Day 171-173: 1950 and 1993 win their divisions, huge individual milestones hit!

Wow, what an amazing season!!!  Full of great pennant races and incredible individual performances.  I've really enjoyed it and hope you all have also, big thank you to all for playing along!

The 1993 team celebrates their Briggs pennant!!!

Our final two Division Champs have been crowned.    Chuck's 1993 team was a big surprise to win the Briggs.  A
late season surge pushed this power-laden team to the top of the division, two games over Mike's 2006 squad.

Tim's 1950 team had a fierce battle with Chuck's 1935 team that went down to the final day of the season.  1950 emerged on top, just one game ahead of 1935.

Mike's 1946 team finished with the best record in the league and was the only 100+ win team!

1950 Ilitch champions Hoot Evers, 

Vic Wertz and George Kell!

Some crazy numbers were put up across the league.  1961 had two seasons for the ages, with Norm Cash (.400, 49 HRs, 157 RBIs) and Jim Bunning (32-5, 2.95 ERA) the top two in the MVP voting.  Bunning won both MVP and Cy Young.  2012 Miguel Cabrera hit .343 with 60 HRs and 162 RBIs!
1909 Ty Cobb hit .373 with 111 steals, 125 runs, and 102 RBIs.  1911 Cobb hit .414 with 78 steals and 1915 Cobb hit .367 with the amazing all-time record of 168 steals!!!  Ty Cobb and Norm Cash both hit .400, but how about a .500 hitter?!  1909 Hughie "Eee-Yah" Jennings hit an astounding .530 in 168 at bats!  Not enough to qualify for the batting title, but a crazy amount of at bats to hit that well!  

Fred's 1945 team may be the biggest underachiever, this real-life World Championship team was rock bottom in this league.  Dizzy Trout went 5-30 for this team with a not completely ridiculous ERA of 5.24.  Yep, that's 30 losses!!!!  In real-life, there has not been a 30 game loser singe 1899!

Baseball-reference.com side note:  A player in 1887 named Phenomenal Smith was one of those 30 game losers.   Did not quite live up to his name :-) 

1961 Norm Cash. an awesome
combination of average and power

MVP and Cy Young winner 1961 Jim Bunning

Dizzy Trout with the kind of facial 

expression only a 30 loss season can cause

Eee-yah!!!! 1909 Hughie Jennings

hits an incredible .530!

2012 Miguel Cabrera finished atop the power categories with 60 HRs and 162 RBIs.  1961 Jim Bunning led all hurlers with 32 wins.  1908 Kickipoo Ed Summers won the ERA title at 2.44.  1911 Ty Cobb finished with a .414 average to lead the league. 1915 Ty Cobb almost lapped the field with 168 steals, with 1909 Ty Cobb second with 111 steals.   1946 Hal Newhouser won the strikeout crown with 318 steals, 41 more than 1968 Denny McLain.  1968 Darryl Patterson held off all closers and led with 42 saves.  

Day 171  1993 moved into a tie for first in the Briggs by defeating 1940 9-5, Alan Trammell and Tony Phillips both homered.  2013 Rick Porcello moved to 17-8 and Prince Fielder hit homer #23 in a 7-2 win over 2012.  1950 Dizzy Trout took a no-hitter into the 6th inning and ended up throwing a one-hit shoutout of the 2006 team.  2006 Neifi Perez got the only bases hit.  1915 Bernie Boland shut out 1968 on just 3 hits, and moved to 25-8 for the season.  Goose Goslin's walk-off triple gave the 1934 team the 5-4 win over 1924.  1946 Fred Hutchinson shut out 1973 in  a 12-0 whitewash.  Jimmy Bloodworth had 4 hits and 4 RBIs for the 1946 team.

Day 172   1993 moved a game ahead of 2006 in the Briggs with a 6-5 win over 1940 that was highlighted by Travis Fryman's 20th homer.  1950 Art Houtteman struck out 10 and Vic Wertz cracked his 28th homer of the season and their win moved them into a first-place tie with 1935 in the Ilitch Division.   1987 Walt Terrell shut out 1911 on 4 hits. 2014 David Price shut out 1935 and struck out 12.  1944 edged 1961 4-3 on a 12th inning walk-off homer from Jimmy Outlaw.  1968 Willie Horton hit his #52 and #53 homers of the season in a 19-3 romp over 1915.

Day 173   Two division titles come down to the final game of the season!!! 1993 trounced 1940 11-3, with Cecil Fielder and Dan Gladden going yard. That 1993 win coupled with the 2006 team falling to Fred Hutchinson and the 1950 team 10-2 gave 1993 the Briggs Division crown.  The win by 1950 also clinched the Ilitch division as 1950 ended up just 1 game ahead of 1935.  1961 Norm Cash went 3 for 4 to raise his final batting average to .400!  Jim Bunning throw a shutout in that game, finishing with an amazing 32-5 record and a 2.95 ERA.  2012 Miguel Cabrera hit home run #60 off of 2012 Max Scherzer!

I will post the pitching rotations for the playoffs and welcome any managerial changes you may want.  Will finish the playoffs in the next few days.