. The Athletics scored 11 runs in the five games, an average of 2.2 per game, well below their regular-season pace.
- The Dodgers were not as weak as the lineup looked. They had been the best team in the National League West over the full season, and they had beaten a 100-win Mets club.
None of this lessens Gibson's swing, but it explains why the upset was a baseball event rather than a miracle. The swing happened because the Dodgers were still in the game, and they were still in the game because of their pitchers.
Why one at-bat could carry so much weight
Baseball analysts measure a moment like this with win expectancy, the probability that a team wins given the inning, the score, the outs and the runners. The numbers come from historical tables rather than from a formula, and they vary a little by era, but the pattern is stable. A home team trailing by one run in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and a runner on first wins only a small share of the time, in the neighborhood of one game in seven or eight for a typical batter. A hitter who is hurt and cannot run lowers that figure, because a single or a double would not score the runner from first the way it normally might.
A home run changes the arithmetic completely. With one runner on base, any home run brings in two runs and turns a one-run deficit into a one-run lead, so the game ends on the spot. That is why a pinch-hitter with power and no mobility is a sensible choice in that situation: the one thing Gibson could still do was hit the ball over the fence, and a home run did not require him to run. Lasorda's decision was less a gamble on a miracle than a bet on the one outcome that mattered.
The same reasoning explains why the swing became the Series' signature even though Hershiser did more to win it. A close game decided in the last half-inning leaves one clear memory, while a pitcher's two quiet 18 innings leave a pair of box scores. Both stories are true, and the record in the historical record supports each of them.
After 1988: what happened to the principals
Gibson never fully recovered. In 1989 he played 71 games and hit .213, and in 1990 he played 89 games and hit .260, the end of a three-year stay with the Dodgers. He later returned to Detroit, where he played from 1993 to 1995. He later managed the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2010 to 2014 (353-374) and led them to a division title in 2011. The home run remains the signature of his career.
Hershiser pitched in Los Angeles until 1994, won 204 games in his career, and was the American League Championship Series Most Valuable Player in 1995 with Cleveland. Eckersley went on to win both the American League Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player award in a later season, and the swing he gave up is the one fans mention first when his name is raised. The Dodgers would not win another World Series until 2020 (see the franchise numbers in the Dodgers' history).
Common questions
Did Kirk Gibson play in any other World Series game in 1988? No. The home run came in his only at-bat of the Series.
Who won the 1988 World Series Most Valuable Player award? Orel Hershiser, who also won the NLCS Most Valuable Player award and the National League Cy Young Award in 1988.
How many games did the Dodgers win? Four to the Athletics' one, a five-game Series. The Dodgers had needed seven games to beat the Mets in the NLCS.
Was it the first walk-off home run in a World Series game? No. Mickey Mantle hit one in Game 3 of the 1964 Series, for example. Gibson's is remembered because it came from a pinch-hitter who could barely run, with the Dodgers trailing and two outs.
Where does it rank among World Series upsets? There is no formal ranking, but at 104 wins to 94 it is not the biggest on paper. It is among the most remembered because of the single at-bat.
Where to go next
Another comeback story is the 2004 Red Sox. For the format and the winners across the years, read the history of the World Series and the history of the playoff format. Another championship that ended a long wait is covered in the 2016 Cubs. On the site, see the Los Angeles Dodgers team page and the history and Hall of Fame topic page.