Montreal Takes The Series in 94'

What would have happened had the players strike not occurred during the 1994 MLB season? Records would have been broken but we also would have had playoffs that fall along with a World Series. We might have never seen the steroid era because the fans would have never left the game after the 1994 season… But for now, let’s take a look at what could have been in that 1994 season…

American League Playoffs:

New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles three games to one. The hero of this particular series is a young Bernie Williams.

The Cleveland Indians win their first postseason series in decades but it’s not easy. The Texas Rangers give them everything they have with Manuel Lee and Kevin Brown the stars for Texas. In the end though Cleveland wins the series three games to two with Dennis Martinez pitching a shutout to send the Indians to the championship game.

In the ALCS game one and two go to the Indians with Albert Belle and Dennis Martinez the stars of the series early. Don Mattingly for the Yankees drives in the winning run in the third game to keep the Yankee’s hopes alive of a World Series berth but that would be the lone victory for the Yanks. The Indians would win the next two games and win the series, four games to win with Dennis Martinez again the hero of the series and ALCS MVP!

National League Playoffs:

Atlanta was back in the playoffs and taking on a familiar foe in Montreal who was making their first postseason appearance. This wasn’t much of a series truth be told as Montreal swept the Braves behind the hitting of Sean Berry and Will Cordero.

In the other series, Los Angeles and Houston had the makings of being a good series but alas it wasn’t meant to be. The big bats of LA, Karros and Piazza took down the Astros in a three game sweep.

In the NLCS Montreal continued to show that Canada can play some baseball. Montreal’s Sean Berry, Larry Walker, Cliff Floyd and Ken Hill took it to Los Angeles and made it a clean sweep of the playoffs thus far and sent Montreal to their first ever World Series appearance!

In the World Series we saw Cleveland verus Montreal… Montreal had won seven straight games and looked to continue the dominance Canada had over the US in the World Series with Toronto winning back-to-back in 1992 and 1993. The Expos took the first game of the series with a walk-off homer by Moises Alou… Then the bats went quiet for Montreal. The Indians ran off three wins in a row to put Cleveland in perfect position to notch the World Series trophy… In game five Ken Hill was masterful for Montreal pitching a shutout of Cleveland. In game six Moises Alou accounted for three RBI’s in another Montreal win to send the series to game seven! The game was tied at three in the ninth when Will Cordero hit a double to drive in Moises Alou for the World Series winning score! Montreal had come back from nearly being eliminated to win the Series and keep the trophy in Canada!