A 45-Year-Old Error Lives On
Heheh. A friend of mine is a big fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, and I gave him my copy of a recent Baseball Digest with a nice article on the late Stan Musial, one of the greatest baseball players of all time and an even better person. I noted how sick it was that the Cardinals seemed able to spit out 2.50 ERA pitchers at will. He mentioned that there was a recent article in Sports Illustrated about "The Cardinal Way" and dropped it off later in the afternoon.
It's a very good article, and I highly recommend it. But what I found amusing is that the cover (showing current Cards' stars like Adam Wainwright) was based on a pose for a 1968 cover featuring then-Redbirds like Roger Maris, Tim McCarver and Bob Gibson. Unfortunately for SI and St. Louis, the cover bore the banner "World Champion St. Louis Cardinals" and was dated October 7, 1968. While technically true (the Cardinals had won the 1967 World Series), the cover turned out to be the Dewey Defeats Truman of SI covers, as the Detroit Tigers rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to win the WS on October 10, 1968.
It was a very improbable comeback; the Cards had already beaten Detroit's ace, Denny McClain, twice in the series, and would have the seemingly unbeatable Bob Gibson (with his amazing 1.12 ERA that year) on the mound for the finale.
